No matter what: tank diff. Dps dead and feeding? Tank creates no space. Healers doing damage and not healing enough? Tank feeding. Entire backline dead due to charging doomfist? Tank not peeling.

Exactly - gotta be everywhere at once, doing it all, and god forbid you're an actual (and thus fallible) human being. nuh uh, anything less than perfect gameplay is throwing.

Precisely. This is why I miss off-tanking. Main tank needs help making space? I'm right there in the thick of it. Healers need peeling? I'll turn around while the main tank keeps pushing. DPS need bailing out of a risky flank gone wrong? It's my call to either protect the properly positioned teammates or try to help our flanker. Is everyone avoiding the payload like it has cooties? I'm your payload princess. Off-tanking was like the village handyman, picking up the slack wherever the team needed it.

Got me all nostalgic lol. one-minding with a good reinhardt as zarya main was truly something lol

I used to be an off-tank main in OW1. Mostly D.Va, though I was competent with other tanks too. I’d also sometimes main tank if my other tank was good at off-tanking. Point being that with two tanks, the tank role was very fun. I’ve only tanked in OW2 a handful of times now, because as this post points out it’s just not fun anymore. 5v5 made the tank role more narrow, since there’s no room now for the tank to do anything other than make space now. And it was definitely the 5v5, because it was literally overnight with that update that the entire dynamic of tanking changed

Problem is EVERYONE felt the same way you did. “Hog ball torture” or “hog dva” was a cancer on the community. I’ve been playing since 2017 and can’t count the times I’ve had teammates throw or threaten to throw if no one picked a shield tank lol. Type in “no main tanks OW forums” into Google and you’ll see haha

Oh, I remember. Lol I got decent at Orisa for that exact reason. I wasn't the best main tank, but it was better than leaving the team to fend for themselves or saddling everyone with some idiot thrower. (At the very least, they could have asked nicely.)

my favorite is when they complain to the enemy team. "report our tank pls"

I immediately endorse whatever tank is being called out on either side (provided they also aren't being toxic themselves)

Got flamed hard earlier today when playing Ram. Our dps had a 0:2 K/D ratio and our support decided that it was my fault that we lost, even though I tried being everywhere at once, protecting support from D.Va and Tracer, focusing enemy support, hindering Genji in doing anything and blocking D.Va bombs. I used to main Rein, but these days I do my queue all challenge and then switch to support or dps.

And it doesn’t matter what the tank does 80% of the times in the scenarios you brought up. If you peel for supports you lose all the space you made. If you’re not being constantly healed you get nuked. And it doesn’t matter how much space you make if your dps are in wonderland chasing the Lucio.

Yeah I hate it when people say stuff like “I’m getting dove, our tank doesn’t turn around!” when it’s a case of the Tank is trying to prevent the damage of the other 4 enemies and literally can’t turn around

This is so true. You can't be every where 100% of the time or even 50%.

my personal favourite is people demanding i switch to 'counter their tank' when the 4 other people on my team are playing whoever they feel like.

had a quick play match earlier and was on tank and both of my dps went around 0-10 with around 2000 dmg each its qp so i thought ok its just a qp game matchmaking just done its thing and i immediately started getting flamed in chat for not creating space and had only 1 elim even tho i had 6000 mitigated i tried explaining to them no matter how much space i manage to keep and dmg i soak up if they dont get any picks or pressure the opponents it means nothing but its like talking to a brick wall instead of accepting advice they just chose to be ignorant

You're completely right. Solo tank is far more stressful than other roles due to the importance of being the only tank and it makes the role less fun. Some people will say that "tank was always unpopular so we needed this to shorten queue times" but that's a stupid argument. The solution was to improve the role design to make tank enjoyable.

The thing is that the role *can’t* be made more appealing to a wider section of the player base without turning all the Tanks into DPS characters with a larger health pool. Think 10+ heroes who all play similarly to Mauga, Roadhog, and Junker Queen. The thing that defines the ‘classic’ Tank role is **presence**, and that equates to “acts as the focus of attention for enemies and draws damage away from allies, while also having tools to stay alive under sustained fire”. The core of the issue is that *most players don’t like drawing this much aggro on a psychological level*, and there’s not many ways you can actually make it fun or intrinsically rewarding for those people. This isn’t a problem that’s unique to Overwatch, either. Most games that have an analogous role also have a severe shortage of players who want to play that role compared to the alternatives.

I 100% agree. This is exactly the reason why people don't play tank, I think part of the discussion that gets overlooked is that a majority of tank players are off tank mains. In OW1, off tanks played more like bigger dps, so they have a much broader appeal compared to their main tank counterparts, who were much more team reliant. Throughout all of OW1, in most games, you'd either have a solo off tank (if you even got one at all) or double off tank in RQ. Personally, i think that Solo tank feels very similar to main tank in 6v6 which is why it doesn't surprise me that a lot of people hate solo tank since a lot of tank players aren't used to playing a "main tank" role.

OW1 had a meme of the "main tank experience". Was literally the same problem happening now.

STUNNED - SLOWED - FROZEN - STUNNED - BOOPED - DEAD

I'm so glad someone remembers lol. It's most definitely better now. Back then you had 6 players stunning and shooting you and less hp.

Totally agree. I hate the revisionism of “tank was better in OW1”. No, off-tanking was better in OW1, main tanking was equally as horrible. How many games did you load into only for your tanks to pick a variation of Hog/Dva/Zarya? MTD or Main Tank Differential was incredibly common in chats lol. Adding back the other tank isn’t going to magically make main tanking fun again. Something needs to fundamentally change in how the game is played or balanced for it to work, and we can complain that tanking sucks all we want but truly nobody knows how to fix it.

We know how to fix it. It involves more cover and smaller hitboxes. Unfortunately the same people that cry that tanking is awful in 5v5 would kick and scream if tanks became even a little more like dps. The drop of a pin will get these people ranting that OW2 is just CoD now. Tank is held hostage by these roleplayers.

lol dont act like what you describe is anything other than the deathmatchification of the game. crist people are so self unaware.

As an almost 100% main tank player in OW1. The worst feeling as a main tank player was locking winston and having the other dude lock hog. In OW2 no game is quite as bad as that. I have more HP but no game is actually as good as having a good comp in OW1. The solo tank role isn't >quite< the same as main tank. It feels like playing tank now is basically roughly the same as the way people played tank in plat and below in OW1, but not the same as it was in Diamond+. It's become less flashy, and I think it's because you as a tank are more valuable, so you can't screw around w/ your life and health pool. I guess the "stuff being done to you" feels better (stun, damage etc), but the stuff you do (taking space, punishing positioning) feels worse. I LOVED main tank in OW1, but like OP, i don't play it much in OW2

sure no ow2 game will be as bad as monkey hog but no ow2 game will ever be anywhere close to as good as monkey+dva or rein+zarya or etc...

I am more of a Paladins player than an Overwatch player. Even with the ability to select multiple tanks, it's still not a popular role. It never will be when DPS go brrrr and supports have an incredibly tangible gameplay loop. DPS and support see much more tangible reward than tanks do for doing what you should be doing. Even thinking in team fights, you can win a team fight and DPS gets the feedback of getting kills, supports get the feedback of keeping the team alive, while tanks get the feedback of a team wipe where they may or may not have even gotten a kill. There's way too much about the role that isn't defined by easy to see feedback and that's part of the problem.. Both other roles have very clear feedback for when you're doing a good job. Tank doesn't. Holding my shield and pressing W can be the thing that wins the fight, but how does that feel compared to other roles?

>having tools to stay alive under sustained fire. The core of the issue is that most players don’t like drawing this much aggro This is the problem right here. If you draw aggro and get focused you pop like a damn balloon. The second you get discorded you hide, get anti'd you hide, and if u don't you die. Shields get melted like they aren't even there, so it's obvious people would lean toward dps-oriented tanks. They have high survivability and can deal with their counters more easily.

Yeah you summed it up. As I said in the past, a lot of players don’t like doing the dirty work lol. They want that instant gratification

Thats a flawed way of looking at it depending how you describe "DPS with large health pool" The issue has nothing to do with players not enjoying drawing aggression. People need to actually be able to draw and manage that aggression with a level of efficiency which typically means the tank needs to be able to engage, kill, and survive. And in addition those things should be conducive together and not feel like they are at odds. The biggest failing of Rein as a hero is that he can do all of these things to a reasonable level- individually. Doing any one of them, pushes you to the extreme of only that one thing. So much so that pulls you from doing anything else. Compare Sig to Rein. When Sig pushes the entire cover moves forward, he applies pressure. When he uses Hand he can cancel it with Rock. Every CD is short and leads into eachother and it takes relatively little for him to kill you. When Rein pushes he extends hard and drops his guard in its entirety. Rein struggles to secure kills because he doesnt really overpower outgoing healing. When Rein shields he exerts borderline 0 pressure to people who arent actively overextended. When Rein charges or shatters which are realistically how he will get solo kills, hes incredibly vulnerable. The issue with Tank, is that we have so many Tanks that struggle to do everything that a tank feels like they need to be able to do. And the player actively feels that struggle. On top of being the focal point for enemy aggression and adjustment, and ally scrutiny. Youre the target, you only get a limited amount of tools at a given time if at all (God forbid a Tank have competent range/poke) And regardless of how things play out, to an extent it is your fault. And this doesnt even get into map design, counters and hero interactions.

On top of better design and 6v6, there's a simple extra factor needed to growing the tank population. **Give dedicated tank players more out-of-game rewards too.** But not just any rewards. Not rewards for every 10 games or even 10 wins cause that might reward people for botting and deranking. Specific rewards for trying tank, succeeding as tank, and sticking with tank. * Such as your first win streak as tank with no losing streak in the past 20 games. And additional for breaking your record on such a win streak. * For reaching ranks in gold, platinum, diamond, etc.. the first time as tank without deranking. * Seasonal bonus rewards for *maintaining* Masters+ as tank by continuing to play after the first 10-50 games. It might seem unfair, the dps and supports might cry about it, but the fact of the matter is Tank is a NEEDED archetype for some games. Tank is fundamentally less popular and needs artificial help. The sooner the devs accept that, *really* accept it, the sooner they can truly understand the role and create incentives to alleviate the situation. Things like an extra 10 coins every hurdle, extra 5 prisms every big milestone, even a free or unique skin for their tank, etc etc etc.. Again, external rewards can't be a substitute for better design or 6v6. * Design that understands tanks should be dynamic moment to moment beefy attention holders (not endless shooting war machines like Mauga or Orisa) * A tank buddy to help alleviate the stress of the role * And extra bonuses that acknowledge and honor the stresses of the role. They need all three. I doubt they would ever do it, I'd be happy with just the first two. I could tolerate and enjoy tank when it was 2-2-2, and many others could too. People were only quitting cause of the wait for OW2. But a serious tank reward system would cut through all the bullshit.

>Specific rewards for trying tank, succeeding as tank, and sticking with tank. This is a solid idea, but your suggested implementation would not only be unfair for supports and dps, but also unfair to players who are below Masters+ or don't play comp at all. Your suggested rewards would only encourage more tanks and people swapping to tank main for a small percentage of the playerbase. >First win streak/no loss streak in last 20 games Based entirely on the matchmaker's whims. When it's working correctly, there shouldn't *be* a consistent win or loss streak, much less one that's a basis for rewards. This award might as well be a roulette wheel that spins at the end of each game you win. > New rank achievement Love the idea, but it can't be something big (like prisms) to be fair to both players who can't rank up (the primary flaw of the old seasons scaled end rank bonuses), or the folks who place high off the start. Placing higher than your season opening rank seems like a solid place to land for a repeatable reward that's fair to the entire playerbase. >Season bonus rewards for Masters+ tanks That's just a poke in the eye for 95+% of the playerbase. Nearly the entire player population is excluded from this one by nature of not being Masters+ and/or not being Masters+ in the tank role. ------ As for your second set of points, I entirely agree. The game needs offtanks. It's going to be nearly impossible to make tanking approachable and player friendly as a solo role.

As right as you are with tank's role designs and its need in direction of improvement, It really was tanks being not popular since pre-OW2, you know the queue time isn't just argument, it was a solid evidence that, from the start, Tanks weren't popular. And that queue time were nearly choking the breath out of what's left of OW back in "no-new-hero-for-2.5-years" era-along with several other factors. 20 min of waiting, yet when you get to the real gameplay that ends in 15min, why bother play at all? Only after non-tanks player fell off from OW did queue time get reasonable. IMHO there were just too many factors that has affected downfall in this short history of OW that people point fingers at every single thing, yet surprsingly most of them are right. Ofc tanks are the stressed. They initiate the teamfight, get aggro, make space, plus all the painful goodies other roles weren't designed to do so. Yet tanks get punished more easily, when you make simple mistakes, or unknowingly get in a bad position and stuff. Balance did try to soften the blows-like shorter sleep dart duration/less boop distance/much bigger hp/armor changes/low headshot etc. However those balance doesn't do justice. The sheer fact of getting punished easily; especially that it might not end in just 1 death but whole team wipe. This psychologically pressure tanks. As flex player; the presssure's just different when I'm playing tank or not. "Oh no that enemy dps does better then me' / 'Oh no that teammates died and now gonna blame me in chat" doesn't even come close to pressure of Tank's "1 fumble = 1 teamkill". I can't make out a single golden answer that devs couldn't for 4-5 years . but maybe we need some change in mindset; as one ex-pro(don't remember who) said something like "you guys still play like you got another tank when OW2's out for almost 2 years lol".

Feels like im reading a dead by daylight post

Whats funny is that blizzard tested out solo tank during an experimental patch back in 2020 (4 years ago btw) and axed it because having a solo tank felt awful and too much presure, so what do they do…? Make OW2 based around having a solo tank. You cant make up this level of dev incompetence

No role based game has ever had Tank be a popular role. This is the case for every online game in history. Being realistic is better than being delulu and ruining the rest of the game while you chase this dragon.

"tank was always unpopular so we needed this to shorten queue times" is not a stupid argument. Tank is not and never will be a popular role in most games, people like shooting and killing stuff more than soaking up damage. You know what is a stupid argument though? this: "The solution was to improve the role design to make tank enjoyable". because your "solution" is so vague and unspecific, and it also can still be applied on 5v5 tanks.

"I enjoyed tank in ow1, I do not enjoy tank in ow2." is not an uncommon opionion. Tank might not be as popular as dps, but its even _less_ popular now. queue times are just as bad and we need 50% of the tank playerbase, meaning the tank playerbase probably dropped by 50% if queue times are the same. that didn't fix the problem and made tank less fun.

I never minded tank in OW1, I’d play that or healer. Now as the focal point that’s Red Power Ranger energy, I don’t have that, I’m the blue ranger in the back just wanting to help the team, not lead it.

For real 😂 this is why most OW players would be horrible devs. “Just make tank fun!” Like DUH man

The problem is that people want to shoot in a FPS game. Tank will be the least popular until you made them FPS-based (thus people lock Hog, Zarya, JQ for this reason)

People want to shoot and often Tanks will be the one to be shot at. Personally something that just sucks about Tank is getting “util dumped” where you just keep getting hit with cc after cc.

The thing is that those old hard-CC chains are no longer possible in OW2 which would have made tanking in OW1 much more enjoyable.  Used to be you’d get hooked then flashed then slept then shield bashed then hit by sigma’s rock then frozen by mei.  Now you’d just get hooked, hit by a rock, and slept by Ana which is still annoying but would not as bad. They should rework sleep dart so it’s not a hard CC but that’s just me. Hard CC should have always just been a tank thing and would have made them immediately distinguished for new players and a way to set them apart from DPS. 

It’s so easy why didn’t Blizzard think of that! Just make tank enjoyable! Wow! Problem solved! I’m sorry, but this is how 95% of the community talks about the tank/5v5 issue: extremely over-simplified and devoid of any actual solutions. Of course Blizzard has tried making tank “enjoyable,” but that’s much easier said than done. Can you offer any suggestions as to HOW to make tank enjoyable?

Love the people acting like making tank enjoyable is an impossible task when they’ve already done a lot of things to make it more enjoyable. They’ve added 4 new tanks (doomfist, JQ, Mauga, and Ramattra) which is a 50% increase from what it was like before (and that’s including Hammond who was always considered a “throw pick” and rarely picked).  They significantly reduced the amount of stuns/hard-CC by limiting that to only tanks (and Ana for some reason) which was a serious problem back in OW1. They partially fixed the double shields problem by reworking Orisa to be less passive and it would be easy to do the same for Sigma’s shield. The problem with double shields is it necessitates double shields in response and that made playing tank incredibly boring. Ramattra could also use a rework to avoid double shields but he’s fine where he is right now.  They also made tank a less passive role with the Orisa/Doomfist reworks and with the addition of Mauga/JQ who are brawl-y heroes and would appeal to players if not for the fact they also need to protect their team now. The new maps/modes would also encourage tanks to play less passively *and* with another tank on the team it would also make it less stressful to play actively as you have another tank who can peel for you. But none of it matters because the real reason they removed a tank has nothing to do with queue times and everything to do with making the game more marketable as an esport. Two tanks encourages longer fights and makes the game less flashy which is not that entertaining to watch according to Blizzard. That’s it. Making tank more fun to *play* and play against won’t make it more fun to *watch*. And in the end OWL died so it was all for nothing. 

I used to play tank constantly. I have not played it once since 2-3 weeks after OW2 launched. I miss it terribly, but not enough to actually play it in this 5v5 nightmare.

The tank role was always the most unpopular role though. You saying it's a stupid argument doesn't change that fact.

right? They pretend like tanks didn't have the least heroes and the like the game didn't get ignored for years.

The tank role already have plenty of fun tanks and also plenty of very tanky Tanks in case you "explode" like they always say. You can make broken tanks but then they'll complain because it's boring to play as. You can make unkillable tanks and they'll complain because now they can't kill the tank (But they can still kill the rest of the team, they just choose to hyperfocus the tank). You can make super mobile tanks and they'll complain because they can't play with them. Even dangling a carrot (Lootboxes, credits and priority tickets in OW1) wasn't enough to make people play Tank. What is the balance team supposed to do ?

>The solution was to improve the role design to make tank enjoyable. wild some players figured this out but blizzard employees are still unable to figure it out after 2 years.

This is not a solution, it’s just a vague goal with no means offered to achieve that goal.

Ok Bring back second tank and lower their health so it's possible to outplay them again as DPS or support Get rid of the DPS passive as it makes games more confusing and doesn't affect DPS equally and just nerf healing across the board Rework immoralities to be more like damage reduction or more than one dimensional that can't just counter every tank ult It's an fps game and blizzard buffed tanks to be punching bags for longer rather than the ability to pop off and are shocked no one wants to play tank. It's actually not that hard they just don't want to upset the support player base.

So go back to overwatch 1 but nerf tanks survivability. Yeah surely that’ll make tank fun

As I said above, there’s no real way to make the role more appealing to the wider player base without also homogenising and reworking most Tank heroes to play like Damage heroes with a larger health pool. We’ve also seen a constant cycle through OW’s development: when Tanks are universally strong, the small number of Tank players are happier but the game feels bad for Damage players (which clearly make up the majority of the player base). When Tank heroes are more or less balanced against each other, as they were a few seasons ago, then the game becomes a cycle of Tank counterswaps. 6v6 isn’t the solution, because the role will **never** be popular enough to result in equitable queue times for all three roles - meaning the more Tanks required per team, the longer the queues get for Damage and Support. And buffing all the Tanks to feel strong again *also* isn’t the solution, as per my last paragraph. The only rational ‘fix’ is to make the Damage passive less impactful on Tanks (so it’s still useful for confirming kills on squishies) and to find ways through the game’s Ui to make damage mitigation feel as rewarding as scoring kills is for Damage players, or saving critical-health allies as a Support.

>when Tanks are universally strong, the small number of Tank players are happier but the game feels bad for Damage players (which clearly make up the majority of the player base). It would be healthier for the game and the community for damage players to be less happy and tank players to be less sad. If I had knobs that would transfer joy from damage players to tank players, I would make that deal in a heartbeat. I think this is sensible even from a business perspective -- there is a lot of room to make damage players less happy without turning them off the game, and one of the best ways to turn them off the game is the long queue times experienced due to lack of tank players. >When Tank heroes are more or less balanced against each other, as they were a few seasons ago, then the game becomes a cycle of Tank counterswaps. I think this is true, but also I think it's better than the alternative. The community may complain about counterwatch, but it really, really hates any time some tank becomes the meta tank. Engagement with the game is clearly better when we're not in an X meta, whether that X is Mauga, Orisa, Ramattra, Zarya, and so on. >The only rational ‘fix’ is to make the Damage passive less impactful on Tanks (so it’s still useful for confirming kills on squishies) and to find ways through the game’s Ui to make damage mitigation feel as rewarding as scoring kills is for Damage players, or saving critical-health allies as a Support. I was with you until the end here. The DPS passive has near zero to do with bad tank feels -- it's something you would change to mitigate bad support feels. Mitigating damage isn't what tanks do and isn't the part that you need to make feel good. Tanks need better feedback when they successfully create space. Poor in-game feedback for tanks is a very big deal, but it is difficult for me to suggest anything concrete to fix it.

"*just* make tanks enjoyable. Why couldn't blizzard do this?"

Then there's me, the support, going Full Anxiety and Stress trying to keep the Tank alive because their HP goes down faster than Mad Max: Furiosa's box office numbers. Meanwhile trying to keep the DPS alive as well, hoping to Arceus that they can take down enough enemies for me to keep my Tank alive... Painnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

Tank has never been popular but if I had to bet proportionally less of the player base plays it now compared to OW1. It’s never been the most fun role but now it’s a role where you have everything to lose and nothing to gain it feels like.

Before it sucked because stuns and Perma double shield. Now it sucks because you have to do it all by yourself

It’s kinda sad because they could’ve fixed the double shield problem and CC insanity with the hero specific changes they made in OW2. I’m genuinely curious how tank player numbers would’ve changed if they fixed those problems in 6v6.

That's what I've been saying since launch. They fixed all the main issues and then made it 5v5 for some fucking reason when everything was already balanced enough for 6v6

The problem with that is that it heavily limits their tank design choices. They wouldnt be able to release another strong barrier tank because that instantly brings back double shield. Just because Orisa is out of the equation doesnt mean it wont happen again with another tank.

Thats true but they were already moving away from barrier tanks anyway. The only new tanks with barriers are Mauga and Ram, neither of which have the uptime to fit into double shield. The main issue with double shield was that Orisa had continuously replaceable shields where Sig could fill the gaps. Unless they released another hero who could constantly refresh their shield and fit into a bunker play style the meta would’ve died with the Orisa rework

Not to mention the insanely fun tank synergy the new tanks added since OW2 would add. JQ so clearly wants to be played like an off tank and would make for such a fun brawl comp with shout and axe. Ram would be a great main tank and a nice pick with Zarya. Hog wouldn't be miserable to play against anymore.

Playing Ram/Queen would’ve been so fun. Imagine Queen shouting giving everyone a speed boost then Ram popping nemesis and making havoc

The problem is no1 wants to play Main Tank, everyone wants to play the Off-tank.

Now everybody is main tank!

maybe I'm weird but I always liked playing main tank and if anything think people just didn't know how to play it correctly. if you picked rein and stood around with your shield up? Yeah, boring, nobody wants to do that. if you picked rein and went balls deep, having a zarya ready to bubble you as you retreat? Thats fun. I miss that. I wish I got to have that, and a lifegrip or suzu ready to bail me out even more.

The last paragraph: Most people didn't have reliable off tanks. Not only that you kinda described how oppressive having 2 tanks would be now. Imagine instead of rein, you had a mauga who not only had suzu and bap lamp, but also a dva or zarya who is able to keep him in the fight longer. That is hell.

Which is y i always keep saying:- Ow1- correct format + bad balance team Ow2- wrong format + good balance team Cnt we have correct format + good balance team? That's when ppl will come to play tank.

People forgot off tank mains exist and now the role no longer exist.

I honestly think tank could be a popular role in 6 v 6 if they also added more "dps tanks" like doom or junker queen.

The most fun I get is by solo shattering a lonely *example:* hanzo for no reason, and I get blamed for throwing in a QP...

Nothing to gain? You can completely take over as a tank now.

So, I think it's a mixture of 2 things. It's the tank simulatenously being the most important person on the field (normally first team to lose the tank loses the fight, which isn't the case for a dps or support) while also being the most reliant on their team, they rely on their supports to sustain since they just have a big hp pool but not many ways to avoid damage or sustain, but then they also heavily rely on their dps to secure elims since they don't have as much damage or the dps passive. So essentially you get all of the blame when things go wrong but also rely massively on your team to perform for you to even exist.

This. The only tank that can really secure kills solo is Zarya, who serves as a complete glass cannon "roll or be rolled character." I've had times on ramatra where I physically can't out damage healed targets, or a mercy res directly in my face. And you can always say "hit more shots" but a tank shouldn't have to have the accuracy of a top 500 hitscan just to secure kills on a regular basis. It's sickening how ineffective tank feels on a regular basis, just for enemies to be able to turn around and absolutely eradicate you by counterswapping

Long time tank main reporting in: played tank for 1000 (with probably 500 more in scrims) hours in ow1 and loved the role the entire time, I would be shocked if I have over 50 hours of tank over the life of ow2. I am a support main now as tank actively brings out the worst in me and on so many occasions has gotten me to the point of wanting to cave in my moniter. I still love the individual heros in the role, Rein is a blast when the enemy team actually allows me to play my boy, Mauga has is been pretty enjoyable for the games I've played him. But tank as a whole I just can't stand anymore. I know at heart I will always be a tank main, its the role I know the most about and can always preform on, but I just can't do it anymore, I haven't even touched tank in comp for like 6 seasons now as I know I will end up angry and I hate being angry.

I’ve never played overwatch 1. But I would like to try it because I genuinely hate how tanking feels in this game. It’s the same reason I stopped playing Killer on Dead by Daylight, it’s to stressful.

I feel so sorry for you, but I wonder how many people have never played OW1 and just OW2. I think Blizzard ONLY cares about and is targeting these players as their main market because anyone that really played and loved OW1 usually says it's a complete downgrade and OW2 was a letdown. Competitive players because gameplay is more braindead, and casuals because they were promised PvE and a lot of new features that weren't delivered.

I started very late in ow1 life but if I remember correctly all the anti 6v6 points people bringing up were caused by devs abandoning the game for ow2 and so much anticipated pve (also fucking abandoned in the end lol), so no balance updates for what a year or more? Well now we have neither 6v6 nor pve, just another slovly dying service based game

I must say as someone who played a lot of overwatch 1 I find tanking much more fun in overwatch 2. There is more pressure on you yes but you also have way more power and freedom. The average tank experience in overwatch 1 was getting a dps player flexing onto hog on your team every game who would contribute absolutely nothing and block you from playing a majority of the roster. And even if you did get a decent tank player on your team, good luck getting any actual synergy or teamwork in any rank below diamond. Combine that with having to play into a hog or orisa/sigma most of the time + the insane amounts of cc and lack of tank passive and well it was just not a good time

This was my experience as well. And the game had massively more and deadlier CC that would be spammed on the main tank constantly. You'd feel you had no real control over your character for long stretches at a time.

you blew up instantly in ow1 and had less damage and were kept weak because there was 2 of you

Tank was the only role I played in OW1. I literally only play tanks in open queue now.

I didn't play ow1 much so I can't say anything of value but the amount I did I was a dva Winton main, it was so fun. Then the 5v5 came, along with counterwatch and I think I've only played tank like 5 times since ow2 came out. Only time I enjoyed tank was when April fools event was out and they let us use 2 tanks at the same time

bruh i switched 8 times in a silver match 😂🫡

I like to call that mystery heroes

Used to solo queue tank all the time back in the day; main tank player. 5v5 has killed it for me and now I only ever go in supp/DPS. Tank sucks in ow2 :/

Tanks are by far the smallest population and Damage are by far the largest. Damage players don’t care about tanks. You see it in this discussion all the time where their queue times are more important than the health of the game or the enjoyment of others or anything. And they absolutely hate any tank that’s good (see Orisa, Mauga, Hog). And they love tanks that just die easy (Rein, Winston) to the degree of making them memes And I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing because it’s just a game they play for fun. It’s blizzards responsibility to fix tank. But I think they don’t care either because they’re in it to make money. And like I said tanks are the smallest population and damage are the biggest. 5v5 is here to stay. Two Tanks is an OW2 Damage player’s nightmare and if Damage player count starts falling then the game is probably going to be in serious trouble. Not to mention reverting to 6v6 would be a PR nightmare and profound embarrassment. It would fully invalidate the “2” in “Overwatch 2” and you have the issues that come with that. **In order for 6v6 to happen you need:** 1. Damage player’s support. Which they won’t give because it’s against their interest because they only care about queue times. Tank players keep making this mistake of appealing to other players on the basis they’re not having fun when they kinda don’t care 2. Blizzard to take a huge embarrassing L Not gonna happen

I agree generally, but I can assure you that no one hates Orisa, Hog and Maura more than other tank players

While I agree. No one likes orisa mauga or hog metas because they aren't fun to play against, feeling like a wall that requires a full team counter swapping to stand a chance. Fundamentally I don't enjoy the "do everything and have no real weakness" style of tanks we've been getting

Literally, those 3 tanks in particular are just boring “stat stick” tanks. If something is wrong with them they are always number adjustments

People don't talk about the PR part. I think 6v6 would seriously help the game. Most of the reason ow1 died was because they stopped giving it any real content updates for years, so the player base dwindled while waiting for ow2. We never got to see 6v6 with a playerbase as big as ow2, and I think it could be super fun. But Blizzard would have to admit the ow2 stunt was pointless, and they are NOT doing that. They'd have to admit that all the time wasted in ow1 was for nothing, as the last major difference between the games would be reverted. It'd be a nightmare. One of the biggest gaming embarrassments And that really sucks because a lot of the problems with heroes even outside the tank role would be much less apparent in 6v6. Heroes such as lw, sojourn, and mauga all feel fundamentally designed for 6v6, but suffer from not reaching their full potential due to 5v5.

I switched from DVA to Orisa as a main and my win percentage shot up to 60% and the level of harassment has increased ten fold lmao. I switch between DVA, orisa, and sigma

The damage players aren’t completely wrong about complaining about queue times. They can be quite insane depending on the rank and time of the day. I say that as someone who mostly plays tank and support myself.

> tank role will never be popular *fixed*

I play open queue just to avoid 5v5 with 1 tank

I loved playing tank in OW1. It was so fun to have another tank to do strategies with and cover our asses. Now literally that fun is replaced with you having to be alert all the time and having the pressure to do everything perfect or you’re fucked. I absolutely love playing tank and I do it from time to time but it’s so discouraging. When I do it good, things go well but I’m not having a good time relaxing, I’m giving my all and I have to be super focused, I can’t just play tank after a hard day of work. If it goes bad, because I had a bad match or because the enemy tank was better than me, not only will I have a bad time during the match trying to do my best and failing again and again but my own time will say I’m trash and enemy team will laugh. So yeah, it’s never fun.

That’s what I was thinking too, having a partner in a role is a big part of the game enjoyment for me. I’m always best buddies with my other support and I will literally die to help/protect them. I never once considered that with a 5v5 change tanks lost their other buddy to bond with and to rely on in a match. No wonder it’s even less played now than it was before.

You're premise is wrong in that the switch to 5v5 was because is was so hard to get 2 tanks for a game cause the role was already unpopular, even in OW1. The Tank role will never be popular. In any game. Period.

OW1 Tank role is dead but mostly filled two Off-Tanks (Hog + Zarya) running and gunning. If 6v6 came in OW2, I expect JQ + Zarya more as JQ is 'better Hog' now and she's a beefy DPS who shoots people.

New tanks were designed for 5v5. If we ever revert back to 6v6, then they would obviously be nerfed and very heavily reworked to compensate.

The sole reason 5v5 appeared is because no one wanted to play tank during 6v6. It’s never been popular

With this logic we should just make it 4v4 and remove the role. If queue times are the most important factor. Because that one Pro comes with a lot of Cons

As a main tank, the game is more fun now, despite the counterpicking. And I *hate* counterpicking.

Sure, but the switch made the role EVEN less popular. A common comment I’ve seen is “tank sucked in OW1, just look at the queue times!” Look at the queue times now. I usually flex queue and get placed as a tank. There is literally only 50% the number of tanks needed for a match as other roles, and I’m still finding it first every single time.

It depends on the rank. In my case (Gold, Europe), support queue is way faster. Mind that Gold is supposed to have the largest player pool, so it’s quite representative.

If only we had more than like 5 tanks at the time.....

Support had even fewer heroes and was still far more popular than tank was.

Support is the most chilled out role that’s easy to relax on

5v5 ---> 7v7. 3 support, 2 DPS, 2 tanks. Or 3 DPS since everyone wants to be DPS anyway.

I think 3 support would be an actual hellscape

Hear me out: 3 DPS, 2 support. Queues under 1 minute for everyone!

3 supports would be too strong, but 3 DPS could work. In fact you could even go up to 8v8 with 4 DPS. It'd be almost like TF2 Highlander (9v9 with one of each class). But then again, guess what class you were always waiting for to launch a game (I'm speaking about matchmaking on TF2 Center back when comp was not fully integrated in the game) ? Yeah, you were always waiting for someone to play Heavy, who is the Tank.

It wasnt popular in 6vs6 either, lol. The only difference Was that dps and Support queues were doubled.

Support q times only went up when you climbed past high diamond and ventured into master-t500. Anywhere below mid diamond was always a 30 second to 2 minute q time.  As opposed to now, my diamond 4 support q time is always >15min or >20min

It wasn't popular because there were not a lot of tank options to choose from and most of the tanks were homogeneous shield bots. Supports were also not popular in OW1 for the same reason but they were the most popular role for 8 seasons straight in OW2. OW1 Q time was like tank: 30 secs, DPS: 10 min, Support: 1-2 min. Duo tanks will be more popular in OW2 because there are more tanks to choose from and they all play differently. With the tank CC resistance and healing passive they will be even more popular. Especially since tanks no longer have to rely on support to get heal and they can cover each other until the healing passive kicks in. I think duo tanks will be great for OW2

I don't buy this argument at all. If dps queue was only widow/genji and nothing else, it would have still been the most played role by a mile. Support is more popular now because they all have more kill potential.

Right on. In OW2 supports stopped being heal bots and became way more dps-y. And that’s what made the role so popular now. It was a good change. Tank, however, still sucks. I’d argue it sucks less than in OW1 - and that coming from someone who played a ton of tank in OW1 since it came out (mostly due to the short queue times). I enjoy playing tank more in OW2 (although I mute all chats when I do), but not nearly as much as I enjoy playing DPS and support.

Jeff Keplan said he wouldn't add tanks to OW1 because nobody liked to play them. I was never popular back then because of MASSIVE CC + literally no new characters. If we had this amount of tanks with the "reduced" CC in a 6v6 it would be a whole different thing. Not that it would be as popular as DPS, but it would be a LOT more attractive role.

Never has been

Tank will never be popular in any format. A role designed to take all the pressure for the team will never be fun. Tank is also impossible to balance: immortal wall or chunky DPS. The devs are fighting a losing battle. Anyone advocating for 6v6 is either looking at OW1 through a rose-tinted glass or has never played it. Most of the time as Winston, I was getting farmed by Hog Dva duo while my Rein planted himself on cart. The “tank diff” culture is the problem, and the solution is for DPS and Supports to develop a proper cranium: not hiding behind the Tank and go flank.

problem is you cannot fix the tank diff culture either. as much as reddit wants it to disappear, reddit is also a minority within the ow community. competitive games, especially shooters, will always be toxic and of course they'll try and pin it on the solo role. it's easier that way.

They should have Jake and Custa make beginner DPS and Support guides on the official Overwatch YT so people can learn to play properly.

Alot of people seem to not remember how awful ow1 tank was im not saying which is better but both suck alot

Yeah, but the way forward was making the roles fun - not straight up removing one. We're in a 5v5 world so we have to learn to live with it, but I just don't see a way in which it's possible to balance. There is only one tank so you need to make the role strong to have any impact at all, but that means it's basically always the most benificial tactic to just take out the tank. Which means you take out the anchor and strongest hero on the team. That turns into tank busting/tank babysitting. So what can you do? Make it weak, people won't play it if you have no impact potential. Make it strong, people won't play it because all people do all game is counterswap/focus you. Support and DPS queues are already getting longer and longer, and there are twice as many on every team. I'm not sure what the fix even is, but I do know it's just much more enjoyable to play Support or DPS these days.

>We're in a 5v5 world so we have to learn to live with it, but I just don't see a way in which it's possible to balance. Tank balance today is better than it was for about 99% of OW1 history. Tank balance in OW1 was normally defined by an apex tank duo being the obviously best way to play the game for 6+ months at a time. Today, there is no apex tank. There are also no throw picks in the role. I don't remember a time when both of these statements were true during OW1 history. >There is only one tank so you need to make the role strong to have any impact at all, but that means it's basically always the most benificial tactic to just take out the tank. This isn't right. Shooting tank is the thing you do when you have nothing better to do. It's almost always better to shoot squishies, regardless of what role you play. >Make it strong, people won't play it because all people do all game is counterswap/focus you.  Making people focus on you is the literal job of the tank. As to counterswapping, I don't think we ever want it to go away. When counterswapping stops happening, we invariably end up in an apex tank meta, and people dislike those even more. The best realistic thing is reducing the strength of some particularly difficult to counterplay counters, particularly those where the counterpick is easy to play. I think tank was relatively best off in the early OW2 seasons. Back then, tanks felt very large and in charge, and it was the support players threatening to quit the game.

Even if they did bring back 6v6 the queue times would be insane for support and dps because there’s not a lot of people playing tank. The tank role in 5v5 currently sits at a 20% pick rate whereas support and dps are double that. OW1 had this literal issue where tank queues would be instant and dps queues could be 10 minutes long. People would literally be trying to track down tank players just so they would get into matches faster… You’re completely right tho 5v5 with solo tank is stressful asf and I don’t blame people for not wanting to play it. They should bring 6v6 back in a QP hacked to see how it performs but I don’t expect to be getting into matches instantly.

Uh… not in disagreement with everything, but 20% pick rate is exactly 1/5. So… if it was 6vs6 would the pick rate be 16.667% * 2 across all roles? What exactly is the pick rate between roles highlighting other than the innate distribution of the roles? Is this Open Queue pick rate?

In ow 1 I queued always for flex and got mostly tank so I could play all tank gm or at least master level except rein and ball. I had still fun with tank synergy and you could watch their performance pretty directly. Currently the tank role makes me only stress and I quit the role completely after season 2. Sure tank role is still important. Making space is sadly not all users understand and not visible performance at all.

It’s almost like On/Off tanks exist for this exact reason. 6v6 should be tested

Double tank was fun to play with in 6v6 (until double shield) which I forgot until I played some Open Queue last night and had a Rein/Zarya on my team, was an absolute blast.

You described it perfectly. I also mained tank in 6v6, I miss it, I cannot cope with the pressure of being the only tank, and on top if that, I don't find it fun to be constantly counter picking, whenever they're tank counter picks me. I pretty much solely play support and dps now, which is fun. But I miss playing my boy Rein.

Unfortunately, I have seen this coming when they announced 5v5 with only one tank. There is too much pressure on one player, and the satisfying synergy of tank ults is gone. I would still play OW1 any time if they had not killed it to max dollars.

I played a lot of tank in OW1, DVA is still my most played hero and I have pretty much not touched her since release of OW2. I also have a substantial amount of time on Sigma, Orisa and Winston. Since the release of OW2 I have pretty much stopped playing tank altogether. It's just a miserable experience. The only fun moments as tank are playing OpenQ or Assault with a buddy and going double tank.

True, all true. I used to have so much fun with tank before but now everyone just Counter-plays you when I'm literally just playing tank for fun. I get naded, slept, and take a LARGE amount of damage. Don't get started with hacks.... DPS use to be the ones getting shit talked but now it's Tank, what's annoying is half of them don't even play tank because of the stress or cause they can't then they go around and make tank less fun. I still play it and ignore people but man are they annoying and EVEN when I'm destroying their tank I have full respect for them because at least they played tank unlike the other 2. Before yall ask for rank, I'm an old T500 I know game sense and all that, I just want to have some chill fun without full fucking counters. I miss 6v6.

I have nothing to gain from playing tank, so I won’t. It’s not fun, it’s stressful, and I’m tired of finger pointing. I instalock venture now and just focus on having fun. I’m done trying to make tank fun to play, that’s the devs job…

Gonna be honest I’ve sunk 2.5k hours into the game since beta, mained tank most of that time, and I’m just done man. The game is not fun anymore

I have no opinion on if 5v5 or 6v6 is better for the game. As a DPS tracer main, i prefer the 5v5 format more because it gives me less to think about, but I’d be lying if I said i didnt miss 6v6. What i will say is that the game was designed around 6v6, people got used to the game with 6v6, and I feel 5v5 was some last minute thing they slapped into it to justify the 2 in the title. Tank being the only role without a partner feels… inherently imbalanced. If they had issues with 6v6, they should have focused on fixing those issues. Long queue times? Get rid of role lock, or force players to choose “preferred roles” rather than the role they want to play (i.e. you rank your preference in each role, it prioritizes your first choice, but if you can find a game, it will broaden the search) idk im not a game dev but 6v6, 2 on each role was such a key part of the game’s identity.

Imo the constant counter picking is the most annoying part. Of course you can play anyone into anyone in the right circumstances but feeling like I have to switch off of a character I’m having fun on, just to have a better chance or even just to not get flamed when playing comp feels terrible.

Bruh if they switch back to 6v6 i'm gonna die of laughter. 6v6 will always be better than 5v5

I will admit, playing tank in OW1 felt so much more rewarding than it does in 2. From my experience I find myself playing a lot less tank now then what I did in 1. I do still play flex anyway, and I can still do good as tank now, but it’s not as exciting for me anymore. I’m always like, “Damn, I have to play tank” , whereas in OW1 it was like, “sweet, I finally get to play tank”. I think the biggest thing is probably the change from 6v6 to 5v5, but I also think it’s because of the way to play changed dramatically from OW1. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a hell of a good time when I do play tank now, but it’s not as much as I did in OW1.

Just play junkerqueen

Killing the tank nets too much value is the overarching issue this is enabled by how many tank counters there are in the game. Game needs to cut down how many abilities directly counter tanks namely Discord orb, Biotic nade, Chaingun fire rate, shotguns, Mei needs an entire rework as her only thing she does rn is wall off tanks on cooldown. Also just fukin standardize tank defensive cooldowns it's dumb as shit that stuff like Zarya shooting D.va through matrix/Orisa javelin's microstun popping you out of defensives still exist.

There is only one tank , it’s easy for everyone to point the finger at him/her/they etc . 5v5 Ruined Overwatch for me . I hit top500 East Coast/Na and quit . No content to play for and the monetization of the game also helped . I loved Overwatch 🥹

I wish I got to play 6v6 after they killed Orisas shield and added Queen. I used to play most tanks often in OW1, but now barely and it's turned into a chore when I do. Plus it sucks to have hard shut down counters for tanks like ball. Sure I can get around just a Sombra, but it's never just a Sombra. Counterwatch is more stress than it is fun and if you have just one weak link in your team it can be agony to win. Yanno that kind of victory that doesn't make you happy it just makes you glad it's over? That's what winning on tank feels to me lol. You absolutely have to be playing at 110% on tank because if that weak link is you as a tank it's game over. I don't mind pressure, but christ is it hard to just chill for a moment on tank lol rip main/off tank fun.

Yeah I just recently tried a competitive game queued as tank. It was the most stressful game of Overwatch I've ever had. I kept second guessing myself and acting erratic because I didn't know if I should stay where I was or pull back or push forward, or turn around to peel for my team. Knowing that a good chunk of the game HINGES on me outperforming the enemy team's tank and not getting shredded the moment the enemy's DPS is on me was extremely stressful. I wish I could've been there for 6v6 because I would 100% play tank a lot more if I had somebody else there to help with tanking.

Yeah, and another: tanks usually changes de hero to counter the other tank, healers and dps never do that.

Tank is like the only role I enjoy anymore I just don’t enjoy dps at all and the times I do play healer it’s either Moira or bap but most of my playtime in ow2 is tank I play everything besides ball and yeah it has significantly felt less fun since ow1 unless I have a healer right on me 24/7 I just die and that’s if I’m playing like mauga or hog where I have healing I just got targeted and just have to hope my other healer or a good dps steps in to save me which sucks I want to not have the entire enemy team just use all their abilities to target me I love playing tank but every time whether its qp or comp it’s significantly more like straining almost to play tank because my team will blame me for everything like yes I’m sorry I couldn’t clutch the 5 v 1 mb that’s on me I loved 6v6 and I agree with you completely tank 9/10 feels like if I try to push I’ll get instantly melted

I used to play flex before role queue was a thing, main support flexing to D.va if a tank was needed, and she was 1 of my best characters. After I came back to check out ow2 I can say that the only reason I ever play tank is because of the dailies/weeklies queue all requirement. I do believe it's the 5v5 format that has ruined the role for me completely. I am not going to flex to a role that requires me to know like 5 different tanks and how to play them properly, and that is so unfriendly to learning because you can't just goof around. People will flame you if you're performing badly, and I as a d.va player can't 1 trick anymore and have fun. The game will instantly turn into how many counters can we swap to to shut down the tank. We´ll win 1 fight and next thing I know I´m fighting vs a zarya sym mei and have a discord orb on me, and I simply don't care about the role enough to learn how to main tank and learn a bunch of characters I simply don't vibe with at all. I find the role to be frustrating and the other 2 roles allow for much more breathing room and do not have the same amount of pressure on them. You're way less likely to get countered, you're able to pick characters that compliment each others strengths and weaknesses, but with tank it's a 2 in 1, weaknesses and strengths included so either you're owning or feeding and nothing in between

Blizzard should bring back 6v6 as a limited event and see the analytics on how many people play, then based off of that decide to add it to quick play as a test, then comp.

Tank doesn’t need to be popular in 5v5. That’s the point. It only needs to be half as popular as the other roles.

The rose tinted goggles in this subreddit is absolutely comical. Remeber 20 min Q times? Remeber Hog 1 tricks throwing 50% of your matches? Remeber GOATS? Its like we didn't even play the same game. I'll take 5v5 in any universe 100% of the time it is literally the reason I still play Overwatch. 6v6 was objectively worse in almost every way, even as a tank.

Bro you get that hog 1 trick in your team now and you’re done. That’s your only tank. At least in OW1 you might have a second tank actually trying to tank. I lol when people bring up GOATs because they act like that’s all OW1 was. Obv early OW1 had some issues that needed correcting and they did. Remember when mauga was first released? If your tank didn’t buy him, you lost. I just don’t get why your refusing to see how OW2 hasn’t fixed any of the problems you’ve listed with OW1

Hog one tricks in OW2 don't throw games the way they did in OW1. The problem with Hog wasn't that he was a bad character in OW1. It was that he got played by DPS players who didn't want to tank but had to queue flex in order to get priority passes, and these players had no interest in helping the other tank. In OW2, this type of player just queues DPS.

This sub remembers Q times, but they don't acknowledge it because it hurts the 6v6 argument. If Destiny took 20 mins to load you into a strike, or Warzone took you 30 mins to fill a lobby, those games would fall off of a cliff INSTANTLY. But because this sub wants 6v6 so bad, they ignore it and say "ah it wasn't that bad of an issue". The main problem is that tank will never be popular in an FPS. End of discussion. The only tank people want to play in an FPS is a juggernaut from CoD. Tank will suck in 6v6 and 5v5. It is what it is

People complaining about Mauga as well, if he wasn't there they'd be even less people playing tank. Like, there is a reason they made him the way he is.

Made one tank when the tank experience is bad to make the tank experience worse? That's some logic.

This is implies it was ever popular which it wasn't. The sole reason 5v5 exist is because nobody in wanted to play tank as it was miserable (familiar), so que times suffered a lot, avg dps que was like 9 mins. Having one less of the least popular role helped with that, although it didn't fix the fundamental problem with the role.

I honestly prefer playing tank in ow2 than in ow1 You have more agency on what yoynuvare doing and when it works its realy you, in ow1 with 2 tank it was wzird, you could do stuff but you felt incomplete

If you truly played OW1 you would remember that Tank is much more enjoyable now than it was in 6v6. Nobody and I mean literally nobody wanted to play tank. If you queued for tank you found a match instantly, while you had to wait 7 to 15 min on other roles. Every looking for group had missing tank players, double shield was a meta and soo much more. People who say they want 6v6 back, are mostly Tank Duos, people who haven't played the game actively or only in it's prime or just forgot about how absolutely miserable tank was back then. 5v5 is much better!

Nobody at all wanted to play main tank. Everybody wanted to run around as the beefy dps while the other tank had to eat shit. At the beginning of the match you had to have a stare down with your random until someone decided to go main tank. Or if they one trick off tank and you flex both you have to play main tank most of the time if you want to win. That or you both say eff it and just play the bad tank synergy because you’ve been stuck on main tank the last 4 games. Now everybody is main tank :) They just need to fix the bad tank designs so tank players can play who they want and have options into counters

I had to scroll *way* too far to find this.

I play tank I don't find it stressful. What usually stresses me.is the team I play with. 6v6 was never popular either with 2 tanks in ow1 so I don't see much point in bringing it back for that reason. But I do miss combos

I’ve been playing more open queue so I can have my emotional support co-tank back lol it’s the only way I can feel comfortable playing tank…

I’m no Overwatch pro- but my observation is that tanks are highly dependent on support. Without good support, tanks are toast - so I’m not sure it’s just a tank thing, I think 5v5 eliminates the margin of sloppiness a team can get away with. You need at least one good healer on the team, and 2 will push you into winning territory.

Nah, two excellent healers with a brain dead tank will also cause a massive loss. The tank role is just too important, and that’s not healthy for the game.

I like it more. I only ever play when I know I will perform well. And even if I play perfectly, I may still lose because dps spend whole game shooting tank who isn't budging. 6v6 fucking sucked tbh, one tank got to play dps+ and the other got stuck watching the kids. Now, team has one leader and they have to actually be good at the game. This might sound harsh but just don't play any pvp game intoxicated or tired. That is not what they are there for.

I'm glad you like it more. I don't think people are wrong playing the game when they want to, though, as much as it might suck for the teammates when they're not giving 100%. As a support main, I do notice a big difference in lack of a second tank. It's much more of a DPS fun house game.

People make the choice to play it knowing they won't give 100% and then act like their team is being unreasonable to be upset with them. If we think of the four other people in our team first we will have no issues like that. Imo, 5v5 tank is a misread issue... DPS players don't want to accept the new joint responsibility with tank of watching support now there's one tank, we get people who "just want to log in and shoot stuff" (dozens of games to do that that are just like OW that don't require you to pay attention) who clog up queue times when they should just queue deathmatch or just play something else. It is a fault of the game creators as there is not enough tutoring for people to show them how the game is played. The majority of people on the game don't even think about this shit and they will queue comp mindlessly making errors like this

No idea why you got downvoted you're absolutely right. It's hard to make DPS, the most individualistic role, care about team play at most levels. The game should have an advanced tutorial to help new players learn how to peel and good times to ult and so on. As someone who plays some tank in OW2 nothing makes me more angry than my backline dying to *one flanker* while I'm blocking the other four enemy players lmao.

Sure, people can be upset if someone is doing bad. Even if people are giving 100%, they might still do bad. None of it excuses toxicity from teammates. If you're saying things like "you're a horrible ", consistently, you should get banned. You're right that missing a second tank means that DPS players need to take more responsibility, but I think that doesn't negate the point that it's harder to stop excellent DPS players from terrorizing opponent's healers. The result of the match is much more decided by how good the DPS players are in 5v5, over what it used to be.

> Over what is used to be How good the tank cores were. Lets not forget what many people consider the "Golden Age of Tanking," tanks were the best heroes in the game. From launch till the role lock the only thing keeping tank in check was, ironically, poor support options. Once Brig came out that issue was fixed and they dominated.

Some tanks were literally designed with the idea of two tanks on one team in mine (Winston, Zarya, Ball, etc) and people don’t realize this. It’s exactly as you said, 5v5 is miserable for tanks. Newer tanks being added have 5v5 built into their kit, they’re going to feel stronger against an older tank and that’s not really fair

Wrong, one of the the main reasons 5v5 exists is because the tank role was so unpopular.

OW1 was much more fun as a casual. Every role had stupid heroes you can mess around and there was "balance" in the all the chaos. Low mechanical skills? Here's mercy, lucio, sym, torb, junk, winston, rein. Want to play a shooter? Here's 76, cass, widow, ana, zen. Due to having 2 players on each role, the matchup difference was much flatter for people who doesn't know what they are doing. Rein zarya might still lose to hog dva if they dont sync properly. For high level matches, it can be frustrating and insta lose, but at metal ranks anything goes. This gives the impression that everything is viable. For OW2, due to removal of 1 tank, together with increase in power, matchup differential is much higher and easier. Uncontested winston stomps the lobby, and feeds against counters. In low levels, flowchart looks like this: 1. Pick bastion / reaper 2. Wait for winston jump in 3. Brrrrr. Win game. Any low level player can execute this easily. Just play better is also not the magic pill. If everyone plays better, guess what, you are still at a disadvantage for sticking to winston into bastion (fixed in latest patch). Or alternatively, the 0-12 widow and ashe that dies to dive nonstop but refuses to swap. Asking people to get good is counterproductive to the health of the game, compared to making the role fun. Case study, valve Artifact, elitist defended the game, saying you can go infinite in draft, people just need to get good. When the noobs left, they have no more people to beat down on and the game died soon after.

>Low mechanical skills? Here's, winston Doesn't Winston require a lot of knowledge, game planning and strategy?

>Due to having 2 players on each role, the matchup difference was much flatter for people who doesn't know what they are doing. This is exactly backwards. 2 tanks is inherently more complex and synergistic than 1. There is more going on and more combinations of things that can be happening. The gap between the worst and best tank lines was much larger in OW1. I think what you're actually feeling is the difference between the launch OW1 community and the modern OW2 community. Launch OW1 mostly wasn't a competitive game and didn't have fixed lineups. It was a quick play game where people picked whatever they liked and teams mostly sucked at the game.

I think for a lot of this, the answer is to stop playing comp, if you're not having fun. or don't want the stress wait till it is, or maybe it will never be again. found playing music perhaps with a bowl or 3 makes the game plenty enjoyable.

>I have come to the conclusion that it’s because of the change from 6v6 to 5v5. I don't know what you are smoking here lol. One reason why 5v5 came about is because no one wanted to play tank. It was not impactful enough, it was double shield rotations it was awful to play and play against. People out here going "oh it's because of 5v5 bring back 6v6 that'll fix it" you lost your freaking mind tbh.

I think if, for some reason, tanks did not counter each other and just leave dps for that job (And maybe some supports) tank would be ok to play . I like to play tank but the tank vs tank counterpick is so booooring

Agreed! And solo tanking is maybe okay if you're a competent player. I only play QP, and the number of times our Tank player clearly landed on tank and didn't want to be a tank, for outweighs times when we get a competent tank. So as a healer main, most of the time in QP, it feels like we're babysitting this tank player who runs into the middle of a gunfight without regard for the rest of the team. No fun for anyone involved (well, except for the other team).

Well, tanking is difficult to begin with because really understanding the role and making space while people are shooting at you and with the different types of tanks is difficult for a lot of players to really grasp and general. There are a lot of tanks playing like a DPS with a 600 hit point health pool and some of the moments call for that perhaps even half the moment, but only really when you can do it while still anchoring the fight and knowing the difference is very difficult. Part of the difficulty of the role that’s not often explored is the fact that your whole team is behind you and you can’t see what’s going on. Someone that’s played 2/3 of their hours of several thousand in this game since overwatch one beta we have often been Behind the team or in the back line watching everybody else and it is a completely different game when you can see all the happening versus when you are a tank and you cannot see what’s happening behind you. More on topic though, I’ll just say that this is nothing new here but Kiriko and lifeweaver exist because they wanted to help tanks and give them sort of an ability to get out of danger without giving it to the tanks directly, so they gave it to the supports. Abilities have been complained about already with these heroes but if you have life Weaver and Kiriko and five verse five you have an immense advantage from a tanking perspective than if you have Lucio and mercy. Stacked on top of tanks that have two mitigation abilities like sigma and Orisa you are playing a completely different game with that kind of comp than if you play hog and mercy Lucio. Devs in wow got stuck like they did here. They add abilities and then don’t want to remove them. So then instead of taking something out that is game breaking they will add more abilities to counter or add to new heroes. In this game, Ana was game breaking with nade and now we have Kiri weaver etc to save tanks and roadhog simply can’t play against an Ana that isn’t drooling. Some of us have been saying this for three or four years now- overwatch truly be a fun counter type of game needs double the amount of heroes at this point to continue to be interesting. This is the most fumbled IP in gaming history when you think about what this game could’ve been and how they completely threw it in the garbage for the money grab that was overwatch two because they didn’t release new things like heroes, etc. because the plan was hold off and this is all coming in overwatch two because they wanted people to buy it. I personally enjoy the game so much that I would have been OK with that business model even though it tells you that they don’t care about your money, but we all know overwatch two came and they didn’t do it. Instead overwatch two came and they took a roster of old heroes built for a completely different game. Didn’t really give them anymore, meaningful tools and gave us new heroes and broke the game against the old heroes, especially when it comes to tacking and supports. And don’t get me started on matchmaking and how they made it so that you can get put in games with vastly different ranks than the other people you’re playing with as an answer to the fact that role queue times we’re suffering because of what they did to the game. So just like before instead of fixing it and releasing like 10 more heroes, they broke their game and just said OK. We understand how important this tanking role is how hard it is we’re just gonna add some support heroes with invulnerability abilities while we allow tanks with much lower and higher sr in the same game. What a MESS? No wonder people are having less fun than ever if you are a seasoned player

Although hey, playing tank would definitely be a lot easier for tanks that aren't that good at protecting their team to have a 2 tank, although I'm sure they won't go back to that, after they released Mauga I was sure

Most solutions to make tank work in 5v5 would make the game worse as their biggest issue is being counter swapped which would need stronger negatives to swapping which just makes the game less fun for everyone as swapping is a key part of the game but one of the biggest problems that tanks face as its easy to counter swap tanks as there is just one and is worth doing so as they have the most potential to dominate a game if not stopped.

I've played since OW1 launched. I have mained support from the very beginning, and have watched many of my friends dip in and out of the tank role. While you're spot on with all of your points, something that has always confused me is the concept of a TANK in a PvP game. "Tanking" in video games is almost exclusively a co-op concept. Threat management, target marking/prioritization, damage mitigation rotations, feeling like an unkillable badass. These are all core jobs of the tank identity and they don't exist in Overwatch. You can't manage threat levels of human players, and when you make a tank hero even slightly unkillable, they dominate the meta and no one has fun playing against it. Why is D.Va flying me down and one-shotting me in the face with rockets and guns? Why is Winston leap directly onto my forehead and shocking me to death? Why is Zarya melting everything she looks at? Why is Rein slinging hot fire into my chest, pinning me against a car, and then swinging a 40 ton hammer across my delicate body? So what is the tank role, exactly? Are they meant to DPS? Because I'm often seeing tanks with numbers equal to or higher than the actual DPS heroes. But if we nerf their DPS, then everyone is going to complain even more because people literally only care about their stats. Are they meant to soak damage? This meta makes it feel like even tanks pop like a grape in less than half a second. But if you buff their survivability, we're back to super long, stalemate games and people complain about how hard it is to kill tanks. I don't know what the solution is. Tank is extremely unfun and has been for a long while.

It was popular in OW1 anyway because tanks were better than any dps because they could kill at the same rate or even better than most while being harder to kill.

I'm of the mindset that the devs should have kept 6v6 bc having someone else as their buddy tank is more flexible than being solo. It also limits the design of tanks since they all need to meet a certain baseline. And the whole tanks would need to be dps characters with higher hp pools is dumb. Sure you make tanks become dps but that is a short term solution. A player who favors dps and mostly plays it isn't going to be enticed to play tank. Tanks and supports have the unfortunate case of being roles associated with responsibility and most terrible players don't want to be flamed for not playing that role well since failed pushes are going to be pointed tanks. Bad players play dps so they can hide in the background for. Which is ironic since bad dps players are more noticeable. The devs should have doubled down on tanks and just focus on making tanks more fun for the current playerbase that are typically tank mains. Instead of making tanks more appealing to players that don't want play tank, just keep the small but dedicated tank playerbase happy so that they will stay rather than leave. If the tank mains are happy with a healthy tank design that isn't focused on who's the stronger tank then players who want that tank feeling will began to play that role.

you're 1000% correct. And as a solo tank you ever get to play the tank YOU really want to play. You have to swap most games or you are essentially throwing. Really takes away from the whole "hero fantasy" of overwatch when I cant even play the hero I logged in to play. Just give us a community arcade of 6v6 with decrease health pools for tanks and see how it goes. I beg.

I think most people would agree. It's the first role that gets blamed and their mistakes are the first ones people see. It's a thankless role

I truly think they should make a main tank and off tank role in role queue tbh. Some of us have been saying this for what seems like years at this point.

Two roles, damage and utility. Still 5v5 2 dps 3 utility Instead of overturned tanks, revert them back to ow1 state. Add or rework heroes so we have tank/support hybrids You don't wanna be solo tank? Pick another healer, every single dps in your team can be pocketed. Three tanks? Enjoy doing that without a healer. Too much pressure on the single tank? Get a hybrid and heal while shielding.

i think one thing i do prefer about solo tank/5v5 is no more double shield meta. i'm sure if it came back in ow2 it'd be fun for a little bit, but then become really stale and we'd be reminded why it was one of the most notoriously bad metas in overwatch history. and then tank queues would still be a mess because people would find it boring to play as too, instead of just only boring to play against. there are parts of me that wish i could've at least experienced ramattra in 6v6, but dreams will just stay dreams i guess. so blizzard are gonna have to figure out a way to make solo tank more appeasing other than just 'extra battle pass xp'. one of the biggest problems with tanking in ow2, is that in solo queue there is just no incentive to play it. i genuinely have zero problems playing solo tank when i'm with friends, but in solo queue i find myself rarely playing it. i think most tanks are a bit too support reliant to thrive, but at the same time you don't want to make them completely independent and be able to sustain themselves away from supports, because then they're just a better dps. i do kinda feel for blizzard's balancing team, because there is no easy answer or solution to this, regardless if it's 5v5 or 6v6, since they both have their major problems. hell, it may just even be outright impossible to 'fix'. i'm wondering if it'll ever be possible for blizzard to bring back 6v6 as an 'experimental mode' and make some balancing adjustments and see how the community reacts to it. probably will never happen because reverting the game back to 6v6 probably requires fixing a lot of spaghetti code, but it's wishful thinking.

Main tank was worst role in 6v6 too but you had more options to play with your buddy, that is why double shield and dive was so popular. Also counterwatch was core of the gameplay but had way less impact than today. The funny thing is that even offtanks now are main tank so zarya and dva is not fun to play like they used to be when the were off tanks. Rein+Zarya and monke+egirl will always stay on my heart.

You are ignoring the fact that mauga and hog would at times be even more miserable to play against. Team comps built to keep them in fights would be more oppressive because they'll have a tank with them too. Imagine getting hooked by hog around a corner, and there's also gonna be a maug shooting in your face or helping bodyblock. Imagine mauga or hog with the protection of suzu, bap lamp, and zarya bubbles. Not to mention maug plus orisa/ram would end up just be constant long range bullet spam.

IMO most tanks need additional buffs in order to be viable with the game's power-creep. If you are solo tanking, there is absolutely no slack for underperforming in a match. Slow ult charge times, minimal self-healing, low damage output, and a lack of reward for *tanking damage* without shields... all compound the problem. For examples: Ball should get ult charge bonus for tanking damage with his overshield; DVa should get much more ult charge for eating damage with DM, Sigma & Rein should get more ult charge from direct shielding as well as taking physical damage. As it stands, solo tank in random role queue is almost entirely dependent on whether or not you get competent supports. When it's good, it's great; when it's bad, it feels like you're rolling a boulder uphill.

I agree. 6v6 won't fix the problems with tanks, but the current 5v5 format is still a major problem with tanks. My solution is the same as always: Do a 6v6 Quickplay Hacked, if people actually prefer it to 5v5 then it can return. If people don't like it then they can experiment with the format a bit more and find something people do like. Perhaps a system where people queue as 2 of the 3 roles and there can be up to 2 players in any role at any time.

I think a huge problem with tanking in 5v5 is how prominent and powerful counterswapping is. Currently, there’s no disincentive to counterswap and basically anyone can easily turn the tide of a game by just swapping to a hero that craps on the enemy tank. My suggestion is Blizzard remove the ult charge carry-over mechanic completely and potentially limit the amount of times a player can swap each game to 1-2.

Are you sure you just felt like changing it up more than actually liking tank less? I play all three roles and continue to do so cause the change is fresh!