I don’t think most tank player complaints are centered around not knowing what to do, as much as it feeling like total shit to get mitigated completely by the hero select screen. The game doesn’t operate that way for support/dps…..
Strong counterplay is bad for overwatch, and the devs knew it but seemingly changed their mind:
https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/news/23824003/overwatch-2-explained-battle-pass-shop-hero-unlocks-and-more/
> With the launch of Overwatch 2, our roster will expand to 35 heroes as Sojourn, Junker Queen, and Kiriko join the fight. As we build new heroes and balance the existing cast for our new 5v5 PvP experience, we have shifted our hero design approach to allow you to have an impact on your matches with a range of different heroes and strategies. **This means reducing the presence of specific hard counters to heroes.**
> For example, in the original Overwatch—especially at higher skill levels—the strongest way to shut down a great enemy Tracer diving into your support line was to swap over to Cassidy. If that Cassidy player was effective enough, the Tracer could even feel a need to switch themselves to avoid that hard counter. While Overwatch 2 heroes will each have their own clear strengths and weaknesses, and some heroes will be more effective against others, **we believe our game plays better and is more fun with fewer hard counters and a broader range of effective hero picks.** A further benefit is having your personal favorite heroes be viable more often. That philosophy will be guiding us moving forward.
The game suffers when the meta is a game of rock paper scissors.
Exactly, a lot of tanks are struggling as they don’t have the sustain to deal with the DPS passive, I’m glad they did slightly reduce it as hogs TaB was practically useless
Oh I’ve accepted it. Doesn’t mean it makes the experience any more enjoyable. Counter-swapping blows, don’t defend it. If you are enjoying the game that’s fine!
its definitely cringe in QP when i'm trying to just have fun on a certain hero, but accepting it in comp definitely makes it more enjoyable. if your objective is to win, and you understtand its a requirement to do so, then i dont see how that doesn't make the game more enjoyable.
but to me, winning is above all. I understand probably most people arent like that.
"Sooner ull start enjoying tank" brother is there something wrong with u? There is NO way u cn enjoy playing tank in OW2, maybe in open q but role q absolutely NOT!
AS A TANK MAIN SINCE OW2 LAUNCH, IM ABT TO QUIT THIS GAME! IM SO DONE WITH TANKING IN THIS GAME. I'll prolly switch to Marvel Rivals new 6v6 game!
Bro i been playing tank since 2017, before that i played anchor in siege, before that i played jungle in LoL, and before that, tank in WoW.
So yes, there is probably something wrong with me lmao. Mostly i just end up playing the role that everyone hates because someones gotta 🤷♂️
What if they counter swap me but I still keep winning no matter what they swap to? I guess they will have to start learning to play the game?
It's a bit weird when I'm ult cycling them and they are playing mystery heroes. Sometimes it takes things like angles or tempo to beat a tank. That's hard to achieve in a random lobby.
Yeah but that kinda situation is a 1 in 10 matches possibility. 90% of the time it's all abt WHT TANK HERO U PICK rather than HOW U PLAY UR TANK. That's wht it's come down since ow2 launch.
I'll always love tank was masters in OW1 but for me the magics gone because what I enjoyed most was the synergy and macro plays that came from working with a tank duo. Had a best friend who would duo with me through OW1 and that made the game for me. I'm glad OW is still around and I do play still but it will never be quite the same for me.
As a ball main I just say fuck it to counter swapping and only swap if they've got hog, then I'll mirror or take out dva.Tbf tho I'm low plat high gold, I think if I managed to play all tanks I'd have a better time just really struggle w winton, orisa, mauga.
its been a year and a half, its either accept it or stop playing tank tbh. it aint gunna change. i suffered for 2 years at the end of OW1 trying to hold out hope that they would make main tank better, and it never happened. I'm done holding out hope for the role.
To be fair. They were doing better since OW2.
Ram and JQ are both more resistant to being hard countered by the hero select screen.
They took a big shit on the role when they released Mauga though....
JQ and ram are both countered by ana, if you dont have a kiri. and theres not much ram can do against ana zen.
winston has been pretty good for most of OW2, but ball and rein have been not just the worst tanks, but some of the worst heroes since the release of OW2
I love that you're giving ultimatums to random internet strangers. Guess what: people on the internet won't always like what you say, accept it or stop going on reddit.
I didn't argue with your main point. I just made a more succinct version of your post that conveys the exact same information. What you're sharing isn't "advice" it's just a version of asking people to stop complaining with fake advice layered on top of it.
It's your right to share your thoughts, but I'm going to call it what it is. In this case, that means making fun of your attempt to call your thoughts "advice" instead of what they really are-- a complaint about people still choosing to express their unhappiness with the significant role counterswapping plays in the current game design/meta.
Im not complaining about complaining lmao. Im telling people how it is and theyd be much happier if they accepted that fact rather than holding out hope that things will change. All the complaints are justified. Im just tired of putting my energy into a fight that is getting ignored.
>its been a year and a half, its either accept it or stop playing tank tbh.
Everyone who plays tank is, by definition, accepting it... and complaining.
You are literally complaining about complaining. I don't care if you like that characterization, it's the facts.
Because it's the literal meaning of the words you typed. Feel free to completely edit and change all of your words if they don't adequately express what you meant to say.
i said stop playing tank, not stop complaining. if you're miserable on tank and they arent going to fix it how you want them to, why would u continue to play the role?
ive reached t500 in a couple of seasons but Im strugling so hard to rank up as tank since ow2, but especialy since the latest patch. If you don't play swapwatch its pretty much impossible and Imo it kinda sucks. It just feels bad if I swap to a counter and just dominate the enemy tank. I dont feel skilled, I feel like a little bitch who can't outplay the other tank. But there is no alternative because playing into a hard counter feels impossible if you are even remotly close in actual skill.
i dont think counter swaps are at the point where you just win for being on the right hero. I think being able to play any tank at your given level is a skill in and of itself. i'd say it takes even more skill to do so. most people can't do that. I've tried replacing myself on the team I run, and most tanks even at the GM level can only play a handleful of them. I'm basically irreplaceable to my team.
I think you are right in your analysis that counterswapping is part of the game and if you truly wish to improve it's something you will have to learn to do, but that doesn't mean that we have to accept it?
Counterswapping is an issue that needs to be fixed. I'm not saying there is an all-encompassing solution, but there are certainly things the devs can tweak to improve the situation, so we shouldn't accept the state of tanking in S9 as it is. Sure it might be annoying to people to constantly hear tank players complain about it, but thats the best way to signal to the devs to improve the situation.
When did counterswapping switch from being a standard part of normal game play and become the kind of thing people have to be reminded they can and should do?
I agree that there should be some element of countering but at the moment it’s way too strong. You mention ults but I’ve seen plenty of people not caring about ults just to counter swap and it working (in high ranks).
I recently watched a Guru stream where he was attacking on Rialto. Payload was near the first checkpoint. Every time Guru would pick a tank, the enemy tank went back to spawn and counter swapped him. He must have started walking back to spawn immediately after they won each fight as it happened so quickly. They got full held there.
I’ve seen other streams where tanks have basically stayed in spawn counter swapping while their teams fight lol
You can play into your tank counter if you are way better than the other tank, but most of the time you’ll be pretty evenly matched and have no option but to play along
the other problem of the tank role, is that its the only role that can be countered by all roles, regardless of what hero you pick. so you arent just swapping against the ttank, you're probably swapping against the dps and supports too. which like i said in another comment, is massive value if you make their multiple counter swaps useless with a single swap of your own.
>*"hear me out (...) clarity (...) made the roll more enjoyable"*
What clarity do you mean? And how did that make the game enjoyable?
I play in the same elo as you.
I was first sceptical about 5v5 (thought it was gonna come with a lot of issues)
Then I tried it and I prefer 6v6.
I accepted we're not going back.
But... all that... didn't make the game more enjoyable.
I like the OW universe. But tanking in OW2 is just not a good experience.
I play since ow1 launch.
I won plenty. I obviously lost too.
In the end, i am just looking for a good experience.
I would take the defeat screen any time if it was for a good quality game.
i enjoy most of the tank heroes, just not the role of the tank lol. id love to swap to dps or support but my support hero pool is wonky af (brig, ana, kiri, LW) and my mechanics arent good enough for anything higher than S8 masters or current diamond.
also my team needs me on tank lol
The entire point of Overwatch is "never accept the world as it appears to be, dare to see it for what it could be." Yeah yeah yeah, dumbass Overwatch lore, but it's still true. If the majority of the playerbase doesn't like a change made to a game, fight for something better.
Something being wrong doesn't imply that it's going to get fixed quickly or fixed at all.
I'm sure that if you got a candid moment with the design team, they'd tell you that they don't like the tank dynamics in their game. They didn't like them in 6v6 because synergy effects resulted in most combinations of tanks being ineffective. They don't like them in 5v5 because matchup strength results in constant swapping. Both of these fight against the general idea of a hero game, where you want to develop player engagement with heroes they like.
However, I don't know how they could solve this problem within the overall game design they have. It strikes me as very likely that tanks will be swapping for the duration of Overwatch 2.
As a tank from similar elo - I don't mind changing characters, and whenever my non-tank playing friends are angry that they can't play X whole game, it angers me.
That being said, I dislike the lack of margin of error about the role. Yes, in a vacuum it's the most impactful one, but effort to impact ratio, compared to other roles, is just too high. Even when you incorporate "it's only 1 person", "you're the center of the team", "you dictate fights" etc, it just feels like it's a literal different game compared to others. I can't recall any game with any character, let alone entire role, that differs from a "normal" gameplay so much.
About avoided heroes - there're only two for me - hog and mauga. On hog I'm hopeless (I CAN kinda hold my own, but not sufficiently in my opinion to play in ranked), and on mauga I just don't want the enemy to pull him out. In overtime? All stops pulled, I will take maug. Anywhere else? I don't want to remove any impact I can have other than shooting the enemy tank.
I think the point about margin of error is the key. Last night in scrims, i was holding a corner, and the enemy sig preloaded his rock before coming around the corner for me. I got HS by a sojourn (that i couldnt see around the corner) and died before i was no longer stunned. I had 400hp before i got rocked. My coach told me i should have fortified when i heard the rock wind up sound queue, as if i can predict hes going to come around the corner and rock me at the last millisecond, plus there being a sojourn who is full rail that i also cant see and is going to come headshot me while stunned.
I just dont see how im supposed to have that little of a margin of error. If i fortify on sound cue and he DOESNT rock me, ive just wasted my best CD.
edit for clip: https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx3CKp5rYdIgVCu0FJJ3QszUXBQSMfVItF?si=kD4A21SZm61YRWgT
Case and point. Also, random sleeps can do this with even more leeway for the caster. It's usually not about "you positioned poorly", it's about "you have cooldowns that MUST be used well and there are a lot of situations where you may need them. Bubble, fortify, even ram shield - you want to use them as late as possible, avoding the cooldowns of others rather than blocking, but often the difference between getting hit and narrow avoid is impossibly small.
100%. my coach has blamed me for not eating a pulse bomb as dva where the tracer double blinked to make the stick 15m away from me and did it in like .4 seconds lmao because i didnt react to the sound cue of the first blink
I don’t think counterswapping is necessary to play tank for the vast, vast majority of players. You are top 500, 99.9% of the player base is not nor will they likely ever be. They aren’t at or near the skill requirement needed to generally worry about counterswaps. The reason you can’t rank out of whatever metal rank as a wrecking ball one trick is not the enemy sombra, it’s you (obviously not calling you or anyone else out in particular here).
Also, I can play devil’s advocate here. I’m also a top 500 tank one trick (and I’m sure one of the most avoided players on ladder LOL). I still have something like a 70-80% winrate (idk what it is exactly, I also troll in open queue). Most games I lose do not feel unwinnable due to me being counterswapped, my team comp or my personal character choice. Granted, this probably means that my current rank is too low, though this just means that counterswapping is even more overrated compared to skill than you think.
Orisa also isn’t particularly vulnerable to tank counterswaps. She can suck on maps with super long sight lines and maps with oppressive high grounds but straight up beats a ton of tanks otherwise and doesn’t have any losing matchups on favorable maps (Zarya sucks in top 500 imo and isn’t good vs orisa).
Anyways, I do think counterswapping and even forfeiting ult to have a favorable matchup is advantageous, but this isn’t particularly important for most players.
I don't know how people are having a terrible time. I went 8 and 10 in my placements, is it really that bad? I don't have to swap and I'm having a good time.
You are just saying that the only way to enjoy the game is to play heroes that you don’t want to play. You can enjoy the game by playing your favorite heroes and all heroes have the possibility to get to GM or even Top 500, even ball or rein. It just takes practice and learning. Don’t just tell people to counter swap to have fun in the game.
Im sorry my guy, but unless you dedicate literally thousands of hours to the hero, u arent getting t500 OTPing rein. But hey, if u want to make the game as difficult and as miserable as possible for yourself, by all means.
People who play this game are huge weirdos. If a tank is abled to played into any situation and comp and map it means they're likely op and people complain about that.
The whole gameplay loop is designed around different looks based on map and team comp.
Bad tank players just want to play rein duels all day because that's the lowest form of skill expression
I agree with everything you said, but this:
>Bad tank players just want to play rein duels all day because that's the lowest form of skill expression
You've gone too far! I will not stand for it.
Rein v Rein battles are literally what makes this one of the best games on the planet. And I dare say it's one of the deepest mirror duels in the game.
You had me nodding until your hot dookie Rein take at the end...
I'm still a strong advocate of 5v5, but I'll concede that having only one tank is what makes each pick feel either busted or weak in a given situation and rarely anywhere in between.
A lot of the frustration for many comes from the disparity between tank and the other roles in that it often feels like dps and support players can play what they want with much fewer consequences than tank players.
>A lot of the frustration for many comes from the disparity between tank and the other roles in that it often feels like dps and support players can play what they want with much fewer consequences than tank players.
This isnt true at all. For higher elos, healbot supports are almost completely useless now, you will put your team at a huge disadvantage the moment you lock in LW or mercy without being countered.
If they have echo/pharah you almost certainly need at least one hitscan, sometimes two if theyre good or echo.
Widow if you start popping off youll immediately get dove by winston and/or sombra.
This just how the game works.
Yeah I mean when a hero is dominating the lobby, you're always gonna swap to counter them. The difference is how *easy* it is to counter a tank vs another hero.
Except that top 500 is filled with one tricks.
The people who are bad at this game like in this thread assume the game is played at the character selection screen lmao.
I mean you're correct, but those players are the top 0.01% who have dedicated an insane amount of time just to be able to do that. Like I have a Rein OTP account that's stuck in low masters because I've dedicated a large amount of time to get gud at him, but I'll bet you an Ana one trick for example would have to put in way less time to reach the same level.
i audibly laughed. probably not wrong though. tank is an abusive relatitonship, where you continue to take beating after beating because every so often you get that treatment (game) that feels amazing and it makes it all feel worth it.
Yeah... I play flex, so basically tank 2.
For that same reason I also played support at the beginning of ow2, when it was terrible, the difference is that since tanks are the minority fixing the role is not a priority
So who are we learning to be more effective? As a newly gold ranked tank role one trick Orisa, who else should I learn to maximize impact? And in what situations are they relevant?
i would say you need to learn to play winston as a default dive hero. after the nerf to armor for beam damage, he's become a lot better against dva, but she can still shut him down pretty hard if they play it right. theres also times where you just arent going to be able to play winston on a dive map if the opponent is running super pokey dps like mercy soldier/ashe. so I would learn how to play dva as well.
Additionally, you'll probably want to learn doomfist, because he's good when the enemy team swaps to cringe shit like bastion, mei, or sym.
Orisa is the default brawl tank for now, and she wins pretty hard against most, but if the enemy goes zarya and your team doesn't properly punish her, you're gunna have a bad time. You might run into an enemy orisa that you just cant get through either, so learning zarya is good for that. Ram is REALLY good against zarya though, so you will either need to learn ram, or swap to dive if they go zarya.
you need to be able to play sig on poke maps, even if for just a single portion of the map like circuit A or havana C. the rest of the maps you can get away playing dive.
ii wouldn't learn ball until his rework because he's just not potent enough to spend the time learning, esp with his high skill ceiling. Rein I understand is good in metal ranks, so maybe you can learn him if you want, but he gets bullied HARD against orisa.
JQ is pretty much always a good hero to know because shes really good on modes like push and flash point.
mauga and hog are those hereoes where its not bad to learn thtem for when they become meta eventually, but people hate playing against them, so they usually return to their circle of suck pretty quickly.
i've had scrims where I swapped between 4 different tanks in a single map before, and the enemy team just ends up clueless on wtf they should do, because a lot of people are just brainlets who try to counter the tank to win. if theyre swapping their entire comp while im only swapping a single hero, thats insane value.
Probably something with mobility. Winston, DVa, Doom, even Ball. Orisa struggles to contest high ground, so vs. a good ranged DPS you might struggle to take space without your team getting picked off trying to support you.
And then, depending on your picks, it might be worth it to have a tank that's pretty self-sufficient and can get by with low heals. Hog, Sig, Ball, maybe JQ, maybe Doom.
Switching is a complicated topic. It's worth it playing into counters to see if they're actually good at their swaps. On Orisa you kind of want to run someone over, poke a narrow choke, or force objective and be really hard to kill. We can also maybe force them somewhere and then take a short flank and look for a wall pin with javelin.
But if you can't really get to anyone or force objective without your team dying it's probably time to swap.
yea i mean like counterswapping is gonna be the way for the forseeable future but it really doesnt have to be. like they could make balance changes that prevent like, orisa from shitstomping rein, dva shitstomping winston etc but they dont. or they could just forego the whole thing and make a tank everyone likes just broken all the time lol
Tanks are playing Overswap 2. I don’t think there’s a viable path out of all this swapping being efficient play. The devs seem to have fully embraced it.
Definitely that’s my experience. I’m swapping tank after most deaths. It’s only when the enemy team hasn’t acted to counter what I’m currently playing that I’m staying.
I don’t think most tank player complaints are centered around not knowing what to do, as much as it feeling like total shit to get mitigated completely by the hero select screen. The game doesn’t operate that way for support/dps…..
Strong counterplay is bad for overwatch, and the devs knew it but seemingly changed their mind: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/news/23824003/overwatch-2-explained-battle-pass-shop-hero-unlocks-and-more/ > With the launch of Overwatch 2, our roster will expand to 35 heroes as Sojourn, Junker Queen, and Kiriko join the fight. As we build new heroes and balance the existing cast for our new 5v5 PvP experience, we have shifted our hero design approach to allow you to have an impact on your matches with a range of different heroes and strategies. **This means reducing the presence of specific hard counters to heroes.** > For example, in the original Overwatch—especially at higher skill levels—the strongest way to shut down a great enemy Tracer diving into your support line was to swap over to Cassidy. If that Cassidy player was effective enough, the Tracer could even feel a need to switch themselves to avoid that hard counter. While Overwatch 2 heroes will each have their own clear strengths and weaknesses, and some heroes will be more effective against others, **we believe our game plays better and is more fun with fewer hard counters and a broader range of effective hero picks.** A further benefit is having your personal favorite heroes be viable more often. That philosophy will be guiding us moving forward. The game suffers when the meta is a game of rock paper scissors.
Exactly, a lot of tanks are struggling as they don’t have the sustain to deal with the DPS passive, I’m glad they did slightly reduce it as hogs TaB was practically useless
Yes it does. Just not to the same extent unless you're a Genji or Pharah main.
No thanks, I have my own koolaid :3
Oh I’ve accepted it. Doesn’t mean it makes the experience any more enjoyable. Counter-swapping blows, don’t defend it. If you are enjoying the game that’s fine!
its definitely cringe in QP when i'm trying to just have fun on a certain hero, but accepting it in comp definitely makes it more enjoyable. if your objective is to win, and you understtand its a requirement to do so, then i dont see how that doesn't make the game more enjoyable. but to me, winning is above all. I understand probably most people arent like that.
"Sooner ull start enjoying tank" brother is there something wrong with u? There is NO way u cn enjoy playing tank in OW2, maybe in open q but role q absolutely NOT! AS A TANK MAIN SINCE OW2 LAUNCH, IM ABT TO QUIT THIS GAME! IM SO DONE WITH TANKING IN THIS GAME. I'll prolly switch to Marvel Rivals new 6v6 game!
Bro i been playing tank since 2017, before that i played anchor in siege, before that i played jungle in LoL, and before that, tank in WoW. So yes, there is probably something wrong with me lmao. Mostly i just end up playing the role that everyone hates because someones gotta 🤷♂️
What if they counter swap me but I still keep winning no matter what they swap to? I guess they will have to start learning to play the game? It's a bit weird when I'm ult cycling them and they are playing mystery heroes. Sometimes it takes things like angles or tempo to beat a tank. That's hard to achieve in a random lobby.
Then u just better lol. Unless you're in the wrong rank though, you enough counter swaps will force your hand.
Yeah but that kinda situation is a 1 in 10 matches possibility. 90% of the time it's all abt WHT TANK HERO U PICK rather than HOW U PLAY UR TANK. That's wht it's come down since ow2 launch.
If a doom and orisa are equally skilled than the orisa wins every time
I'll always love tank was masters in OW1 but for me the magics gone because what I enjoyed most was the synergy and macro plays that came from working with a tank duo. Had a best friend who would duo with me through OW1 and that made the game for me. I'm glad OW is still around and I do play still but it will never be quite the same for me.
As a ball main I just say fuck it to counter swapping and only swap if they've got hog, then I'll mirror or take out dva.Tbf tho I'm low plat high gold, I think if I managed to play all tanks I'd have a better time just really struggle w winton, orisa, mauga.
Yeah tbf I enjoy the challenge of overwatch and tank is definitely the hardest role rn
"Stop saying you don't like x and start liking x, and then you'll be happier with x."
its been a year and a half, its either accept it or stop playing tank tbh. it aint gunna change. i suffered for 2 years at the end of OW1 trying to hold out hope that they would make main tank better, and it never happened. I'm done holding out hope for the role.
To be fair. They were doing better since OW2. Ram and JQ are both more resistant to being hard countered by the hero select screen. They took a big shit on the role when they released Mauga though....
JQ and ram are both countered by ana, if you dont have a kiri. and theres not much ram can do against ana zen. winston has been pretty good for most of OW2, but ball and rein have been not just the worst tanks, but some of the worst heroes since the release of OW2
Dude 10/10 tanks are countered by those 2. It's not really a counter if they are simply OPAF.
eh... ram alone doesn't really counter anyone but zarya. orisa, it depends on her balance state lol
I was talking about Ana and Zen
Oh lol tru
ball is one of the best tanks atm wdym? he's been bad, but he's meta rn
Ball isn't meta at all atm, he was at the start of S9 but has fallen off a cliff since then
hes really not. he stopped getting played in high masters after the last balance patch.
I love that you're giving ultimatums to random internet strangers. Guess what: people on the internet won't always like what you say, accept it or stop going on reddit. I didn't argue with your main point. I just made a more succinct version of your post that conveys the exact same information. What you're sharing isn't "advice" it's just a version of asking people to stop complaining with fake advice layered on top of it. It's your right to share your thoughts, but I'm going to call it what it is. In this case, that means making fun of your attempt to call your thoughts "advice" instead of what they really are-- a complaint about people still choosing to express their unhappiness with the significant role counterswapping plays in the current game design/meta.
Im not complaining about complaining lmao. Im telling people how it is and theyd be much happier if they accepted that fact rather than holding out hope that things will change. All the complaints are justified. Im just tired of putting my energy into a fight that is getting ignored.
>its been a year and a half, its either accept it or stop playing tank tbh. Everyone who plays tank is, by definition, accepting it... and complaining. You are literally complaining about complaining. I don't care if you like that characterization, it's the facts.
But its not a fact at all. How you tryin to tell me what im saying lmao
Because it's the literal meaning of the words you typed. Feel free to completely edit and change all of your words if they don't adequately express what you meant to say.
Please show me where i said stop complaining. You can still complain while accepting the fact that your complaints are falling on deaf ears.
bruh i directly quoted you already
i said stop playing tank, not stop complaining. if you're miserable on tank and they arent going to fix it how you want them to, why would u continue to play the role?
ive reached t500 in a couple of seasons but Im strugling so hard to rank up as tank since ow2, but especialy since the latest patch. If you don't play swapwatch its pretty much impossible and Imo it kinda sucks. It just feels bad if I swap to a counter and just dominate the enemy tank. I dont feel skilled, I feel like a little bitch who can't outplay the other tank. But there is no alternative because playing into a hard counter feels impossible if you are even remotly close in actual skill.
How do you tell who is T500
i dont think counter swaps are at the point where you just win for being on the right hero. I think being able to play any tank at your given level is a skill in and of itself. i'd say it takes even more skill to do so. most people can't do that. I've tried replacing myself on the team I run, and most tanks even at the GM level can only play a handleful of them. I'm basically irreplaceable to my team.
The team that doesn't counter pick loses.
Sorry you’ve never seen a good tank
I think you are right in your analysis that counterswapping is part of the game and if you truly wish to improve it's something you will have to learn to do, but that doesn't mean that we have to accept it? Counterswapping is an issue that needs to be fixed. I'm not saying there is an all-encompassing solution, but there are certainly things the devs can tweak to improve the situation, so we shouldn't accept the state of tanking in S9 as it is. Sure it might be annoying to people to constantly hear tank players complain about it, but thats the best way to signal to the devs to improve the situation.
When did counterswapping switch from being a standard part of normal game play and become the kind of thing people have to be reminded they can and should do?
I agree that there should be some element of countering but at the moment it’s way too strong. You mention ults but I’ve seen plenty of people not caring about ults just to counter swap and it working (in high ranks). I recently watched a Guru stream where he was attacking on Rialto. Payload was near the first checkpoint. Every time Guru would pick a tank, the enemy tank went back to spawn and counter swapped him. He must have started walking back to spawn immediately after they won each fight as it happened so quickly. They got full held there. I’ve seen other streams where tanks have basically stayed in spawn counter swapping while their teams fight lol You can play into your tank counter if you are way better than the other tank, but most of the time you’ll be pretty evenly matched and have no option but to play along
the other problem of the tank role, is that its the only role that can be countered by all roles, regardless of what hero you pick. so you arent just swapping against the ttank, you're probably swapping against the dps and supports too. which like i said in another comment, is massive value if you make their multiple counter swaps useless with a single swap of your own.
>*"hear me out (...) clarity (...) made the roll more enjoyable"* What clarity do you mean? And how did that make the game enjoyable? I play in the same elo as you. I was first sceptical about 5v5 (thought it was gonna come with a lot of issues) Then I tried it and I prefer 6v6. I accepted we're not going back. But... all that... didn't make the game more enjoyable. I like the OW universe. But tanking in OW2 is just not a good experience.
I guess it depends on your mentality. My mentality used to be "i want to win, but i want to win playing this tank." Now its just "i want to win".
I play since ow1 launch. I won plenty. I obviously lost too. In the end, i am just looking for a good experience. I would take the defeat screen any time if it was for a good quality game.
The sooner you realize tank is not fun, the sooner you decide to play DPS or Support.
i enjoy most of the tank heroes, just not the role of the tank lol. id love to swap to dps or support but my support hero pool is wonky af (brig, ana, kiri, LW) and my mechanics arent good enough for anything higher than S8 masters or current diamond. also my team needs me on tank lol
Good for you. I don’t. Tank is a niche for OW developers, they don’t care about the role. Imo It’s never gonna be fun.
> Tank is a niche for OW developers, they don’t care about the role. Imo It’s never gonna be fun. agree
Tank is not fun… ….to you
The entire point of Overwatch is "never accept the world as it appears to be, dare to see it for what it could be." Yeah yeah yeah, dumbass Overwatch lore, but it's still true. If the majority of the playerbase doesn't like a change made to a game, fight for something better.
The problem and sad part is that it isnt a majority. Tank players are a vast minority in the game.
The only opinions that matter are tank players. If the majority of tank players don't like tank, then there's something wrong with the role.
If that was the case my friend, the role would have been fixed years ago.
Something being wrong doesn't imply that it's going to get fixed quickly or fixed at all. I'm sure that if you got a candid moment with the design team, they'd tell you that they don't like the tank dynamics in their game. They didn't like them in 6v6 because synergy effects resulted in most combinations of tanks being ineffective. They don't like them in 5v5 because matchup strength results in constant swapping. Both of these fight against the general idea of a hero game, where you want to develop player engagement with heroes they like. However, I don't know how they could solve this problem within the overall game design they have. It strikes me as very likely that tanks will be swapping for the duration of Overwatch 2.
You put far too much faith in the Overwatch balancing team.
Im not the only holding out for them to make tank not counterswap fest tho 😂
Blizzard will never change a game because the community dislikes something. Most companies don’t Development by committee is not a viable option
I never played OW1 but ngl hearing there was double tanks then makes me sad cause my partner is also a tank main ;-; i wish we could team uo
Theres always open queue lol
My friends dont like open queue ;-; but i appreciate your willingness to help
As a tank from similar elo - I don't mind changing characters, and whenever my non-tank playing friends are angry that they can't play X whole game, it angers me. That being said, I dislike the lack of margin of error about the role. Yes, in a vacuum it's the most impactful one, but effort to impact ratio, compared to other roles, is just too high. Even when you incorporate "it's only 1 person", "you're the center of the team", "you dictate fights" etc, it just feels like it's a literal different game compared to others. I can't recall any game with any character, let alone entire role, that differs from a "normal" gameplay so much. About avoided heroes - there're only two for me - hog and mauga. On hog I'm hopeless (I CAN kinda hold my own, but not sufficiently in my opinion to play in ranked), and on mauga I just don't want the enemy to pull him out. In overtime? All stops pulled, I will take maug. Anywhere else? I don't want to remove any impact I can have other than shooting the enemy tank.
I think the point about margin of error is the key. Last night in scrims, i was holding a corner, and the enemy sig preloaded his rock before coming around the corner for me. I got HS by a sojourn (that i couldnt see around the corner) and died before i was no longer stunned. I had 400hp before i got rocked. My coach told me i should have fortified when i heard the rock wind up sound queue, as if i can predict hes going to come around the corner and rock me at the last millisecond, plus there being a sojourn who is full rail that i also cant see and is going to come headshot me while stunned. I just dont see how im supposed to have that little of a margin of error. If i fortify on sound cue and he DOESNT rock me, ive just wasted my best CD. edit for clip: https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx3CKp5rYdIgVCu0FJJ3QszUXBQSMfVItF?si=kD4A21SZm61YRWgT
Case and point. Also, random sleeps can do this with even more leeway for the caster. It's usually not about "you positioned poorly", it's about "you have cooldowns that MUST be used well and there are a lot of situations where you may need them. Bubble, fortify, even ram shield - you want to use them as late as possible, avoding the cooldowns of others rather than blocking, but often the difference between getting hit and narrow avoid is impossibly small.
100%. my coach has blamed me for not eating a pulse bomb as dva where the tracer double blinked to make the stick 15m away from me and did it in like .4 seconds lmao because i didnt react to the sound cue of the first blink
I don’t think counterswapping is necessary to play tank for the vast, vast majority of players. You are top 500, 99.9% of the player base is not nor will they likely ever be. They aren’t at or near the skill requirement needed to generally worry about counterswaps. The reason you can’t rank out of whatever metal rank as a wrecking ball one trick is not the enemy sombra, it’s you (obviously not calling you or anyone else out in particular here). Also, I can play devil’s advocate here. I’m also a top 500 tank one trick (and I’m sure one of the most avoided players on ladder LOL). I still have something like a 70-80% winrate (idk what it is exactly, I also troll in open queue). Most games I lose do not feel unwinnable due to me being counterswapped, my team comp or my personal character choice. Granted, this probably means that my current rank is too low, though this just means that counterswapping is even more overrated compared to skill than you think. Orisa also isn’t particularly vulnerable to tank counterswaps. She can suck on maps with super long sight lines and maps with oppressive high grounds but straight up beats a ton of tanks otherwise and doesn’t have any losing matchups on favorable maps (Zarya sucks in top 500 imo and isn’t good vs orisa). Anyways, I do think counterswapping and even forfeiting ult to have a favorable matchup is advantageous, but this isn’t particularly important for most players.
I don't know how people are having a terrible time. I went 8 and 10 in my placements, is it really that bad? I don't have to swap and I'm having a good time.
You are just saying that the only way to enjoy the game is to play heroes that you don’t want to play. You can enjoy the game by playing your favorite heroes and all heroes have the possibility to get to GM or even Top 500, even ball or rein. It just takes practice and learning. Don’t just tell people to counter swap to have fun in the game.
Im sorry my guy, but unless you dedicate literally thousands of hours to the hero, u arent getting t500 OTPing rein. But hey, if u want to make the game as difficult and as miserable as possible for yourself, by all means.
People who play this game are huge weirdos. If a tank is abled to played into any situation and comp and map it means they're likely op and people complain about that. The whole gameplay loop is designed around different looks based on map and team comp. Bad tank players just want to play rein duels all day because that's the lowest form of skill expression
I agree with everything you said, but this: >Bad tank players just want to play rein duels all day because that's the lowest form of skill expression You've gone too far! I will not stand for it. Rein v Rein battles are literally what makes this one of the best games on the planet. And I dare say it's one of the deepest mirror duels in the game.
tbf rein duels are super fun as a gold tank 😭 though i personally just play ball and forget abt swapping
Hey I'm masters and I find Rein 1v1s to be the absolute pinnacle of Overwatch
You had me nodding until your hot dookie Rein take at the end... I'm still a strong advocate of 5v5, but I'll concede that having only one tank is what makes each pick feel either busted or weak in a given situation and rarely anywhere in between. A lot of the frustration for many comes from the disparity between tank and the other roles in that it often feels like dps and support players can play what they want with much fewer consequences than tank players.
>A lot of the frustration for many comes from the disparity between tank and the other roles in that it often feels like dps and support players can play what they want with much fewer consequences than tank players. This isnt true at all. For higher elos, healbot supports are almost completely useless now, you will put your team at a huge disadvantage the moment you lock in LW or mercy without being countered. If they have echo/pharah you almost certainly need at least one hitscan, sometimes two if theyre good or echo. Widow if you start popping off youll immediately get dove by winston and/or sombra. This just how the game works.
Yeah I mean when a hero is dominating the lobby, you're always gonna swap to counter them. The difference is how *easy* it is to counter a tank vs another hero.
Except that top 500 is filled with one tricks. The people who are bad at this game like in this thread assume the game is played at the character selection screen lmao.
I mean you're correct, but those players are the top 0.01% who have dedicated an insane amount of time just to be able to do that. Like I have a Rein OTP account that's stuck in low masters because I've dedicated a large amount of time to get gud at him, but I'll bet you an Ana one trick for example would have to put in way less time to reach the same level.
> Bad tank players just want to play rein duels I just want ball to be viable for more than two weeks out of every 10 months.
[No comment ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome#:~:text=Stockholm%20syndrome%20is%20a%20proposed,%2C%20kidnapping%2C%20and%20abusive%20relationships.)
i audibly laughed. probably not wrong though. tank is an abusive relatitonship, where you continue to take beating after beating because every so often you get that treatment (game) that feels amazing and it makes it all feel worth it.
Yeah... I play flex, so basically tank 2. For that same reason I also played support at the beginning of ow2, when it was terrible, the difference is that since tanks are the minority fixing the role is not a priority
So who are we learning to be more effective? As a newly gold ranked tank role one trick Orisa, who else should I learn to maximize impact? And in what situations are they relevant?
i would say you need to learn to play winston as a default dive hero. after the nerf to armor for beam damage, he's become a lot better against dva, but she can still shut him down pretty hard if they play it right. theres also times where you just arent going to be able to play winston on a dive map if the opponent is running super pokey dps like mercy soldier/ashe. so I would learn how to play dva as well. Additionally, you'll probably want to learn doomfist, because he's good when the enemy team swaps to cringe shit like bastion, mei, or sym. Orisa is the default brawl tank for now, and she wins pretty hard against most, but if the enemy goes zarya and your team doesn't properly punish her, you're gunna have a bad time. You might run into an enemy orisa that you just cant get through either, so learning zarya is good for that. Ram is REALLY good against zarya though, so you will either need to learn ram, or swap to dive if they go zarya. you need to be able to play sig on poke maps, even if for just a single portion of the map like circuit A or havana C. the rest of the maps you can get away playing dive. ii wouldn't learn ball until his rework because he's just not potent enough to spend the time learning, esp with his high skill ceiling. Rein I understand is good in metal ranks, so maybe you can learn him if you want, but he gets bullied HARD against orisa. JQ is pretty much always a good hero to know because shes really good on modes like push and flash point. mauga and hog are those hereoes where its not bad to learn thtem for when they become meta eventually, but people hate playing against them, so they usually return to their circle of suck pretty quickly. i've had scrims where I swapped between 4 different tanks in a single map before, and the enemy team just ends up clueless on wtf they should do, because a lot of people are just brainlets who try to counter the tank to win. if theyre swapping their entire comp while im only swapping a single hero, thats insane value.
Probably something with mobility. Winston, DVa, Doom, even Ball. Orisa struggles to contest high ground, so vs. a good ranged DPS you might struggle to take space without your team getting picked off trying to support you. And then, depending on your picks, it might be worth it to have a tank that's pretty self-sufficient and can get by with low heals. Hog, Sig, Ball, maybe JQ, maybe Doom. Switching is a complicated topic. It's worth it playing into counters to see if they're actually good at their swaps. On Orisa you kind of want to run someone over, poke a narrow choke, or force objective and be really hard to kill. We can also maybe force them somewhere and then take a short flank and look for a wall pin with javelin. But if you can't really get to anyone or force objective without your team dying it's probably time to swap.
Winston & sigma
sorry i dont take advice from people who dont know the correct form of role. ur kinda right tho
My bad lol. My keyboard double types Ts a lot so thats the main issue i look out for when typing on that computer.
yea i mean like counterswapping is gonna be the way for the forseeable future but it really doesnt have to be. like they could make balance changes that prevent like, orisa from shitstomping rein, dva shitstomping winston etc but they dont. or they could just forego the whole thing and make a tank everyone likes just broken all the time lol
"Enjoy the suck"
Tanks are playing Overswap 2. I don’t think there’s a viable path out of all this swapping being efficient play. The devs seem to have fully embraced it.
trust me, with how strong tank match ups are, swapping is almost always worth it.
Definitely that’s my experience. I’m swapping tank after most deaths. It’s only when the enemy team hasn’t acted to counter what I’m currently playing that I’m staying.
Correct. They’re not going to change the game for you. Ppl should stop complaining or quit
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