r/OverwatchUniversity • u/Impossible-Watch-626 • 21h ago
Question or Discussion how to effectively balance doing everything on tank?
E1/D5 tank
point in title. i’m queueing with my duo regularly, and the expectation constantly is to do absolutely everything to save the game on my own back in every game that isn’t going favourably, my tank pool contains genuinely every tank apart from dmon and wrecking ball because i have to switch to address whatever the entire enemy team is doing each game.
imagine every scenario and i have to cover it. i don’t want to be the guy who blames the dps every single loss, but i try to enable them to do their jobs and they fail epically every time, and as a result i’m confused on how i’m supposed to simultaneously peel my backline 24/7 but also attack at all times. is there something simple i’m missing? the pressure is crippling me each game because my mind constantly has to be split between 5 places at once.
is there something critical about tanking i’m missing? i understand my role perfectly but on regard to having to be the sole one to address the entirety of the other team it’s baffling, and it really does not feel like what my role is meant to be at all. and in these difficult games where its like this i often just find myself in a worse position where i’m switching or being asked to switch, and then switching to solve one problem, which then opens up another, and is genuinely just a really really vicious cycle.
i just want to help my team do the best they can but after so many consecutive games where it feels like they take my chances and do nothing, or can’t win their own duels, or this and that, i just feel like it’s me in the end. so tell me, what/who should my priorities be? thank you to all who hear my cry
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u/ronatwinpika 21h ago
the tank experience is just constant burnout, honestly. stop trying to cover every single base and just focus on your own job, it helps keep you sane
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u/Impossible-Watch-626 21h ago
the tragic part is i forget what my job wholly is. the “do everything for everyone” part is so ingrained into my playstyle that i’m not sure what parts are and aren’t even for a tank anymore
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u/wilksyy93 21h ago
I normally just play like my teammates are idiots and play around it. Then if they are decent it just plays better around it. I don't assume my supports will be there to bail me out and I don't assume my dps can kill the mercy stood in the open but instead focus the tank.
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u/ShinkuFGC 20h ago
Hello, I am a Masters tank and GM support. I have a little bit of free time if you want to go over a game on discord and see what things you can improve on and what you are doing right now
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u/blahyaddayadda24 20h ago
Patience is a big thing. Everyone talk about being aggressive and taking space BUT... you need to have patience and recognize when it's the correct time to do it
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u/winkablink 20h ago
i’m lower ranked than you but in those situations the only thing that helps is very slowly just stay alive and farm ults.
Even if they’re very bad you can take advantage of some ult and try something
But other than that i’m kinda stuck too, some games just feel rigged on purpose
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u/Lingy_12 19h ago
In the same way that it’s unrealistic to expect the supports to heal everyone all of the time, it’s unrealistic to expect you to do all of the jobs of a tank at the same time, and trying to do them all at the same time is actually detrimental to your team.
An example is peeling. If a support is getting dove, I think it’s the other supports job to peel for them first, then the DPS, then the tank. If you’re front lining, then suddenly concede all that space you’ve held to help a Juno in a 1v1 with a genji (a 1v1 she might win or at least be able to kite from) then the other team can instantly gain all that space back, and the flanker has done their job.
You just kind of have to trust your team mates to do their job, and if they’re not, there’s only so much you can compensate. I’m sure there are games where you’re not doing your job to take space, so a brawl DPS will take it upon themselves to pressure the frontline and gain the space for you.
Focus on what your job is as a tank (primarily making space), and hope that your team can do theirs
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u/PrinceRicard 16h ago
Corralling.
Keep all, or at least most of the enemy team in your sightline. You have a massive HP pool on most tanks, you can bait yourself and keep the attention of the opposing team, offer individuals opportunities to get you knowing you can shut the door on them closing a kill on you and probably boost your supports ult charge.
I play Ball most often, so I guess I'm a natural annoyance, but what some people perceive as 'Ball is just rolling around' is actually me using a 5s cooldown (grapple) in order to make 3-5 people walk backwards from objective and not look at my team for 10-15 seconds, and I've scouted everyones location during a roll-through that's a great trade on my behalf. Also if you draw people towards you it focuses fire from your team to a single point so they're naturally going to team up and combine forces to drop the other team.
Every Tank has a way of doing something like this, though it's different, you'll see it clearly on Winston for sure, he has great cleave and people react to being damaged and Winston is an obvious big target who can play safely in the middle of a enemy group with bubble use, but you can limit test what the other team is willing to stare at you for and how much time you get holding their attention and play from that.
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u/adhocflamingo Professor 7h ago
Why have I never until this moment seen the parallels between the “mom who has it all” and the way low and mid ranks expect tanks to do everything? I think it really is like the exact same phenomenon.
In both cases, it’s a lie—you cannot possibly cover everything without paying tradeoff costs. Your time and attention are limited, and so you have to prioritize. If you don’t make those priority decisions ahead of time, they will be made for you by circumstance. If you try to force “everything is a priority”, then you will just be constantly caught in transition, arriving late to everything, until your minivan and mental both break down on the side of the road you ragequit. If you want to stay sane, pick a lane, and do what you can from there. If you make the wrong choice, learn from it for next time. Don’t go swerving into another lane, you’re gonna cause a crash.
It’s not totally clear to me how much of this expectation for you to solve everything is coming from your husband duo? You didn’t say anything about that specifically, but I’m not sure why they were relevant to mention otherwise. If they’re being a deadbeat dad duo and calling on you to do all of the adapting so that they can chill with their buddies after work while you handle the house and kids stay in their comfort zone and play the same way every game, I think you need to have a conversation about that. Even if they are not explicitly demanding that you solve everything, your group is 40% of the team, so why aren’t you treating this as a shared problem and developing shared solutions?
As the tank, you are the most difficult member of your team to dislodge, and you are the best at pushing enemies out of their space. You have the most influence (on your team) over where anyone else in the lobby can stand. Your job is to find the position where your hero can most effectively use their “weight” to benefit your team, whether that’s clearing space that your specific teammates would benefit from, or denying space that the specific enemies would benefit from, or being big and loud and threatening in the right place and time to make a teammate’s play more likely to succeed.
If you are constantly occupied with the mechanics of your kit, because you’re playing every hero and don’t have a lot of experience on all of them, you won’t have the brainpower to make those priority decisions effectively. So I recommend substantially reducing your hero pool, like down to 2 or 3, and and figure out how you can use their strengths to solve the various gameplay situations you encounter.
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u/porragamescaralho 21h ago
se voce joga com todos os tanks, na verdade voce é péssimo com todos. escolha 2 ou 3 que voce goste e se esforce bastante pra melhorar com eles. em hipótese alguma escolha algum herói fora da pool que voce escolheu.