Why Tanks don't feel like Tanks

[DeadSpace-11845]

@infamous067-1730

Does anyone feel they have good impact when playing rein and having to focus on managing his shield rather than getting kills?

Ever drop your shield just before it breaks, only to flick it back up the second the enemy Rein tries to shatter? In that second, you are the sexiest man alive.

[infamous067-1730]

Lol yeah thats always a sight to see, the problem comes when the rein is facing other characters that can just straight up melt him or bypass his shields. Sigma for example is very similar to rein however he has what rein wishes he had, a way to fight with his shield up. Sigma just does a ton of damage which allows him to get his own kills without relying on dps or any help from supports. Rein? The guy has it tough, unless you are getting pumped with heals as you try and push, its difficult to get much value vs an enemy comp able to deal a ton of burst damage. you would be forced to shield a lot which is why sigma is just better, rein also cant do anything about higher ground enemies whereas sigma can shoot them down himself.

Im not saying rein is bad, he’s still a strong character but you wont feel much value by yourself compared to tanks like hog, sigma, zarya or ball. Whenever I played tank, I felt most value when I knew my ana had my back and a lucio would speed boost me any time I got nanoed. Rein on his own? Not really much of a threat, thats what im trying to point out.

[LOL21h-2934]

I think you mean specially D.Va, with that truck-sized hitbox you can cut through her like she’s paper.

[PopOfAfrica-1765]

@Poytheon-1466

You have at the very least triple the health pool of the rest of your team. You just have to use it wisely, because walking into damage will still get you killed

You are literally a giant walking frontline expected to tank the enemy fire. There is simply not enough health given that job

[Nibelung-1264]

@Jez-21900

Do the developers change what Overwatch IS, and thus have to change HOW many heroes play. Or do they stop this SICK OWL PRO TWITCH CLIP 1000MPH CLIP-IT MADNESS (Sponsored by Cheez-it Grooves) and re-learn why Overwatch was fun in the first place?

I’ve been thinking that since they gutted the Defense role and made a blob “Damage” role that was basically “you don’t have 400 HP nor a reliable source of party healing” instead of keeping the more nuanced offense/defense roles.

I was sure about this way when they implemented role queue, something that Overwatch was never supposed to support in the first place, and that at the start they directly told us that the roles were just broad strikes for new players, but in reality you need to judge the pros and cons of each individual hero and how it fits into the team strategy. Solidifying the game structure to demand 2-2-2 killed most of the hybrid characters overnight, and the ones that survived got nerfed in the following months because people complained they were “role X in disguise of role Y”.

For me, the PvP portion of the game is dead and will remain like that if they want to keep things like that. I’m only still holding hope for OW2 because I’m really interested in what the PvE campaign will be.

[Poytheon-1466]

@PopOfAfrica-1765

You are literally a giant walking frontline expected to tank the enemy fire. There is simply not enough health given that job

If you pump tanks with enough stats you stop needing the help of your DPS/Supports

This is what happened with Goats. Tanks were overloaded with stats & DPS became irrelevant, even with buffs

[FFirebrandd-1844]

@SaintTHICC-2728

Tanks are only as Tanky as shields and supports allow them to be. The only two Tanks that really go against this grain is Wreckingball and Roadhog. Both of these two are considered more fun, and I believe that is due to their self sustain being in their own hands.

This is it exactly. There’s a reason that I was more willing to solo tank on Brigitte 1.X than on any of the actual tanks with the exception of Ball right before 2-2-2 dropped. That reason being that they didn’t need a healer strapped to them 24/7 to actually tank and make space.

[Hige-1101]

actually… tanks don’t feel like tanks by design… yup, devs actually said they wanted tanks to be more like roadhog than like old reinhardt, which means they want more brawly type tanks than actual defenders

This philosophy ended in Supports being the tankier role, Tanks being the DPS (cuz they can survive long enough to deal dmg) and DPS being the supports (through the little utility they get or by simply adding supporting dmg where needed), kind of odd really

[Xolarix-2276]

This is why I proposed to add lifesteal to all tanks:

Idea: give all tanks "lifesteal"

Every elimination for a tank results in the tank healing 20% of their missing HP, rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5. This healing effect can only happen once every 4 seconds. Example 1: Rein is at 100hp. He gets an elim (= kill or assist) Rein at max hp has 550 points. He regains 20% of 450 points missing = 90 hp. New value of 190 hp. Example 2: Rein is at 250hp. 20% of 300 points missing = 60. Rein heals up from 250 to 300hp, and also 10 armor. Example 3: Rein is at 300hp and 175 …

it will give a ton more sustain for tanks and supplements the supports, but it’s not ‘free’. Tanks have to get into the fight and get eliminations.
But yeah the general response was “omg terrible idea”, specifically because roadhog and wrecking ball can sustain themselves. Hog because of heal, and ball because his ballform has no critbox and speed allows to disengage and find healthpacks.

Buuuut tanks are not allowed to be tanky / hard to kill, according to the playerbase. Meanwhile said playerbase is also whining that tanks feel more like DPS and nobody knows how to play them and that the amount of tank players is too low.

Like… make a choice and stand by it I guess? I prefer tanks that actually feel like tanks, which is not what they are now. Sure they have a healthpool that is 2-3 times that of a squishy. But they’re also 2-3 times larger than a squishy and so take 2-3 times more damage because it’s almost impossible to miss shots on them.

I’d be all fine with reducing tank damage in return for tankiness and CC resistance.

Other options include to just limit tanks to 1 per team, give them like 50-60% more hp and armor, and then the additional mechanics that we also had with that experimental with 1 tank 3 dps and 2 supports.

And possibly also change armor mechanic at its core. Right now it reduces damage with 50%, up to a maximum reduction of 5 damage per shot. (so a 300 damage headshot from widow will be reduced to 295, which just makes it perfectly clear that armor is utterly pointless against the burst-damage meta that this game has been in for quite a while now.)
Instead just have it reduce damage by 33%, but no upper limit. (so a widow headshot would deal 200 damage instead of 300 to tanks that have armor)

[Jai-11977]

Yep, playing corners is essentially for Reinhardt at the moment and Zarya is dead meat without cover in the current meta. Hog needs to play cover otherwise he becomes a big ball of ult charge. Pretty much the only Tank that can sustain non-cover orientated play is Ball, which is due to his raw survivability.

[McTallagher-2932]

Been thinking about things like this too. I really think they should make healing less of a core thing in the game. Supports could have some kind of healing, but it could be made to be more of a nice to have than an essential part of a team comp if overall damage in the game was lower, or tanks were more survivable without constant healing.

I guess all this would be a massive rework to the entire game but that’s what they’re already doing right, so maybe things like this are coming.

New supports could be added who don’t do any healing but provide other defensive abilities instead and the current ones could have their healing toned down and other utilities brought out more.

[Nibelung-1264]

@Xolarix-2276

And possibly also change armor mechanic at its core.

Armor is a good mechanic against chip damage, which is most of the damage tanks will take over time. I’ve been asking for a while now that Blizzard should experiment with making Shields (aka, blue HP) be the defense against burst damage. Because of how Overwatch works, it would require some adjustments here and there, but this is my most recent proposal on the thing:

@Nibelung-1264

I would love to see at least one interaction where Shield HP act like a burst counter. Ie, as long as you have any blue HP on your bar, you can’t take damage on your white HP bar.

This, however, would require some conditionals to prevent people from just pocketing Zarya and walk with an immortal russian monster in the front of your team.

• After being protected by your shields in this way, you will get a subtle “shield breaking” animation over your character model, and this benefit will no longer apply to you until your shield HP naturally regenerate (Ie, you need to not take any damage for 3s).
  • Temporary shields, like Lúcio’s Sound Barrier, also benefit from this effect, and have their own, separated, “break” threshold. So, if, eg, Sigma uses Kinect Grasp while below 200 HP, he immediately recover his shield protection once the new shields are granted.
  • Doomfist’s The Best Defense no longer provides temporary shields. It will instead provide temporary health. Ie, grey HP instead of dark blue HP. This will prevent him from becoming an immortal beast by himself.
• Any single damage source that deal 300 damage or higher will ignore this feature of the shields. Ie, you can’t facetank a D.va Self Destruct and live just because you have shields.
• Widowmaker base damage will be reduced to 100 at full charge. While Infravision is active, her crit multiplier will raise to x3 instead of her normal x2.5.
  • (This way, Widow’s scoped shot alone will not bypass the shield protection, but she will be more lethal during Infrasight, and if wait for a full charge between shots, she will ignore the shield defense)

This way you have two defensive measures in the game. One that counter sustained damage (armor), and one that counter burst damage (shields).

[Ebookie-1527]

The issue with tanks is that it’s impossible to get a natural rhythm with them. They all seem to have some obligatory hole in their defenses that constantly puts them on edge. Their rhythm should not be disrupted by their own kit. It’s impossible to get into any sort of zone or rhythm when playing a tank - which also might explain why it’s so unpopular. It only serves to constantly put the player on edge. No matter how powerful their kit, if there is an attribute that literally exists to disrupt the player’s rhythm, it should be removed. Otherwise, that tank will never be fun to play regardless of how overpowered or underpowered they are.

I’m going to be real. Every single tank should’ve been where Sigma was. Not the other way around.

[Axafekt-1863]

Or we remove 1 shot ability, cut down on damage in general and buff main tanks

[PopOfAfrica-1765]

What happened with GOATS was adding a second AOE healer that was overturned at the right time. Take out launch Brig and GOATS falls apart. Add 2/2/2 and it’s irrelevant

[ccarlo-1692]

@SaintTHICC-2728

Tanks aren’t fun “because they’re tanks and no one will ever like them” which is the most ridiculous argument. They aren’t fun because there is no sense of autonomy. They live and die by the grace of the healers and less because they are Tanks.

Preach

healing creep in this game led to damage creep which robbed tanks of their high sustain identities. Ana, valk Mercy, Moira, Baptiste, and triple pack Brigitte are all healing dumpster heroes that go against everything support heroes were at this game’s launch. in order for tanks to get better:

• rework sigma
• nerf healing
• nerf damage
• make new tanks less dependent on teammates for heals/kills

everyday i pray that future ow2 tanks and dps will have self-sustaining abilities, and that every new support will be an off-healer. if this isn’t the case i will have very little faith that ow2 will succeed

[Tonysaurus-11686]

Orisa is about the least fun hero in the game

[Axafekt-1863]

I like main healers. You know in paladins their supports can heal up to 100k alone and they Don’t seem to be having these “healing creep” issues we have. And their tanks feel like tanks. Their dps are op BTW. Lol