SlumlordThanatos said:
Having had some more Overwatch gameplay experience, I have a few more thoughts to add.
The tank class needs a balancing pass, badly. Right now, the only two tanks that are worthwhile are Reinhardt and Winston, the former because he's far better at soaking damage and protecting teammates than any other champion, and the latter because his weapon ignores Reinhardt's shield. D.Va has very niche use in dealing with turrets (and is almost useless otherwise), Zarya is simply outclassed by Winston and Reinhardt, and Roadhog is terrible at his designated role. He can land a clutch hook on an ulting Reaper or something, but more often than not, the Roadhog player simply throws hooks at the Reinhardt's shield and barely contributes outside of a few odd kills and maybe pushing the enemy team off of an objective once or twice. Basically: if you're not playing Reinhardt or Winston on your team, you're doing it wrong.
Support characters could use a balancing pass as well. Symmetra has tons of utility, but she has difficulty using it with her severely limited offensive capabilities. She basically has to set up a network of sentry turrets and hope that someone wanders into it. If she wants to do any kind of damage, she has to put herself in harm's way, and that's not how a support champion should work. If Symmetra can't heal outside of her tiny little shield, she needs to be able to charge her ultimate faster than she does.
And then there's Zenyatta. This guy basically trades his utility for damage, which means that he sucks at everything. A well-played Zenyatta can be devastating, but it is really, really, really hard to play him well and the loss of utility means your team suffers for it. His piddly little heal and his debuff just aren't good enough for him to fulfill the support role while his ultimate (which is awesome, however) is down. There's very little reason to play him when Mercy and Lucio have so much more utility than him.
These, however, are the only really glaring flaws in the game's balance. Offensive characters all have their own uses, and the defensive characters are all worth playing. The game's tanks and supports, however, need a lot of work before the game launches.
Having played the Open Beta for a few days and playing with most of the characters, I can say I agree with the Tanks needing a huge balance upgrade. However, I do feel like maybe the issue might be that some characters are being classified as tanks when they're not, specifically D.va and Roadhog. I feel like D.va and Roadhog need to be in their own class separate from tanks, as they feel more like what LoL refers to as Bruisers. They're great when they can get up in your face, especially towards the squishier characters that like to hide up in sniper's nests or behind the enemy team.
I played D.va more than Roadhog, and I can firmly say that anytime a Widowmaker was on the enemy team I was practically their worst nightmare. Her shield which blocks all incoming frontal damage and remains activated even while you're boosting, so you can activate the shield, boost to Widowmaker and there's nothing she can do about it since she can't do any damage as you charge her, and you out damage her easily once you're in her face. Her traps basically do nothing to the mech. The same goes for Hanzo, Junkrat, and even Pharah, though firing in bursts and then moving around to dodge Junkrats and Pharah's explosives is probably advised. She has some trouble against Tobjorn, but you can usually kill him before he kills you provided he's not ulting. His turret might be able to take out the mech, but he'll be dead and I usually found it pretty easy to run away from the turret or finish it off after her mech is destroyed. Then of course you've got her ult, which if it doesn't kill anyone will at least send the enemy team scrambling if you've positioned it right, and basically gives you a reset to your life bar(as you spawn a new mech once it explodes). Her true counters are probably Bastion and Mei, but that's where I'd pick Roadhog.
Roadhog again is someone who excels at putting people out of position and getting in someone's face to be effective. However rather than going to them like D.va, she brings them to him with his hook. A good hook on a Mei or Bastion is basically a one hit kill, as you force Bastion into the center of your team for them to wail on him(especially when he's in turret form) and you can stop Mei from focusing down someone by bringing her to you and basically pumping her full of shots(since it's also really easy to time your hook for when her ability that makes her stationary and immune to damage ends.) His self heal allows him to charge through to the back line and push people out of position(especially when helped by a Mercy or Zanyata), and his ult again, even if it doesn't kill anyone, will send the enemy team scrambling as they try to get out of the way. His hook again can also put someone out of their ult, especially someone like Pharah or Reaper.
The problem is that these two play styles are....not really the play styles of a tank. Yes, they can take a hit, but both of them have laughable damage resistance compared to Winston or REinhardt(Or even Zarya who can shield herself), and they don't have any way to support or take damage for their team with the exception of D.va's front shield, which really is then only good for stopping something like a Pharah or Reaper ult, as I think ults which can specifically target a character can't be stopped by something like D.va's shield(at least I never noticed it stopping them), nor can Hanzo's ult be stopped by it, since it attacks from all sides technically I think. Also, as stated, they're not great at taking damage, at least not from a whole team. From a single target yes, which is why they excel so well at disrupting someone out of their zone or area. Even if Roadhog has a ton of HP he has no way to actually block the damage, simply sustain through it if possible, and D.va's got a huge critical hit box in the front of her mech, even though she has the most armor in the game(The yellow bars, which are stated to take less damage from attacks than normal HP). As stated, they don't feel like or even play like tanks, they're something else entirely and I think Blizzard is doing them a disservice by trying to put them into roles that they just frankly don't feel like they belong in. I don't know what kind of role I'd call them, but I wouldn't call them tanks.
