What Do Tanks Currently Offer To Overwatch?

General Discussion
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TL;DR Version: Playing Tank feels bad because it feels like there is nothing I can contribute to the team which a DPS or healer wouldn’t do better.

When Overwatch 2 hits Tanks will matter a lot (in PvE). As for PvP matches though what do Tanks currently offer which other roles can’t do better?

The obvious answer is damage mitigation which sounds right at first but, is it really true? D.Va can prevent a fair bit of damage in short bursts and Rein’s shield is okay (although it stops him from contributing in any other way). Every other Tank, excluding Roadhog, can block damage in tiny amounts and in one direction at a time. That’s all well and good except most DPS can just move rapidly from cover-to-cover with their cooldowns. Some teleport, some run fast, some jump super high, some heal their own chip damage, and some do all of the above.

Since most of the DPS don’t need protection I guess the healers do? Ana, Baptiste, and Zen might need some help moving around however, DPS heroes and other healers can handle this just fine too. Lucio and Brig have short cooldown CC that help keep flankers away while the presence of a DPS can scare away anyone from your backline.

How about survival or “tanky-ness” then? Aside from being big juicy ultimate batteries for the enemy DPS you will also find that Tanks are outclassed by many DPS heroes in the ability to stay alive in a fight. Reaper, Mei, Doomfist, and Tracer have some of the best self-healing in the game combined with reliable escape/dodge tools. I would go as far as to say Mei is the best Tank in the game.

Well tanks can absorb important abilities! Anti-nade, Storm Arrow, Shield Bash, and Flashbang are really strong abilities that can change the tide of battle. Most of the time those are just dumped into the enemy Tank though so if Tanks didn’t exist they’d probably land less often and have less value.

Then finally there is taking space. A part of Overwatch which I’m not sure I can address with enough sarcasm to show how I feel about it and Tanks. Taking space does matter at chokepoints and that’s where Tanks can hardly do so anyway. Anywhere with multiple lanes/routes and space is given away for free.

As a closing thought, consider this: If every Tank was removed from the game, would much change?

Thanks for reading my rant.

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You must really suck

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Zarya? She’s basically a dps with tank hp and abilities. It’s hard to play Zarya and not get gold/silver damage.

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yeah we wouldnt have tanks

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Tanks by far have more impact than any other role.
On the other hand, DPS have the least.

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And are the most scapegoatable despite this.

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Yeah it’s kinda messed up tbh. If your team loses, it’s most likely not the DPS players fault. Because they contribute so little compared to Tanks and Supports.

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This is what they offer the most.

Overwatch definitely has its issues

  • Maps designed around straight runs to a point
  • Bottleneck paths/chokepoints that are too easy to focus fire down
  • Few natural cover and barely any on the point itself

Tanks however are the ones that offer an answer to the “We need to push into this position” problem. Everything else is a unique part of a tank’s kit (damage mitigation + survival) that some do better than others but .

When you step back, tanks keep the fights moving by constantly giving your enemies and yourself a reason to reposition.

  • Get around the barrier
  • Get away from the dive tanks
  • Get pushed out of position
  • Get pulled into danger
  • Get away from the damage

The game would feel different without them!

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At this point its every role. Whoever is the weak link for the team against the enemy team for the given map is the weak point.

If you literally have support/tank mirrors in Moira/Zarya/Rein/Brig, but you have reaper/mei vs a tracer/genji I wonder which tank line will crumble first. This exercise can be done for most any role.

The genji/tracer are the weakest link in terms of toolsets. If people want to get into ‘our’ rein just charges willy nilly, then that’s a player issue rather than toolset issue.

The same result can be shown if you had a mei/reaper/rein/zarya against a moira/brig vs zen/mercy. One team has better overall utility than the other.

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As someone who has a masochistic love relationship with tanks, particularly main tanks, I can tell you what they offer me: Control over my team mates.

Not literally, but I mean as a main tank I choose the path, the where and the when, the plan is mine and either we execute on it or we’re all losing. Compositions are built around how to enable and follow me, if I play Winston dive DPS needs to follow, if I play Rein you’re getting behind me and holding where I hold, attacking where and when I do, if I rotate right for whatever reason you better follow or get forked.

On the flip side, if the team can’t come together or if the plan sucks, there’s no saving it, you’re screwed. It’s the highest impact, but the least amount of individuality, paradoxically.

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I made a post about this very recently, where I was the 3 gold medal scapegoat for the team’s loss because “I didn’t kill Echo enough” despite being the only one who ever did.

Honestly, switching from Support main to DPS main really put a lot of things into perspective for me.

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As a Tank it’s hard to tell if I suck. Most Tank contributions aren’t tracked. So let’s pretend I do.

Honestly I’d give that to medal to Healers. Pumping 50 - 70 HP/s back into your team is the backbone of any victory.

Best answer.

People crap on DPS way more than they deserve most of the time. Mind you the wait times for DPS kind of aggravate this on both sides.

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Now that I think about it you’d think healers work get the worst of the scapegoat. But apparently dps are the most scapegoated?

Or tanks?

Dps: Being useful
Guy with 600 hps with a 300hp heal and one shot if you land it: Dies with all of his advantages
Also him: “dPs!1! dO uR jOb!!1!!”
Me: “Or you could try not 1v6ing.”

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I only read the tldr, and I have to say that tanks offer a lot

They soak up way more damage than any other character type can, and consistently at that. Dps and healers can’t contribute the way tanks can, just as it is for any role compared to another.

Tanks stop the damage, supports keep the damage going, and damage characters of course do the damage.

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That is a major problem in OW if you ask me. It’s incredible obtuse what constitutes a good tank.

I just learned from AceOfSpades a better spot to hold on Hanamura A def for instance. It offers me, as Rein, better use of shield, better cover, better retreat routes and better rotation to point in case of Sym TP.

Good luck explaining that to your teammates mid game.

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As a former tank main turned full time tankbuster, i don’t always win since a lot of my roster are off-meta.

But i still enjoy the tears.

You keep nerfing tanks, more tank main are going to leave the role. Here’s the thing, these tank mains turned DPSes know how to take down a tank, or atleast make their life hell.

You don’t want us to tank? We won’t let you tank either.

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I reckon so. You never see massive posts titled things like “Happy Now, Supports?!” - Unless it’s a salty Genji main who gets trashed on by everyone. But when it’s a Support player turding all over DPS, that’s acceptable…for some reason.

Whenever I play healer, I’ll usually get endorsed just for being on the team. As DPS, I can play objectively well, win, and still see no endorsements. And if we lose, it’s automatically my fault.

Doesn’t matter if Ana couldn’t aim her healing and we had a Reddit Lucio. Doesn’t matter that we ran Hammond/Hog against a Double-Sniper + Rein/Zarya comp. It’s my fault we lost.

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they aren’t pumping it into their team, they’re pumping that into their tanks. You. For you to do stuff, I just play off of the stuff you do and the space you make, if the supports aren’t healing you, you cant do anything so I cant do anything, if supports are healing you but you aren’t doing anything I cant do anything. DPS can get the most slack picked up because its the weakest role, goats could totally be meta again if 222 weren’t in place

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Oof, it goes that far?

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TANKS ARE THE B.O.B.s OF THEIR TEAMS.

“Taaanks, do somethin’!”
“Get in there Tanks!”

I know it’s a rant post, but let’s remember everything in the game gravitates around securing kills and surviving. It’s a dualism and you have to think about both strategies to outplay the enemy and win.

Tanks are support / dps hybrids, They support not with healing, but with damage neutralization and they also impose a damage threat (at least potentially), all that so their teammates can work around with way less damage pressure (less targeted).

They contribute to their team by “creating space” which means being able to engage a certain area, resist and/or neutralize damage and impose a damage threat / damage pressure on enemies.

You can’t just ignore a B.O.B., he engages, he calls attention, he resists damage and he applies a damage pressure. Everything you need to dominate a certain space.

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