Overwatch 2 just made Tanks an even bigger problem in Season 12

The conversation about Tank’s role balance in Overwatch 2 has been a heated one, but the Season 12 patch has shifted even more power into the role to make them raid boss level threats.

It’s been made pretty clear by OW2 game director Aaron Keller that the Tank role is Overwatch 2’s biggest problem, and it’s not because the role is too weak. Quite the opposite, actually.

So much of the game hinges on Tanks doing well that veteran streamer Flats told the OW devs to their faces that it’s impossible for the average player to do everything that’s expected of them in the role. And they, to some extent, agreed with him.

Here’s the thing, though: In order to have a strong enough frontline in Overwatch 2, Tanks have to be raid-boss level threats. Season 11 showed this in spades, where the Tank diff was felt more than ever after every character in the role received some hefty buffs.

And, while Season 12 didn’t change much about Tanks themselves, everything else was changed around giving them even more power in the meta.

Overwatch 2 Season 12 doesn’t solve the Tank problem

In all fairness to the Overwatch 2 dev team, solving the problem with playing Tank isn’t something that’ll happen overnight. In fact, I’d be surprised if it ever happened.

New Overwatch tanks like Mauga and Ramattra are designed around doing everything for their team, while what were previously off-tanks like D.Va and Zarya have clear weaknesses newer heroes don’t have. They simply aren’t built to solo frontline.

So, in order to make dive tanks with less utility viable in a 5v5 format, they have to be ludicrously busted. This is exactly what was done with Season 11’s D.Va buffs that shot her straight to the top of the meta by making her able to 1v3 or 1v4 in the backline and take up the entire enemy team’s attention.

D.Va got a light slap on the wrist at the most in the Season 12 patch, with a .5 second nerf on her Defense Matrix’s duration. Other than that, Tanks were mostly untouched or lightly buffed going into the new Season.

However, some crucial Tank counters have received HP nerfs on the patch. Echo, Hanzo, Sombra, Kiriko, Moira, Lucio, and Juno have all had their health set to 225. While heroes like Mei, Bastion, and Zenyatta are still custom-built to hard counter bulky characters, they struggle in other areas and lack mobility.

Here’s the developers’ reasoning behind these changes as explained in the patch notes:

“Our recent 2.11.1 patch (which adjusted all the Tank heroes), saw a significant gain in interest for the role and had a positive lasting effect in queue times for Damage and Support as well. There are a few additional tuning changes in this update for Tanks but this patch is largely focused on adjusting many of the more mobile heroes in the Damage and Support roles.”

The devs’ vision of trying to make mobile characters pay more for their strengths makes sense from a balance perspective, but it only makes the 1v5 Tank gameplan a stronger one. Why work with your team when you can just run at the backline on a dive Tank?

Nerfing other heroes’ relative effectiveness will only make Tanks and their counters more important, as if counter-swapping wasn’t already a big enough issue and the dive/rush meta wasn’t frustrating enough.

With Juno’s movement speed boost enabling rush comps even further, it’s hard to see how Season 12’s changes are positive ones for the health of the game.

Is there a way to balance Tanks in Overwatch 2?

Anyone who tells you Tanks are weak in Overwatch is dead wrong. They’ve got double or triple the health of most other heroes in the game while maintaining high damage potential and the ability to take a ton of space. Kills or deaths aside, space is the most valuable thing you can have in Overwatch 2.

The problem with the role comes with variance. From casual matches all the way to the highest level competitive games, the team with a worse tank loses 9 times out of 10.

Now, by adding more power and less health to a great deal of the cast, that reliance on having a good Tank has only been made worse. Even a small change like Mercy getting 5% more damage amp and 5 more healing per second has a huge impact.

Apply that 5% damage bonus to a Winston diving a support with 25 less health, and the difference is huge. Apply that 5 bonus healing to that same Winston that’s trying to escape after diving, and there’s a bigger chance he lives.

Meanwhile, if Sombra’s damage buffs mean a Tank dies that much faster, your team just loses the fight. Everything is much more risky whether you’re trying to counter a frontliner or hold the line yourself after these balance adjustments.

Overwatch 2 is a game of inches, and the Season 12 update’s small changes add up to a mile.

Nothing the OW2 dev team could have put out in one patch like this could have fixed the Tank problem. There’s a reason they’re going through with their 6v6 experiment.

However, the role remaining untouched as other heroes’ power level gets brought down only exacerbates the problem that already exists. Overwatch 2 matches were already far too reliant on having a good tank player, and Season 12 only makes that issue worse.

I couldn’t tell you what the solution is, and I don’t envy the Overwatch 2 development team’s ongoing struggle to bridge the gap between the original game’s heroes and those designed for 5v5. Finding a true balance that makes everyone happy may be impossible.

That said, Overwatch 2 Season 12 is a clear step in the wrong direction.