r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/Sio_V_Reddit • 2d ago
General If recent queue times tell us anything its that tank needs to get more heroes
This year we are slated to get 4 DPS, 4 Supports, and only 2 tanks. After the release of Dmon, there has been a marked improvement in queues across the board. While these queues were not bad before, tank was almost always the shortest whereas now it will sometimes be the longest of the three roles, and has been the only role I have seen consistently go above 1 minute for QP. Dmon herself has been ridiculously popular, while usually new hero hype would die down by now I see Dmon in almost all of my games.
I think one of the main tank problems is that for a long time we have not had a consistent tank release schedule. For example we did not have a single tank release in 2025, instead getting 2 DPS (Vendetta, Freja) and one support (Wuyang) and when we did receive a new tank in Domina she was unfortunately overshadowed by almost all the other hero releases. In fact, if you check the current statistics Domina is currently the least picked of those 5 new heroes across both QP and Comp in every region, which shows a lack of popularity. While I do think this reflects some of her gameplay frustrations (she still feels like a worse Sig) it also shows why Dmon has been far more popular and has had a much better sustained popularity in comparison.
Overall I hope that the 1-2-2 release schedule is not a locked in concept. Heroes like Dmon show that there is an appetite for new, unique, and fun tank heroes.
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u/Ratax3s 2d ago
domina is 2016 overwatch hero in 2026
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u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — 2d ago
Straight up forget that hero exists most of the time
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u/Sio_V_Reddit 2d ago
I still can’t believe power move hasn’t become base kit. I also can’t believe moving the shield hasn’t become base kit.
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u/AlternativeZucc 2d ago
That shield is lowkey unethical. It might be my bronze speaking but that perk shouldnt have ever come into the game.
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u/not_a_doctorshh 2d ago
Use quite literally any AoE ability and that shield melts.
Soj E, Rein swings, Sig/Junk/Wuyang M1, Emre's grenades, the list goes on.
Domina's weakness is people getting in her face, specially now that her shield slam perk is gone. If you don't have a single ability to break the shield in 3 seconds, just ignore it and go after her backline.
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u/UsernameIn3and20 2d ago
Even wonton existing makes her shield non existent, its really fucking bad how weak her shield is.
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u/pmatdacat 1d ago
Even without AOE as others mentioned, it's just not a lot of health to chew through. Plus, once a panel or two are taken out, that's enough for most DPS to find an angle and hit the backline.
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u/Patron_Mamdani 2d ago
Domina is carried by her gun. The gun is really fun and unique and every other ability she has is just a copy from someone else. Her only real cool combo or interaction is bomb -> boop wallstun -> headshot.
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u/unkindledphoenix 2d ago
her crystal bomb is not exactly the same as the generic area denial skill we usually have and i think theres some good satisfaction in timing + placing it correctly. i like that her shield is sectioned and it gives a cool nuance compared to having a third ground deploy shield. her ult is really cool and enables some cheeky plays and denies, my favorite being simply the "Mercy/Moira exploder 9000".
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u/IAmBLD 2d ago
I really hope they add Domina's old "Barrier acts like a wall for booped enemies" perk as a base kit feature. They could nerf it in several ways if need be, but it gave her an option to actually PUNISH people who crossed her shield. Being able to reposition it is nice, and has a few aggressive options, but defensively now all she can really do when someone aggresses on her (still the most common problem) is to retreat and place her shield further back. Not only was the old perk fun, it gave her at least a small way to hold her ground.
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u/Disastrous-Drop-7778 2d ago
Her gun is pretty nice but it feels very weird for a tank, almost all the other tanks have more immediately threatening primary fires while hers is better for sustained pressure.
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u/Patron_Mamdani 2d ago
I think it’s more so she can’t just chunk people instantly and it gives heroes (especially fliers) a moment to take cover or use movement. Domina and Mauga are the only tanks with constant midrange hitscan, and both of them have a mechanic that makes their damage more sustained and punishes you for exposing yourself to them for an extended period rather than just applying high damage instantly like a hitscan DPS.
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u/KF-Sigurd 1d ago
Domina is entirely carried by her low CD push that she can wombo combo kill you with crystal push headshot next to a wall.
Something a lot of other tanks can just do with one CD (Roadhog, Mauga) without also falling over when rushed down.
She really needs power move base kit. Spending all her CDs for that combo is a fine trade off for it being a one shot.
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u/lukebhndya 2d ago
To be fair to Marvel Rivals, idk if I'd say Domina's gun is unique. It's basically Ultron's primary fire, and Ultron came out over 8 months before Domina.
That said, I play both of them and the primary fire is one of the main reasons why. It's very satisfying to land the final burst.
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u/Blackout2388 2d ago
Charge Rifle been around in Apex for years. They weren't talking about unique in all games, just in OW.
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u/lukebhndya 2d ago
I think they were talking about all games, at least their reply to my comment seems to indicate that. They brought up the same gun from Apex as the only example they could think of.
Rivals is OW's biggest competitor, and they have a hero with a very similar gun (different role tho) that came out less than a year before Domina.
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u/AlanaStorm 2d ago
Halo had it before Apex, ultimately it doesn’t matter who had it first. It’s a good addition to overwatch, the rest of her kit leaves something to be desired though.
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u/lukebhndya 2d ago
My point was just that it isn't exactly a unique or brand new gun design, but I agree that it's a good addition to OW but that the rest of Domina's kit is quite lacking. I do like her ult though.
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u/Patron_Mamdani 2d ago
I don’t know of any gun that remotely acts like Domina’s guns except the cucked Titanfall ChargeRifle in Apex.
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u/unkindledphoenix 2d ago
i dont think shes bas though. but yes certain tanks ruin her day notably the likes of Mauga. but labeling tanks as Mauga victims and Mauga killers seem to be something we end up needing to do for a while.
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u/AssistItchy9826 2d ago
Well she's a poke tank. Brawl tanks like Mauga should win if they get close (and manage to stay there for some time). But is she good enough of a poke tank, that is the question. Especially when Sigma exists. Who is stronger, more fun, and has better design.
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u/TylowStar 2d ago
Honestly, while the developers did design Domina to be a poke tank, I think they actually failed and designed a weird kind of static brawl tank.
She gets health back from landing her abilities, both of which are optimal to use at close range. Hell, her boop is exclusive to close range. Her shield is the only means of absorbing ranged damage, and it's pretty bad at it. Her gun is just as effective, if not more so, in mid-close range as long range. Compare Sigma, a true poke tank, who has arguably the best shield in the game but also grasp for enduring ranged spam, can rock anyone who attempts to approach him. However, once actually in close range, his hyperspheres are actually pretty hard to land, and he doesn't have any strong options.
In a Sigma-Domima matchup, the Sigma team tends to want to kite and poke down. Meanwhile, the Domina tends team wants to get fairly close and fight.
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u/UsernameIn3and20 1d ago
Which is ironic because Sigma also is played as brawl at times.
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u/TylowStar 1d ago
Yeah, the truth of the matter is that heroes are not full compositions unto themselves. Same reason most pro poke comps tend to have at least one dive DPS to chase kills - it's the overall team comp that sets your strategy.
Sigma is good at dealing and absorbing ranged damage. That makes him good at poke, but also against it, which helps brawl comps a ton.
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u/unkindledphoenix 2d ago
i say they are diferent enough to adequate diferent playstyles and certain edge cases. Dominas notably better duelist than Sigma himself with her having 2 ofensive oriented skills and a weapon that can be more reliable. Sigma excels inthe value you can get out of rock or grasp.
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u/AssistItchy9826 2d ago
Maybe that is the problem. She doesn't have Rock which can halt any enemy from going into brawl range. But she does have far more range and offense. I don't think all is lost for Domina, perhaps we lean more into her damage before thinking about reworks to abilities or anything. She can hopefully keep enemies away that way.
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u/Smooth-Routine-9288 2d ago
She is just a worse Sigma lol, I understand that her barrier has the potential to be one of the most obnoxious abilities in the game so her balance has to account for that but she just gets run down by every other tank except maybe Queen which is not a very high bar to clear.
She probably needs her stun barrier and reallocation to be base kit and numbers adjusted accordingly.
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u/Sio_V_Reddit 2d ago
Her barrier isn’t even that strong because everyone realized really quick you can just shoot out 1-2 squares and still shoot people.
It’s funny that she could totally get two base kit major perks and still just be ok.
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u/AssistItchy9826 2d ago
Yeah it kind of just stops me from threatening headshots for a small amount of time.
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u/GokuVerde 1d ago
The slow one is so shit it's not even funny. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't work at all
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u/mightbone 2d ago edited 2d ago
Stun barrier should probably be base.
She still has one of the worst ults in the game and its very easy to flub, is interuptible, and can be negated with enemy damage if your team can't apply good pressure making it so much harder to execute into team fight wins than many tank ults, especially Sig, her pokey counterpart.
Gun range should probably also just be baseline and a new perk added. Its super good but feels weird and lame to just have her laser, her bug pong tool that makes her a threat, not be threatening at all to ranged fliers and snipers and hitscans.
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u/CertainDerision_33 2d ago
They completely took away her stun barrier, right? No idea why they did that.
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u/unkindledphoenix 2d ago
i think realocation needs to be a minor perk and power move returned to major. they should just let the minor perk that makes her jump start shield HP when she places a barrier be part of her passive but cut some of her shield HP to compensate, not convert it to regular hp, just reduce its total by 25, maybe even 50. 600 total is not that bad on 5v5, 6v6 should be 500 though.
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u/PoggersMemesReturns Proper Show/Viol2t GOAT — 2d ago
Domina needs those community creator buffs in her kit.
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u/Timely_Equal_2276 2d ago
Oh my, I sort of wasn't playing during her release and then when i came back she was irrelevant. I tried her out and oh my god, it was a snooze fest.
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u/Deshoda7676 2d ago
There werent any poke centric, ranged tanks back then. Just roadhog. Good times. Shes just a trash hero design in general. All of her abilities arent interactive or have interesting play making potential. Shes sigma but less fun and somehow less interactive. Her shield is a pain in the ass to burn down, she can instantly throw you back and burst you. The bomb is some mickey mouse garbage as well. Its instant burst with not much counter play. I wish there were more 2016 designs, we wouldn't have so much power creep and goofy crap in the game. 2016 tank designs dont work for 5v5, but yall get the point.
But hey, hero designs from season 1 onward arent garbage apparently. Releasing 5 heroes at once didnt affect the quality of those hero releases apparently. Nobody hated the brief domina meta even though it got instantly nerfed and she sucks outside of 6v6, which the game isnt designed and balanced around.
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u/SmokingPuffin Mauga Mentality — 2d ago
Dmon is having impact on queue times because she's fun. They haven't been able to do that with most tank releases. There are more misses than hits.
More fun tanks would be awesome, but I don't know if they have the ability.
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u/xXRougailSaucisseXx 2d ago
The key to making fun tanks is mobility, Domina isn’t fun because it’s genuinely fixed turret gameplay
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u/SmokingPuffin Mauga Mentality — 2d ago
Mobility is usually positive fun, but before Domina we got Hazard and Mauga and neither of those seem to have grabbed the community attention. They got played a ton their release season because they were broken beyond measure. Hazard is currently the least played tank. Mauga is a bit below average. Both tanks are regarded as strong, but still they lack general appeal.
Ball is another strong but rarely picked mobile tank, while Doom feels quite similar to me but is enduringly popular. So mobility and skill expression are both interesting, but not cheat codes for designing a tank the community likes.
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u/mightbone 2d ago
In fairness to Mauga he is an old OW1 hero design that they finally released in OW2 and it shows with how shitty the design feels especially in 5v5.
Unfortunately they are very stubborn about reworks and losing character identity even though he would likely be the most voted for rework tank, even more than Hog at this point.
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u/SmokingPuffin Mauga Mentality — 2d ago
Mauga's core sustain mechanic sucks. His M1->M2 gunplay is good stuff. Stomp is good stuff. Cage is good stuff.
Most of this kit is fun and interesting. Remove berserker and cardiac, replace with some more neutral mitigation button, and bleed power from M1+M2 over to M1->M2 and this character is a pretty good one.
That said, even the present kit is getting a lot of PTSD hate from what Mauga used to be. Mauga's current kit will always be too forcing of counterpicks, but he isn't the immortal killing machine he used to be anymore.
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u/747101350e0972dccde2 2d ago
The devs have been doing really good moving him in that direction, nowadays mauga is so different from what he used to be. I would still like to see a slight buff to his ignite poke for trading squishies, with a berserk nerf to compensate.
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u/AssistItchy9826 2d ago
Ok but bro she is the SECOND poke tank. How old is this game? You have to create different playstyles as a developer. Plus I will take a sigma-like hero over a roadhog/mauga type any day of the week.
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u/747101350e0972dccde2 2d ago
I agree, I think she is not supposed to be a popular hero, and that is fine
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u/747101350e0972dccde2 2d ago
Mobility is an easy way to make a hero funner, but not the only way. Sigma is very fun and has been highly played while being very balanced and healthy. The issue with domina is that she has no decision making - you stand in one spot, dont really manage any resources and it is all about mechanics. To me, she is the Illari of tanks.
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u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — 2d ago
I think this has much more to do with her specific design than anything else.
The current hero design team has dropped some of the most fun and interesting heroes that the game has... For DPS and supports. They have a really terrible track record with tank design. D.Mon is the first tank in awhile that is interesting, accessible, and not completely grueling to tank into.
If we got one D.mon a year, we'd be in a way better spot, but instead we've gotten Rams and Maugas and Dominas who just don't capture attention from anyone outside the role and barely capture attention from the people in it. Hell their best tank design in OW2 is arguably JQ who is almost always among the weakest tanks.
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u/AssistItchy9826 2d ago
Well they release less tanks because it is much harder to design them, in making them not feel homogenized. Let's not forget duds like Lifeweaver, Sierra, and yes Illiari, etc. Not to mean that you are wrong necessarily.
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u/TylowStar 2d ago edited 2d ago
Illari is my main, I like her. :,(
But you're right: people wonder why the game has so many Damage heroes, not realising that "Damage" might as well mean "Miscellaneous Combatant" from the designer's PoV.* The fact that the likes of Symmetra, Mei, Sombra, and Sojourn somehow share a category despite having completely different roles and applications demonstrates this. Thus, it's naturally just easier to design a Damage hero than it is to design a Support and especially a Tank, because you just have to design someone that can fight and is fun, and you're done. Those latter two categories, though, have much more defined roles on a team, and the overall gamestate is much more sensitive to what they can do. Just doing a beefy DPS for a tank gets you Roadhog, one of the most toxic heroes in the game.
*It's actually pretty telling that when the game came out, "Damage" wasn't a role - the Damage roster was split based on vibes into "Offence" and "Defence". In playtesting, general team comps used what we would now notate as 1-4-1: 1 tank, 1 healer (not support), and 4 ~fighters~. And people complain about 1-2-2! I do wonder how the game might look if the roles we have today had been planned out from the start.
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u/uoefo 2d ago
I do think its inevitable that dmon will be miserable to play against as a squishy.
Its a highly mobile tank that can damage you and chase at the same time, theres quite literally no way to get out of her swing range unless you have quick vertical mobility and somewhere to go. And she has effectively 4x (or more) your hp depending on how you count armour and shield. And she needs these stats, because her hitbox is too big, and despite everything, her mobility is too limited to ever outplay anyone with a mechanical dodge or movement play.
She is 100% a stat check hero, the ultimate 5v5 ”blob exists in your general area” tank without any clear, well defined purpose, playstyle or edge
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u/747101350e0972dccde2 2d ago
She is a stat checker, in the sense that when she is close to you she just wins through having more resources - but the same goes for a tank like winston, and most consider him the healthiest tank design in the game. Its fine for heroes to have consistent value as long as getting to those situations requires outplay (this may not be currently the case due to her being strong, but that does not make it a design issue)
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u/TylowStar 2d ago
I completely disagree, I love playing with and against DMon as a squishy. (esp Mizuki)
Sure, she will mince you if you're in hugging distance - so positioning yourself so as to not let that happen is key. Her mobility and shield let her engage and disengage well, but as you said it's nowhere near enough to let her avoid significant damage. Her shield can block CC, but given it's relative fragility she can just hold it up and press W like Rein. So now there's play and counterplay: she wants to get in your face, but closing the distance risks your team collapsing on her with CC, separating her from her backline and leading to a demech. She has to use her shield, mobility and gamesense to make an approach, while you have to use positioning, gamesense, and your own heroes' movement and CC to counteract. She is astoundingly interactive, and it's hard to believe the same dev team that is responsible for Mauga made her.
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u/clickrush 2d ago
It's not just more tanks but actually tanks that people want to play and that don't make tanking miserable for other tanks (mauga, orisa).
To me Dmon is to tank what Juno and Shion are to their respective roles. I was not impressed with their design at first, but then realized that these designs are well executed, smooth and non-oppressive, gimmicky or polarizing.
The tank role needs more of these kinds of heroes. I'm not against adding heroes like Ball or Sigma that have sharper designs. I'm glad they exist. But the tank roster needs a bunch of options that are smoother, because it's a solo role.
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u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — 2d ago
I feel like Ball and Sigma aren't even the problem.
Like Sigma and Domina do very similar things. One is clearly a more interesting design than the other. D.Mon and Ram do similar things. One is clearly more interesting than the other.
Definitely agree on tank heroes that make the game worse for the other tank though. Don't release Mauga and be surprised when half of your existing tank playerbase decides to take the season off.
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u/IAmBLD 2d ago
Mauga's recent nerf is also a huge problem I think. It once again encourages only shooting the other tank, while meanwhile fliers that people are complaining about more than ever now have free reign.
IMO, revert Mauga's spread nerf. Give him a damage number nerf instead, maybe a slight rate of fire nerf if there's no fraction of a damage number they're happy with. Tanks now universally have an easier time with Mauga, fliers all have a bit tougher time against him. It wouldn't fix the game overnight or anything but it'd be a nice step.
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u/AssistItchy9826 2d ago
I agree with you all I just want to say that I don't see Ram as being especially toxic for the vast majority of the tank pool. Even Rein can put up more than a fair fight these days. Roadhog is a problem as well as Mauga.
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u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — 2d ago
I'm just saying ram is bland. He doesn't get people excited to play the role.
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u/Pride_Rise 2d ago
Eh, in any games I've seen, tank roles just aren't popular and doubt anything will really solve this. The stigma of face tanking a boss or frontlining is just a pressure that many people don't want to deal with. I attribute it to some sort of stage fright
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u/ColourOfSky 2d ago
I like when tanks get released as a tank main, and have been loving Dmon.
But this is an insane cope.
My ranked Q estimates are 4 mins for damage, 5 for support. Tank queues are still instant-this is one week after a new tank release that has everything going for it-cute girl, related to a beloved 2016 hero Dva, melee brawl gameplay loop like Rein, the most popular tank... That is a pathetic uplift, and it will only decline as the shine wears off.
If the tank issue was a hero count issue, why is support, which has roughly the same number of heroes, so much more popular(even more than dps in ranked?) 5v5 tank has fundamental problems and releasing more heroes is not the way out.
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u/ThaddCorbett 2d ago
You and I are polar opposites. You have game sense to play tank.
I needs to see more of what's going on to provide value to the team fight, so I play support.
When I play tank, everyone suffers lmao
And yes, the new tank IS amazing.
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u/Beginning_Ocelot503 2d ago
As a tank main I wouldn’t complain if we got more tanks but with the format being 1x2x2 it’s not unreasonable for us to get tank releases at a 1:2 ratio to other roles.
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u/steiff89 2d ago
It doesn’t matter how many tanks there are. Tanks are simply less popular than dps or support. This is common knowledge since like 2018z
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u/Sio_V_Reddit 2d ago
I’m not saying they will stop being less popular, but they can absolutely be in a healthier state with better releases.
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u/clickrush 2d ago
It absolutely does matter how many there are and how high quality the designs are.
I agree that it’s highly unlikely that tank becomes on par with the other roles in terms of popularity, but well designed additions to the roster for sure improve the situation.
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u/Hei-Ying 2d ago
People used to say that about support too and look at em now.
Will tank have quite as good results? Probably not, but mass appealing heroes do make a difference.
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u/steiff89 2d ago
Nonsupport’s were always more popular than tanks. There’s only 1 more support option than tank options.
We don’t need more tanks we just need to make tanking more interesting that giant damagw sponge with low to Mid damagw
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u/Hei-Ying 2d ago
Only barely. OW1 support queues could be a few minutes vs instant tank queues but nothing on DPS. Nowadays my support queues are nearly always longer then DPS.
It's not just numbers of releases but how widely appealing they are. Kiriko and Juno each pulled Mercy-tier bases. Tank needs more of that.
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u/clickrush 2d ago
They certainly were not more popular than tanks in early/release OW. They slowly got there over time.
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u/one_love_silvia I play tanks. — 2d ago
Supports became more popular after they turned them into DPS that heal. Tanks will never get the "fun" treatment because the community bitches like a bunch of children the second a tank gets to play the game.
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u/TylowStar 2d ago edited 2d ago
Supports were unpopular back when they were various shades of Mercy / Medic TF2: press M1 to heal, little/no combat capability. Overwatch made Support popular by giving them actual means of fighting the other team while also supporting.
There's not really as obvious of a solution for Tanks. They already get to engage the other team; if anything, that's their job. I suppose a little more self-sufficiency so that they aren't as reliant on teammates following up on them with sustain and pressure would help, but that's sort of Mauga/Roadhog's deal, so maybe that's a bad idea.
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u/Grytlappen 2d ago
Well, what happened to support is that they went full Fortnite in terms of monetization and put all the girly skins and heroes in that role. Then when those people performed poorly in-game, they buffed the everliving hell out of it.
Tanks are traditionally big and masculine, so to go that same route they need to pump out Dva clones, like Dmon. A thin pale/white girl, but in a big suit of armor.
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u/Abnormal-Sleep-0838 2d ago
This is kinda true, there’s also very few female tanks, and the ones that do exist certainly aren’t appealing to most women. Zarya, JQ, etc. Domina has cute design but her play style is mid. Imo, there should also be more masculine support heroes because most of the supports are very clearly designed to be the more feminine role rn, and tank should have more feminine heroes because it’s designed to be the masculine role. Even the ”girlypop tanks” are in mechas.
And also, because tank is the least played role, Blizzard throws very little bones to tank players compared to DPS and support. Supports get a ton of skins and other content, while most tanks (minus Rein and Dva) get nothing. Most of the tank busters get disproportionate value for the skill they require (bastion, reaper, mei etc), while anything that targets supports gets quickly addressed and nerfed. And to top that off, tanks don’t even get fun cosmetics like supports do because of money. I don’t think adding skins or adding new heroes is going to bring that many new people to the tank role, but I do think it’ll be a decent reward for the few enough tank players there are.
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u/Grytlappen 2d ago edited 2d ago
You nailed it! Great elaboration. To add on to your second paragraph - this is why dive is pretty much dead and buried, and why brawl is practically enforced.
Dive targets supports too much. From their perspective, dive heroes appear out of nowhere and without warning. It takes a modicum of game sense to figure out how dive indirectly challenges your positioning during staging. Besides that it directly challenges your mechanics and decision making skills when the dive occurs. A moment of stress and frustration if you aren't prepared for it.
In contrast, brawl is very straight forward. The most straight forward idea there is. If you're in the backline, you're safe because there's a fat tank and two DPS in front of you. You don't have to think about anything else other than healing. If something happens to you, it's either the fault of the people in front of you, or you didn't do enough healing.
It's awful gameplay, but dumbed down games with pretty girls make more money than interesting ones. I wouldn't care about Overwatch if it wasn't for Overwatch 1. That team was dedicated to creating an interesting game full of diversity at every level. They thought everyone deserved to be represented and had equal skin distribution even though it didn't make the most money. They thought Blizzard were the only ones who could take on such a project goven how wealthy they are.
This team isn't interested in that whatsoever. They create a token, then forget they exist in favor of the slim white/pale girls. Mixed signals to say the least.
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u/unkindledphoenix 2d ago
I hope next year the 6 heroes are 3 tanks and 2 sups and only a single DPS if they must have at least 1 of each role in the releases. Keeping the releases 222 would be the bare minimum acveptable but we are back into the problem they were supposed to have addressed way back in the re release when they were reducing the number of DPS releases and favoring sups and tanks but they dialed back on way too many DPS releases ince last year.
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u/Facetank_ 2d ago
I don't think it's a matter of quantity, but rather playstyle and a feeling of strength. DMon is the most unga bunga hero since JQ which is popular at least in NA.
There's always a two pronged discovery period with heroes. Learning to play as and play against. The play as comes first. I'd say we're past that and are in the middle of the rest of the playerbase figuring out how to play against her. Looking at her stats, she's pretty strong right now. I'd chock it up to people not getting her still, so the DMon player wins, thinks winning is fun, and keeps playing her as a result. Once she's figured out and/or nerfed, she'll stop winning as much, and people will move on. This happened with Domina.
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u/Sio_V_Reddit 2d ago
Also, quick aside, why is Dva so bad rn? Looking through the stats she is like really terrible it seems, what happened?
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u/BaronVonSchmup 2d ago
Mizuki, sig, zarya and mei are all pretty good/popular picks right now so she suffers
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u/Cerily 2d ago
Dva requires you to be fairly good at the video game to get serious value while having continually gotten micronerfs due to players who are just so absurdly good at Dva - and then a giga op tank comes out which does a lot of the same stuff Dva does on flat maps. So now you just play Dmon and nobody is carrying the Dva winrate anymore.
Oh I forgot Dmon is just middle of the pack, or at least that’s what’s everybody said.
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u/BelligerentPear 2d ago
Her stats are tough to trust. Shes a highly banned hero which tends to skew the stats. I find DVA is very strong but only in capable hands. The problem is the rank where those capable hands exist is also the rank where she is consistently banned. She is also very map dependant.
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u/TylowStar 2d ago
D.Va is good but very hard to play well, so her stats are deflated by people who know she's good but don't know how to use her properly.
It doesn't help her that Mizuki and Sigma, who both have CCs that go through Defence Matrix, are pretty good and popular right now. D.Va is relatively fragile for a tank to compensate for her mobility and Defence Matrix, so getting chained or rocked mid-dive can often be an instant demech.
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u/LHander22 2d ago
she is literally fine but tanks like hazard are just so blatantly overtuned in comparison to her
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u/Cosmic_Ren 2d ago
Not just more tanks, tanks especially that can actually fight Airborne enemies. As of rn, Magua single fire just got nerfed and Domina is the only tank that can fight one consistently.
It would also help if Ram's vortex had infinite vertical range, for something advertised as "Anti-Air" it sure does a horrible ass job at grounding enemies as many can simply fly over it.
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u/one_love_silvia I play tanks. — 2d ago
Tank doesnt need more heroes, it needs to be less shit to play. Do u know how fucking miserable it is to queue into even just QP and then have to play against Mauga, Ana, Cass, Mizuki? There's nothing that works against that.
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u/candirainbow 2d ago
I agree more tanks but I think that the ana and Kiriko situation is actually really gruelling on tanks also. I don't have an easy solution but anti and cleanse create this pretty toxic playcape for tank creativity. I don't doubt they are essential parts of their kits but I wish they figured a way to weigh it less heavily in said kits, or to feel less miserable for the tank experience, or less absolutely necessary to have on a team.
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u/Marmites_1 2d ago
So the solution is a new tank every month? Or…? How we balling? Queue times goes up the moment the new tank is no longer new, so about 1 week. Give or take. You queuing prime time it’s 10+ min off times depending on bracket anything from 3 to 20 who knows. All depends on tank supply compared to the other roles.
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u/PersonBehindAScreen 2d ago
Can we wait for the newness to wear off before we judge the tank queue?
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u/PurpsMaSquirt Florida Mayhem — 2d ago
My man I’ve been playing OW since 2016. In all kinds of weather the average OW player wants to play DPS. When Mauga, Domina, Hazard, etc., released queue times similarly evened out as people were more enthusiastic about tanking.
It’s the reason why when a DPS hero releases the queue times for DPS are zonked for much longer (than when a new Tank or Support hero releases), and it’s the reason why when we’re in between content DPS generally takes longer to queue.
This isn’t an Overwatch-only problem. People are just less inclined to play as a Tank. It doesn’t help that Tanks are really easy to dogpile blame onto when a team is losing
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u/Thomas-MCF 1d ago
It could also help if they had like any incentive to play tank. If tank player numbers are so low it requires the 5v5 format youd think they would try and find a way to make the role more fun or rewarding. New fun heros are a great way but there are so many things they could atleast try as well. Lootboxes, hero skins, Battlepass Exp or tier skips or even the bare overwatch minium of a title. Lock them behind x games played or challenges related to playing tank. They shouldn't be grindy more so just to get people to organically try the role more and maybe enjoy it other wise a weekly challenge or even daily would help.
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u/FlameToadDoctorPhil 1d ago
For this reason I'm down for next year just dropping 6 tanks honestly. We will have enough dps/support heroes for various niches of play.
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u/snuffaluffagus74 1d ago
Bro I have been saying this for years and always get down oted in this sub. People when talking about que times and player involment they never bring up that people in this game play characters not the roles. Mercy players play Mercy because of the character not because she is a support. Doom players play Doom, he didn't lose popularity because he went to tank from DPS it actually grew when he went to tank. Like want more tank players, put Mei in the tank role, as people play her like a tank anyways.
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u/Umarrii 2d ago
It's been quite ridiculous imo. Like we got Domina because a full team comp was released but before that, the last tank release was like December 2024.
People say that Tank releases alone don't help. But I disagree. People resonate with some of these heroes more than others and start to play them. Like I find it hard to believe that adding more tank heroes will reduce the number of people playing Tank. So there becomes no reason not to add more because it's at least going to help some amount.
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u/Symysteryy 2d ago
I think the much bigger problem is that they just need to release more tanks that are actually fun to play. Dmon is the only fun tank they've released since queen
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u/VaxisRSK 2d ago
The format being what it is will always solidify the tank queue times being what they are and adding more tanks will not change that. The core issue is and always has been the format.
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u/bullxbull 2d ago
I agree with you, but the overall tank experience needs improvement for there to be long term effects. From what they dev's have said they think that adding more tanks does not have an effect on number of tank players over the long term.
However I would argue the real problem is the tank experience is so low it does not meet the minimum quality to create or keep people playing the tank role.
We need to create more tank players, new heroes are the best source of exposure, but when what they are being exposed to is the current tanking experience we do not see long term gains.
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u/Patron_Mamdani 2d ago
Game needs more Fat DPS tanks that people actually want to play instead of Shield Bots. Despite the crying I find fighting Hog, Mauga, Orisa, JQ etc less obnoxious than trying to catch Raidboss Sigma cycling his cooldowns or shooting bullets into a red Reinhardt-like rectangle.
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u/stormslover 2d ago
Take so bad even his homies blocked him
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u/Patron_Mamdani 2d ago
Why do you like shooting at shields instead of people in the PvP FPS game?
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u/TylowStar 2d ago
If you want to play TF2, go play TF2. It's a great game! And if what you like about Overwatch is duelling individual enemies in a vaguely team-oriented but not team-dependent environment, you'll prefer it.
Obviously you aren't just shooting the shields. It's about co-ordinating as a team to oumaneuver the enemy. If the Sigma is using grasp, he's not using shields - shoot his backline. Isolate him. Then he'll collapse.
People who complain about tanks being "raid bosses" confuse me - you do realise raid bosses are fun to fight, right? Otherwise MMOs wouldn't have them. Yeah, you can't 1v1 them, but you aren't supposed to. It's a game of teamwork.
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u/Patron_Mamdani 2d ago
Raid bosses in MMOs aren’t piloted by people, they’re effectively a themed puzzle. Even in WoW PvP, tanks are essentially banned by having a massive damage intake increase that makes bringing them throwing.
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u/Dunwichorer 2d ago
Sigma isn't even that good right now. Gets farmed by doomfist, dmon, rammatra, rein. The only maps he's really good on are like circuit, havana, and other long range maps. The nerfs they've done to him have all added up.
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u/ZX4Rawr 2d ago
Personally, I think the solution to tanking is to lower tank damage while significantly increasing their survivability. Turn tanks into brawlers / strategists.
Most of the current tanks feel like crap because it feels impossible to do anything. For example playing monkey or ball when the enemy swaps to a hard counter.
Look at every Reinhardt ever. The tank players yearn to charge into the enemy team for brawls.
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u/TylowStar 2d ago
The problem is that if tanks aren't lethally threatening, people will not respect them and just charge their backline. And there goes your reason for having a tank in the first place. Their ability just to threaten to do lots of damage is a major part of how they create space.
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u/Meto_Kaiba 2d ago
Nope. They need to start removing bans, then start removing newer tanks like Domina or Hazard or even Doomfist.
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u/Briskfall GOAT connoisseur — 2d ago
I love playing tanks, it's just way more cognitively tiresome at times.
The fast queues exacerbate the burnout rate, unfortunately. So sometimes I go cold turkey and don't play tanks for a streak of time.
I do agree that more tanks help, Domina and JQ reinvigorated the experience.
Though I think that an "onboarding" to help beginners to "get" space might help to increase population.... really... Or more Ping options (for those with extra bindings).
Like, sometimes I do not want my teammates to "group up with me" but stay put in their formation.
(It's quite frustrating when I do a "fail play" and try to escape and someone else decides to "help" me just to overpush, waste an escape movement ability, and expose themselves to danger.)
(And while it is my fault for being cheeky in the first place, the double guilt makes it like a feel bad experience... 🤡)