Subcategories is the best thing Overwatch needs

General Discussion
1

The more the game goes on, the more adamant I am with the fact that Overwatch needs it more then ever. Sigma’s introduction caused double barriers, which lead to the absolute nerfs of both Sigma and Orisa. This lead to double bruisers, which caused Roadhog to be nerfed. Support heroes and healing was overall nerfed since you could ignore the value that off-healers gave for overall more survivability. Heroes like Bastion and Symmetra have received no attention when it comes to making them somewhat viable, and Brigitte has been doomed ever since the rework was introduced.

With us as the players having free reign of what is viable for Overwatch, the freedom of choice makes the game overall suffer in the long run. In fact, Overwatch only really changes when the community as a whole suffers for the status of the game. It happened with triple tank/Goats, which caused role queue to happen, and with double barrier/bruiser existing as a possibility, it is needed for a change to happen again.

We know that the best way to play in terms of fun and viability is for both the support and tank roles to be played with the division of an “off” and a “main”. Since Overwatch was originally meant to be 1-3-2 but then moved to 2-2-2 thanks to the community and overall development of the game, it only makes sense that we definitively make the concept of “off” and “main” heroes for the tank and support roster a permanent way to play. The roster would look something like this:

h ttps://imgur.com/a/i6qgnMH
Tank : Orisa, Reinhardt, Sigma, Winston, Wrecking Ball
Heroes that can create and command space, and some capacity to mitigate damage for themself or their team.

Bruiser : Bastion, Doomfist, Dva, Mei, Roadhog, Zarya
Heroes with high health with a potential for strong self sustain, high kill potential, and more likely to have a lack of team benefits than their counterpart.

Support : Ana, Baptiste, Mercy, Moira
Heroes that mainly heal with their primary/secondary fire, with abilities that deal/amplify damage, and sometimes struggle with protecting themselves.

Utility : Brigitte, Lucio, Sombra, Symmetra, Zenyatta
Heroes with heavy value-based abilities that can damage as much as a dps and provides team saving abilities/ultimates at the cost of being able to dish out less healing.

This change that I’d like to see in the Experimental card has a slew of benefits for the game in the long run, some of them being:

  • Orisa, Sigma, and Brigitte can be reverted without breaking the game.
  • Symmetra (and possibly Sombra) can be moved into the support category as a utility support - ideally with the same level of healing as the other utility heroes.
  • Support heroes like Mercy, Baptiste, and Moira can regain their og levels of healing to rival Ana without breaking the game.
  • Bastion, Mei, and Doomfist can be buffed and can become more viable as bruisers and give new life to the tank roster with more people invested into the role.
  • New heroes that come into the game won’t just break the game/meta altogether. In other words, we can have more barrier tanks with no problems.
  • Balancing heroes can be more idealised since now we can focus on singular subcategories without causing unforseen metas as described with Sigma.
  • New players can finally have an easier time understanding of how the roles in Overwatch function and the purpose they serve.

Granted, biggest concern I see with this is the fact that it is a big change. This change would be for the better in the long run, since it allows the devs to balance and add new heroes without cause of concern, and it allows for heroes that wouldn’t be viable have some leg to stand on. I am happy for anyone to say whether or not they do like this change, since I am passionate for this idea at least to be tested on the Experimental card. At least then we can see for this idea to become possible.

2

Yes let’s add more queues for people to complain about.
How about not split tank and support and instead split DPS into 4 groups where it takes 2 at random for the match ?

2 Likes
3

…That just sounds like a terrible idea. The problem is stemming from both the support and tank rosters, and you want to essentially bring back a lockout for the damage role alone?

That does not help anyone, nor does it address the issue at hand that most of our heroes are lackluster versions of themselves.

4

It helps everyone as instead of butchering support and tank roles it butchers the DPS roles.
Why is it ok to butcher tank and support roles and not DPS ?
Why is every suggestion like this aimed at removing choice for tank and support players but when suggested for DPS players it’s a bad idea ?

5

So instead of fixing the tank and support heroes by “butchering” the roles as you’ve described, you would rather have said heroes stay the same in their “butchered” states with roles that don’t allow for improvement, and if anything is self-sabotaging to the heroes present and future coming?

To answer your concern with “removing choice”, what has it lead the game so far? Choice has brought about the biggest controversy that was the GOATs meta and even its precursor, the triple-tank meta; the introduction of Sigma brought the choice of double barrier and the nerf brought about the choice of double off-tank; and even the choice of double main-healer which causes Ana to be the only strong main-healer to date. All of which has lead to nerf after unnecessary nerf to heroes that are limited by the freedom of choice.

When it comes to the damage roster, choice is its unproblematic highlight that allows for these heroes to be balance without concern. With the tank and support roster, choice is its limitation that causes heroes to be hindered for the freedom to even exist in their own roles. I say this as a support-flex player, since I know and understand that the game is worse off without subcategories being implemented. Can you really guarantee that barrier tanks, off tanks, and supports are better off now in their harshly nerfed states?