We are currently , and I have accepted this, in the era of 5 v 5. 1 tank, 2 DPS, 2 support. The original intent of this “worked” I won’t say perfectly or good, but it worked. You had the tank whom took up space; the DPS in a pair that dealt out the damage; and the support that did support (I’m not a big support main so not 100% vested in their role or what they do I just know they heal).
Over the seasons, 6 in total, there has been an arms race with DPS & Support getting more and more damage to deal out w/ the tanks not keeping up the pace. Everyone wonders why the Tank role is so miserable?
You have 1 v 1 tanks, where if one tank is weaker they are automatically deemed “the reason for the whole team’s loss regardless of circumstances”
You have 2 sets of DPS Now, with most Support Characters able to keep pace if out out pace DPS Characters in Damage, plus they can heal.
New characters able to just drop a turret, ignore it and play the role of DPS while their turret is the Support while they occasionally “assist” the turret for healing.
And now we have the revival of CC (though I’m not really sure if it ever actually went anywhere).
So we have 1 tank, a role that has not changed much over the course of 7 seasons plus DPS & Support… which Support can double as another set of DPS; plus the revival of CC and beyond all that; If that tank player is deemed weaker than the other tank, they will still bear the brunt of “Tank Diff”
It’s why tank players are vanishing; why the role is dying.
Junkerqueen players when the entire team switches to counters:
Kiriko: whats… Whats with that crazed look in her eyes…
Bastion: beep boop.
Ana: shes enjoying this… Other tanks hate being counter picked why… Why is she enjoying this?
Zarya: Somethings wrong with that one… Very very wrong.
Jq: Takes orisa spear out of chestspits out bastion bullets don’t tell me your done already… Throws gracie into bastion
Yeah. I feel counter picking is a big issue. Seems tank gets the blame most of the time though even though I often think it’s the DPS who have died a lot that are the issue.
It’s not just tank counterswapping each other, certain support/dps heroes hard-countering tanks that sucks either.
Maps that give the defenders advantage like Numbani, Watchpoint: Gibraltar etc sucks to play as a tank. Because unless your DPS cares enough to clear the high ground, you have to do it yourself. And that limits your option in what tank heroes you can pick (wrecking ball/d.va/winston/doomfist).
When you need to carry your teammates due to lack of damage/picks from your DPS, it’s harder to do that with limited viable tank options constrained by the map geometry.
You can carry games pretty hard on Junker Queen or zarya for example in close-range maps. But long-range maps with long sightlines or maps that gives defenders a lot of high ground is harder to deal with for tanks.
High ground maps were still a problem even back in OW1, but less so thanks to your co-tank taking half of the attention from the enemies. Now, all the attention goes to you.
It’s a combination of 5v5 inevitably making the single tank rock paper scissors along with supports being overtuned and too crucial to what a tank is or isn’t able to do. Looking at you in particular, Ana.
Damage-role heroes have been seeing tweaks in their damage output, but it has been reducing, not increasing. Moreover, it’s not consistent across the entire role, but individual heroes. And any upward tweaks, are usually reverted fairly quickly.
Likewise, no Support has seen an increase in damage output. Or even healing outputs for that matter. Individual exceptions are noted, but needs to be consistent across the role for the statement to be true.
Individual skills matter; but Tanks are dependent on their team for a lot of things. Most Tanks are still setup to be enablers, and most players don’t really understand this, or follow-up with any sense of teamwork. Whether that be because of the mechanical challenges of their role (Damage), or because Supports are too in-attentive to care or are being challenged by the opposing team.
Many Tanks don’t really have a strong notion of how to play their roles as well. No instructions for that are found in game.
Support heroes generally have an easier time applying their damage than Damage-role heroes. It’s not clear why this is, but probably has to do with the fact that the original design templates intended for Support-heroes mandating that they be stronger than their Offense/Defense-role counterparts, and that hasn’t changed with OW2.
As for whether Support-role heroes can outpace Damage-role heroes; this technically isn’t possible. Damage-role heroes tend to have damaging abilities, higher primary weapon peaks (but more difficult shots), and ultimates that can clear out entire teams - with proper support and teamwork.
This only applies to Illari, and this only “really works” in lower skill-brackets. More skilled players can outpace the healing of the Pylon, destroy it, or effortlessly move into an enemy team whose Illari isn’t do their primary job of keeping their team alive.
It didn’t. Originally, the Defense-role had the strongest CC abilities outside the Tank-class. But since the Defense-role has merged into the Offense-role to create the Damage-role, and we haven’t seen a “defense-role”-oriented hero since Ashe, it is hard to say if there will ever be one.
Suffice to say, only Ana really causes crowd controlling issues along with Sombra. Junkrat tends to be stronger here, but few players really maximize his crowd controlling. Outside of them, Tanks are the primary sources of “hard” crowd control. And as most players are starting find, crowd control isn’t really that useful on any non-Tank. They’re fragile enough already. Better to use those cooldowns on tougher targets, like Tanks.
There hasn’t been a new Tank since Ramattra, and prior to him, Junker Queen. Both tend to be more aggressive than other, more traditional Tanks.
Finally, there’s Roadhog, who is in a barely viable state right now.
There have been changes to the existing roster, and for the most part, most Tanks still seem to be on fairly even win ratings and strong KDAs. The Damage-role still sits just under 50% for most of them, however.
Support has to divide its attention towards keeping their team alive. Failing to do that, can cause problems. One the issues with Tanking right now, is that there’s been a rash of new Supports that do not want to heal their team, or seemingly misguided on the purpose of the role. While the Damage-role heroes tend to struggle to hit something that isn’t a Tank.
This is the same problem that Overwatch hit during the GOATS-era. Damage-role becomes utterly irrelevant, while Supports and additional Tanks bring more value beyond just damage.
CC is added as a way of being able to hit more mobile heroes like enemy non-Tanks, as Damage-role heroes and Supports. Often times, these work, but as players become more familiar with the game and understanding, higher ranking players find the value of CC is more useful on Tank-targets than Damage-role heroes or Supports.
We have the fastest hero in the game, in the Tank-role, completely disabled by crowd control abilities. Other mobile heroes like Doomfist also struggle for viability amongst CC-heavy teams. Even Junker Queen, or Ramattra - who aren’t too mobile, have limited defenses against CC (despite the perks available to the Tank-role). All in all, this is a problem endemic with bringing the idea of the “tank” from MMOs into competitive games. They tend to break a number mechanics.
Junker Queen is easy to handle when you know what you’re doing to… effectively diminish her strategies and approaches. A lot of players still have very little understanding on how she works.
Blame the Supports who won’t help their Damage-role team survive.
These aren’t defender-advantaged maps.
High ground can be taken by a number of Tanks beyond the ones you just listed.
This is true. Especially when your team has no idea how to approach a Widowmaker perch, and you’re too busy trying to keep the enemy Tank contained while also pushing the objective.
Equally frustrating is when they won’t hit or kill an airborne target like Mercy, Pharah, or Echo.
Any Tank can work.
Not really. You need to know your limits, and I think a lot of Tanks want to think that they should be able to handle everything; but that can’t happen in Overwatch. Damage-role heroes need to do their job, and Supports need to help them accomplish that. As a Tank (and every other role), you can only do so much. It is a team game, after all.
Never have problems with Ana.
I do have problems with my own team’s Supports not doing their job.
Ramattra and Junker Queen can still be easily countered by swaps. You’re really over-estimating their abilities.
Tanking sucks because it relies on a support to baby you the whole game and keep you alive. They do plenty of damage, they just tend to get focused, so it’s not an easy game.
Watching mightyy/guru got me into it they literally switch to all of her counters every. Single. One.
And she just dosen’t stop… the struggling of others as they helplessly try to stop her and ate the same time everyone thinking queen is one of the weakest tanks (pre buffs mind you) she’s how I got to diamond for the first time.
It’s like watching water trying to put out a fire and all aspects of logic tells you that this should work… I like imagining the panic and fear in peoples eyes…
I am the entitled one when I am just minding my own business and everyone demands for ME to pick the tank THEY want. That is a great one, Warlock. Very hilarious. Do you write your own material?