Tanks-a-lot: Tips and Advice Thread

General Discussion
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For those of you who exist as a tank in this lovely game and would like to see you fellow tanks improve, share you words of wisdom here.

For those looking to improve their tank play, ask away.

In one way or another we are all in both categories so ill go first.

  • Question: How do I maintain charge efficiently as Zarya? its what keeps me from really committing to her.

  • Tip: Practice launching Orisa’s shield at where the battle is happening if you are not there yourself. It is an excellent peeling tool.

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maintaining charge is just as dependent on your team as yourself, its much better to communicate with your teammates to bubble them at the perfect moment, for instance if a dive tank like dva or winston goes in, make sure you bubble them right as you see their shield drop, or enemies capitalize on them, zarya is all about timing which comes through experience from just playing her, hope i helped at least a little bit

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At your rank maintaining charge is pretty easy if you have a coordinated team. You can go into the enemy team with a pocket healer behind you and bubble yourself, and get out before they kill you. If you have a Doomfist, Rein, Genji, Winston, or other heroes that can charge in and do some damage, bubbling them seems to do well too. Honestly, it’s easier than you may think. If the enemy team is focusing someone, bubble them. You can peek the enemy team and bubble yourself especially f they have bastion.

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I tried to do one of these a while back, and nobody understood the point of it. I’ll humour it.

Answer: Use your self-shield aggressively to farm up charge, and try to save the projected barrier for helping out teammates. Jump into Hanzo’s ult and stuff. Easy charge.

Tip: If you’re playing Rein, you can flick your shield up to block McCree’s overhead flashbangs. The projectile has a travel time, so with some practice, you can learn to do this pretty consistently.

Question: Roadhog: Which squishy heroes can I now one-shot, and not one-shot? I’ve been playing around with him lately for the first time since his rework, and he seems to be a lot more specific than he once was.

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Tracer, junkrat, baby DVa confirmed. Granted you have to hit center of mass for max damage. If you want to continue getting kills after the hook practice fire-hook-fire.

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I’ve historically been aiming for upper chest so some of the pellets are headshots. Should I aim a bit lower?

In my experience, I can also OHKO Soldier: 76 and Moira, and the ones you’ve listed.

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(Tip) Winston - when you jump place your bubble in the air that way when you land you’ll be at the edge of your bubble and you can dance around it.

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Because of the way damage is now it can feel random at times. The smallest measurement makes a lot of difference. Its why the safest bet is grabbing a damaged target or damaging them yourself before you hook.

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How do you pull of the burst combo with Winston? The order I mean.

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Ah, so the random damage spread makes a big difference? I thought that might be the case.

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Tank mains support each other in this thread, especially at this hard time where a lot of us quitting the game, brings joy to my heart. :broken_heart:

Anyways, I will contribute with some tips as well!!

For Reinhardt I would say that the most important tip is not to let your shield breaks, period. I usually save 300 hp of my shield just in case if the enemy decides to push further or in case of a surprise D.va bomb. Managing the shields hp is not easy but it will come with time.

Also I would give another tip about both Reinhardt and D.va. Be a little more aggressive if you are full health or still have some armor (the yellow hp bars). I use a more aggressive playstyle and go for some picks if I have armor. You only need to worry about your death of you lose your armor health. The amount of time you have the luxury of swinging your hammer or diving the enemy supports is actually determined by your healers, more heals = more brawling. After losing my armor I either retreat as D.va or take a more defensive stance with Reinhardt (holding my shield up to take some damage and protect myself and my team, leaving the rest of the job to my dps to clean up or apply more pressure).

I hope this helps, cheers!!

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A good combo from Zarya is the secondary and melee when you are up close. It helps a lot finishing off heroes and dealing a lot of damage.
Zarya I believe is also a little harder to hit, so crouching and straffing will help avoid a death until you get your bubble back. (straffing works with all heroes)

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So you want to use your jump pack and punch when you land since your jump pack also deals damage so its great burst damage and can save you Tesla cannon ammo. If your fighting someone with armour punch in-between your Tesla cannon zaps since armour doesn’t decrease punch damage

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  • question: with orisa, how often do you use fortify? When I play her, I feel like I only use it a handful of times. I don’t know if it’s meant to be spammed or saved.

  • tip: you can pull off some neat ‘BM’ bombs. I’ve nicknamed them this because the goal is on specific maps, you can throw DVa’s bomb safely into enemy spawn. (Eichenwalde defense on second point from up top, Lijiang Tower where the actual tower is, etc) A lot of people have a habit of blindly walking out of spawn, so if you pay attention to when they spawn and wait a few seconds, you can throw a bomb in-- SO LONG AS THEIR SHIELD TANK IS DOWN. This runs a lot off of gut feeling, but I typically can get 2-3 picks and stagger their team further due to the lack of active cover outside of spawn. Obviously, don’t do this if the ult would get more value thrown in middle of a teamfight or your team already burned some ults in the previous fight, or if you’re not consistently charging your ult quickly. However, if you have an opportunity and pull it off, the ‘BM’ will often tilt the enemy team faster than just spamming ‘is this easy mode?’ DVa feeds off of tilted enemies rushing to demech her-- so pulling this off will guarantee their focus.

honestly, that tip is super situational-- but again, it’s one of my most favorite moves when I feel confident about the situation.

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Fortify is a baiting tool, so yes save it most of the time. But ideally you want it available for when anyone tries to dive you. I know everyone is up in arms about Brigitte being anti dive but a good Orisa can almost shut it down herself.

Oh, and Rein. Poor fella seems to never want to make sure she doesn’t have that ability ready when he charges.

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Orisa:

  • Shoot the guys with the gun

  • Put shield in front of you

  • fortify

  • halt

Reinheart:

  • Your basic attack is a hammer swing use it to kill the enemies

Roadhog:

  • You can hook you enemies and pull them closer to get COPIOUS amounts of damage

Zarya:

  • She can laser
  • She can shield
  • She can ogon po gotovnosti

Winston:

  • Tesla cannon deals 60 dps up to 3 targets, a range of 8 meters, 100 ammo which lasts 5 seconds, and a reload time of 1.5 seconds
  • Jump pack has a 6 second cool down and allows Winston to travel up to 22 meters, it also deals 45 damage on impact and knockback. Jumping straight up in the air allows you to escape damage while reloading your gun.
  • Barrier projector has 600 health and is actually a full sphere, this allows you to drop it on a platform and shield people below you as well. It lasts 5 seconds and has a 13 second cooldown. The radius is 5 meters which allows you to take advantage of fighting enemies within it.
  • Primal Rage is a transformation type ultimate that heals you and give you a full 1000 hp and lowers your jump cooldown to 2 seconds. Your main attack becomes a swing that deals knockback and 40 damage and 1.6 swings per second. The ult lasts a total of 10 seconds.

D.va:

  • Defence Matrix
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None of these were tips, try again.

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I’ve got some expirience as Zarya, i can help you there.

First off, you have to realize the difference between you not getting/maintaining charge because of your own plays or because of the enemy teamcomp.

If the enemy has no “spammy” heros, it is really hard to build charge. And at that point you’d be better off just switching.

If the enemy has something like an Orisa or D.va, maybe a Pharah or Junkrat and you’re still not getting charge, it is your problem.

To get charge, you have to be agressive. Having a Reinhart helps a lot. You can step in front of his shield, walk towards the enemy until they shoot you, use your bubble and then retreat. Just make sure that you don’t go too far, specially if the enemy team has a hog. If your bubble breaks too fast he has a easy hook on you.

For your teammates, you either have to coordinate with them, or learn to predict what they are up to. See your rein walking forward? He’s most likely going to firestrike or swing his hammer, great opportunity for some free charge. See your tracer walking back to the enemy team from a healthkit? Keep an eye on her, she most likely will go in to the enemy backline again. See your reaper about to go in a hallway around the corner? He’s got a plan, help him.

And then of course there is the defensive bubble. D.va trying to dive someone on your team, or a Hog hooked someone. (Might i add here, feel free to bubble your hog as well if you see him taking a risky hook)

As for Orisa, while i play her myself and i’d say, i’m somewhat decent at her, i also struggle with her shield.

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I’ve been told that you can’t use her alongside an Orisa, any truth to that?

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1 - The first and most important thing is position. Without correct position, the best barrier management in the world won’t mean anything. So as soon as games begin, you want to be the first out the door, always on the front line. As Zarya, (and another other tank) you act as a barrier between incoming damage and your squishy allies. That is where you want to be most of the time. It will give you the easiest route to building high charge fast because you are always on the front and can decide to step in front of of incoming damage whenever you want to. See those Junkrate grenades coming your way? See that Hanzo dragon strike? Pop your personal bubble and catch 40 charge.

2 - barrier management. Remember you have 200 shield, so always take some damage first THEN pop your bubble. Never use it as you’re entering a fight because enemies will see you and stop firing, leaving you with 8 charge. But take some damage first, (50-100) then use personal barrier and you’ll get the full 40 charge a lot more often.

What I like to do is walk in front of incoming damage, use personal barrier, get my charge, then walk backwards behind my other tank and bubble them, as I’m now behind them, this protects me and my team and also get’s me another 40 charge, within a few seconds, my own personal barrier is coming back off cd, so I repeat, I walk in front of my other thank, pop my barrier and take more damage as I start to walk backwards behind my other tank again, then I shield him, and repeat.

Rotating the time between barriers this way can lead to gaining 100 charge very fast, but like with all things, it comes with practice. I messed up a lot until things like this just become second nature and engraved in us.

Also, maybe more advanced tip which I really like with Zarya. Go in to the practice range with her, close your eyes, hold down left click and try and stop before your ammo reaches zero, but get it as low as you can. If you pay attention, there are two “swoosh” sounds when your ammo gets very low and is about to deplete. That’s when you need to stop left clicking and do a right-click + melee combo. Right click eats 25 ammo, but will still work even if you have 1 ammo left.

By getting used to these audio queues without looking, your CQC/melee range effectiveness will improve and you’ll know just when to right click+melee enemie up close just before you run out of ammo, as this deal a lot more damage and helps finish off enemies, as opposed to just holding down left click.

PS: Excuse the structure of this post. For some reason this new forum doesn’t handle spaces and paragraphs that well and moves things around.

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