Tanks are hard to play right now

Surveillance 2It is The tank role has been in a bit of a pickle since the sequel removed one. Where once the role prioritized the defense of the entire team, Surveillance 2 has built and reworked tanks into frontline brawlers. Since then, the role has been in constant flux as Blizzard attempts to better define it. Over the past few seasons, it has struggled immensely, as changes like the Passive damage hero who weakens healing have turned some tanks into giant glass cannons. After months of complaints, Blizzard is now actively acknowledging the issue.

In a new Blog post The director’s point of view, game director Aaron Keller said that the team’s data confirms that tank characters are currently struggling. He says a lot of the problem comes down to characters not feeling “tanky” enough, and that requires support heroes to focus all their healing on them just to sustain the fight. This means that support players are somewhat attached to tanks, so two of the three roles are in trouble, while the damage-dealing heroes light up everyone.

As a result, the team began using a new internal metric of “tankiness” that measures the number of hero deaths a tank character has killed compared to the number they “should take”. Keller says he can’t go into detail about what an expected mortality rate entails, but says players’ struggles with the tank role are supported by data Blizzard uses internally. Some of this was intentional and a result of recent changes, but most tanks (with the exception of Wrecking Ball) have dropped “much more” in survivability compared to other roles. Reducing headshot damage for tanks has helped, but it’s still not where the team wants it.

Now that the issue has been identified, Keller says the team is looking into how to address the problem, both with broad changes to the game and targeted adjustments to individual heroes. Some ideas mentioned in the blog post include reducing the impact of the passive damage role and giving Reinhardt protects some buffs. Blizzard will release a patch targeting resistance at all levels that will remove either mid season 11 or at the start of season 12.

Ultimately, video game balance is a work in progress and it’s rare that everyone is happy, but it’s at least nice to see a widely-regarded issue get the attention it deserves. I’ve pretty much stopped playing tank in my free time, and while that’s partly because I prefer to play my damage and support characters most of the time, the role could use a rethink if it gets me back to playing Orisa and Ramatta.

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