The real Flaw behind Tanks and Supports

General Discussion
1

This is why, imo, there are few tank and support players, why those heroes are generally avoided. We can find many reasons, but this time I have another one I haven’t seen anybody talking about.

A good way, for me, to create heroes: “ok, let’s create many heroes with different playstyle, also basing on different classes, so every player can find his personal playstyle, basing on HIS preferences. A team can be 6 dps, 4 tanks + 2 supports, 2-2-2, 1-4-1, whatever, it doesn’t matter, no role is mandatory, you don’t need a tank, a support, or a dps to win, you can play whatever you want basing EXCLUSIVELY on your preferences.”

And now the way, IMO, heroes in Ow are created: “ok, now we make fun dps so players can have fun pvp, but we also need tanks and hea… supports! because the game wouldn’t work without them and it wouldn’t be a team based game. Ok, so we need tanks and supports to do tasks x, y, z and being useful. Oh, right, I forgot, try also to make them fun ok? Just try at least, we need someone to play them, ok?”

The fact is that tanks and supports imo are created with the purpose of being useful instruments to do certain things, and only secondly, the effort to make them fun. But the problem is that it doesn’t matter how much you try to make those heroes fun, because if they just born as instruments, of course their playstyle will lack of independence / individuality and they’ll be considered boring.

Imo, if the mentality behind them doesn’t change, they won’t ever be considered fun roles.

3 Likes
2

That’s all subjective and means nothing. I could easily just as say most people play DPS because OW is a shooter, so a lot of the DPS don’t have to be well made or original to attract a certain audience. Mcree and Soldier are very basic shooter heroes, not really original, and people still like them a lot.

People don’t like playing tank (and to a lesser extent support) because they want to play DPS. They want to shoot things, and not be responsible for helping the whole team do something like tanks and supports do. DPS shoot and kill, while the other roles have to be responsible for everyone else. That’s why you see so many people say tank is just the babysitter role.

3

People kind of hate Supports and Tanks because healing, barrier blocking and (recently) CC has become easier and these things are designed to deny any-enemy-damage-effort in mind, so they deny skill expression effort in a easy way, which makes people angry.

4

it’s because people play them using a pretty boring playstyle, because a reliable tank and support that you know what they are gonna do is a lot more condusive to winning than having a loose cannon that takes risks that might win or lose you the game.

supports can be fun, tanks too, but they aren’t played in a fun way currently because fear of losses or of the fear of angering their team that could lead to getting reported and banned.

that’s how i see it.

1 Like
5

They’re also hated because you’re not allowed to have Roadhog and Zarya used at the same time. That’s invalid. Or Lucio, Zen. While DPS can have virtually any combo. And not be complained about. Minus double sniper or if you do Sombra Sym. More complaints go towards Tanks and Support roles in configuration.

Tanks are suppose to be there to hold up a box and that’s it.

3 Likes
6

For tanks the issue has been Sigma. While he’s fun to play individually (I play him too), he has caused such massive issues for the tank role that he’s probably the #1 cause for tanks leaving the role/game especially since he has encorfed double barriers meta on OW twice now

2 Likes
7

Even I get pissed off at that. I want to play Zarya. Enemy team in QPC goes full double barrier and Ana Genji. I’m like: I have to freaking switch to 76/McCree just to deal with that bull. Cause no one wants to focus shoot the shields.

1 Like
8

You can keep your team alive and keep the enemy at bay all you want.

But if they can’t get picks, its just going to be long, frustrating game for you.

9

Sigma is the reason I play tank because he compliments every other tank due to the fact he has a shield he has an eat which doubles as a heal… and a stun.

You can pair him with everything.

Some people look at a 900 hp shield and think it’s flimsy, but with good management and an off tank to soak a bit of damage it’s always plenty.

Maybe not in OWL but who cares about that
I’m never going to play this game like a job anyways

10

It’s unfun because the maps are too restrictive

11

I love playing support

12

If your team is awful, you can still “play” the game as DPS. For tanks and supports, the match is miserable. That is the reason they aren’t as popular.

13

This is very true. Look at EvilToaster, who became well known for his “flanking Orisa” playstyle which was both fun to play and exciting to watch…but even to this very day, when he rarely uses Orisa in favor of other tanks, people still give him crap about it to the degree that once a stream, people will throw his games just because he’s on their team. People are THAT toxic towards playing Tanks in any way besides the “normal” way.

Pretty much.

1 Like
14

I think the problem is how they try to give value to these heroes while trying to make them easy to play and pickup.

They did it right with Rein, so I don’t understand how hard it is to do with the other Tanks. Get rid of Orisa’s shield being on cooldown and have it just be flat shield she can recall from 5 meters away. If it breaks it takes a long time to regenerate, and that’s where the risk and skill come into play, knowing to recall and use fortify, or take a chance and let it break, then use fortify to hold out for longer in one spot while your team cleans up for the next fight.

Same thing with Sigma, have his barrier only block damage AFTER it’s placed, so the skill and risk is knowing when to use barrier for short bursts of protection and peel and when to shift it to another spot.

This kind of stuff isn’t hard to figure out, I can only conclude they’re intetionnaly trying to make this game easy af with little risk or punishment so people are more inclined to try comp or be invested in OWL.

That’s not how that works, things that take skill and risk are much easier to see and appreciate in a serious game because it’s hard to do. If it’s easy to do, then it undermines the value and nobody cares.

15

yeah, why it is like this is simply due to the people who play the game that enforces arbitrary rules to others but not themselves.

which is why i genuinely like the game but not the players.

but to be fair to the players is that they are simply optimizing the fun out of the game, which is the biggest obstacle for any game to overcome.

2 Likes
16

Healing is boring i’d rather just do damage. It’s not a bad role, it’s actually the easiest role. Supports have broken ultimates and kits

Tanking can be rough with heroes like Sombra, Reaper. Super tilting, reason i don’t tank

17

You’re saying tanks don’t want to play the role because sigma, arguably the most fun tank, is viable? I don’t get it.

1 Like
18

Ah yes. All the broken ultimates such as checks notes the one that lets you fly and heal slightly more, the one that enables someone else to kill people, the one that makes a little window that your team ignores or lets you heal a little better. How utterly broken. How can anyone expect to contend with such power?

4 Likes
19

lol. This is a new one.

Time to flip it. DPS denies my skill expression as support cause they constantly whine to get any utility I have that isn’t healing gutted, and then get overbuffed to the point they are easy to play and just kill people no problem. Thus requiring more healing and shields and the cycle continues.

MuH sKiLl ExPrEsSiOn!!!

20

nano, beat, trans, coalescence all broken ults

Valk isn’t even that bad the amount of mobility you get in it, plus the extra healing.
Window kinda meh but he has immortality which is busted af.