I don’t post a whole lot here, but my experiences in competitive play since this last patch have compelled me to try and open a conversation about where the intent is for tanks to fit into the game. I fill most games, and nowadays I end up playing tank an extraordinary amount of time. However, with the new Hanzo and Brigitte, I feel like tanks are marginalized now to the point where being one is handicapping my team - there’s not much I can offer my teammates in terms of protection or survivability that isn’t erased rather quickly and violently, and I feel that no matter what I pick, I’m now a liability as a tank more than an asset.
As far as Hanzo goes, the problem I’m having with him is that he takes several tank combos and gameplay styles off the board now with his new Storm Arrow. Trying to dislodge him from an advantageous position with DVa or Winston is suicide - it’s a quick Lunge for him to get away from my heavy damage, and Storm Arrows destroy me as fast as a Reaper does, except at range. Playing back on him is problematic as well since the arrows have no damage fall-off and have full projectile speed, so I have to rely on geography, which doesn’t help on a lot of maps.
I can play a barrier tank for a little while, but then I concede range and height to Hanzo. I also am vulnerable to Brigitte - I can’t do enough damage reliably quickly as Orisa to get her shield down since my bullets move slowly, and she’s too stout to take down as Rein unless I charge her, putting my team at risk. Her ult also makes her entire team nigh-unkillable…no joke, the amount of damage it takes to eat through even just a few armored people has seen it started to get referred to as “They just popped Invincibility” in voice chat.
As far as Brigitte goes, I actually don’t mind the stun too much, as I think it was a necessary addition to the game to combat the proliferation of Genjis and Tracers that could take a game over without any counters hard enough to force a switch. However, I think that its extraordinary effectiveness on tanks is making it get used in a spammy way that wasn’t intended in her design: Brigittes should get punished for playing super far-up and ramming Shield Bashes into the toughest members of the opposing team, not rewarded.
For Hanzo, I think that he needs to be more diveable again. I never thought I’d say that I miss Scatter Arrow, but I get more frustrated now when I see three super-quick Storm Arrow kills on the feed followed by an ult that got charged insanely quickly than I did when I got Scattered. I don’t think reinstating Scatter is the way to go, but I think that his mobility buff with Lunge and his Storm Arrow are too powerful of tank-busters with too little risk to both remain in combination in their current state. The pickrates that you see for Hanzo in high-level play now illustrate this.
Anyways, thanks for reading my long post, and I hope to see some changes on the horizon.