its been said before but it cant be said enough until it doesnt apply
36 Likes
… gonna be saying that for a while.
Just sayin.
We aren’t getting double the amount of tanks and support anytime soon.
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that is true sadly, it wouldnt be as bad if they kept echo as a support as originally intended, kept doomfist as a tank as originally intended and with the sym rework expanded her supportive capabilities instead of just reworking her into a dps, so they have had lots of chances for new tanks and supports instead of dps but they just didnt
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Ain’t it ironic that the role with the most characters has the least amount of impact in a match
I just find it funny 
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This game has too many dps and not enough supports and tanks players
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A large part of that is because choosing the “wrong tanks” is hard throwing.
Where as tanks can be very strong if played properly with tons of teammate resources behind them. But usually not the Tank’s playmaking. Just a lack of screwing up.
They are also some of the least self reliant heroes in the game. With two notable exceptions that are usually throw picks when played together.
5 Likes
Sadly the devs put themselves in this trap since day one. At launch there was no DPS role, just defense and offense. Then they decided to merge the two roles together becoming DPS.
I don’t know how long it will take to truly balance out the roles. From what I heard it would be close to a decade of not releasing any DPS to balance out the roster.
Now before you say this a good idea please consider that they do not have the best track record of balancing supports and tanks. As well as failed supports and tanks being salvaged into the DPS role.
So yes, we do in fact have a lot of DPS. Yet we are basically stuck with it.
1 Like
Kinda self-explanatory when DPS has as many heroes as the other 2 roles combined and it was even worse before. This issue is just based on that against the contrary belief that players don’t like playing tanks, which is not the case in OW. Or it wasn’t until tanks became the weakest role in the game
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Tanks determine the outcome of OW matches far more than the other 2 roles combined. If someone playing dps or support throws, the match is still winnable. But if a tank throws, it’s GG because the enemy tanks will completely shut you down and your team won’t even be able to leave spawn.
For some reason Blizzard decided to give tanks massive damage output and the best offensive pressure in the game, on top of also having the best ultimates in the game for killing entire teams (i.e. grav/earthshatter).
Fun fact, the game was actually designed with 1-4-1 in mind. That’s why there’s so many more DPS. It’s only the community figured out that 1-4-1 comps were not very strong and the desire to win kind of forced 2-2-2 on us. But yes, given the format it is quite obvious the other roles need to play catch up.
2 Likes
I beg to differ. I think DPS has the most solo carry potential in the game compared to other roles up until diamond/masters/gm. It’s from there where tanks and supports start mattering more than DPS (or so I’ve heard).
For tanks to be able to carry, they need a good support. And for supports to be able to carry, they need a good tank (or a DPS that they can mercy pocket). That means 2 roles have to be popping off to start having impact. Whereas with the damage role, they aren’t as dependent on other roles to have impact in the game. There are a lot of DPS heroes like Tracer and Soldier: 76 who can mostly just survive off healthpacks (especially in lower ranks) and still be able to pop off.
The fact of the matter is, healing as support doesn’t win you games and neither does soaking up damage as tank. You can’t heal a bad team into a victory and constant aggroing and soaking up damage as tank just turns into feeding or pointless stalling if nothing is dying. This is probaby why hog/ball is so much better for climbing. Since similarly to tracer/soldier:76, they aren’t as dependent on other roles to enable them. But fragging as DPS? That indeed does win you games and has a much bigger impact than healing or soaking up damage.
I’m dissapopinted by the recent hitscan revert. Maybe it was a much needed change. But becaue of that revert, it has become even harder to climb with baptiste by picking up the slack of my DPS in lower ranks. When the enemy is too far away for me to be able to do any meaningful damage to them, I’m basically just a healbot. And in some maps like Havana, most of the fights are from long distances. So I pretty much spend 90% of the game healing while ducking away from enemy Widow/Ashe, which is boring. I know there’s zen can who can contest enemy snipers from longer distance, but it’s not always possible to use him because sometimes the enemy is running dive + sniper.
So I feel like it’s much more likely for the DPS to have an advantage of being the carry of their team than any other role. And yes, I’m aware that DPS can’t do their job optimally (frag) if tanks aren’t making space and taking aggro off of them and supports aren’t healing. But this doesn’t just apply to DPS I’d argue that it affects them to a lesser degree than other two roles. But yes, even DPS can’t always win 100% of their games because this is a team game.
I recall somebody saying that tanks have one of biggest throw potential in the game while at the same time, not having as much solo carry potential (due to reliance on healing). And I think that’s true. If you want to solo carry as tank, you pretty much have to go hog or ball both of which aren’t as dependent on constant healing from supports to pop off.
4 Likes
I think those tradition is also from WoW, where you have 6 tanks, 24 DPS, and 6 healers to choose. But you have a group 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 DPS there, so it is understandable.
I think OW was perhaps designed to have many DPS and 1 tank/support in a team at first, so they made many DPS and a small number of tanks/supps. But it isn’t the case anymore after the role lock is forced. So yes, more support(not tank if you consider 122 in OW2) heroes are needed.
There are 4 ranged hitscans(S76, Widowmaker, Ashe, McCree) for example and they’re just slightly different if you look at their weapons like damage/firerate. Ana-like supps can also be made so.
I don’t see the problem. There’s nothing inherently wrong with such a disparity.
Besides, new tanks and supps overwhelmingly screw over the game for years on end. DPS are easier to make and can afford to be more niche and interchangeable.
1 Like
I mean with team comps changing in OW2 we do not actually need double the amount of Tanks just double the amount of Supports.
They did not rework Sym into a DPS. She was always a DPS. She actually has MORE support capability than she used to. The problem was that she was simply never a Support because Blizzard did not fully comprehend what a Support was required to do.
1 Like
It doesn’t matter, DPS characters are more popular because people like to play with range agency, mobility and lethal shots/attacks.
The damage role has more of a mix of that to offer than the other roles.
Even if the other roles get more new characters added, they still will get some limitations on that mix of characteristics because they usually offer team-wide defense utilities.
That’s the only reason I went from a dps-only player to a flex player. Someone else always picked dps, so I had to fill and go either tank or support. But playing those roles made me realize they’re also super fun. Now I don’t belong to any role. I like them all. There’s many beautiful heroes in each role that give me joy to play.
edit: Damn I thought you were talking about players, not the amount of heroes in each role. But we both know the reason there’s so many dps. They used to be 2 different roles. Defense and Offense. So when they combined these 2 roles, it became one big role instead.
This was never relevant and that was the reason they merged the two roles. There was never any real difference between the two roles in terms of hero design.
Also 5 years after the games release there is JUST the same number of tanks and supports as there were on release Offence and Defence.
They have to make new Tanks and Support powerful because they have to compete with the incredibly slim pool. They have to be powerful to make up for the lack of diversity. Brig was the first Anti-Dive Support. Moira was the first multiple hero healing flex support.
Imagine if the game only released with Tracer, Widowmaker and Reaper in the damage role (the same number of useful supports on the games release). They would all have to be really powerful, way stronger than they are now. Now imagine releasing Genji and how strong he’d have to be to compete with them.
That’s what’s happened with Tanks and Supports. They can’t fix it by adding individual heroes and then balancing them. They’ll have to release a lot of heroes (like 5-10) and rebalance the entire role at the same time. DPS had a ton of diversity from the games release so adding new niche heroes without them struggling to compete was easy.
It’s just easier for the devs to make dps then tanks and sups. Tanks and sups they Introduce always break the game one way or another. It’s just easier for the devs to keep the game balanced by adding dps instead of a new tank or sup who’ll probably break the balance. It sucks and Hopefully ow2 shakes things up or makes the roles easier to balance
They’ll never have equal 33% role split
NO game ever has, no game probably ever will
Look at every MMO in existence
Look at every hero shooter.
DPS always have the most characters, it’s just how the holy trinity is.
2 Likes