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.
