Tank is BORING in OW2

General Discussion
1

Something a lot of tank players feel, but aren’t able to really explain, is why 1 tank in OW2 is not as enjoyable. It can be somewhat difficult to put a finger on what the exact issue is. Hopefully with this post I can explain why exactly 1 tank is not as enjoyable in OW2.

There are 3 main changes Blizzard made in OW2 that has led the tank role to become so boring:

  1. Tanks give less ultimate charge
  2. Tanks were all given flat health increases and increased survivability options
  3. Most DPS were given increased mobility

These changes have caused the tank role to become very useless in OW2. Lets talk about why.

The way you win a fight in Overwatch is simple. Kill the enemy team. Now what happens if a character is unkillable. You would normally assume that the specific character would dominate the game. But what happens if you are unkillable, but also can’t kill anyone. What happens then? Well the game then changes from that character dominating the game, to that character being ignored. That is what essentially happens in OW2. The single tank is ignored. Tanks do have the lethality in OW2 to get kills, but all other roles avoid the tank.

As a DPS or Support player, spending your time and abilities on a tank is worthless in OW2. The tank has somewhere around 500 - 700 health, defensive cool-downs, the lethality to kill you if you engage, will be healed during your fight, and gives less ult charge. Why would any DPS or support fight a tank. You gain nothing by doing so. Not to mention the DPS role has increased mobility in OW2, so you can ignore the tank and go for the supports or other DPS. And the supports/DPS give more ult charge, have less health, and less defensive cool-downs. Easier targets.

Ironically this is why supports feel like they are pressured way more in OW2 as well. Not entirely because there is one less tank to peel, but because there is effectively 2 less players for the enemy DPS to target (One tank removed, the other tank in unkillable). Plus the DPS in the game have more mobility. So they are a bit harder to kill as well. Supports are just the only good target to go for.

So now you are a tank player. And you are strong right, you want to fight. So you go to fight the enemy dps or supports and they rotate away from you. You can keep pushing after them, but eventually either your team will fall apart or you will get collapsed on by the entire enemy team. So you do nothing. You hold empty space on the map. If anyone steps up, you can kill them. But they shouldn’t and most likely won’t. You try to fight the enemy tank and they are just as unkillable as you. So nothing happens. You and the enemy tank effectively cancel each other out. The entire game shifts from what OW1 was were every role has a job (Tanks engage a fight, DPS clean up a fight, supports swing ongoing fights) to the game hinges on DPS plays instead. It’s why so many DPS players like OW2. Because THEY have more impact and agency in the game. But the tank and support players have less.

This is why Tank is boring. Because no one will fight you, but you also can’t really make people fight you either. Objectives do help somewhat, but aren’t the end all be all of a fight. Fights happen around objectives, not always on the objective.

If anyone watches the Overwatch league, you’ll have noticed that for the earlier part of the season, the only tanks that were really effective are Ball/Doom/Winston. This is because these tanks have mobility and without it, you become nearly useless. Junker Queen is only picked because her ultimate and Cry ability help DPS secure kills even more.

I hope this makes sense and opens peoples eyes as to what exactly the problem with 1 tank is (At least the way Blizzard has done it). I don’t see this problem really getting better. The lower mobility tanks are always going to be less effective and Blizzard will probably carelessly buff them until they are eventually so strong you can’t ignore them or they will remain useless (Orisa never even picked in OWL, wonder why).

16 Likes
2

Well supp is also boring…

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I mean, Supports are constantly being pressured and attacked. I don’t know if boring is the right word, but definitely not fun to always be on the defensive.

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This is just not true any longer, unless you mean they get more mobility by the way of having open flanks.

Tanking is fixed in OW2, the queue times speak for themselves. It is what OW1 should have had years ago.

In the end it is a space-based objective game, tanks own space, squishies running away isn’t a bad thing, it’s job well done.

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Watching your team overextend and HAM all match like Rambo into the meatgrinder? Yeah, it sucks.

6

Well there is no excitement anymore or clutch moments. Winning or losing didnt change anything. At the end it was boring.

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with solo tank, all of the strategic depth is gone. Now, you kind of dive in, and either you or the enemy dies.

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In OW1 you got to control space AND get kills/play the game. And queues are only better because they released a new tank hero? Now support queues are bad and they didn’t even make any changes to supports between OW1 and OW2. So how does that make any sense.

Also DPS mobility has been increasing for a while, even before OW2 (Hanzo lunge, Mccree roll distance increased, Sojo jump, echo flight, Molten core speed boost, bastion turret is now movable, Ashe Coach gun). All of these are mobility changes that weren’t in OW1 at launch. It was wrong of me to say the mobility changes were just OW2. It’s been happening far longer

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I have hundreds of hours on tank in OW1, the role us literally unplayable after having played the OW2 beta.

Tanking was opened up infinitely more in OW2, and was so much more enjoyable. I haven’t even been able to touch comp since I played in the first beta phase.

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Your profile says you don’t play much comp. Are these hours in QuickPlay by chance?

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Me? Lmao, no. I have no idea where you got that.

I just haven’t played comp in several months.

I’m a GM tank, with easily 1200+ hours in comp across accounts. The vast majority of which being on tank.

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Well then glad you enjoyed Tank in OW2. You’re in the minority of Tank players.

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I really don’t think I am.

Almost every tank player I’ve talked to in game about it has said that tanking is abysmal in OW1 to them now.

Where are you getting the idea that no one likes tank in OW2?

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I have to respectfully disagree. The strategy is still there but has drastically changed. Instead of being a rook, protecting your DPS but being on the front line your now more like the King, with so many other people on your team your unlikely to always be ahead, especially being slower then them. Now your more like the King, little to no mobility but harder to take down unless they can corner you with more then one adversary.

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If you consider being CCed 48 billion times in a row and dying to single cooldown “playing the game” then okay.

Also we have stats for OW2 tanks and they’re still just as deadly.

Not in the first beta, they didn’t. Tanks are better for the vast majority of people.

I have literally 1000 hours of tank and OW2 literally fixed tanks. Overwatch 1 is the 10th circle of hell I wouldn’t wish on my deepest enemies.

That’s a sup issue and another topic alltogether.

So it is not a OW2 issue? I see.

All that mobility added in Overwatch 1 is less impactful in OW2 by the way, thanks to tank passive.

Tanks don’t get bullied anymore, that’s just the gist of it.

If you don’t like OW2 tanks that’s cool but lets not pretend there’s some problem with the role itself. Overwatch 1 is suffering, I’d rather stick a toothpick in my eye for entertainement, OW2 fixed quite literally everything I always had a problem with.

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General consensus from the people I’ve talked to is it’s not nearly as enjoyable. Super even quit Overwatch after playing OW2. But more importantly do you want to respond to any of my points in the post or just tell me more about how you and the people you talk to like tank in OW2 and how OW1 tanking is “Unplayable”. Whatever that means.

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17

i cannot speak about the experience of a true tank duo playing together, while i am one of them.

so my experience is only with random players in qp and comp (high plat)

it can feel quite good playing with 2 tanks
but it can also feel terrible going against a good tank duo.

in ow2 both no longer exist.
but i can’t fully tell what truly feels better.
the balance and skill ranges in the beta qp games where not as “known” as it plays in ow1.

i played quite a bit of d.va which was i think said to be quite bad, and i had good games. honestly having a joy protecting my backline and pushing in on the enemies.

the q times? as a tank player? ow1 all the way lol. i stopped playing the beta bc of the difference i had in q times mostly.

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"If you consider being CCed 48 billion times in a row and dying to single cooldown “playing the game” then okay.

Also we have stats for OW2 tanks and they’re still just as deadly."

This might be a crazy take, but CC is good for the game and removing it is foolish. CC slows the game down and allows for teamwork and counterplay. OW definitley didn’t do CC as well as they could, but CC is not the problem. League has tons of CC and it’s one of the most popular games out there.

"So it is not a OW2 issue? I see.

All that mobility added in Overwatch 1 is less impactful in OW2 by the way, thanks to tank passive.

Tanks don’t get bullied anymore, that’s just the gist of it.

If you don’t like OW2 tanks that’s cool but lets not pretend there’s some problem with the role itself. Overwatch 1 is suffering, I’d rather stick a toothpick in my eye for entertainement, OW2 fixed quite literally everything I always had a problem with."

Tanks giving less ultimate charge is an atrocious change. Means fighting tanks is less valuable so people just don’t do it as much. Also I never felt like I was bullied on Tank in OW1. Sorry you felt that way, but that might be more with how you play the game. I’m pretty sure I bullied more people than got bullied.

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Most high ranked players and streamers quit after playing OW2. Because they realized just how dead OW1 was.

Queues in high ranks are terrible - no one cares anymore. The meta in high ranks has been boring for ages. That’s part of why I stopped playing as well.

Sure. And Tank in OW1 is unplayable because you literally can’t play it.

You get stun locked, burst down, booped out of position every 3 seconds. Double shield has been meta for… 2 years? Almost 3? It’s awful - and I say that as primarily a Sigma player.

As to the points you raise in the OP:

This is good for tanks. You want people to have less incentive to focus you - because otherwise you’ll just explode lol.

Previously people were strictly rewarded for focusing tanks - there was no downside to it. Now they have to actually make a decision, and you want to have to force them to make that decision. It causes people to make mistakes, and allows you to force mistakes as a consequence. Which is an enormous part of playing tank in general.

This is good - tanks explode way too easily in OW1. But we couldn’t be given too much sustain, because the second tank already made the mid-fight poke phase horrifically long.

The off-tank’s ability to stabilize was just too powerful, and so as a result, individual tanks had to sit through being bullied until something actually happened. It’s tedious and boring.

How? The movement passive was removed.

Not necessarily - but if we’re really simplifying it, sure. Killing the enemy team is sorta important to winning.

No characters in OW2 are unkillable. Tanks certainly have high sustain, but if they feel unkillable it’s because you’re not focusing them properly.

Tanks absolutely can kill people.

Source? I consistently had top damage and top elims as almost every tank in the majority of matches I played in the beta.

And before you say “Oh, that’s because you’re a higher rank!!!”
No, it isn’t. I knew the people I was consistently getting matched up against, and could check the ranks of other players, which I did. The majority of my teams in the 2nd beta were mid Masters at worst.

Your job as tank is to make it impossible to be ignored. The enemy team wants to ignore you - and sometimes you want that as well, but you also have a kit designed around forcing them to pay attention to you.

Zarya does this by threatening players with her high charge and versatile bubbles.
Hog does this by threatening removing a player every ~6 seconds.
Rein does this mitigating immense amounts of damage moving his team into strong positions.

Etc. There’s more to it than just that, that’s just the simplified version.

Stop being avoided then. The tank literally controls the engagement, why are you allowing it to happen outside of your terms?

This just isn’t true. Any tank - if left unchecked - will wreak havoc in your team. You can only ignore a bad tank.

Because a good tank leaves you literally no other option.

When I play tank, I force the enemy team to look at me, because I will systematically remove cooldowns and players from the enemy team if they don’t.

No, it does not.

If they have decent positioning, they are definitively not easier targets.

You have to clear their entire team to get to them.

This is why supports only had higher deathrates in GM - where top ranked players actually do know how to get around defenses, and can get the kill before they’re punished for it.

If they’re rotating away from you, they should be falling back.

If they somehow push past you - you’re doing your job as the tank very, very wrong.

If they fall back - good job. You achieved your goal of taking more space. If they die, better job - you’ve disrupted the enemy team’s rotation.

If they push past you and kill your team - you’re a bad tank.

DPS do have more agency, and the overall balance of impact has been equalized a bit, which I think is purely good for the game.

Tanks, as a role, have less impact - but as individuals, have much more agency and impact. You’re no longer constrained by very specific tank duo comps. You, as an individual, have much more control over the game pace and things like engagement zones and comps.

To claim that tanks aren’t still massively impactful in OW2 is only true if you are bad at tank.

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That’s not general consensus that’s your bubble.

Here’s the long version:

If you want the short it boils down to CC, tank busting CDs and lack of indepedence.

CC is unfun. If there’s 3 things Overwatch 1 needs less of is 1) Teamwork. 2) Counterplay and 3) Slowed down game.

Like I said, OW2 fixes quite literally everything about tanks.

“OW didn’t do CC as well as they could” is the understatement of the century. Overwatch was destroyed by CC, the worst thing that ever happened to this game.

League doesn’t matter, it’s not an FPS. CC is different in an FPS.

It means spam is less valuable and that tanks, with their impossible to miss hitboxes, don’t feed like crazy and get poked forever for free, easy, skilless value.

Sure, maybe it’s just my plat butt playing wrong. You know who else plays wrong? Everyone in ladder. You can’t talk fun into people same way you can’t talk legs into a fish.

But nevermind me, here’s bogur:

Former T2/T3 player, quit pro play not long before this Twitter thread: (I suggest reading it all not just the first tweet).

Here’s SVB, GM tank:

You think he is enjoying himself?

And then again, your entire topic is moot because WE HAVE ACTUAL DATA FOR OW2 tanks, directly from Blizzard, and tanks are deadly mofos still, average over 8000 damage, 18 elims and 8 final blows WITH less deaths.

2 Likes