But its not though. Tanks still die incredibly fast now, and really that should say something.
Are we watching the same game? Even with all this stuff, you can see with your own eyes that we have a tanking problem. Maybe not in higher ranks, but that’s still most of the player base and game that tanks just can’t preform like they need.
Again, its time we address reality here. Tanks have all this stuff to tank POTENTIALLY, but in REALITY its not really working out.
Tanks have to die. They can protect themselves from focus-fire for only so long. Within Overwatch’s fast pacing, spending an eternity blocking or negating thousands of points of damage and still living through that is unbalancing. Especially given that the current composition formats of 2/2/2 want Tanks to be equal to that of the Damage and Support roles.
OW2 can make them bulkier, but only by so much. Tanks already have a lot of perks afforded to them. They cannot be invincible.
they should stop designing “more supports like Mercy” with auto-land abilities and AoE abilities. It’s an FPS game, not 100% of a character should be mechanics, but most characters should have a heavy mechanical component because that’s what discriminates a gold player from a GM. Anyone, both gold and GM can press the Junkerqueen overheal because it’s a noob mechanic.
the idea is that you need to be efficient with your cooldown usage on top of mechanically skilled to climb as a tank, if you give tank players characters like Sigma or Hog, who are nearly unpunishable because of too strong damage mitigation abilities and nearly infinite HP pools and cooldown cycling capabilities… you have a problem and you spoil the tank playerbase and also create bad players with 0 gamesense.
I get that cooldown usage is supposed to be important, but several Tanks still get bursted down before this happens. Especially in a solo tank environment.
Besides that, what about hero’s line Reinhardt who only has a shield that devs keep weakening? So, Sigma can rotate his shield and DM, but Rein only has a shield they keep weakening, so what do you do?
Answers like “Well, use Charge to get to cover!” aren’t great answers because its incredibly easy to just be shot anyway while charging, and ideally, a high health target shouldn’t be so weak that he has to play cover hopping. That answer even implies TANKS can’t TANK damage.
I understand that
And of course
But these answers seem to ignore something:
If Tanks can’t tank damage, and have to rely on abilities to avoid the damage, they aren’t tanks. They can’t tank damage at all since they’re reliant on cooldowns, and furthermore, if you make a 150 HP hero with a shield and a DM, they’re about as much of a tank as a 500 HP hero with that shield and DM. That’s a problem.
And that’s not to mention heroes like Winston who has to RUN AWAY from danger when his bubble pops. What kind of tank is that?
if you find yourself running out of resources as a tank, it means you need better cooldown discipline. Not asking for buffs for the strongest role in the game.
Every hero is balanced around you using the whole kit, and Rein’s shield is not the only part of his kit. Still, he has 1600 HP shield vs 700 of Sigma. The idea of Rein is closing the gap and getting as many swings in as possible, if the enemy prevents you from doing that you are either countered or a bad Rein.
no you are supposed to walk up, not charge, or charge in such a way that the enemy can’t burst you down during the charge. If you walk up properly and understand that HP is also a form of shield (most Reins below masters don’t understand that feeding in moderation is actually good), then you can close the gap with enough resources to do damage.
Correction: BAD tanks can’t tank damage. It’s funny because Tank is a VERY easy role when you compare it to what you need to do on DPS or in other games like CSGO/Valorant. The problem is that Blizzard literally spoiled tank + support playerbase by giving them “I win” heroes that win by just existing in many metas (Mercy, Brig, 2x shield etc.).
So even as easy of a concept of “use HP to bodyblock part of the damage” is too hard for your average tank player. Like I spectate Diamond tank players in queue when I play on my troller account, and it’s really sad that what I see is Diamond tank gameplay. I see horrible mistakes like Sigma using Grasp at start of teamfight (which smart DPS/offtanks will rush you down and trade 1 for 1 or 1 for 0 if they see you do that), I see Rein players swinging hammer into the air for 80% of their swings cuz LhCloudy does that and it looks COOL AF!
Honestly in my opinion how Diamond tanks play should be how a Gold tank plays, which speaks miles of how easy the role is if people with such low gamesense can climb to Diamond, I can only imagine how bad gold/silver tanks are.
You are meant to tank damage together with your 2nd tank and the rest of the team too, in general you should take a fight when your DPS are in position to take DPS duels (so enemy DPS don’t shoot you as much), when your 2nd tank is in position to play with you…
Also why do tanks below like 3300 never walk together? I see literally like 60% of the time, one tank goes left lane, the other goes right lane, they are on Sigma + Hog vs Zarya + Hog (Sigma + Hog is the better tank duo), but since they play separated, the enemy tanks just 2v1 each tank and win.
Is it too hard to understand that some tanks cycle cooldowns in unison, e.g. in case of Sigma + Hog, the comp is strong because you can chain the stuns (Rock into Hook or viceversa) which generally is enough to kill 1 tank with little assistance from DPS?
Also I should add that tank isn’t as flexible a role as say DPS, while it’s possible to 1 trick any tank to masters, probably even to GM, you should be aware which tank is good when. You should also be aware of which tank is countered by what. For example, Sigma is a rly strong tank (some would say OP), and he is good vs basically any comp. But are you aware of what the hardest heroes to beat as Sigma are? Ranked from 1 to 4?
Winston is the tank that requires the most gamesense and positional awareness to succeed, no wonder it’s the one you struggle with the most!
Post your tank replays here I’m 3.6ish tank player I can diss you and tell you what you do wrong.
If DPS blow through your shield so you have to stop using it, what do you do next as Reinhardt? You’re trying to push with your team to take the payload, but your shield can’t survive, so then what? Hope you’re near map geometry to hide behind? What if you aren’t?
Look, I know you’re saying
But this has not worked. The state of tanks are bad, and everyone knows it. Years of treating tanks like they’re the “strongest” role has only harmed Overwatch, so no, its time to make tanks tanky.
What is fire strike and charge going to do to help you push forward? Reinhardt will die if he charges forward away from his team, and he will die if he drops his shield to fire strike. Seriously, before we talk about tanking any further, answer me that.
You’re saying “Rein’s not using all of his abilities” but his other abilities have historically gotten him killed in the simple scenario of pushing forward. He needs his shield to move up, its all he has to tank with.
Also
This is called “Tanking damage” and no, you can’t just health tank because you’ll get blown away.
No.
You know, if I knew you were one of these players, I wouldn’t have continued the discussion this far. Somehow, you think the tanks are the strongest, and the easiest role, and Rein can just push forward with his weakened shield against buffed DPS. Ok, sure.
I would like to see you play Reinhardt before I take a single word of anything you posted serious.
I literally wrote it in the last post, you use your shield, cover, and your HP all together to extend your shield health. That way you have enough resources to close the gap. Rein is a hero that relies a lot on playing the right position, typically corners are your best friends but there are also “right and wrong corners”. I can’t fathom how you have this mindset of “I maxed out my skill and THE GAME IS THE PROBLEM” instead of having humility to improve and willingness to learn. You are probably like a plat tank, isn’t it natural to assume YOU can get better and the game is not at fault? After all, how do other tanks climb? If other tank players can climb, clearly they do something right, and if they are often in the killfeed, it means it’s possible to carry as a tank.
No, only plat and below delusional players who have been spoiled by tanks being SUPER BROKEN in past metas (s22, GOATs and such) think tank is weak LOL. Tank is still strong, it’s not super OP anymore but still strongest role. Tank players need to adapt and get good and stop pretending to 1v6 every lobby with W + M1 action like in the past.
Ok so first of all, tank is still the strongest role, for what it’s worth, many tanks got buffed, for example Hog is overall stronger than in past metas, Sigma is basically very minorly weaker than at release (and at release he was super broken), Orisa overall got buffed, Dva got many buffs to DM, re-mech damage etc. The myth that tank gets nerfed always is a myth, in truth Blizzard mixes both buffs and nerfs and overall Blizzard is very lenient with nerfing tank because they understand its playerbase is very casual.
100% fine with that if we nerf their damage by 50%, right now, “tank” in OW is basically a fat DPS, idk if you guys played WoW, how tank played in WoW days but make no mistake, IN OVERWATCH TANK = FAT DPS and every tank plays as such (with exception of Winston possibly).
If tanks need to be “tanky”, they need to stop dealing so much f***ing damage.
if you want coaching on how to play Rein, you can pay me and I can teach you Rein. I can’t explain to you all the nuances of when you close the distance with pin, when you walk, when you hold shield and when you trade 1 for 1. You need to assess the overall situation and it’s impossible to give a recipe of how to succeed as tank in a short text.
3rd time I’m writing this, you use shield, AND cover, AND your HP, if you use all 3 correctly, you can close the distance and be a threat, if you use 2, you can probably still get diamond, if you use 1 of 3, you are a bad Rein.
so you are hardstuck plat, and you maximized your understanding of the game and you are stuck plat CUZ THE ROLE IS WEAK?
How do other tank players climb then?
Also you are aware that you can swap heroes? Rein isn’t the hero you MUST play the full game, there are also other heroes in the game. Rein isn’t particularly strong atm especially in high elo, and in low elo when they have a ton of poke/long range/flanky heroes he isn’t ideal, either.
I am not sure why plat tanks have such a b*ner for Rein. It’s literally 1 of most boring tanks and also 1 of the tanks with the most situational kit. Try out Winston, Orisa, Sigma, Hog, those are “the good tanks”.
DPS overall are in a weaker state compared to what they were in s22.
Tracer: 3m less range before falloff and 50 less damage on bomb (important vs Zarya, Bastion, Sigma who no longer get 1 shotted)
Cassidy: big nerf, 30% damage instead of 50% at max range is a big deal vs Phara and also vs all supports.
Ashe: got many nerfs, in s22 ish iirc she could 1 shot with pocket.
Widow: nerfed
Hanzo: nerfed
Echo: nerfed
Soldier: overall buffed compared to s22
Genji: nerfed
Pharah: buffed compared to s22 (but the buff to Phara doesn’t matter for tank mains it’s more annoying to play vs her as DPS and support after the buff)
but sure DPS “constantly gets buffed” 
I asked you to post a replay so that I can teach you to play tank. This is already very generous of me and if you don’t wanna use this opportunity that’s fine. I’m not gonna play tank for you to prove a point, because:
a) I’m not a tank main
b) I don’t particularly enjoy playing tank (especially lately) for several reasons including me being a solo queue player and not enjoying playing with a Hog 2nd tank every game and also having many boosted players in my elo that prevent me from playing the tank I actually enjoy (Dva and Winston)
c) I hate Rein and it’s a dog**** hero I am LITERALLY NOT SURE why low elo players love this hero so much, he looks horrible, his gameplay is very boring and if you understand the game at high level he is literally 1 of easiest heroes to counter. Oh yeah he also takes infinite support resources to keep up when countered and support resources are normally better spent on enabling DPS (when possible). If you want to grief a masters+ lobby next time you queue QP, go Rein everyone will hate you.
This is how it has been since Anas introduction. Tanks and supports dictate the metas, it will never be the DPS who dictates the meta and it shouldn’t be either, but balancing this MMO style 3 role system is becoming ridiculous at this point and I think if they want to have any semblance of competitive integrity then they will eventually drop the concept of roles entirely lol.
I know you wrote that in your last post, but my post either literally stated, or implied that Rein has a high chance of dying if he does this. Its the same reason you can’t just drop your shield to fire strike; any team with DPS that knows to wait for this will either kill you, or damage you to the point where you can’t press W anymore.
If this happens over and over again, you end up with that tank that never leaves the choke.
Again, to reiterate, I’m aware of what you said, but I’m saying trying this does not go to plan more often than not.
No, Tanks are weak to majority of the player base. The only ones who think different are
A.) players that literally master playing the characters.
B.) People who uncritically listen to those people who master those characters.
Here’s an example:
Samito himself has a lot of people saying Brig is OP. But what most people don’t know is that Samito is an incredible good OW player (I’m serious, most people just thinks he’s a manchild for some reason), AND he spent a lot of time saying Brig is OP. Most of us will never play Brig on his level for a variety of reasons, so for majority of the player base, Brig is not a problem. Yet, he had or has people thinking Brig is some scary raid boss support. Its to the point where the forum’s opinion of Brig went from “She’s useless now and poorly design” to “Actually she’s still OP and should be nerfed or deleted” mostly because of his nonsense.
I mostly typed all of that to make what I meant obvious since you just repeated yourself initially instead of reading where I said “Rein will suffer if he tries this”; I don’t have any intention on retreading that ground.
However, I do what to point this out.
I am, or was. And I was a Rein main. Now, I know you’re going to look at my comp numbers. While you do that, you should also read the posts of me saying "I hate comp players, so I won’t play comp, and “I’ve literally been playing tank in games for years”. I’m confident in my opinion regardless of Overwatch’s frankly toxic and mishandled comp mode. Recognize that I do know a thing or two of what I’m talking about, and I’m not yet another user who just vomits stuff the pros say.
And another thing:
I don’t. I played him primarily. I can tell you more about Reinhardt than you know, so drop the arrogance and take the time to listen to me. I know first hand that Reinhardt can get heavily punished if he tries the nonsense you suggest.
you don’t rly die to Firestrike and the “funny clips” that Flats shared to cry about MT being OP are the exception, not the rule. More generally, you aren’t meant to play 1 character the full game, especially in the 4k-4.2k lobbies that Plats plays in, Rein is easily countered and going Orisa/Hog often is better vs a hard comp for Rein. Also, since you watch Plats so much, you must know that he said (I quote) “wow this role is useless” after playing DPS in Diamond for 30+ levels. This is a GM tank main who is notoriously biased in favor of tanks.
Again, good tanks can take space, I am not sure why you are so stubborn on assuming you are a good tank, your takes make me think you are like 2700 ish, why can’t you just accept that you are the problem and not the game?
Because Tank as a role is about hitting certain timings. Since the role isn’t mechanically demanding, it’s gamesense-intensive. If you have bad gamesense you always will feel that you don’t get healed, your shield is broken etc.
so you propose to buff tanks so that they are strong in the hands of bad players so that they are OP in GM? Basically bring back GOATs is what you suggest?
until recently, about 20-30% of my playtime was on tank so I am not “uncritical”. Though tank is the role I care the least about, which is also part of the reason I drop to diamond on it very often, I am not “uncritical”. Most games I watch are in principle winnable. Me losing them very often boils down to me not logging a huge amount of games on tank, and funnily, when there is a weak link on my team that costs us the game, it’s always my 2nd tank. It’s very rare that my DPS are trolling on Genji + Widow and not hitting their shots or something. If a Genji does bad, he swaps. It’s literally always the Hog instalock that never swaps in spite of feeding. Funny how the biggest hurdle to climbing on tank, is having to deal with other tanks (including enemy tanks forcing e.g. double shield).
OW is not that hard, it’s mostly an “accumulated knowledge” type of game. Once you understand the ins and outs of the game, you can be very average mechanically and climb to very high ranks. I am not saying Samito is bad, I like him as a person and as a player but let’s not pretend he is some ScreaM level of aim god, either.
Brig is strong both in low and high elo. Just in low elo, people can’t rly play her properly. You need to SYSTEMATICALLY hit your Shift ability and also strike a very good balance between greed and being conservative.
yes and it’s a bad meta for Rein, because Hog is very strong and Hog counters Rein (as well as Zen Echo Phara etc. which are also very meta heroes). So play Winston until OW2 is out? Or Hog or Orisa idk.
But rly even if Rein is bad, I see ZERO reason to struggling on Rein until low masters. The level in Diamond is VERY low, people don’t rly play Hog as a tank killer in diamond, Zen players position very badly and you never see strong Rein counters like Tracer, Echo etc.
so you judge tank balancing according to, uh, quickplay?
So far I am fairly sure you are in 2300-2700 elo bracket, where I think tanks are very horrible. The first rank where I see tanks do some good things is maybe 3300 ish. You also admitted you are a Quickplay player and you want to be taken seriously…
until masters, they simply don’t focus fire enough, and pick appropriate heroes enough to punish Rein. You can get away with playing very badly and winning games.
imho they should at the start work close with pros which aren’t playing in owl.
owl players might be biased especially knowing other teams strengths
once its ensured its balanced for owl they can check down the ranks while always having an eye on pro level.
dps are often balanced on ladder through aim which often goes kinda okayish across the ranks and improves.
Here I played 2 Rein games for you in “Quickplay”.
Game 1: Replay code: MZXKDS
2nd tank was 3400 player.
Enemy tanks, flat 3k Hog and private profile Sigma. Enemy supports are masters, DPS I reckon diamond ish.
My supports diamond, my DPS probably low plat. Loss. They run full counter Rein comp, overall this game they have more high SR players than my team (particularly the DPS and supports), so to win I would have to go Sigma. Still I play Rein as efficiently as possible and bait as many ults as possible and as much attention as possible. Unfortunately not every game is winnable, not on a situational tank like Rein in a ~masters QP lobby.
Anyway not every game is winnable not on Rein.
This is a game where if you want to win you want to go Orisa, Sigma, heroes like that. Enemy team actually played not bad (the comp they played is extremely easy to play so I can’t praise them, either), but basically they all stay at range and take vantage points. It’s the strategy known as “poke” and notice how they have 2 poke supports (Zen + Mercy) which makes their amplified damage skyrocket. This game was a bit of DPS diff but at the same time I’m griefing on Rein so you can’t blame DPS either when you have 1 useless hero in the team. Vs Poke comp you generally want to play a full meta comp (e.g. Rush or Dive), or go Poke comp back.
Game 2: Replay code: KB4NEZ
2nd tank is a plat ball.
enemy tanks are, low diamond Hog from last game, plat Sigma. I didn’t check profiles but this is a plat game. I would say, teams are very evenly matched here, notice how my DPS die first 3 teamfight AT THE START OF THE FIGHT but still we manage to win. Notice also that my Ball does LITERALLY NOTHING but roll around and be useless, proof how you don’t need a good team to win plat games as a Rein player
Notice how much time I spend:
a) denying enemy tanks (trying to get into melee range of Sigma whenever possible where Rein is strong 1v1 since I’m weak at range)
b) denying the Hog (broken hero and I often die to him but overall it’s worth to die like 50% of the time and rest of the time bait out his hook than play scared and your team gets hooked. A VERY BIG RULE ON TANK IS NOT BE SCARED OF DYING especially vs a high carry hero like Hog you should on average trust your supports and DPS to be able to capitalize on the space you gain from denying the Hog.
I am not a Rein main and in fact I get outplayed by whole Hog at end of the game (nano Whole Hog kills me I thought I would get Shatter off and this is due to me being slightly late on the shatter, like I said I hate Rein it’s 1 of my least played heroes), but overall notice how much time I spend:
a) scouting (I walk left and right to make sure the Hog isn’t flanking but other heroes as well)
b) denying tanks
c) denying DPS/supports from sneaking on the flank vs my team (first round especially I eat like 3 Cassidy stuns and live though it because I use cover correctly and wait patiently with shield after I take the stun). Overall denying tanks from sneaking on your team is more important but denying DPS flanking is equally important, unless it’s some DPS you absolutely can’t deal with like Tracer.
d) trying to bait out ults (it’s better to not die to ults but if you manage to bait 2-3 ults and die at the end it’s generally worth to sacrifice MT to bait out that many ults). Notice in round 1 how the Sigma tilt solo ults me because he is tired of getting hammered, I patiently wait with shield up to get healed and manage to live the ult (a bit lucky that I was above HP threshold but nonetheless this is how you get value on tank, imagine I don’t bait this ult and he ults my Ana + Mercy instead).
Also notice how much I try to claim space. In R2 I nearly walk into their spawn and as a result MY DPS + SUPPORTS can take Jail (to the left), can take point and OVERALL CAN WALK FREELY AROUND THE MAP TO POSITION WHERE THEY WANT. Not taking all space available is the #1 mistake even Diamond tanks make and I think a Diamond tank would not necessarily win this 1st fight because you would be scared of Hog/Cassidy or something.
Overall this is gameplay from a bad Rein player, my Rein is probably mid Diamond, masters on a good day, like I said I play other tanks in masters but notice how stuff people commonly complain about, e.g. Mercy, stun + FTH, Hog hook etc. notice how I try to bait them out and outplay them.
Now I’m sure this post will either get ignored, or you will find a million “yes but…”, your Ana was healing you, “yes but…” you got nano’d etc. etc., basically high on copium that the issue isn’t you but your bad teammates/bad Blizzard balancing, like common among low elo players.
Out of good heart/faith I even posted the game I lost, I could have removed this game and show that I have a 100% winrate but in the spirit of honesty I showed also what a game where Rein is bad looks like too.
That means char is strong, aim rewarded. Need more heroes with consistent oneshots, or this game would be goats forever.
I think a new hero can and should shake things up and should do it regularly.
Stabilising into metas for more than a few months of the same few heroes in every match is boring.
You act like this has never happened before. Pretty much every single support/tank DLC character has dictated the META in the past with the exception of I think Hammond.
People always cry why there are so many DPS DLC heroes and it’s because they are much easier to add without completely uprooting the META. The power creep of support DLC heroes compared to the vanilla ones is insane where prior to them, supports were much more ability based. Then every DLC support hero comes flying out with invincibility, anti heal, the best CC in the game, all while having 4-5x the healing of any vanilla support.
Remember launch Sigma? 1600HP shield instant cast with a CC with massive HP pool with defence matrix? Orisa was the same all nulfying Reins existence.
I wish they would go back to characters having very clearly defined strengths and weaknesses, I’m tired of them making new characters “good in every situation”. The point of the game is to know when to play to your strengths, not having one thing work everywhere and against everything. Look at Rein, he has very clear strengths and weaknesses and he is still a lot of fun! That is what should be the foundation of their philosophy for hero creation, not “make everything the best at everything and then release something new that’s even better”.
Oh, we are back to blaming tanks for goats. I thought the community was finally back on track blaming supports. Oh well.