I was thinking how Mei could work as a tank and one of the first questions that popped in my head was if the size of the character matters.
I think a smaller sized tank could work, but what do you think?
I don’t see why not. Being a damage sponge is far from being the only way a tank can do their job.
Zarya is not that much bigger than Mei tbh.
She is certainly not the size of other Tanks.
I think Doomfist may even have a larger hit box than Zarya.
Considering WoW has Gnome Tanks, which are smaller than Dwarves.
Yes
We have a hamster ball from space with two machine guns. Everything is possible.
Wrecking ball is basically the size of roadhog wdym.
A small tank if given the appropriate health would be horrible against crits and would probably be oneshotted a lot. I don’t think as a support having my tank be instantly deleted because an enemy widow clicked on their head once would be fun. There’s also rein pins, roadhog hook, McRightclick, Zen spam, Junkrat combo, etc. They would be horrible to play. A Frontline hero with the health of a backline one??
I think it will work, but more importantly, I think it has to be made to work, so that characters like Sym and DF can be properly integrated into the game without losing sight of what makes them unique.
Well, if I refer to the question alone. The job of a tank in a team is being responsible for stalling. Some people call it space making but I do find it problematic name when some tanks just make sure their own space stays theirs while others protect a space they aren’t even in.
Their job overall is making sure enemies’ team damage doesn’t reach you by either being the wall between you 2 or simply making sure the damage moves a side.
Tanks technically don’t HAVE to have a big body, but a big body has its benefits. It means you can take damage for your team, and it makes it more fair to have high hp with the big body. The high hp ofcourse makes sure to stall the fight even more, and help you provide your stalling even against one shots.
So for your question, technically they don’t have to have big bodies but it just makes things more fair for both teams and allowing the tank to have more stalling power.
btw since you refered to Mei, I do want to say that while it’s just an idea, do take in mind her kit right now isn’t even used like a tank. So while she can stall well, she doesn’t really stall for the enemy team alone but rather for both sides. Her wall and cryo freeze make it problematic for both sides and not just the enemies.
Which is why the wall is usually used more as a trap rather than a protection and her damage works as a surprise and not as a warning. Although I would agree her ultimate is an ultimate of a tank but usually defensive heroes like Torb or Hanzo tend to have ultimates more about space and less about kills.
So do take it in mind…
Being able to body block is one of the features of a tank and … yes for that you need to be big or have something that can do that for you (bubbles like Zarya).
So besides an exception the answer is yes, they should be bigger.
Back in early days, Blizzard did specifically define tanks as heroes with big hitboxes and big health bars–the idea being that, while they don’t have to be shy about getting picked off by poke damage, they are still vulnerable to focus fire.
That said, I don’t think a “big hitbox,” specifically, is necessary to achieve that. Zarya, for example, isn’t that big, but she has no mobility and very limited shields, so she’s still not very easy to shoot. Mei could function in a similar way, but I think her ice block might cause a problem–like why would you want a tank who’s going to lead his team into a brawl and then neutralize himself, leaving everyone who pushed with him alone to die. And her ice wall is, outside of a few niche high ground gimmicks, pretty much a straight downgrade from shields, and is sometimes an outright liability.
A slow-moving ball of short range CC who stunmurders anyone who doesn’t get out of her way does sound like a good concept for a tank (I mean, it worked for Roadhog) but she’d need some hefty ability reworks if her team is going to be able to play around her.
IMO Mittens would make the most straight-forward transition to tank.
well the thing is a tank needs to be defining the frontline for the team and that really positively correlates to them being at the front closer to the enemies.
that’s only going to reasonably happen is if they have more survivability to be there and you can’t really reasonably give higher sustain to a smaller hitbox hero.
It could work, but Mei definitely never should be a tank and they never should even remotely consider making her a tank or anything of the sort. It’s especially horrendous idea in 5v5 and if they made Mei a tank into that format it would be a complete catastrophe
small tanks sound fun and all but as soon as they get added people would run here to complain about how hard they are to hit… actually yea, i wanna hear them complain lets set the place on fire
Pretty much. Something with a small hitbox and tank HP would just be a giant pain to kill. Even as big as his hitbox is, Hammond is still a pain to kill due to being so mobile that he’s hard to hit.
Even with like 10% increased size and 400 HP during the April 1 patch, “tank Mei” was a pain to kill.
there’s zarya who has the hitbox of a dps and somehow she’s in tank role because they gave her huge sustain with those 200 shields, so yeah it is possible.
but the main difference is: mei was gutted last year and needs a major powershift to be a proper tank, simply giving her 150 additional hp won’t help it (her cc should be changed to a skill shot and given some form of mobility like ice slide etc) while zarya is still a solid tank after the few nerfs from last months
I think that it depends. A smaller hero could be a tank (think Zarya). But there’s a limit to that. You couldn’t have a hero with a really small hitbox like Sym be a tank. They have to be somewhat bigger I think.
Hit boxes dont matter in wow pvp, there is no body blocking either. I do think a smaller tank can work though
Bodyblocking hardly matters in Overwatch too.
i kind of think its by artistic design really, blizzard always loved npc’s in wow to be bigger or their BOSS fights to be HUGE. if you ever play wow you would noticed that the significant or hero npc’s are twice as large as an original npc or the boss for each dungeon or raid are giant sized. the dev team for overwatch were former wow devs? so they probably had the idea that tanks would be large and big in nature.
i wouldnt mind smaller or average sized ones tho and i would especially LOVE if mei was a tank. they did this in the april 1st experimental if anyone remembers but they also made her bigger a tad i think. i kind of rolled my eyes on that decision but it still was fun to play a bigger mei as a tank (she wasnt that huge but they did bloat her up a little 
)
What a trash dps player take. Bodyblocking with this current ttk is how you get instantly melted.