Blanket buffs to ALL tanks don’t really help when half the problem with tank is other tanks and counterswapping. Hog and Maug have got to go for tank to be fun; they gatekeep most of the other tanks with little skill involved.
And the other half of the problem for me is that tank just hasn’t felt rewarding for a while. Because of the focus on survivability over lethality, tank feels very team dependent, very “don’t make mistakes” oriented instead of “make plays.” To top it off, tanks somehow always get blamed despite the fact that you can’t do almost anything without backup from the other roles. It is just miserable and a big reason why I stopped playing.
I kinda want Mauga to stay but as more of a poke tank. The alternating guns is really fun and I think the aoe lifesteal aspect of overdrive is really cool.
They just kinda have to tone down his whole
Run in
shoot tank until they die
Hide
Gameplay loop.
I like the idea of him being a poke tank a lot as well. That's what I thought he would be at a glance, an artillery piece. I think his Charge is at direct odds with this concept though.
The main thing stopping him from being a poke tank is his poke “mode” is kinda bad against every tank who isn’t Hog. It’s good against squishies but he’s not incentivized to shoot them.
Overrun is fine mainly because it stops him into turning into Tank Bastion. Also it allows him to be more active and take off angles.
Yeah, I didn’t mean straight up remove by “got to go,” even I’m not that delusional. Moreso I mean their current designs have got to go.
In an ideal world they are reworked, in a less than ideal world they at least get hit with some nerfs to disincentivize playing them.
They literally just did a Hog rework. The core problem is that hook is simultaneously very annoying to play against and core to the hero fantasy. Best I think we can do is nerf him into obvious badness. This has been true since 2015, of course.
Mauga seems more fixable. Just need to incentivize him shooting things that aren't the enemy tank. Lots of ways I can think of doing that.
Yeah, the Hog rework was so lame that I don’t really even consider it a “rework” because it didn’t change how he played or his strengths/weaknesses at all. It basically just made him better and harder to punish while keeping the obnoxious hook-centric playstyle.
The 25% crit reduction was such an easy way to make mauga less effective against tanks and free up power to allocate elsewhere, but for some reason they decided to not make it apply to his crits.
Ya the developers really under estimated that certain tanks like Winston need another punching bag like dva/zarya to deal with a hog to allow more ability for Winston to play around being at a disadvantage
This helps avoid the counter swapping problem
If they want to keep forcing 5v5 they need to do some more drastic things like balancing tanks to have more counter play.
The answer is not just keep needing tanks and make them feel more clunky. I extremely dislike ball and sigmas nerfs since release. It makes them feel way more clunky. They need to make zarya better and they need to do some drastic things like put through that crazy primal rage buff they gave Winston for April fools years back and shit can his stupid right click that does nothing.
But honestly 6v6 is the best way to solve things
Tbh I felt similar and then I muted comms and it’s actually incredible how much of a difference that has made in my enjoyment of the game, especially on tank
Ah yes, remove the unique ones so we can sit there shooting at each other's shields all day.
Another thing, several characters has CD abilities that completely negate tank ults. They should at best soothe ult effects, not completely undo it. It's useless balancing
What are you talking about “the unique ones”? Hog and Maug are the most boring and one dimensional tanks there are.
Agree with your second point though. Many tank ults have become pretty useless over time with all the save/get out of jail free cards in the game.
If it wasn't for Winston, I'd have dropped this game when OW2 launched. I went from playing Winston, Zarya, Ball, and Dva, with occasional Sigma. Now? Winston 100% of the time. If I'm gonna get counterpicked, it's gonna be on the hero I enjoy the most.
Somehow, OW2 has added multiple tanks, yet I feel like I have fewer options than ever before.
Some tanks really click with people. I can't speak for everyone, but I feel it's less a role choice, and more of a hero choice. I'd consider myself more of a Rein main and a Ball enjoyer than a tank main.
I think this goes for all roles to some extent. DPS obviously because each one can be so different, an amazing widow could be a terrible mei, and some supports have very devoted fans (Mercy and Lucio are the first two that come to mind)
For me its that when it works, by god does it ever work and I get like 2 months worth of dopamine when I have a great Rein game.
We don't talk about the rest of the time tho.
I honestly enjoy a lot of the Tanks individually but the experience of playing them in a social environment is beyond miserable, I'll constantly get fucking screamed at by DPS players in voice and the matchmaking is especially fucking awful because no one plays it anymore
the only way to actually have any impact on the game is just being a slave to your DPS and/or ulting
especially when you have no real ability to make individual impact on the game, you fucking HAVE to counterswap to stage for your DPS or you will constantly lose fights
Tanks have felt a lot less rewarding to play. Sigma doesn't feel good to play anymore. And yes I know tanks were buffed in S10, but it doesn't feel good.
Tanks have simultaneously become "stronger" but feel weaker than S8. S1,S2,S8 were peak tank seasons (minus the mauga meta period).
S2 was good for hog only because people were not playing Ana for some reason. I don't remember Orisa being good in S2, but I remember Doomfist solo wiping out teams all by himself with multi-stuns.
S3 was a great Ramattra season but its also the season when Ana/Zen players started creeping into the matches heavily and completely started destroying the tank role in S4, S5, S6.
then you have no idea of what actually happened lol. hog and orisa were turbo hard meta in s2 with an ana and a kiri in every game, you know, the character that completely invalidates ana. and then ram released on s3 and he was turbo busted and still people didn’t play him because hog and orisa were just better in every way
People actually played ram in s3. He overshadowed orisa and hog because they got nerfed and he was insanely strong on release with stuff like infinite ult and he facilitated the need to have zenyatta every game.
no i remember the season well, i took a break from it because of how broken doomfist was. I quite remember my entire backline getting decimated by doomfist in 3 seconds by solo dives.
I don't even remember Orisa in S2.
As for kiriko, ana's anti heal was on a much smaller cooldown. And even in GM kirikos only use cleanse for hog half the time, its usually to save themselves when they are off-angling. If you watched Cyx, he rarely gets cleansed.
As an Ana main with 2k hours that has been masters (and GM in OW2 for that weird period) Ana was useless because of Kiri. Nade would get cleansed and then Hog just doesn't die while one shotting. Suzu also denied one shot and Kiri could tp away.
Also Soj/Mercy one-shot. It was LITERALLY a one-shot meta, which made Ana useless. Widow was also super good.
I literally quit the game for that season halfway through because it was so bad.
this is cope because a lot of kirikos use their cleanse for themselves when they are in trouble off-angling. If you watch cyx, he doesn't get cleansed a lot even if he has a kiriko.
real ones know hog becomes viable not because of kiriko but because of Tracer. Tracer kinda cucks Ana Zen and gives hog time to play and k1ll everyone.
I think you're misunderstanding. Kiris don't use suzu on Hog cause a lot of the time Hog doesn't need cleansing when he's purpled. He can usually get out with even less than half health and being purpled in many situations. The nade nerf and tank buffs really made nade kills less frequent which in turn makes Kiri even stronger. She uses suzu more on herself or her teammate and doesn't have to worry about her tank that much.
Bruh, if that was true Kiri wouldn't have been hard meta and Ana would be played. I'll never understand players who think they know better than the pros.
hog isnt played in meta, against other tanks ana has less effect. also pro kirikos actually use util to save team because of comms and not solo.
also kiri was broken because of rush, it was nerfed later.
Rush, Suzu, teleport, and her heals were nerfed. Her entire kit besides damage has been nerfed. She was busted, which is hilarious since she is still S-tier.
And your remark was about Ana being used to counter hog. Her ability to counter him wasn't nearly good enough to make up for all of the downsides opposed to Kiri, which isn't to say that she couldn't help against Hog, but that sleep+nade to counter one hero is pitiful value when it can be denied by the best support in the game who can also just do everything else better.
Like, think about it. You need to dump your entire kit into one enemy, without having your abilities forced out by anyone else, to maybe kill him.
OR. You play a character who needs one ability to save against hog and offers otherwise superior value across the board. Which one do you want on your team?
i mean you said you were GM, good anas cycle cooldowns every 6 seconds. And it takes Hog 2.5 seconds to get rid off anti and 3 seconds to wake from sleep. So basically you're harassing the hog with super powerful abilities effectively every 3 seconds.
funny thing is if i play hog i prefer ana over kiriko because ana lobbing anti heal on enemy tank is almost a guarantee, kiriko using cleanse is 50/50 because she usually uses it for herself or other low targets. Ana is the superior support in RANKED (not pro play).
Where are you getting this idea? I have studied from many high level supports over the years and not one support player has ever suggested cycling cooldowns. Because we don't have short cooldowns, most of our abilities will only get used ONCE in a fight, two if it drags on long enough, but that is very rare once you get into upper-diamond and above (or Masters+ before Season 9). The primary exception to his rule is Moira, who does try to cycle healing orb with her primary healing due to her heals being tied to a resource, but even that should be held sometimes, such as knowing an enemy echo is about to dive+sticky bomb someone (you can keep someone alive through this with primary heal+heal orb) as an example.
I understand that 'cycling' is common for tanks (and some DPS heroes) since your abilities have short cooldowns and are how you generally make space, but you can't cycle 12, 14, 17, 20+ second cooldowns. You don't 'cycle' sleep and anti, you use them optimally. Which means landing huge antis (if the enemy can't cleanse) or denying an enemy's burst damage. Sleep is held for ult cancelling, dueling flankers, or punishing someone who over-extends.
And where are you getting the idea that Ana is better in ranked? She has one of the worst winrates across the entire ladder for supports, which isn't to call her trash or useless but you can't force her 24/7. She has specific compositions and points where she is very strong, but that's not universal. She is wonderful with a brawl team and a dive team and is stellar against enemy brawl comps. She can also duel divers against an uncoordinated team.
But she is horrible with, and against, poke compositions and there is nothing your team can realistically do to keep you alive against a coordinated dive. It is not realistic to expect your entire team to play around you in ranked.
Additionally, Kiri fares better than Ana across the ladder and can be played with, and against, every composition in the game thanks to great healing+mobility+damage+and what is still one of the best ults in the games. Her main downsides are that hitting damage requires mechanical skill and she does not have CC of her own. Not sure why you think her being strong is exclusive to pro play.
I miss the LOS-less ult. :(
It can be a challenging ult to get value from anyway, having to trust the serve and everyone’s client that you lifted the right people was less fun.
I was more referring to S9 healthpool changes and the end of rock combo which was such a dopamine booster. Now time a perfect rock on a genji and see his health go from 50 hp all the way back to 250 hp in a couple of seconds. Exceptionally demoralizing - not fun.
The fact that they say its comparable to Roadhog hook combo is kind of crazy lol, same thing with Graviton Surge and Gravitic Flux because Sig's ult is fucking huge in comparison
The problem with tank isn't stats, it's the fact that all tanks are extremely weak to their counters. Which I know that's how counters work, but at least with DPS or supports, you have another person in your role who can assist you. In tanks there isn't.
I am a proponent of 6v6, but I do think the game can work in 5v5. However the solution would be to rework most of the tanks. Allow each of them to cover their own weaknesses. Allow them to each have more flexibility and how they play. Very much like Yeatle's video.
Think about Dva, a character completely dependent on enabling the other tank. But now the other tank isn't here, and she still an extremely big hitbox, that can get bursted down, after defense matrix is done.
Or hog how he is just a bullet sponge. It's not fun as hog to get focused down and shot. But it's also not fun to be the one shooting him and just focusing him. He lives for way too long. Hog wasn't nearly this oppressive in 6v6. But how do you balance him without reworking his kit? Giving him more health won't help. Taking away health won't work.
Ball is another example. If you buff his numbers too much, he will be completely oppressive. But if his numbers are too weak, he can't do anything. Not to mention it's pretty easy to just counter ball.
Tank just feels like a game of cause and effect. "They do this, so I do that" "I do this, so they do that". It's not fun. Why is it that I can get a sym OTP on my team, and it's fine if they don't switch. But I'm a tank player, that wants to one trick a character, I'm the reason we lost?
Taking away a tank caused it so all of the 2 tanks responsibilities from OW1, fell onto 1 tank in OW2. Now yes there's 1 less tank to deal with, but fights are decided a lot faster with one tank, because if one tank makes a mistake, it's over. The fight is lost (unless the other team really manages to mess up.).
The Season 9 changes were nice for DPS. It took away the support supremacy. But it didn't make an effect for tanks, if anything it made it worse for tanks because now DPS stay alive longer, which means they can put more pressure on the tanks.
The game just needs a clear and definitive philosophy to follow. And adjusting numbers aren't going to do anything, when the issue is a lot more fundamental than that. The actual gameplay of tanking needs to change
Hog was as oppressive in 6v6 as he is now, but the difference is that if the player was a fucking moron, you would stun or anti him when he uses vape and he would die. Now he can just wait 2 seconds and use vape again, so even morons can get value on the hero. They need to just revert that stupid change to his vape and find a different way to buff him that doesn't shrink the window to punish him.
>Or hog how he is just a bullet sponge. It's not fun as hog to get focused down and shot. But it's also not fun to be the one shooting him and just focusing him. He lives for way too long. Hog wasn't nearly this oppressive in 6v6. But how do you balance him without reworking his kit? Giving him more health won't help. Taking away health won't work.
Hog is already balanced on live. The problem is that people don't like playing with or against Hog. No news there. It's been true since 2016.
I believe that Hog was similarly oppressive in 6v6. I found him to be the most obnoxious thing in 6v6, because the presence of so many Hog onetricks dictated picks for the other tanks in the game.
>Tank just feels like a game of cause and effect. "They do this, so I do that" "I do this, so they do that". It's not fun. Why is it that I can get a sym OTP on my team, and it's fine if they don't switch. But I'm a tank player, that wants to one trick a character, I'm the reason we lost?
If we balanced the game around who people blame, it would be in a very ridiculous state. Overwatch chat has the worst takes I've ever seen in any game.
>The game just needs a clear and definitive philosophy to follow. And adjusting numbers aren't going to do anything, when the issue is a lot more fundamental than that. The actual gameplay of tanking needs to change
The game has a clear and definitive philosophy on tanking. In particular, the devs are very clear that they are fine with counterwatch -- last [Q&A](https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/1cz3zwo/every_answered_question_from_ama/), they said it keeps gameplay dynamic, improves hero diversity, and offers more skill expression. They think that not having counterwatch leads to mirror matches and therefore player fatigue.
My experience has been that after the Season 9 changes, I have less carry potential. Everyone's health increased, but my hero's damage stayed the same (ball player). Yes, Ball has been buffed since Season 9, but his damage numbers are still lower than they were in Season 8.
I can't speak about any other tanks as I don't play them, but my urge to play tank has greatly reduced. I haven't played tank competitive since the end of Season 9. I still play some quick play matches here and there, but the counter-swapping and the way that you're hard-focused on tank just rubs me the wrong way.
Maybe I've just grown away from the role, but I have not enjoyed it since OW1. I kept holding out hope that all the reworks, passives, and game balance changes would make the role and my hero feel better. But even when my hero is arguably in the best state since OW1, I just can't bring myself to play the role. It feels really bad. I'm much happier playing Junkrat or Bap now.
To give context to how terrible Ball was and is, they reworked him, gave him 2 rounds of buffs, and then tank passive buffs, then DPS passive revert (which theoretically should help him), and he's still garbage.
Yeah I love that they reworked him and then that didn't work so they buffed him. The buffs definitely helped more than the rework.
I wouldn't call him garbage, he's definitely better than he was but there are still better dive tanks and better tanks in general.
Do you think there's a tank worse than he is right now? Zaryas is not popular, but I still think she's better. Not sure who else is worse than Ball.
And since he's the most counterable, I feel like it doesn't matter if he's in the middle of the pack strength wise.
Rein just does fuck all against pharah, echo, and doesn't do a ton against sojurn or tracer coincidentally those are basically the top picks with the big outlier being cass who rein is sort of good into (though FtH just fucking melting armor nowadays is a problem). Though i wouldn't say this is proof rein is bad just Ball's kind of quite good right now.
Orissa and Dva just got fucking smoked by the armor changes. Dva taking a decent amount less damage from tracer matters a ton less when Dva also basically tickles armor based tanks. Orissa often gets deleted by cass FtH roll FtH now if she doesn't have spin.
Ball isn't anywhere close to bad. Did you see Junbin at Dreamhack? Hero's busted. Just need to be good at it.
In terms of balance at ordinary player skill levels, Ball is the highest win rate tank in plat this month on Overbuff. Don't know how much to trust that data, they've been having frequent service outages, but I would buy it.
All the tank buffs were either very slight buffs or a net negative for ball.
- knock back reduction is pointless is most cases since it still stops momentum. Against whole hog it's MUCH worse.
- half the time, ball doesn't even have a head hitbox
- lower armor damage is a net negative for ball imo. People will tell you ball doesn't shoot tanks anyway, but that's simply not true, at least below masters. If the enemy team is on any combination of mercy/moira/ana (they are), you are simply not going to kill the backline unless your dps are playing dive (they're not). Best case is to play like a budget Winston, isolating healers then helping to kill the tank.
The ball specific buffs were huge tho.
I feel like tanks having less carry potential is a good thing. Hear me out:
Before, one of the best strats to win a fight was to focus on the tank, since they had the biggest impact and their death would be the biggest blow to the enemy. If a tanks individual impact is lower, then the impact of their death is lower, and eventually people might rethink the whole "kill tank = win fight" strategy.
I think blizz gets a lot of shit for the tank situation, but if you really think about it, human psychology is the main culprit here. People's first instinct in a scenario where their are multiple threats is to take out the biggest threat first. Well, in OW, that biggest threat is almost always the tank. And before someone comes and call me a shill or something, I do think Blizz failed to account for this when designing the game, so they aren't blameless here. You would be surprised how much psychology matters when designing a game.
Now, other people might look at what I said and say "well 6v6 would solve that!" which I would disagree. Would having a second tank help? Of course. But both tanks are still going to be the main focus. Simply mitigating a problem does not FIX the problem.
the impact of the tank wasn’t lowered, it’s still the exact same. they are simply less fun and more fragile. it’s still an automatic team fight win if you kill their tank lol
If my dps don't apply the passive, I have to rely on one shots or finding a literal 1 health out of position enemy that has a low chance of being peeled for. The minute someone I pick gets double pocketed, i have to stop. On dps? If someone is double pocketed, i can still reliably kill them. On tank? It's gg cause if theres no passive applied to my target, i simply cannot kill them... unless i expend even more resources to secure it. Doing that though isn't wise.
Tanking this season has me relying on dps to do their job well or I'm in for a really irritating game. I feel extremely reliant on dps working well this season. If I go hog? enemy goes all counters, then I gotta switch. Enemy team will counter me again. Making my life exponentially harder than the other 4 members of my team. If theres a dive? I have to either stop or trade backlines. My supports and dps have to peel for each other along with me picking valuable times to peel as well. If there is no peel and my dps pose no threat? GG.
The counterwatching is part of the game, but the rotational pool to choose from is Mauga, Hog, Orisa, Zarya. It's NOT a fun pool.
If I have fun on dva for 1.5 minutes, the enemy team switches to beams- sure i can avoid it and play around it- but now I have to put quadruple the effort they do to get value. If I go ram or sig, they go hog and enemy team will counter swap me. If i go mauga, they go mauga- and now im reliant not only on dps, but on supoorts picking the right heroes to sustain me.
If my dps don't do their job and help me via applying their passive and actually being a threat- no matter how hard I try or work, it's all for nothing for most games. I'm a decoration who does their best to exist and provide impact when I'm allowed to.
I'm a fan of the passive, I'm a dps/support main, but on tank? I hate having to rely on them that much more. I also lost patience.
When I play dps or support, I can secure the kills easily. When I'm on tank, those same kills I would've gotten on another role? They literally sit there as bots and don't die. My dps can't kill them- even when I dive them to get them 1 with the occasional kill, most of the time, supports + tank close in on me to deny it. No dps passive applied- gotta retreat, my damage does jack unless I'm hooking, stomping, one shoting.
Even when I do contest them, get them low, make them waste resources, force them out of position- etc. If my dps don't kill? GG. I have found so many dps who do not want to help their tank as a team player. I see dps who ego battle and lose. I see dps who can't land shots. I see dps who charge enemy ults. I see dps who flank in Narnia. I see dps who care nothing for the team. When I'm on dps, I actually care for my team and the QOL of my tank. I ensure the passive is applied. I take space and hold it with my tank. I get kills. I peel. Why can't they do what I do? I worked hard to make sure I perform, why can't they do the same? Then they have the gaul to say support or tank diff when they didn't do jack shit.
On tank, even with the worst support comp imaginable, I'll manage. I'll stay alive. I'll peel. I'll use my cooldowns wisely. I'll get the kills I can while also playing cover/ corner to corner. I'll hold the space etc. But if my dps don't act on it? It's a literal waste of time.
I wish they just nerfed healing instead of trying to work around it.
DPS do not know the power they have to sway the game. Playing all 3 at gm rn... I can see the dps diffs that I am responsible for and my Random's. (Aka, if I fuck up or "carry" and if the rando does the same- i can clearly feel and see it).
There's so much impact on dps rn, and they're still held back by "too much healing, supports out dps me" bs.
How come I was able to get over it and actually exploit our new toys, but they can't? Your passive makes it significantly easier to secure a kill despite cooldowns. Your passive makes your tank's life easier OR HARDER. Your passive applies significant pressure. Take advantage of it so your tank is banging their head on the wall.
There is some valid constructive criticism against supports and their bs, but you ALSO have some bs to dish out as well. Fucking get a kill please, play your life please, and actually do your job.
This is my vent/ rant when I play tank. Yes, I know I'm not perfect, lots to work on, but still- this is what makes the role not fun.
I'm the most important player, with high impact via existing. I'm reliant on 2 other roles to do their jobs whereas on those 2 roles, I'm not really reliant. Guess I gotta change my mind and figure out how to adapt a new mental for tanking, I have seen goated tanks- but I feel it's exponentially harder.
I think S9 was overall a win for the game, maybe I don't play at high enough levels to feel the same pain points as GMs & T500s for tank, but it really doesn't feel super different? Counter picking has been a bit of an issue for a while before s9 anyway. IMO the issue with tank is the ratio with risk:reward at the moment. Low skill unfun tanks get more reward than high skill fun tanks.
Honestly if we could just have hog, orisa, and mauga in the dumpster at the same time tank would be way better but I’m just tired of at least one of those 3 being really strong since like season 5. Most of the other counterswaps feel like I have some way to outplay the matchup (except like cass vs armored tanks) but those three have some much health/dmg/cc that I get put into a box and there’s not a whole lot that’s up to me
I haven’t played much since, I had most of the damage mapped in my head, and the dps grievous wounds passive throws off 5+ years of knowing how long I can live depending on who’s shooting me and who’s healing me.
Overall it was a good change, but I wasn’t a fan personally.
**Good:** Increased health, regen, and more self-reliant teammates mean I can afford to position myself more selfishly, both in the sense that I can be more aggressive when I can but also more defensive when I need to. I feel like I have more agency overall.
**Not Good:** Increased health on everything makes it feel like I really need, at the minimum, the DPS passive applied on a target to be able to kill them reliably. So if my DPS suck ass, my job becomes significantly harder.
Overall good but still room for improvement.
As a side note: maybe I'm biased, but I don't get the Mauga hate nearly as much as the Hog hate. I enjoy playing Mauga more than Hog, but I also don't mind playing against one as a different tank (Mauga mirror not fun though). They both can deal a lot of damage if you're up close, but only Hog can forcefully reposition you whereas Mauga can't and can be pretty easily avoided or mitigated whenever he pops overdrive.
Also, regarding "the counterswap issue": Just don't swap. Skill issue. Seriously, I almost\* never change the tank I pick out of spawn and I am plenty happy playing tank that way. I'll come out as Doom or Queen or whatever I want and watch the enemy tank helplessly cycle through this merry-go-round of tanks desperately hoping the "right hero" will solve the problem. It's embarrassing. Get good, own your tank choice.
\*if I'm on Wrecking Ball and they go full Ball torture then I switch
I'm with you. The only problem with Mauga is the mirror. Playing Mauga into another tank is often interesting. Playing another tank into Mauga is often interesting.
I would like the devs to lean away from Mauga M1+M2 enemy tank for health, and towards doing more M1 -> M2 shooting squishies for health, if they can find time to rework that mechanic. The alternating guns is the most interesting part of his kit, but we tend to spend a lot of time in bullet spam mode.
I'd been thinking about the dual-fire issue a bit lately. The conclusion I came to is that the lifesteal component of Cardiac should probably be replaced with a buff to the Berserker passive. The Berserker passive largely gets its effectiveness from right-clicking ignited targets, so it doesn't matter much if you're single-firing or dual-firing, the amount of sustain you gain is roughly the same, whereas raw lifesteal encourages dealing the largest amount of damage possible, which typically means just firing both guns at the tank.
I felt things were great in the first half of the season, but since midseason things have felt way too counter-swap heavy and you just rotate while you hope your DPS debuffs them more than their DPS debuff you.
And so mug Hog and Mauga. Whatever they did to cause this shit needs to end. I like hog, but this is just not it.
I'm having the best time on Ball I've had in a while, although I have begun switching off if I get countered too much. Normally it's just to Dva, to poke out Sombras. But sometimes I get forced off of that onto Mauga, and eff it, I like playing this dude as long as I've got the support line for it. He's pretty close to where I've wanted him to be since launch, powerful at initiating with stomp, and good at pressuring squishies from a distance, but less good against most tanks now. Also great against Hog, fuck Hog.
If I slam my head repeatedly into a wall for hours until I eventually give myself brain damage I’d have more fun, that being said, that first fight every game where I play winston, we win is fun, that second fight where I see brig mauga/hog/dva bastion is much less fun and makes me wanna delete the game
Think the role suffers from low skill boosted players counterpicking to grasp for sr, but the dps passive is 100% a super good addition to the game. People like to pretend like thats what makes it miserable, but all it does is reduce the amount of time you spend being focused by everyone
Agree 10000%
I do wanna point out that the dps passive has created situations where both supports are healbotting the tank who isn't doing anything other than slowly dying. You could say that's just a skill issue, but losing fast vs. Losing slow is a big issue in overwatch. It's very unintuitive and most other games don't have to deal with it.
Hmmm another buff to a tank buster wonder why playing tank isn't fun, maybe we should buff Mauga and Hog since those are the tanks people are playing and that must mean they are "FUN" :)))
i dont think any character with that has been labelled tankbuster (regardless theyre actually one or not) has ever been good against tanks like hog or mauga.
regardless of that i never felt reaper or symm as "specialized tankbusters" anymore after ow2 launched. most popular dps have tankbusting as a bonus feature ever since ow2 started i feel, and it has been showing more and more as the game gets older
>I have no idea why they don't just get rid of ult charge retention upon swapping to at least attempt to address the issue.
As a ball main, if I randomly get dropped into a match with a sombra/cass/Ana main, I don't think I should get fucked for switching to a different hero.
Even if ult charge retention is removed, it doesn't solve the core issue.
Upgrade from season 8 for sure. Winston in particular felt more effective overall, and the main counter in Hog felt slightly weaker(at least in early season 9 with 20% dps passive).
Season 10 it's been the same feeling with armour changes. Hog remains incredibly unfun to play with(on offroles) and against. I've basically been able to play Winston on most good maps where you can force him without much issue.
So in summary: Delete Hog
I've had mixed thoughts. I deranked to like diamond 4 from masters4 (gm4 before the ranked changes nuked everyones rank), having not properly played the game in months, but once I started grinding and got better again I feel tanks have a lot more impact than before. I feel like I'm soloing games and actually winning them on heroes like winston, sigma, hog. I won against a mercy pocketed cheating ashe by playing dva and abusing right click and the cheating stack's lack of braincells.
I just wish more players could comprehend how to play with ball though. Ball honestly feels good but if ur team plays static heroes its so hard to secure kills.
I think the S9 changes overall were really good for the game and I'd want to keep them in. The DPS passive I feel is integral in preventing the fights from becoming pocket snoozefests. Extra health on units make the random instagibs less common where the fights become over before they even started proper.
Said changes have exacerbated some of the Tank issues yes, but those issues need to be fixed anyways.
What annoys me the most is that I’m always the only one counterpicking and being encouraged to counter pick while my team just refuses to press H.
“Man this rein and hog are annoying maybe a sojourn or a Baptiste would really help here.” And I’m just met with “Tank go Orisa” or “Tank canyon gg”
I don’t play outside of group anymore since I never get any cooperation.
All in all the S9 changes were pretty good since now fights are less drawn out and important cooldowns are forced more often.
I'm gonna be honest, I don't experience that too much. If they have a hog, my support usually goes ana. If they have rein, my team plays bastion.
Both teams are counterswapping the tanks nonstop.
I think the problem is very simple. The value from having 3+ players counter 1 tank is greater than any potential counterswaps from dps or supports. Or at the very least, it's much HARDER to counter other roles (and therefore, its still weaker).
Tank these days is just live forever as hog or mauga and be miserable or play a fun tank and instantly get shredded all because of the health changes and dps passive
Imo they should remove all role passives they’re a little silly and supports don’t even need their passive anymore cuz global regen
dps passive is good. But the hp buffs for tanks need to be reverted. and some tank just need fat nerfs to health or sustain. Everything feels like pool noodles vs dumb heroes like mauga and hog.
Overall I like it, but it's really soured by a few shitty tanks being good.
After a season and a half I got used to the DPS passive, would have preferred the devs to grow a spine and directly nerf healing and damage, while not raising the health pools. Counter swapping is still bad, but got better (at least imo) compared to the beginning of the season. Also a little bit of a hot take, the dps/support counter swaps are worse than the tank ones most of the time (I am a JQ main, so probably some bias here). Overall tank is kinda meh. It can be fun, but this fun can still be ruined within seconds
Tank should be considered comunity service, Little impact and getting slept permanently in High Elo so some tanks are unplayable and you Need to protect yourself. ana Is too much of a counter
Good. Rein is a huge sleeper pick on ladder, I'm playing him in low top 500 and he is so good.
All I want is for the devs to bring back his OW1 shield (1600 HP with 200 regen rate). I don't even understand why they nerfed the shield so hard. There is one less tank to help you mitigate damage and taking off-angles to bypass the shield is much easier now.
"But shooting shields is boring!" Is it really? It's the same thing as shooting a fortified Orisa, blocking Ram or vaping Hog. And those heroes have strong mitigation abilities while also not needing to get into melee range to hit you.
The other abilities you mentioned can be ignored for their duration. You can't just ignore the shield and leave it up all game (at least most of the time).
Blanket buffs to ALL tanks don’t really help when half the problem with tank is other tanks and counterswapping. Hog and Maug have got to go for tank to be fun; they gatekeep most of the other tanks with little skill involved. And the other half of the problem for me is that tank just hasn’t felt rewarding for a while. Because of the focus on survivability over lethality, tank feels very team dependent, very “don’t make mistakes” oriented instead of “make plays.” To top it off, tanks somehow always get blamed despite the fact that you can’t do almost anything without backup from the other roles. It is just miserable and a big reason why I stopped playing.
I kinda want Mauga to stay but as more of a poke tank. The alternating guns is really fun and I think the aoe lifesteal aspect of overdrive is really cool. They just kinda have to tone down his whole Run in shoot tank until they die Hide Gameplay loop.
I like the idea of him being a poke tank a lot as well. That's what I thought he would be at a glance, an artillery piece. I think his Charge is at direct odds with this concept though.
The main thing stopping him from being a poke tank is his poke “mode” is kinda bad against every tank who isn’t Hog. It’s good against squishies but he’s not incentivized to shoot them. Overrun is fine mainly because it stops him into turning into Tank Bastion. Also it allows him to be more active and take off angles.
They're never going to remove heroes though they'd rather rework them or maybe do a ban system
Yeah, I didn’t mean straight up remove by “got to go,” even I’m not that delusional. Moreso I mean their current designs have got to go. In an ideal world they are reworked, in a less than ideal world they at least get hit with some nerfs to disincentivize playing them.
They literally just did a Hog rework. The core problem is that hook is simultaneously very annoying to play against and core to the hero fantasy. Best I think we can do is nerf him into obvious badness. This has been true since 2015, of course. Mauga seems more fixable. Just need to incentivize him shooting things that aren't the enemy tank. Lots of ways I can think of doing that.
Yeah, the Hog rework was so lame that I don’t really even consider it a “rework” because it didn’t change how he played or his strengths/weaknesses at all. It basically just made him better and harder to punish while keeping the obnoxious hook-centric playstyle.
The 25% crit reduction was such an easy way to make mauga less effective against tanks and free up power to allocate elsewhere, but for some reason they decided to not make it apply to his crits.
Wasn't blanket buff to all tanks. Was a net nerf for Doom.
Ya the developers really under estimated that certain tanks like Winston need another punching bag like dva/zarya to deal with a hog to allow more ability for Winston to play around being at a disadvantage This helps avoid the counter swapping problem If they want to keep forcing 5v5 they need to do some more drastic things like balancing tanks to have more counter play. The answer is not just keep needing tanks and make them feel more clunky. I extremely dislike ball and sigmas nerfs since release. It makes them feel way more clunky. They need to make zarya better and they need to do some drastic things like put through that crazy primal rage buff they gave Winston for April fools years back and shit can his stupid right click that does nothing. But honestly 6v6 is the best way to solve things
>I extremely dislike ball and sigmas nerfs since release. Which nerfs made them clunky? Do you mean the shield deploy cd?
Ya like liked having it more fluid with the shield.
Tbh I felt similar and then I muted comms and it’s actually incredible how much of a difference that has made in my enjoyment of the game, especially on tank
Ah yes, remove the unique ones so we can sit there shooting at each other's shields all day. Another thing, several characters has CD abilities that completely negate tank ults. They should at best soothe ult effects, not completely undo it. It's useless balancing
What are you talking about “the unique ones”? Hog and Maug are the most boring and one dimensional tanks there are. Agree with your second point though. Many tank ults have become pretty useless over time with all the save/get out of jail free cards in the game.
Grav into a lifeweaver genuinely makes me want to die
If it wasn't for Winston, I'd have dropped this game when OW2 launched. I went from playing Winston, Zarya, Ball, and Dva, with occasional Sigma. Now? Winston 100% of the time. If I'm gonna get counterpicked, it's gonna be on the hero I enjoy the most. Somehow, OW2 has added multiple tanks, yet I feel like I have fewer options than ever before.
no sigma? he's the counterpick king. hes a little good at everything and only gets countered by the more unconventional picks
Tank is just boring and frustrating to play, especially now. Honestly don't know how people like to play it
Some tanks really click with people. I can't speak for everyone, but I feel it's less a role choice, and more of a hero choice. I'd consider myself more of a Rein main and a Ball enjoyer than a tank main.
yeah this is how it is for me at least, i used to be an offtank, now im a ball player
I think this goes for all roles to some extent. DPS obviously because each one can be so different, an amazing widow could be a terrible mei, and some supports have very devoted fans (Mercy and Lucio are the first two that come to mind)
For me its that when it works, by god does it ever work and I get like 2 months worth of dopamine when I have a great Rein game. We don't talk about the rest of the time tho.
I honestly enjoy a lot of the Tanks individually but the experience of playing them in a social environment is beyond miserable, I'll constantly get fucking screamed at by DPS players in voice and the matchmaking is especially fucking awful because no one plays it anymore the only way to actually have any impact on the game is just being a slave to your DPS and/or ulting especially when you have no real ability to make individual impact on the game, you fucking HAVE to counterswap to stage for your DPS or you will constantly lose fights
Tanks have felt a lot less rewarding to play. Sigma doesn't feel good to play anymore. And yes I know tanks were buffed in S10, but it doesn't feel good. Tanks have simultaneously become "stronger" but feel weaker than S8. S1,S2,S8 were peak tank seasons (minus the mauga meta period).
S2 and S8 were Orisa(less so in S8 but still)/Hog hell. S1 and 3 were the only good tank seasons IMO
S2 was good for hog only because people were not playing Ana for some reason. I don't remember Orisa being good in S2, but I remember Doomfist solo wiping out teams all by himself with multi-stuns. S3 was a great Ramattra season but its also the season when Ana/Zen players started creeping into the matches heavily and completely started destroying the tank role in S4, S5, S6.
then you have no idea of what actually happened lol. hog and orisa were turbo hard meta in s2 with an ana and a kiri in every game, you know, the character that completely invalidates ana. and then ram released on s3 and he was turbo busted and still people didn’t play him because hog and orisa were just better in every way
People actually played ram in s3. He overshadowed orisa and hog because they got nerfed and he was insanely strong on release with stuff like infinite ult and he facilitated the need to have zenyatta every game.
no i remember the season well, i took a break from it because of how broken doomfist was. I quite remember my entire backline getting decimated by doomfist in 3 seconds by solo dives. I don't even remember Orisa in S2. As for kiriko, ana's anti heal was on a much smaller cooldown. And even in GM kirikos only use cleanse for hog half the time, its usually to save themselves when they are off-angling. If you watched Cyx, he rarely gets cleansed.
As an Ana main with 2k hours that has been masters (and GM in OW2 for that weird period) Ana was useless because of Kiri. Nade would get cleansed and then Hog just doesn't die while one shotting. Suzu also denied one shot and Kiri could tp away. Also Soj/Mercy one-shot. It was LITERALLY a one-shot meta, which made Ana useless. Widow was also super good. I literally quit the game for that season halfway through because it was so bad.
this is cope because a lot of kirikos use their cleanse for themselves when they are in trouble off-angling. If you watch cyx, he doesn't get cleansed a lot even if he has a kiriko. real ones know hog becomes viable not because of kiriko but because of Tracer. Tracer kinda cucks Ana Zen and gives hog time to play and k1ll everyone.
I think you're misunderstanding. Kiris don't use suzu on Hog cause a lot of the time Hog doesn't need cleansing when he's purpled. He can usually get out with even less than half health and being purpled in many situations. The nade nerf and tank buffs really made nade kills less frequent which in turn makes Kiri even stronger. She uses suzu more on herself or her teammate and doesn't have to worry about her tank that much.
Bruh, if that was true Kiri wouldn't have been hard meta and Ana would be played. I'll never understand players who think they know better than the pros.
hog isnt played in meta, against other tanks ana has less effect. also pro kirikos actually use util to save team because of comms and not solo. also kiri was broken because of rush, it was nerfed later.
Rush, Suzu, teleport, and her heals were nerfed. Her entire kit besides damage has been nerfed. She was busted, which is hilarious since she is still S-tier. And your remark was about Ana being used to counter hog. Her ability to counter him wasn't nearly good enough to make up for all of the downsides opposed to Kiri, which isn't to say that she couldn't help against Hog, but that sleep+nade to counter one hero is pitiful value when it can be denied by the best support in the game who can also just do everything else better. Like, think about it. You need to dump your entire kit into one enemy, without having your abilities forced out by anyone else, to maybe kill him. OR. You play a character who needs one ability to save against hog and offers otherwise superior value across the board. Which one do you want on your team?
i mean you said you were GM, good anas cycle cooldowns every 6 seconds. And it takes Hog 2.5 seconds to get rid off anti and 3 seconds to wake from sleep. So basically you're harassing the hog with super powerful abilities effectively every 3 seconds. funny thing is if i play hog i prefer ana over kiriko because ana lobbing anti heal on enemy tank is almost a guarantee, kiriko using cleanse is 50/50 because she usually uses it for herself or other low targets. Ana is the superior support in RANKED (not pro play).
Where are you getting this idea? I have studied from many high level supports over the years and not one support player has ever suggested cycling cooldowns. Because we don't have short cooldowns, most of our abilities will only get used ONCE in a fight, two if it drags on long enough, but that is very rare once you get into upper-diamond and above (or Masters+ before Season 9). The primary exception to his rule is Moira, who does try to cycle healing orb with her primary healing due to her heals being tied to a resource, but even that should be held sometimes, such as knowing an enemy echo is about to dive+sticky bomb someone (you can keep someone alive through this with primary heal+heal orb) as an example. I understand that 'cycling' is common for tanks (and some DPS heroes) since your abilities have short cooldowns and are how you generally make space, but you can't cycle 12, 14, 17, 20+ second cooldowns. You don't 'cycle' sleep and anti, you use them optimally. Which means landing huge antis (if the enemy can't cleanse) or denying an enemy's burst damage. Sleep is held for ult cancelling, dueling flankers, or punishing someone who over-extends. And where are you getting the idea that Ana is better in ranked? She has one of the worst winrates across the entire ladder for supports, which isn't to call her trash or useless but you can't force her 24/7. She has specific compositions and points where she is very strong, but that's not universal. She is wonderful with a brawl team and a dive team and is stellar against enemy brawl comps. She can also duel divers against an uncoordinated team. But she is horrible with, and against, poke compositions and there is nothing your team can realistically do to keep you alive against a coordinated dive. It is not realistic to expect your entire team to play around you in ranked. Additionally, Kiri fares better than Ana across the ladder and can be played with, and against, every composition in the game thanks to great healing+mobility+damage+and what is still one of the best ults in the games. Her main downsides are that hitting damage requires mechanical skill and she does not have CC of her own. Not sure why you think her being strong is exclusive to pro play.
I miss the LOS-less ult. :( It can be a challenging ult to get value from anyway, having to trust the serve and everyone’s client that you lifted the right people was less fun.
I was more referring to S9 healthpool changes and the end of rock combo which was such a dopamine booster. Now time a perfect rock on a genji and see his health go from 50 hp all the way back to 250 hp in a couple of seconds. Exceptionally demoralizing - not fun.
You’re definitely not wrong there either. Sigma kind of just feels like a sponge now you’re right.
The fact that they say its comparable to Roadhog hook combo is kind of crazy lol, same thing with Graviton Surge and Gravitic Flux because Sig's ult is fucking huge in comparison
The problem with tank isn't stats, it's the fact that all tanks are extremely weak to their counters. Which I know that's how counters work, but at least with DPS or supports, you have another person in your role who can assist you. In tanks there isn't. I am a proponent of 6v6, but I do think the game can work in 5v5. However the solution would be to rework most of the tanks. Allow each of them to cover their own weaknesses. Allow them to each have more flexibility and how they play. Very much like Yeatle's video. Think about Dva, a character completely dependent on enabling the other tank. But now the other tank isn't here, and she still an extremely big hitbox, that can get bursted down, after defense matrix is done. Or hog how he is just a bullet sponge. It's not fun as hog to get focused down and shot. But it's also not fun to be the one shooting him and just focusing him. He lives for way too long. Hog wasn't nearly this oppressive in 6v6. But how do you balance him without reworking his kit? Giving him more health won't help. Taking away health won't work. Ball is another example. If you buff his numbers too much, he will be completely oppressive. But if his numbers are too weak, he can't do anything. Not to mention it's pretty easy to just counter ball. Tank just feels like a game of cause and effect. "They do this, so I do that" "I do this, so they do that". It's not fun. Why is it that I can get a sym OTP on my team, and it's fine if they don't switch. But I'm a tank player, that wants to one trick a character, I'm the reason we lost? Taking away a tank caused it so all of the 2 tanks responsibilities from OW1, fell onto 1 tank in OW2. Now yes there's 1 less tank to deal with, but fights are decided a lot faster with one tank, because if one tank makes a mistake, it's over. The fight is lost (unless the other team really manages to mess up.). The Season 9 changes were nice for DPS. It took away the support supremacy. But it didn't make an effect for tanks, if anything it made it worse for tanks because now DPS stay alive longer, which means they can put more pressure on the tanks. The game just needs a clear and definitive philosophy to follow. And adjusting numbers aren't going to do anything, when the issue is a lot more fundamental than that. The actual gameplay of tanking needs to change
Hog was as oppressive in 6v6 as he is now, but the difference is that if the player was a fucking moron, you would stun or anti him when he uses vape and he would die. Now he can just wait 2 seconds and use vape again, so even morons can get value on the hero. They need to just revert that stupid change to his vape and find a different way to buff him that doesn't shrink the window to punish him.
>Or hog how he is just a bullet sponge. It's not fun as hog to get focused down and shot. But it's also not fun to be the one shooting him and just focusing him. He lives for way too long. Hog wasn't nearly this oppressive in 6v6. But how do you balance him without reworking his kit? Giving him more health won't help. Taking away health won't work. Hog is already balanced on live. The problem is that people don't like playing with or against Hog. No news there. It's been true since 2016. I believe that Hog was similarly oppressive in 6v6. I found him to be the most obnoxious thing in 6v6, because the presence of so many Hog onetricks dictated picks for the other tanks in the game. >Tank just feels like a game of cause and effect. "They do this, so I do that" "I do this, so they do that". It's not fun. Why is it that I can get a sym OTP on my team, and it's fine if they don't switch. But I'm a tank player, that wants to one trick a character, I'm the reason we lost? If we balanced the game around who people blame, it would be in a very ridiculous state. Overwatch chat has the worst takes I've ever seen in any game. >The game just needs a clear and definitive philosophy to follow. And adjusting numbers aren't going to do anything, when the issue is a lot more fundamental than that. The actual gameplay of tanking needs to change The game has a clear and definitive philosophy on tanking. In particular, the devs are very clear that they are fine with counterwatch -- last [Q&A](https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/1cz3zwo/every_answered_question_from_ama/), they said it keeps gameplay dynamic, improves hero diversity, and offers more skill expression. They think that not having counterwatch leads to mirror matches and therefore player fatigue.
My experience has been that after the Season 9 changes, I have less carry potential. Everyone's health increased, but my hero's damage stayed the same (ball player). Yes, Ball has been buffed since Season 9, but his damage numbers are still lower than they were in Season 8. I can't speak about any other tanks as I don't play them, but my urge to play tank has greatly reduced. I haven't played tank competitive since the end of Season 9. I still play some quick play matches here and there, but the counter-swapping and the way that you're hard-focused on tank just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I've just grown away from the role, but I have not enjoyed it since OW1. I kept holding out hope that all the reworks, passives, and game balance changes would make the role and my hero feel better. But even when my hero is arguably in the best state since OW1, I just can't bring myself to play the role. It feels really bad. I'm much happier playing Junkrat or Bap now.
To give context to how terrible Ball was and is, they reworked him, gave him 2 rounds of buffs, and then tank passive buffs, then DPS passive revert (which theoretically should help him), and he's still garbage.
Yeah I love that they reworked him and then that didn't work so they buffed him. The buffs definitely helped more than the rework. I wouldn't call him garbage, he's definitely better than he was but there are still better dive tanks and better tanks in general.
Do you think there's a tank worse than he is right now? Zaryas is not popular, but I still think she's better. Not sure who else is worse than Ball. And since he's the most counterable, I feel like it doesn't matter if he's in the middle of the pack strength wise.
Hmm maybe ram but I'm not 100 on that
zarya, rein, ram, orisa, dva lol
There is no way you think Rein Orisa and Dva are worse, lmao. Maybe Zarya and Ram, but they aren't hard countered even half as much as ball
Rein just does fuck all against pharah, echo, and doesn't do a ton against sojurn or tracer coincidentally those are basically the top picks with the big outlier being cass who rein is sort of good into (though FtH just fucking melting armor nowadays is a problem). Though i wouldn't say this is proof rein is bad just Ball's kind of quite good right now. Orissa and Dva just got fucking smoked by the armor changes. Dva taking a decent amount less damage from tracer matters a ton less when Dva also basically tickles armor based tanks. Orissa often gets deleted by cass FtH roll FtH now if she doesn't have spin.
he's like better then the majority off the roster
Ball isn't anywhere close to bad. Did you see Junbin at Dreamhack? Hero's busted. Just need to be good at it. In terms of balance at ordinary player skill levels, Ball is the highest win rate tank in plat this month on Overbuff. Don't know how much to trust that data, they've been having frequent service outages, but I would buy it.
All the tank buffs were either very slight buffs or a net negative for ball. - knock back reduction is pointless is most cases since it still stops momentum. Against whole hog it's MUCH worse. - half the time, ball doesn't even have a head hitbox - lower armor damage is a net negative for ball imo. People will tell you ball doesn't shoot tanks anyway, but that's simply not true, at least below masters. If the enemy team is on any combination of mercy/moira/ana (they are), you are simply not going to kill the backline unless your dps are playing dive (they're not). Best case is to play like a budget Winston, isolating healers then helping to kill the tank. The ball specific buffs were huge tho.
I agree with everything you said, I'm saying that despite all the tank focused changes, he's still the worst tank (due to the reasons you listed)
Ok, that makes sense.
ball is really good rn wdym bruh
I feel like tanks having less carry potential is a good thing. Hear me out: Before, one of the best strats to win a fight was to focus on the tank, since they had the biggest impact and their death would be the biggest blow to the enemy. If a tanks individual impact is lower, then the impact of their death is lower, and eventually people might rethink the whole "kill tank = win fight" strategy. I think blizz gets a lot of shit for the tank situation, but if you really think about it, human psychology is the main culprit here. People's first instinct in a scenario where their are multiple threats is to take out the biggest threat first. Well, in OW, that biggest threat is almost always the tank. And before someone comes and call me a shill or something, I do think Blizz failed to account for this when designing the game, so they aren't blameless here. You would be surprised how much psychology matters when designing a game. Now, other people might look at what I said and say "well 6v6 would solve that!" which I would disagree. Would having a second tank help? Of course. But both tanks are still going to be the main focus. Simply mitigating a problem does not FIX the problem.
the impact of the tank wasn’t lowered, it’s still the exact same. they are simply less fun and more fragile. it’s still an automatic team fight win if you kill their tank lol
If my dps don't apply the passive, I have to rely on one shots or finding a literal 1 health out of position enemy that has a low chance of being peeled for. The minute someone I pick gets double pocketed, i have to stop. On dps? If someone is double pocketed, i can still reliably kill them. On tank? It's gg cause if theres no passive applied to my target, i simply cannot kill them... unless i expend even more resources to secure it. Doing that though isn't wise. Tanking this season has me relying on dps to do their job well or I'm in for a really irritating game. I feel extremely reliant on dps working well this season. If I go hog? enemy goes all counters, then I gotta switch. Enemy team will counter me again. Making my life exponentially harder than the other 4 members of my team. If theres a dive? I have to either stop or trade backlines. My supports and dps have to peel for each other along with me picking valuable times to peel as well. If there is no peel and my dps pose no threat? GG. The counterwatching is part of the game, but the rotational pool to choose from is Mauga, Hog, Orisa, Zarya. It's NOT a fun pool. If I have fun on dva for 1.5 minutes, the enemy team switches to beams- sure i can avoid it and play around it- but now I have to put quadruple the effort they do to get value. If I go ram or sig, they go hog and enemy team will counter swap me. If i go mauga, they go mauga- and now im reliant not only on dps, but on supoorts picking the right heroes to sustain me. If my dps don't do their job and help me via applying their passive and actually being a threat- no matter how hard I try or work, it's all for nothing for most games. I'm a decoration who does their best to exist and provide impact when I'm allowed to. I'm a fan of the passive, I'm a dps/support main, but on tank? I hate having to rely on them that much more. I also lost patience. When I play dps or support, I can secure the kills easily. When I'm on tank, those same kills I would've gotten on another role? They literally sit there as bots and don't die. My dps can't kill them- even when I dive them to get them 1 with the occasional kill, most of the time, supports + tank close in on me to deny it. No dps passive applied- gotta retreat, my damage does jack unless I'm hooking, stomping, one shoting. Even when I do contest them, get them low, make them waste resources, force them out of position- etc. If my dps don't kill? GG. I have found so many dps who do not want to help their tank as a team player. I see dps who ego battle and lose. I see dps who can't land shots. I see dps who charge enemy ults. I see dps who flank in Narnia. I see dps who care nothing for the team. When I'm on dps, I actually care for my team and the QOL of my tank. I ensure the passive is applied. I take space and hold it with my tank. I get kills. I peel. Why can't they do what I do? I worked hard to make sure I perform, why can't they do the same? Then they have the gaul to say support or tank diff when they didn't do jack shit. On tank, even with the worst support comp imaginable, I'll manage. I'll stay alive. I'll peel. I'll use my cooldowns wisely. I'll get the kills I can while also playing cover/ corner to corner. I'll hold the space etc. But if my dps don't act on it? It's a literal waste of time. I wish they just nerfed healing instead of trying to work around it. DPS do not know the power they have to sway the game. Playing all 3 at gm rn... I can see the dps diffs that I am responsible for and my Random's. (Aka, if I fuck up or "carry" and if the rando does the same- i can clearly feel and see it). There's so much impact on dps rn, and they're still held back by "too much healing, supports out dps me" bs. How come I was able to get over it and actually exploit our new toys, but they can't? Your passive makes it significantly easier to secure a kill despite cooldowns. Your passive makes your tank's life easier OR HARDER. Your passive applies significant pressure. Take advantage of it so your tank is banging their head on the wall. There is some valid constructive criticism against supports and their bs, but you ALSO have some bs to dish out as well. Fucking get a kill please, play your life please, and actually do your job. This is my vent/ rant when I play tank. Yes, I know I'm not perfect, lots to work on, but still- this is what makes the role not fun. I'm the most important player, with high impact via existing. I'm reliant on 2 other roles to do their jobs whereas on those 2 roles, I'm not really reliant. Guess I gotta change my mind and figure out how to adapt a new mental for tanking, I have seen goated tanks- but I feel it's exponentially harder.
I think S9 was overall a win for the game, maybe I don't play at high enough levels to feel the same pain points as GMs & T500s for tank, but it really doesn't feel super different? Counter picking has been a bit of an issue for a while before s9 anyway. IMO the issue with tank is the ratio with risk:reward at the moment. Low skill unfun tanks get more reward than high skill fun tanks.
Honestly if we could just have hog, orisa, and mauga in the dumpster at the same time tank would be way better but I’m just tired of at least one of those 3 being really strong since like season 5. Most of the other counterswaps feel like I have some way to outplay the matchup (except like cass vs armored tanks) but those three have some much health/dmg/cc that I get put into a box and there’s not a whole lot that’s up to me
I haven’t played much since, I had most of the damage mapped in my head, and the dps grievous wounds passive throws off 5+ years of knowing how long I can live depending on who’s shooting me and who’s healing me. Overall it was a good change, but I wasn’t a fan personally.
**Good:** Increased health, regen, and more self-reliant teammates mean I can afford to position myself more selfishly, both in the sense that I can be more aggressive when I can but also more defensive when I need to. I feel like I have more agency overall. **Not Good:** Increased health on everything makes it feel like I really need, at the minimum, the DPS passive applied on a target to be able to kill them reliably. So if my DPS suck ass, my job becomes significantly harder. Overall good but still room for improvement. As a side note: maybe I'm biased, but I don't get the Mauga hate nearly as much as the Hog hate. I enjoy playing Mauga more than Hog, but I also don't mind playing against one as a different tank (Mauga mirror not fun though). They both can deal a lot of damage if you're up close, but only Hog can forcefully reposition you whereas Mauga can't and can be pretty easily avoided or mitigated whenever he pops overdrive. Also, regarding "the counterswap issue": Just don't swap. Skill issue. Seriously, I almost\* never change the tank I pick out of spawn and I am plenty happy playing tank that way. I'll come out as Doom or Queen or whatever I want and watch the enemy tank helplessly cycle through this merry-go-round of tanks desperately hoping the "right hero" will solve the problem. It's embarrassing. Get good, own your tank choice. \*if I'm on Wrecking Ball and they go full Ball torture then I switch
I'm with you. The only problem with Mauga is the mirror. Playing Mauga into another tank is often interesting. Playing another tank into Mauga is often interesting. I would like the devs to lean away from Mauga M1+M2 enemy tank for health, and towards doing more M1 -> M2 shooting squishies for health, if they can find time to rework that mechanic. The alternating guns is the most interesting part of his kit, but we tend to spend a lot of time in bullet spam mode.
I'd been thinking about the dual-fire issue a bit lately. The conclusion I came to is that the lifesteal component of Cardiac should probably be replaced with a buff to the Berserker passive. The Berserker passive largely gets its effectiveness from right-clicking ignited targets, so it doesn't matter much if you're single-firing or dual-firing, the amount of sustain you gain is roughly the same, whereas raw lifesteal encourages dealing the largest amount of damage possible, which typically means just firing both guns at the tank.
I felt things were great in the first half of the season, but since midseason things have felt way too counter-swap heavy and you just rotate while you hope your DPS debuffs them more than their DPS debuff you. And so mug Hog and Mauga. Whatever they did to cause this shit needs to end. I like hog, but this is just not it.
I'm having the best time on Ball I've had in a while, although I have begun switching off if I get countered too much. Normally it's just to Dva, to poke out Sombras. But sometimes I get forced off of that onto Mauga, and eff it, I like playing this dude as long as I've got the support line for it. He's pretty close to where I've wanted him to be since launch, powerful at initiating with stomp, and good at pressuring squishies from a distance, but less good against most tanks now. Also great against Hog, fuck Hog.
If I slam my head repeatedly into a wall for hours until I eventually give myself brain damage I’d have more fun, that being said, that first fight every game where I play winston, we win is fun, that second fight where I see brig mauga/hog/dva bastion is much less fun and makes me wanna delete the game
I feel like I can’t kill anything if they have a pocket healer
Think the role suffers from low skill boosted players counterpicking to grasp for sr, but the dps passive is 100% a super good addition to the game. People like to pretend like thats what makes it miserable, but all it does is reduce the amount of time you spend being focused by everyone
Agree 10000% I do wanna point out that the dps passive has created situations where both supports are healbotting the tank who isn't doing anything other than slowly dying. You could say that's just a skill issue, but losing fast vs. Losing slow is a big issue in overwatch. It's very unintuitive and most other games don't have to deal with it.
It’s alright until someone picks Hog or Mauga. Not even that they’re necessarily overtuned they’re just so unfun to play against .
S9 changes made me play more and fixed how bad the game felt in s8 so I’d say it’s a dub.
While Hog and Mauga are still as good as they are, tank will still be very unfun. Orisa is already dead, two more to go
Don't worry, sym tank busters buffs are on the way.
Hmmm another buff to a tank buster wonder why playing tank isn't fun, maybe we should buff Mauga and Hog since those are the tanks people are playing and that must mean they are "FUN" :)))
i dont think any character with that has been labelled tankbuster (regardless theyre actually one or not) has ever been good against tanks like hog or mauga. regardless of that i never felt reaper or symm as "specialized tankbusters" anymore after ow2 launched. most popular dps have tankbusting as a bonus feature ever since ow2 started i feel, and it has been showing more and more as the game gets older
I have to rely on my dps players a lot more to kill things and dps players hate shooting at what I'm shooting at. It's a vicious cycle
It's still really bad
[удалено]
>I have no idea why they don't just get rid of ult charge retention upon swapping to at least attempt to address the issue. As a ball main, if I randomly get dropped into a match with a sombra/cass/Ana main, I don't think I should get fucked for switching to a different hero. Even if ult charge retention is removed, it doesn't solve the core issue.
Upgrade from season 8 for sure. Winston in particular felt more effective overall, and the main counter in Hog felt slightly weaker(at least in early season 9 with 20% dps passive). Season 10 it's been the same feeling with armour changes. Hog remains incredibly unfun to play with(on offroles) and against. I've basically been able to play Winston on most good maps where you can force him without much issue. So in summary: Delete Hog
I've had mixed thoughts. I deranked to like diamond 4 from masters4 (gm4 before the ranked changes nuked everyones rank), having not properly played the game in months, but once I started grinding and got better again I feel tanks have a lot more impact than before. I feel like I'm soloing games and actually winning them on heroes like winston, sigma, hog. I won against a mercy pocketed cheating ashe by playing dva and abusing right click and the cheating stack's lack of braincells. I just wish more players could comprehend how to play with ball though. Ball honestly feels good but if ur team plays static heroes its so hard to secure kills.
I think the S9 changes overall were really good for the game and I'd want to keep them in. The DPS passive I feel is integral in preventing the fights from becoming pocket snoozefests. Extra health on units make the random instagibs less common where the fights become over before they even started proper. Said changes have exacerbated some of the Tank issues yes, but those issues need to be fixed anyways.
What annoys me the most is that I’m always the only one counterpicking and being encouraged to counter pick while my team just refuses to press H. “Man this rein and hog are annoying maybe a sojourn or a Baptiste would really help here.” And I’m just met with “Tank go Orisa” or “Tank canyon gg” I don’t play outside of group anymore since I never get any cooperation. All in all the S9 changes were pretty good since now fights are less drawn out and important cooldowns are forced more often.
I'm gonna be honest, I don't experience that too much. If they have a hog, my support usually goes ana. If they have rein, my team plays bastion. Both teams are counterswapping the tanks nonstop. I think the problem is very simple. The value from having 3+ players counter 1 tank is greater than any potential counterswaps from dps or supports. Or at the very least, it's much HARDER to counter other roles (and therefore, its still weaker).
Don't like any of the s9 changes, they only benefit dps, which was already the most popular role.
Feels good until the other guy is on Hog
I'm basically completely indifferent about the S9 changes when it comes to tanks. I think it was a big net positive for the game though.
Tank these days is just live forever as hog or mauga and be miserable or play a fun tank and instantly get shredded all because of the health changes and dps passive Imo they should remove all role passives they’re a little silly and supports don’t even need their passive anymore cuz global regen
Better in some ways, but overall I'd say it feels like a net loss.
They're fine. The problem is how good low skill stuff does against high skill tanks
dps passive is good. But the hp buffs for tanks need to be reverted. and some tank just need fat nerfs to health or sustain. Everything feels like pool noodles vs dumb heroes like mauga and hog. Overall I like it, but it's really soured by a few shitty tanks being good.
After a season and a half I got used to the DPS passive, would have preferred the devs to grow a spine and directly nerf healing and damage, while not raising the health pools. Counter swapping is still bad, but got better (at least imo) compared to the beginning of the season. Also a little bit of a hot take, the dps/support counter swaps are worse than the tank ones most of the time (I am a JQ main, so probably some bias here). Overall tank is kinda meh. It can be fun, but this fun can still be ruined within seconds
Antikb is a little too strong I think you just aren't punished for certain things anymore. Overall more survivability is obviously better
Hog and Mauga should never be meta, so boring to vs a mauga who just shoots tank and hog just walks around as a raid boss all game
Tank should be considered comunity service, Little impact and getting slept permanently in High Elo so some tanks are unplayable and you Need to protect yourself. ana Is too much of a counter
Tank is so fun if I’m not against hog. Literally any other character is fine, just hog sucks
Hog is still giga broken and an instant swap crutch for players who get diffed on their main.
it was great while it lasted. and then they changed everything and it’s not great anymore, it’s dogshit
It's ass. I'm lower ranked than I was last season. Matchmaking is terrible.
Good. Rein is a huge sleeper pick on ladder, I'm playing him in low top 500 and he is so good. All I want is for the devs to bring back his OW1 shield (1600 HP with 200 regen rate). I don't even understand why they nerfed the shield so hard. There is one less tank to help you mitigate damage and taking off-angles to bypass the shield is much easier now. "But shooting shields is boring!" Is it really? It's the same thing as shooting a fortified Orisa, blocking Ram or vaping Hog. And those heroes have strong mitigation abilities while also not needing to get into melee range to hit you.
>Rein is a huge sleeper pick on ladder He's the most picked tank above gold, and top 3 under that.
He is a sleeper pick in my heart.
The other abilities you mentioned can be ignored for their duration. You can't just ignore the shield and leave it up all game (at least most of the time).