Tanking isn’t fun in overwatch anymore. You are the team. You don’t get to choose who you play because if you get diffed you lose the game as tank. No exceptions. That is the cost of 5v5.
How do you not get diffed? You just simply play the meta. However meta heroes arent picked because they’re fun, they get picked because of in most scenarios, that tank reigns.
It’s so sad since I love tanks like Wrecking Ball, Sigma, and Zarya. They’re so much fun to play but you got to remember, this is 5v5 OW2 now. If you aren’t diffing in the hog matchup well gg next. If you aren’t playing Doom, Hog, or Orisa right now, you’re simply throwing. That’s the sacrifice of playing tank in an age where you only get one of them.
Before I get the comments of “just be better at the heroes you want to play”. I’m already referring to non-metal rank OW. I’ve played countless hours now in mid to high diamond and the only times I’ve seen a team that have a tank deviating from meta either are doing a very situational play, or they just simply lose.
It doesn’t matter how many more tanks you add into the game. Ramattra’s entire playstyle is just poke, block damage, farm ult. Contenders only sees value from Ramattra due to his block and ultimate. Whatever happened to creating heroes that forced unique, and fun playstyles? You just play Ramattra like you would Orisa. That’s not “innovating” blizzard. Junker Queen is a stupidly fun hero to play, but if you don’t have a flanker opening the fight by baiting out suzu, your ultimate is just a better escape tool than a pressure them back tool.
It’s cute whenever I hear support players say they have the short end of the stick when it comes to impact. You have to remember supports and their utility usefulness usually is what decides metas. Kiriko alone is what pushing hog into meta and Junker Queen out of meta. Baptiste before they reworked lamp to require line of site made it so you never saw a game of Paris where the defending team didn’t have a bastion. Brigitte’s inclusion literally snowballed into the addition of role queue because people figured out GOATS because of her. Ana’s Nano allowed for more forgiving aggressive tank play when they added it healing 300 health on use. There has NEVER been an instance in overwatch history where an addition of a support, or change of support didn’t affect meta.
This is the sacrifice blizzard decided to make to the switch to 5v5. Make tanks buff as hell, give them damn good survivability, and have them be the primary role that gets hard CC. However here is the issue with this design philosophy:
You can’t have it where tanks have higher than average DPS numbers, and also being the most survivable, and vice versa.
This is where Hog comes into this equation. Damage was built into hog’s kit since release. However Hog didn’t have 100 extra health and 50 extra heal on his breather, with a support that completely negates one of his counters, and you get 25% less ultimate charge for shooting him. This is the reason that hog is broken, not his one shot.
You can’t have a high damage character also be a highly survivable one. That’s not balance. Nor do I think we should nerf areas of heroes’ kits that go against their hero identity. That’s what put Doomfist into the ground until this latest patch. In my own personal opinion, Hog should:
- Have his HP lowered to 650
- Have his breather reverted back to 300
- Have his breather only reduce 40% of inc. damage
- Have his breather on a 9-10 second cooldown instead of 8
This is just a suggestion, however will all things, we just have to accept the fact that there will never be a point in time where we considered all heroes “balanced”. It’s simply not possible. We should however, still balance heroes in a way where flexible picking is allowed. There are 11 tanks now in the game, however only 3 are good/great picks. If you’re constantly adding heroes to this game, however balancing them where only ~27% are viable, then what is the point of adding more? What if you main the ~36% of tanks that are now cons idered throw picks at plat and above? Well you’re out of luck my friend.
We also can’t act like other roles are any better at this treatment, tank is only more apparent since you only get one now. DPS is the same where only ~30% of the heroes are meta/great picks. With supports you get a little more lucky with a ~38%, however that’s kind of biased since there are only 8 supports. However the point still stands.
What is the point of adding new heroes when on average, only ~31.6% of heroes per role are considered viable/meta picks?
Why do you think there is the highest frequency of smurfing now than pre OW2? Its not fun being forced to play only 31% of the roster, so they play in an SR that’s more forgiving for their hero pick. Sure its not right for them to smurf, but you have to at least see where they’re coming from. Why play for rank when just simply selecting your main, the hero you have the most fun with, will get you flamed and a loss? Why do you think doomfist/hammond mains complained for getting spam reported just for selecting the hero and refusing to switch because they just simply have more fun playing those heroes.
“BuT iT’s A cOmPeTiTiVe GaMeMoDe, YoU’rE sUpPosEd tO wAnT tO wIn”
…is what I imagine some gold 3 furiously typing since they didn’t read this far along. It’s why I specifically formatted it. If you’re mentality towards competitive is “no fun, only win”, you must honestly hate yourself. I get it, sometimes it is frustrating when you have a wrecking ball who doesn’t want to switch and the opposing tank is just walking all over your team. You still have to think why you dislike the wrecking ball. Is it simply because they’re playing poorly, or because wrecking ball is a poor hero in the matchup? If the answer is the matchup, there is my point! You’re not upset because the wrecking ball is playing poorly, but because the wrecking ball is playing into a hog and just simply wants to play their main! As a mainly DPS main, I feel tanks are in the worst spot they have ever been.
Just because tank is the strongest role right now doesn’t mean it’s the best role to play.
Why do you think you have Top 500 tank streamers like Flats and Emongg constantly complaining they feel support is the most fun role to play, and tank is the most frustrating and boring role to play? It’s just simply not fun. There is no enjoyment to be had in a 5-20 minute queue just to being forced into selecting either Hog, Doomfist, or Orisa.
Tank is simply not a fun role to play. Overwatch is simply no longer as fun as it used to be as a whole.