Why is Tank Unpopular?

General Discussion
1

Is it becuase they have to put up with so much CC? Is it that they’re straight up boring? Is it because they are the only role who has a hero who is literally designed to counter them?

Whatever it is we need to pin point it and get rid of it, not just for tanks but for anyone who has to deal with those horrible que times.

We now have this post, I suggest you check it out

11 Likes
2

There is no pin to point. It’s a mix and mash of things:

  • Lack of individuality: You need help to even consider doing your job. You can DPS on your own, but your can’t tank on your own.
  • Lack of individuality 2.0: Mei, Reaper, Doom and Sombra. Tanks are hard countered just like Brig deleted Tracer, except as a DPS your can switch to deal with that, tanks cannot. All you can do when those heroes are in game is yell “focus hero X” on voice chat and hope your team cares. That’s the ultimate feeling of powerlessness in a power fantasy game.
  • Excessive CC: We had a massive increase in CC over the years, not only 8 out of 10 new heroes had CC, and 5 of them had more than 1 CC and a hard stun by the way, we also saw multiple buffs to already existing CCs. There were some nerfs too, but not nearly enough. To lose control of your hero is very frustrating, particularly when it’s your job to create space and push up onto better position.
  • Global Armor nerfs: Did literally nothing to improve sustained DPS viability, but made tanks heroes even more reliant on healing.
  • Lucio speed nerf: Frogboy enables half the tank roster, not even being hyperbolic, it’s Rein/Zary and Winston/Dva. It speaks to the first point of lack of individuality, but it also means the already limited roster gets even smaller because of viability concerns.
  • Speaking of limited rosters: There’s 4 main tanks if you count Hammond, only 2 of which are frontliners. Rein needs to be run with Zarya, Winston with Dva. Once more, it speaks to the lack of individuality, but also to the limited numbers. We need alternatives to those synergies.
  • Limited aesthetics: Who would rather be in a power fantasy, a slender nurturing support, a big fat bullet sponge or a badass ninja cyborg with a gosharn dragon spirit? Yeah, it speaks for itself. We need new tanks and support that break the mold and are more varied and don’t look like the archetype.
  • Poor feedback and UI: Medals, cards, POTG, the interface… They all suck and reward eliminations much more than anything else in this game. It’s the biggest problem in Overwatch if you ask me. People play wrong because the game tells them to and on top of that, tanks and supports gets far less positive feedback than pew pews.
90 Likes
3

Okay i’m going to drop my over 900hours+ Tank player opinion here.

You know how much as the DPS players likes to switch from heroes, to counter the enemy team.

For example your current DPS team comp is Junkrat + Reaper, but you as DPS player noticed that the enemy team has a Pharah and a Tracert, and the first thing that comes up to your mind is swap to mccree and the second DPS player is swapping to Soldier76 to counter the enemy team.

Well that is exact the problem at the tank department. You have no variety anymore like you do in DPS or Support, and the reason behind it is, that the tank that should counter that specific hero has been nerfed because of GOATS. And the balance changes have not been reversed.

Tank Heroes you barely see now.

  • Reinhardt
    Reinhardt had a problem since the beginning. You can bully him literally and figuratively as a voleyball, and you can puncture it afterwards. And what I mean by this is SUPRISE… There is to many CC in this game. (Btw blizzard, the new ability Steadfast didn’t fix his issue)
  • Winston
    Winston is a victim of Armor nerfs
    Reaper buffs.
    Mei buffs.
    Brigitte. And he himself never had a buff.
    Lucio nerfs
  • Dva
    Same story. Dva is also one of the victim of Armor nerfs.
    Defense matrix nerfs
    Reaper buffs.
    Mei buffs.
    Brigitte.
    Lucio nerfs
  • Roadhog has the same reasons as Dva and Winston.

And if you do play Winston or Dva you are literaly just feeding your brains out, and end up in a lost match.

  • Wrecking Ball has less issues and people are still playing him.
  • Sigma is Overpowered and has less issues.
  • Zarya is still okay. But Reinhardt is left for dead by these balance changes and she has no partner anymore. But people still do play her at some cases.

So in short. People don’t want to play tank anymore (Including me with a lot of hours) because there is barely heroes I can choose and enjoy the match because they have been nerfed to the ground?

I prefer to hop in the Support queue and win matches because Im good at it too, then getting mad about tanking frustrations because there is no other option, than just follow the current meta and leave the other tanks for DEAD.

Thats my take.

Daredevil ex-tank player. :slight_smile:

16 Likes
4

Because nothing is more frustrating than tanking for a group of morons. And when you tank, that’s what happens more than half of the time.

9 Likes
5

Lots of things:
Only a few tanks are viable at any given time
Rigid pairing system
Mei refreezing
Team dependency
Needing so much dang healing
Dps has Genji, tanks have Orisa.

6 Likes
6

When you have dps heroes bursting them down so fast. They’re nothing more than ultimate feeders like Roadhog for an example. I don’t think dps heroes should be nerf, but perhaps tanks need to have more appealing gameplay to their kits. Buff their defense like all tanks takes lesser incoming damage by 25%.

1 Like
7

Why dont we make a megathread and blow this problem/issue to Blizzard HQ.

1 Like
8

^^imo, playing tank feels like it’s so much easier to get taken advantage of compared to being a supp or damage

then again, maybe i’m missing the point

idk

1 Like
9

Because if you want to queue Tank and something else, you always get Tank.

If it was closer to 50/50, then people would Queue Tank more.

If Tank+DPS have you a 50/50 chance to get into an express DPS queue.

You’d get a lot more Tanks.

(Wonder if they could limit this to players with Tank skill very near or above their DPS skill rating).

10

For me The aover reliance on Rein on most maps, the D.Va nerfs, and Hog nerfs. Armor nerfs to a lesser degree.

1 Like
11

You removed my point.

And what I mean by this is SUPRISE… There is to many CC in this game. (Btw blizzard, the new ability Steadfast didn’t fix his issue)

And this is exactly what makes him unfun and frustrating to play. And they added even more CC by introducing Sigma.

1 Like
12

I’ve never had this as an issue, I have about 150 hours on tank and I’ve always thought it was a really stupid complain.

Like just run from her, if you can atleast, other wise dont just sit there and die, shoot her

13

o

am curious

what kind of changes would you make to rein?

14

Tank is unfun beca STUNNED
Tank isn’t popular becaus STUNNED
Tank is STUNNED
T STUNNED
STUNNED
Do you see the point I’m trying to STUNNED

14 Likes
15

You act like Brigitte is supposed to be an issue for Tanks now. She can’t frontline anymore even if she wanted to.

16

My gripe is that tanks are high demand so if I go with the flow being a tank is like a ball and chain, I’m not properly enjoying the game because I’m one of the few that will suck it up and play tank and this happens too often.

17

I used to not mind freeze at all, but its been buffed a lot since then and now its way too common for freezes to be chained without even using Ice Wall. Getting frozen over and over until they finally kill you sucks, and its even worse if they don’t even try to finish you, just annoying you with the freeze.

4 Likes
18

CC is an issue. No fun having to run away from certain characters as rein. Sometimes all it takes is one stun to kill you, and that stun is usually on a shortish cool down.

I also don’t like the way tanks hit the board at the end of the game. A Genji gets an epeen boost for good ults all game. Reinhardt gets almost nothing for shutting down Genji ults all game.

2 Likes
19

Viable tanks (Orisa and Sigma) nowadays are just boring to play, and they enforce slow and static gameplay.

To me barriers are boring. Tanks like Hammond, Zarya, Hog or even D.va are the ones in the right place.
They create space by being very resilient as well as menacing, they disrupt or protect actively, they don’t just sit there with their barrier up while their team shoots through it.

1 Like
20

There are only two options right now:

The tanks that are viable are boring as all hell.

The tanks that are fun to play get worked over hard.

It’s painful either way.

3 Likes