OW2 was a huge patch update to make the game easier and more enjoyable for dps.
Supports got buffs and new heroes that significantly improved their survival and damage output.
And tanks lost their backup. Now, there’s an extreme amount of pressure and responsibility on just this one player to lead the engagement, withdraw, and take the risk of putting themselves out there. Usually only to die because dps and supp are too scared and confused to follow up.
It’s no wonder tanks are in decline. No one wants to play a role that disproportionately has more stress for less reward.
supp>dps>tank when it comes to roles but when it comes to the characters themselves dps have the worst unless you play widow/hanzo/pharah/echo/tracer
the only currently playable tank is jq because it’s very op
I don’t have any fun playing dps or tank unless I play op characters because the rest is too weak
ov2 made it much easier to play for supp not dps
supps are rewarded just for being in this game and they ruin the game for dps and tanks e.g. zen will use discorb orb and that’s enough
on this forum 95% of people have max plat and they will think that supps are weak or balanced but they are not especially that gm even complain that supps are too op and just playing this role is boring because you are rewarded for just being in the game
I think all three roles have some pretty heavy drawbacks:
the tanks have a heavy responsibility, their pick greatly determines the strategy of how the team will move. if they die first the rest of the team loses much of the stability;
supports, having to fill 2/5 of team slots, have a serious variety problem. they are really too few, and situations arise in the roster where it is not at all easy to have the right pick. moreover it is the role that receives stress in managing healings and utilities at the same time;
dps have advantage in variety and elimination of cc. but the new elements around the roster (kiriko’s cleanse, JQ’s ultimate, LW’s grip) are starting to make them very obsolete. we won’t see new dps ‘at least’ until season 10, really a long time for the role that has more advantages in the fps view.
but rather than in the role, the real problem for me is that the arcade mode should have more help in order not to find excesses caused exclusively by the balancing thought on 5v5 / 1-2-2
The way this game is designed means that every role has the potential to be miserable and stressful.
It relies way too heavily on teammates, and the moment there’s a weak link, that person gets flamed into oblivion because it means the team is only as strong as that weak link. Pretty poor game design if you ask me.
Short answer, Tanks, at least when playing with randoms.
I haven’t been playing the game for very long and didn’t play OW1, but I can say that the tank role, at least from the standpoint of a new player, feels very bad. I’ve had games where my team knows how to follow through when I go on an attack and back me up, but more often than not, people run off and do their own thing. No matter what team I play the first role a person is apt to blame in the tank. The slow moving easy to hit target with usually little to no mobility desperately trying to find a way to people on his team who are all spread out all over the map getting ganged up on by the whole enemy team does not feel good.
I try to do what seems to be my job: start engagements, put down protections (if I have them) try to pick if the opportunity arises, push forward to create space for my team around objectives and choak points, and retreat to a safer position when the fight is going badly and we need to regroup. I main tank in OW’s main ‘competitor’, Paladins, and do very well there. I also main tanks in Smite, so I know what needs to happen when playing the role, I have an understanding of the concepts of the role.
The first one people will pin the blame on when the game goes wrong is the tank player. It’s very disappointing when I’m doing everything I can, but all the support are off doing their own thing, all of the damages are trying to solo stuff, and I’ve got shields they could take advantage of but they aren’t around. Playing tank feels like being pulled in three different directions with little to no pay off when things go well.
Maybe this is a problem with the player base, but game design should find ways to encourage players to team up and play together as the team they are suppose to be. This game does nothing of the sort, and when tanks depend on their team for success, it feels bad.
Part of the reason Overwatch 1 died is because tank was so miserable to play so let’s not play make-believe here.
Higher break-points on tank HP coupled with defensive CDs, more available healing and (depending on the tank) the presence of armour make them far less vulnerable in 5v5. Heck as long as your supports are alive, and you don’t LOS them, or play stupidly you have far more play-making potential than tanks did in 6v6.
In Overwatch 1 killing tanks first was absolutely viable. In Overwatch 2 it’s basically impossible unless you’re isolated in a bad dive or wildly overextended. Sure you don’t have tank synergy, but people talk up tank synergy as if it was in every game when this just isn’t true.
The only common synergy was Zarya/Rein on King’s Row or double shield, but double shield wasn’t even a thing at the end of Overwatch 2. Most people were playing some combination of Ball, d.Va, Winston or Hog, and playing them no differently to DPS because unless you were playing full bunker or holding corners with Rein on a narrow map like King’s Row tanks were actually too fragile to focus primarily on taking and holding space.
Tank is the worst role period. You need to make space, pick engagements, pick disengagements, kill, and peel. You can be a really good tank and still lose every fight to a team that has good supports. Worse if OW puts you in a game where you are completely outclassed then its a guarantied loss.
Seeing as tank has the fastest queue times it seems like many others don’t like playing tank either.
It’s between dps and tank.
Support is by far the best/strongest role in the game rn it’s not even close lol.
mercy zen bap ana kiriko lucio are all amazing at what they do.
Tank: To much presure, typically the deciding factor of the game.
Supports: With one less tank to hide behind and sniperwatch your constatly targeted more then in OW1. Also the pressure to keep tank alive since tanks are the deciding factor of most games.
Dps: They love the removal of a tank, they love 5v5, overwatch 2 is DPS dream
I despise OW2 because of how counter-pick reliant it’s become in comparison to OW1. I literally only play DPS. 5v5 was a mistake. They promised the game would be less reliant on counter-picking. Not more reliant lol
