Talking About Tanking

General Discussion
1

“The game is fun. The game is a battle. If it’s not fun, why bother?” - Reggie Fils-Aimé

I quit the game a few months ago. It wasn’t a definitive decision, but more of a drifting away. My friends stopped playing in any serious capacity long before that, but I am a tank main (aka masochist) so I stuck around. I eventually got burned out and took a break.

A few days ago, I got hyped up to play again, came back from hiatus, and what can I say… It’s far worse.

I don’t understand the game direction. Everything is backwards. You have a role that has the least impact on the game, when it should have the most. You should have the longest staying power, but you melt the fastest. You try to master one of eight characters but have to try to counter-play into 17 different options.

It’s well known that tank has the fastest queue time. I would wager this is because no one wants to play the role. Every time since the hiatus, I have closed out the game in a worse mood than when I opened it. The game is not fun, the game is not a fair battle. You are the slab of gyro meat in the kabab shop, and this game is the knife shaving away at your soul.

I’ve had many, many fun hours in this game, and I expectantly look forward to Overwatch 2. If you still enjoy this game, then please enjoy it double for me - I can’t take it seriously anymore.

18 Likes
2

Which tank? All of them? Some tanks are still very strong, but it’s a team game. Not sure what you expected. It’s pretty common for the whole enemy team to focus tanks down because of their threat. You just have to play smarter and lean on your team more often than before.

3

Tanks have been blanket-nerfed over the last year. Please argue with me, I’m just dying to crank out all the nerfs that have gone out on literally every single tank except Winston and Zarya, one of whom is frequently called OP and one of whom was considered very weak for a long period of time (I’ll let you guess which is which)

Then we had power creep on DPS and slow, partial reverts of that (though they just buffed more DPS heroes too), which still left DPS as a class feeling much stronger. Mix that with nerfs for healing output, which, funnily enough, actually hurts TANKS more than it hurts any other role.

Of course tanking feels awful. And now, instead of addressing the issue, Blizzard says, “I KNOW, let’s make a new system to encourage dps players to play tank (COUGH) I mean, play flex!”

11 Likes
4

I really enjoy playing the tanks because I feel like I do have great control over the pace of the battle. You just gotta have supports that back you up, and damage dealers that take advantage of opportunities made.

Playing Sigma is always a blast, playing Hammond is tons of fun as long as the map suits him, and Winston is definitely my go-to character in a pinch.

As long as your team is competent enough and you understand where you should be and what you should be doing, playing tank is so much fun in my opinion.

2 Likes
5

Tanks may have been nerfed a lot, but they’ve also been buffed plenty too. They almost never recieve straight nerfs, as far as I remember.

Sigma has certainly received his share of straight nerfs though, but the buff to his grasp conversion ratio was a huge offset to all the nerfs he’s gotten

6

Well, either the queue system works or not.

But if it doesn’t, devs are gonna have to power creep tanks right back up.

Ideally in a way that makes them have more solo impact. I.e. More lethality, or all Tanks get some out of combat regen on a longer startup timer.

2 Likes
7

They nerfed the dps heroes, you just have to play better since most teams are focus firing better.

8

Look at that, you totally did just what I asked and argued with me on that point. Here we go:
D.VA: Do you want to argue with me and say D.va isn’t a shell of her former self from when Goats was a thing? Well, if you do, here’s the list:

1.22.0.1 - 4/11/2018

Micro Missiles

  • Explosion damage reduced from 6 to 4.

Boosters

  • Impact damage reduced from 25 to 10.

1.37.0.1 - 6/18/2019

Defense Matrix

  • Reduced length of Defense Matrix from 15 meters to 10 meters.

1.39.1.0 - 8/13/2019

Call Mech

  • Pilot ultimate cost reduced by 12%.

1.41.0.0 - 10/15/2019

Defense Matrix

  • Regeneration rate increased from 12.5% to 16% per second.
  • Delay before regeneration begins lowered from 1 second to 0.75 seconds.

1.44.0.0 - 1/16/2020

Boosters

  • Cooldown decreased from 5 to 3 seconds.

1.46.0.0 - 3/12/2020

Boosters

  • Cooldown increased from 3 to 4 seconds.

6/30/2020

Fusion Cannons

  • Movement penalty reduced from 50 to 40%.

Micro Missiles

  • Activation delay reduced from 0.5 to 0.25 seconds.

So:
-DM Lost an insane amount of range
-Missles/impact lost a ton of damage
And to make up for it, she basically moves around better and fires off a tiny bit quicker. Yeah, net nerfs like crazy, let alone the previous patch where she lost 200 armor.

Reinhardt

1.43.0.0 - 12/10/2019

Barrier Field

  • Health reduced from 2000 to 1600.
  • Movement speed penalty reduced from 50% to 30%.

Steadfast

  • Passive knockback resistance increased from 30% to 50%.

1.46.1.0 - 4/6/2020

General

  • Steadfast passive knockback resistance reduced from 50% to 30%.

1.47.1.0 - 4/29/2020

Earthshatter

  • Knockdown duration lowered from 3 to 2.5 seconds.

1.48.0.0 - 5/19/2020

So worse shield, better movespeed while he has it out, ult sustained a very, very heavy nerf. Definitely net nerfs here, really no buffs to speak of (That weren’t reverted).

Roadhog:
Do I even have to? Scrap gun LOST ammo, DECREASED rate of fire, and in exchange… he pulls targets slightly closer? So that, with his shotgun pattern that people proved was actually WORSE for consistently doing his combo, he could now pull off the same combo he could always do before they nerfed him?

Sigma:
Have fun calling any of this a “net buff”

1.40.0.0 - 9/17/2019

Hyper Spheres

  • Explosion damaged reduced from 35 to 30.

Experimental Barrier

  • Added a toggle option for deploying Sigma’s Experimental Barrier.
  • Being hacked by Sombra will now recall his barrier if it is deployed. (EMP will still destroy the barrier first if both are in range).

Accretion

  • Explosion damage increased from 50 to 60.

Gravitic Flux

  • Intro cast time increased from 0.4 seconds to 0.6.

1.41.0.0 - 10/15/2019

Kinetic Grasp

  • No longer blocks Chain Hook and Whip Shot.

Gravitic Flux

  • High gravity effect duration reduced from 1.2 to 0.9 seconds.

Experimental Barrier

  • Regeneration rate reduced from 175 to 150 per second.
  • Now has a 1 second cooldown after recalling the barrier.
  • Initial 0.2 second cast time removed.

1.43.0.0 - 12/10/2019

Experimental Barrier

  • Health reduced from 1500 to 900.
  • Barrier health regeneration rate reduced from 150 to 120 health per second.

Kinetic Grasp

  • Cooldown reduced from 13 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Damage-to-shield gain ratio increased from 40% to 60%.

1.44.0.1 - 1/27/2020

Gravitic Flux

  • Can now be interrupted before targets begin falling.
  • Impact slow duration reduced from 0.9 to 0.6 seconds.

Accretion

  • Explosion damage reduced from 60 to 40.

1.46.0.0 - 3/12/2020

Gravitic Flux

  • Ultimate cost reduced 10%.
  • Flight speed increased 30%.

1.47.1.0 - 4/29/2020

Accretion

  • Knockdown duration is now a fixed 0.8 second instead of scaling with distance.
  • Cast time reduced from 0.75 to 0.65 seconds.

8/13/2020

Experimental Barrier

  • Health reduced from 900 to 700.
  • Regeneration rate reduced from 120 to 80 per second.

Kinetic Grasp

  • Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

Yep, pretty much every buff they gave him was reverted for straight up nerfs. Uhm, grasp now absorbs slightly more? At the cost of… literally everything in his kit being nerfed. Nothing to see here.

Ball (Who is actually one of the stronger tanks now because all the rest of them have been nerfed:

1.39.1.0 - 8/13/2019

Minefield

  • Increased projectile speed from 10 to 12, causing the mines to spread out more.
  • Reduced the activation time from 0.25 to 0.1 seconds.

1.44.0.1 - 2/12/2020

Piledriver

  • Affected players’ loss of air control reduced from 1 second to 0.5 seconds .

And let’s not forget removing his double-boop, which Blizzard was fine with for a long time because it was considered a tech, then they were too lazy to fix a separate exploit, so they patched it out anyway.

Minefield projectile speed was a HUGE nerf to his ult, making it so people could just walk out of the mines way easier, groundpound nerf was also huge, and no buffs to speak of here. Just nerfs all the way around.

Orisa: Have fun with this one:

1.41.0.0 - 10/15/2019

Protective Barrier

  • Cooldown increased from 9 to 10 seconds.

1.43.0.0 - 12/10/2019

  • Base armor increased from 200 to 250.

Protective Barrier

  • Health reduced from 900 to 600.

Fortify

  • Cooldown decreased from 10 seconds to 8 seconds.

1.44.0.0 - 1/16/2020

Fortify

  • Damage reduction reduced from 50% to 40%.

1.44.0.1 - 1/27/2020

Fusion Driver (Primary Fire)

  • Damage reduced from 11 to 10.

Fortify

  • Cooldown increased from 8 to 10 seconds.

Halt!

  • Snare duration reduced from 1 to 0.65 seconds.

1.46.0.0 - 3/12/2020

Fusion Driver (Primary Fire)

  • Damage increased from 10 to 11.

1.49.0.0 - 6/16/2020

Halt!

  • Increased sound effects volume.

8/13/2020

  • Base armor reduced from 250 to 200.

Halt!

  • Radius reduced from 7 to 4 meters.
  • Projectile speed increased from 20 to 30.

8/31/2020

Halt!

  • Radius increased from 4 to 5.
  • Projectile speed reduced from 30 to 25.

9/26/2020

  • Base armor increased from 200 to 250.

Fusion Driver

  • Projectile speed increased from 90 to 120.

The ONLY THING in her kit that is an ACTUAL buff and not just them PARTIALLY reverting a past nerf is the fact that her projectile speed is higher. Everything else, just straight up nerfs, reverts to nerfs (usually not all the way), then any buffs she gets end up nerfed too.

There is no argument here, tanks have absolutely had their power decreased. The “buffs” are usually just reverts to nerfs (where they end up with way less power over all) or else straight up buffs that are later nerfed back down.

14 Likes
9

You win by killing enemy players. DPS will have most impact in any case as long it can output more DPS than other roles.

Tank were nerfed because most players are DPS players. And it hurts brains to watch tutlewatch for n-th time.

10

First off, I’m not reading that

Second, just because tanks have gotten weaker doesn’t mean it’s been straight nerfs, like I said

Tanks were way too strong, so they got nerfed. Is that hard to understand?

1 Like
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I like how your main argument against the literal mountain of evidence I just gave you was “I’m not reading it”.

Ignoring facts doesn’t make them any less true. Your NEW argument that you DID NOT MAKE BEFORE THIS POST (that tanks were too strong) has no support. Sure, say “GOATS PROVES TANKS OP” but actually, goats ONLY existed because or Brig, who was a blatantly OP support that made it so that dive literally couldn’t exist. Before Brig, multi-tank comps weren’t any sort of meta, and in fact, 1 tank 3 dps comps were a thing too.

Tanks have constantly been scapegoated for GOATS, but the truth is, we’re seeing tanks decline now because they have been nerfed in power to an extent that DPS are ruling the game.

You, sir, refuse to provide anything other than sweeping generalities to this thread. Until you start actually using logic and resources, I’m done wasting my time arguing with you.

12 Likes
12

Yeah kinda. That said, I do like the trend of Tanks being more about getting kills, and less about holding barriers or shooting barriers.

To the extent that Tanks are more like “FPS Heavies”, instead of coming from a “First Person MOBA”, the better.

If that means Tanks are a bit more fragile, but otherwise more fun to play. Go for it.

2 Likes
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Shatter nerf was just flat out brain dead. Who green lit it going live.

4 Likes
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I disagree with you here. I think that the idea of a character who can help protect other characters is amazing and is what makes OW unique in the realm of FPS.

I think that moving tanks towards “Heavy DPS” like other FPS is going to scare off several tank players, myself included. That IS what Blizzard has been doing, and tank players are leaving the game, as is demonstrated by the fact that DPS queues are more than double what they once were.

I can respect that that’s what you want from tanks, but I honestly think the game works better when you’ve got sturdy tanks who serve a more utility role rather than a DPS one.

2 Likes
15

I think Overwatch has a lot more in common with Class Based Shooter Games, than it does World or Warcraft or League of Legends.

And in Class Based Shooters. Heavies have Lethality.

I miss any "Tanks from FPS games"?

And even if it’s not Lethality, Tanks mostly just need more self-sufficiency from DPS and Healers.

So something like a Regen Passive would help.

Self Regeneration Passive

  • After 6 seconds out of combat, heroes in a role regenerate
    • Damage Role: 5 health per second
    • Support Role: 7 health per second
    • Damage Role: 40 health per second
16

I mean, goats was a thing yeah, also dive was busted because of D.va, triple tank was a thing, halt hook, double barrier, all this stuff named after tanks???

17

Just because OTHER class based shooters have heavies doesn’t mean THIS ONE needs to. That’s my point. The fact that OW tanks AREN’T heavies makes it unique, and removing them would make it generic, like other class-based shooters.

Sorry, but I just don’t agree with the “everyone else is doing it” argument.

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This game needs to, because the only way to fix queue times with the existing playerbase, is to convert existing DPS players into Tank players.

There is no other option.

1 Like
19

I’ll at least acknowledge that you’re trying to provide evidence, but there’s still no logic here.

“Dive was busted because of D.va.” Dive was meta, but it wasn’t a full-tank meta, dive also had tracer/genji going for it too, and lucio was probably more core to dive than anything else brought up.

Triple tank was also accompanied with triple DPS which was played with a single tank, (one of the most popular ones being ball + 3 dps), so that argument isn’t solid on saying tanks were holistically better.

Halt/hook was two tanks who worked well together, double barrier was two tanks who worked well together. We also have had nano-blade, grav-dragons, beyblade, double sniper etc. Tank heroes being meta =/= tanks as an entire class being OP and needing to all be nerfed over and over again. Widow has defined more metas than any tank has.

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Lucio got replaced by Mercy, he was clearly the least integral part of dive. Also, after dive died when Brig came along, D.va was still meta not too long after. Before goats happened, we also had gravdragon.

Triple tank was accompanied by Soldier as the sole dps. I’m talking about season 3.

Halt hook was completely held up by Orisa and Baptiste, but Baptiste ended up dying out by the time double barrier came along. Orisa remained.

Double barrier remained(and possibly remains) as the meta for a year despite the tanks holding it up being hammered constantly

Widow definitely has not defined many metas at all. Just dive during the latter half, and double sniper which lasted all of 2 months.