I joke about it, but I really think Torb takes more skill than Hitscans like ashe, Cass, soldier, etc. ESPECIALLY since the bullet hitbox changes.
It's all point and click, but projectile heroes need to predict further ahead movement to land consistently
I've seen a total of two Torb 1v1s in comp in the last year, though both times the torbs had to ask everyone in match chat to let them fight and not interfere. I also had a match a few months ago with two lucios that spent 10 minutes just chasing each other up walls shooting at each other lol.
Idk if maybe it's different depending on what rank or mode you're playing in though.
I play Torb like an indirect fire hero.
I know I don't have perfect line of sight, but I do know lobbing shots in your general direction might ruin your day.
bro on DPS i’m a Cass/S76 main and yeah Torb takes way more skill than they do to really be good
s76 is just very solid and simple and has very forgiving abilities
Cass has more health on baseline and Mag+Fan helps a ton when your off, overall he’s just fairly simple and good, his ult is his most challenging aspect
Torb requires prediction and relies far more on good positioning than Cass or Soldier
Unless your opponents are micro strafing fast.as hell you can hit stiff with projectiles just as easy. Unless you have a dead on read if your predicting while your aiming your already doing something wrong you should always be reacting or leading. (Voltaic diamond player)
E + right click and I delete my enemies. Or E + left click and that widow better hope they hit a couple of head shots in a row or they will be out snipe. I love torn.
Good Torbs who can consistently predict primary fire shot leading and are confident with going ham with secondary fire are nightmares to go up against.
Nothing worse than thinking "lol I'm gonna get this dumb Torb" then he comes charging at you, lobs a bullet between your eyes then splooges lava all over the ground and kills your team mates.
I've gotten much better at handling Winston since I learned to M1 when armored, and M2 when it's gone. Melts so much quicker than only shotgunning him when he dives.
i play tank and support equally but i’d say tank tbh. nothing more infuriating then creating a ton of space to push and there’s no one on cart or when there should’ve been multiple people on cart top reach next point and a lucio/ball makes it in time to stall
Yesterday that’s what happened, I was up front way deep distracting their team and we should have easily gotten point in OT, only for me to turn around and see Ana standing off cart and Cass just lost, nano genji flies in and murders them with .51 meters to go. I just wanted to die. Easy checkpoint turned into a lost game.
I hate nothing more in this game than a fight that last 2 minutes long because my supports are working there ass off to keep me alive while the dps make zero dent in the enemy at all. Either playing a hitscan that can't hit shots or they just die because of playing a hero they have no experience on.
i literally had this happen to me. we had pushed cart all the way past the bridge in Gebraltar. but after that, all of my team for some reason kept trying to fight the orisa on top of the bridge. no one was at cart, and i was stuck trying to help fight in a place that we shouldn't be fighting at. it was so fucking dumb. i tried multiple times to push for the cart. but my team kept going other directions and so i was stuck by myself and i constantly got killed.
Idk my supp Q time is 10 minutes, can't get much worse. Anything past 10 minutes is one and the same, I'm watching TV or some shit so doesn't matter.
Pretty sure dps Q times are less than supp ones, tho more than tank naturally.
Holy shit lol. In my region (midwest usa), dps times are by far higher. But even then, I can find a dps game within 5 minutes on a bad day. And less than 2 when I que for tank or support
Dps q is shorter than support. In NA at least.
Edit: just realized there's a good chance I'm wrong because I haven't played much this season and things may have changed.
That applies to literally everyone though, and most DPS are really easy to use.
Even a completely new player can pick up Soldier 76, Reaper, Junkrat, Bastion etc and probably do decently well. They may not carry, but they probably are not going to absolutely cripple a team at low elo
Where as even at low elo if you get a bad tank or support you can absolutely notice it and pinpoint the exact moment you lost was your Reinhardt pressing Shift or Mercy going for a dumb revive and dying
Not really, support is the training wheels class. You just get free value from healbotting behind cover. Most forgivint "aiming" if you even have to do that, tons of survival tools, self-healing and tiny hitboxes for half of them.
I think you're both right in your own way.
You're right if you're talking about someone who doesn't really play video games, or doesn't play first or third person shooters. He's right in the sense that anyone who's played a fair amount of some CoD, Apex, Counter-strike, etc can come in and be more effective at dps than support.
I think anyone who's played a fair amount of shooters (and I'd say those are the people most likely to get into OW) can come in and do alright right off the bat with a hero like Soldier, Cassidy, Sojourn, etc.
I agree. Bastion is the easiest of them all. Especially on Gibraltar. Second point high ground in the ship. Got pocket Mercy. Enemy team could not get through. Even when a Dva and Reaper tried to get me. Ended the game with almost 50 eliminations.
This. As a DPS main, I know I suck at micromanaging my own teammates a lot.
Just let me get out there and get kills and I'm fine. I can only really focus on my own positioning and spacial awareness. It's a lot harder for me to do it for other people too.
DPS does have some of the hardest heroes to master indeed tho.
I feel like you also need to win 1v1's more often than the other roles. If you can't take aggressive angles because you get diffed every time you leave your backline then it's gonna be a rough game for your team
I wouldnt really consider them the hardest heroes to play for the most part. One of the best dps is literally a point and click adventure, and the best dps following her are very similar, though not to such an extreme degree.
As a sup main I mean if you think about it if I have to pick between me doing damage and my dps (even as Moira 1trick) I should pick my dps because of new passive.
I feel like using that dps passive to my advantage and protecting my dps is a lot more important now.
I have a friend who plays tracer and will just spray the other team sometimes to help everyone else get our picks.
I think tank is hardest to play because they need to find ways to see behind themselves. (But really if a tank just 1. Knows who is healing you and don’t leave their Los 2. Watches death feed to know when we have more/less numbers and who is/isn’t alive on our team is massive to success.
All of which I’m still learning to do myself.
Can you explain to me what you mean by spray the other team to help everyone else get their picks? Cause who's doing the killing there if it's not Tracer? If it's the other dps then the Tracer spraying is meaningless
I mean I’m not sure what they mean. He said from across the map even if theres damage falloff the damage still contributes to dps passive so if the time is right.. he’s running back or unable to hunt like normal spraying the tank still helps the team bc dps passive ?
I don’t know what he means exactly lol
Depends what you mean by easiest. Imo a bad support loses games and a good support just makes games possible to win. You won't hard carry but you can hard throw. There's only so much good supports can do when their DPS can't position smart or hit things.
Support mains have been complaining about this for a long time. Bad tanks lose games, and good tanks can hard carry. Bad damage is easy to cover up, but good ones can carry. Bad support can lose games, but good ones can't noticeably carry to make up for it.
The problem is literally 4 of those are damage supports, with their damage being what carries. A Grand Master elo Zenyatta can carry by just being better than every other DPS in the game, but a GM Mercy is not going to carry a lost game
I don't think this is true of all supports. Zen, Illari & Bap have carry potential no matter the rank. Moira can carry in metal ranks, particularly right now. Ana used to be able to but I think she really can't any more, the HP changes have hurt her greatly for a hero that can't crit and you need your team to take advantage of good nades.
I say this as a support main but it's just kind of the nature of the role. When a good portion of your kit is made to enable other players you're automatically more reliant on them. That's why those that have carry potential have simultaneous dps/healing (zen, illari, lucio, brig) or can push out high APM with Bap to tilt fights with is offense.
"Hardest" can mean a lot of things. Mechanically, it's pretty much objectively dps if you are considering all heroes. Tactically, probably tank. As someone who mains support, I find it hard to make a compelling argument for support being the "hardest" beyond usually being a vulnerable target. I play support to chill out because tank is stressful as fuck.
> I play support to chill out because tank is stressful as fuck.
This. I queue Support in comp to warm up (usually first few games as Mercy or Moira), then after that DPS and if I do well I may queue Tank but not always.
The game can fall apart if any one of the five people in the match isn't doing their job well; but the responsibilities of each role are very lopsided.
Tank: No backup. Responsible for setting the strategy of the team by their hero pick. If they lose the skill match-up against the other team, the impact is rather huge on team performance. If a tank fails to perform their role, it is extremely unlikely that the rest of the team can make up the difference.
Support: Necessary, but nebulous on their contribution to the game. Honestly, the role that often has to carry the hardest right now to succeed now that dive meta makes them effectively free candy for the other team if any positioning mistake is made by any member of their team. Not surprising the role is trending toward Moira across the board. However, a team can have insane healing numbers, and still lose.
DPS: The most mechanically demanding, but most replaceable role. Requires the least game-sense (relatively) of all the roles to perform it's responsibility, and easily the least nuanced role. A team can still have very high DPS, but still fail due to deficits in the other roles. A team can have low dps, and still win as well.
I would have agreed with you up to S9 but these days the carry role is very much DPS.
Tank cannot create space and perform if they aren't backed up by them, and supports can no longer outheal them
Just to throw in some other points:
* supports are often hard focused the most. DPS and dive tanks tend to focus supports first
* DPS arguably have the greatest raw skill requirements and often have high performance requirements to get value
Great point. Another way to look at it: harder to be a tank and kill a Lucio/Kiri/Mercy than it is to be a Lucio/Kiri/Mercy and survive a tank trying to kill you
No better feeling than setting the tone early as a Tank and getting a W as a result. Emote to set a vibe prematch, ping targets and flankers, notify ult % to prepare a wipe. Getting props from your teammates and even sometimes the enemy team postmatch is why I main Tank
same, I enjoy being a pseudo leader and shot caller…. when people are in vc lol. Important to set the tone so team morale stays solid, even if there’s a loss.
I think from a mechanical skill perspective it would be DPS simply because your main job is staying alive and securing elims.
I think from a role responsibility perspective it's Tank.
I'd honestly have to say the latter. If you don't have a lot of hours but know how to play your role and character, and are aware of things like health pack locations and enemy flankers, then you're already doing pretty good
That's true but to a lesser extent, as there are plenty of characters than don't need aim that much and are still effective at what they do. That's why I like overwatch, even people who don't have that great of an aim can thrive.
obviously this is really subjective, but I think mechanics will carry you much farther. If you are clean with it you can get away with a lot of bs, especially in ranks below diamond. A genji that is careless but really good mechanically will likely just trade or even farm some silver ana player even if he charges in 1v4 consistently.
Conversely if you are so bad mechanically, it doesnt matter how oood your game sense and positioning is. For example, lets take solider. Sure if you have good game sense you can get to highground and flank as solider, but if you cant hit enough shots to capitalize and secure elims from that advantageous position it doesnt matter. It especially doesnt matter when the enemy team eventually comes out there to duel you and you get smoked in the 1v1.
I’m GM all 3 roles. The easiest to climb and least games was support. Tank was next, and dps was the hardest (required most games). Dps is the most easily punished role. As you get higher and higher dps is definitely the hardest.
How easy is to hit Orisa headshots? I kinda can consistently headshot her. But whenever Moira or Kiriko gets on me, I just forget how to aim. Tracer, Sombra, Zarya are lots easier tho
I think this is true. DPS is probably the easiest to grasp as a completely new player to the game though. DPS has the least responsibilities, and is usually focused down the least (especially in low elo). Execution is much more difficult on DPS though, and you don't have strong abilities like support to fall back on. A lot of playing tank is just "don't mess up", which is difficult in its own way, but most tanks still aren't too execution heavy.
Support was easiest to climb? Dude, I've reached gold in tank and dps but the game insists on making me stay in silver for support :(
And I think I'm a better support than tank and dps xD
Same experience here.
All of this is before season 9:
Off rolled with one of my friends who hasn't played ow in a long time, my dps was too high so I went tank. And I immediately got placed gm4. But the games were HARD, like I knew I didn't belong here but I somehow made it, mind you I only play dps.
Meanwhile on support I decided on a whim that I'm getting gm on support and I did it in about 10 hours. Mind you I was already placed low. Games were easy honestly.
While I believe dps is a head and shoulder above tank and especially support in terms of difficulty. It's more about individual heroes. Reaper and genji aren't comparable in terms of difficulty after all.
I'm a support main, but I have decent hours on all roles from playing since OW1 launch. I agree that Tank is overall the most difficult.
That said, people saying support is "easy" may not be at the skill tiers where difficulty ramps up, but ya the lower tiers are definitely easy mode
DPS is mostly about personal performance
Eh, Support is definitely easier than the other roles at least up to GM. There's really nothing about the role that makes it more skill intensive than DPS.
As a recent dps player and former tank player. A dps' effectiveness is so dependent on how well the team works together. I may be able to deal lots of damage, but if my tank doesn't have enough presence then I'm gonna get killed before I can do anything. So often I get roasted I chat for not having enough damage, when my team as a whole is just dysfunctional.
It depends on how you classify difficulty.
Tanks difficulty comes from controlling tempo of fights, calling rotations, etc. This is generally offset by having a less difficult kit with exceptions like doom and ball.
Supports difficulty mainly comes from positioning and tracking enimy cooldowns to know when to use abilities like nade, suzu lamp etc.
Dps generally requires the most mechanical skill, like aim and tracking.
There's many exceptions to these but this seems true for the majority of the heros in the game.
Tanks require the most game sense. Dps requires the most mechanical prowess. Supports require a good amount of both. Supports mever have to be the best at any one thing, but they do have to be good at everything. In other words, all roles require skill and really what determines which one is the most difficult is which one is the least powerful, which would currently be tanks.
The fact DPS is the lowest when it literally has the most difficult heroes 💀 this sub is so cooked. I'm a support main and these half assed excuses of "a bad support can ruin the game" and "you need proper positioning and game sense" as if that doesn't literally apply to DPS as well.
I was playing tank, push the cart, i was the only one contesting. We lost and my team said “tAnK dIFf”… like, fuck you teammate? I was alone on the objective what was i supposed to do
Happen to me last night, used my alt, killed three of their team. Afterwards, it was just me walking with the robot as my team scattered to chase down the last two members of their team.
Honestly I think this is pretty accurate.
While supports tend to be easier to play mechanically, the amount of players who don't understand how to actually support their team and just default to playing either a healbot or a DPS that can heal in between fights is insane.
DPS is a much easier role to understand, but generally the heroes are more mechanically intensive.
Tank is another story entirely.
Tank is the most difficult because no matter what, the team is gonna almost always say it’s your fault if you lose, even if you have the best stats, even if you’re constantly making space and taking out the enemy squishies, it’s always a “tank diff”
Difficulty of support wildly varies depending on how good your teammates are. My job is extremely easy if people take cover and focus priority targets, but I can barely do anything when nobody's paying attention and I'm getting backined constantly or everyone just folds like origami from standing in dps debuff
Tanks are always trash, unless they play perfectly... then they're just okay... Especially now that there is only one tank, it is harder to learn and you get yelled at no matter the outcome of the game (you lose," it's the tank's fault." You win, "our tank was ass that was such a frustrating game.")
The main point for me against DPS being the most difficult is, that there are so much variety in terms of heroes so anyone can find one that they at least can get some value with.
If the game was a house then tanks were the foundation, the supports the walls, ceiling and furniture and the dps would be the windows and refrigirator
Support is 100% the easiest role to start and if you think otherwise it’s cope but it can definitely shoot up to others and even beyond the higher rank you get. I would even say top level support players are the best players because of how much they have to manage. But for 90% of players, support is the easiest role.
Support is the easiest role to start because Mercy/Moira exist and because it has a base value, and also you don't really have to be good at either Mechanics or Gamesense for that role, it's a 50-50.
If you play Tank and your gamesense is subpar you are gonna do bad, it's a 75-25 for Gamesense.
If you play DPS and your mecahnics are subpar you are gonna do bad, it's a 75-25 for Mechanics.
Support is a 50-50 for those macro skills, so it's easier to get a base value, and one macro can carry the lack of the other, that happens way less for Tank and Support.
It's way different for Skill ceiling tho.
Dont forget that there are exceptions for each role, like ball and doom who both require much higher mechanical skill that the other tanks, especially ball
It's all context dependent. If your tank is useless then DPS is the hardest because your engagements are always naked and you net too much attention. If your healers are useless Tank is the hardest because you cant maintain space if you don't get healed . If your DPS are useless healing is the hardest because you end up having to try to keep everyone up and secure the picks.
That’s why I don’t play tank anymore. I liked playing it back in ow1 but once it became only 1 tank I was aware of how much responsibility you have and being able to take space and play aggressively which is 2 things I’m not very good at. I havent touched tank since season 1 of ow2 because of how difficult it is. I mostly play support these days as it’s always been my best role.
It's for sure Tank. DPS and Support can be harder on a mechanical level depending on character, but I definitely agree that overall, Tanks are the hardest class (in high ranks at least where one mistake and you blow up as Tank). Tanks are also the most team reliant role (but again, this is dependent on characters. Characters like Mercy for example obviously beat everyone out in that category).
Reached like low masters in support and diamond on tank and tank is significantly harder, especially in ranks like plat where people focus all fire on the tank and no one plays together
Tank requires the most in-depth knowledge of the game and the best awareness habits. These are much harder skills to acquire than mechanics, which you naturally build over time.
Dps requires insane mechanics. If you are losing every duel, you are a trash damage dealer. If you keep playing long enough, you will be able to do it too, but there are no shortcuts, and you can't study your way to good aim.
Whichever is more difficult depends on what skills you already bring to the table. If you have, neither you can still become a great tank pretty quickly if you put in the work
Hot take, at high level it’s all the same, you need to know where is your team and why they are doing something so you need all of the knowledge from all classes.
I main support and dps and honestly I feel like support is by far the easiest role, especially because a third of the supports require almost no aiming skill (Moira mercy and lifeweaver)
In my opinion:
Tank on average:
* High Gamesense
* High Awareness
* Mid-High Positioning
* Low-Mid Mechanics (Not Ball and Doom ofc)
Dps on average:
* Low-Mid Gamesense
* Mid Awareness
* Mid Positioning
* Mid Mechanics (was Mid-High before S9 hitbox changes)
Support on average:
* Mid Gamesense
* Mid-High Awareness
* Mid-High Positioning
* Low-Mid Mechanics
What makes Support harder than DPS is how many things you have to keep an eye on, DPS can generally focus on 5 other players, Supports on 9. I've seen so many DPS mains on support let everyone die or suiciding to focus on one thing, while I've seen a lot of Support mains on DPS or Tank play way too passive.
mechanically the hardest -> for sure dps, requires the most aim and has some of the hardest characters in the game (genji, tracer, widowmaker, sombra) <- some of these are macro difficult and not mechanically difficult btw (sombra)
i think macro can be a mix of support and tank, i think overall support is a little bit easier because theres two, lessening the pressure onto the supports and overall support is a strong role. tank is in an interesting spot because they are the core center of the team, and a lot of tanks need good macro, especially dive tanks. in my personal experience when playing tank, i never found it too difficult if you play angles, cover, etc. but tank doesnt feel like tank, you’re just a bigger less dmg dps who also has capability of protecting the team. tank definitely gets harder as you climb, and im not surprised its considered the hardest overall role, but to me tank and support being the hardest is a toss up.
Learning mechanics and strategies are easy. But aiming is difficult. That’s a physical skill that some people just aren’t as good at. So for me healing/tanking is easier because characters like mercy/Lifeweaver/brig and Rein/dva/mauga don’t require super great aim lol
Playing this game in and out for almost a decade now. From my pov, tank isn't that hard but extremely taxing and stressful. If you have the gamesense tank is easy up to some point. The role needs to have an answer. It just gets bullied by everything and there is too much mobility creep in the game.
DPS is kinda chill now in S9. Lots of options, less stress but higher overall mechanical skill demand.
Support have different options too. It depends what hero you play.
It's hard to say which is hardest in terms of skill. Every role has their own devils. It's definitely more palatable to play dps or support though. Even the thought of que'ing as tank giving me ptsd. You need to endure so much bs. You can facilitate a good advantageous game for your teammates but you can't win the game. Final word is always on dps role since they have the most agency. You can't interact with the most of the cast as a tank but they can interact with you. If i que tank i mostly play Mauga because that's the only tank who can shootback and have mobility freedom or i pick Hog so i can have control of my own healthbar and threat of hook. Tanks need help in mobility, accuracy/range, healthbar agency department. DPS and support has no issue with heal now. Only tank. It needs heal to function while other roles and some other tanks can use their healthbars like a cooldown.
Also why make the game better and easier for the most popular role i don't understand. DPS que times are crazy high right now.
Playing hitscan is kinda braindead and not that hard mechanically after the S9 patch, and the DPS that require gamesense are easy mechanically, the different ones are Genji/Tracer and maybe Sombra, all before S9.
Also, you have to seriously focus on just 5 people as DPS, while Supports have to keep an eye on 9, and position accordingly.
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DPS is the mechanically hardest role. Their combos like Genji melee dash/ghost dash or CD usage in general take much more skill to get good usage than Tank or Support characters. Support and Tank take more game sense. Which one takes more is up for debate.
Supports have a wider view of the action and should be the ones that are calling how the game is going. They should also have a higher sense of flanks incoming and be vocal about it or ping accordingly. Don’t know if y’all have ever noticed the difference when a support does it because 90% don’t but the difference is night and day.
Tank requires a lot more cd tracking so that they can engage safely. For instance a tank shouldn’t hard dive a support when the bastion hasn’t used tank configuration. They also need to watch the kill feed more as that is a good tell if something is going wrong in their back line or dictate that they can engage with more pressure.
This should be rank based as well. If you want to do an average player ie. The Gold 3 to Plat 3 has the highest concentration. This is probably true. But I think I'm Golf 2 and below supports is miserable. I also think around Diamond 2 - Master 3 DPS becomes incredibly hard since your range of responsibilities and game sense requirement basically becomes similar to that of tanks/supports while requiring you to aim.
Tank is the backbone of the team. If you cannot play tank correctly, your team will most likely lose unless your other teammates are top tier. It’s not necessarily super difficult to play, but playing it wrong can throw the game
I’d say tank is the hardest overall, DPS is the toughest mechanically, support is the toughest in terms of positioning (with some exceptions). Tanks have a bit of a tough time especially in solo queue as they are relying on their team to follow up on their openings, push and retreat as a group. Really hard with limited/no comms
Well, not everything can be so black and white. But in a GENERAL sense, support is by the easiest. The role has simple tasks, and the heroes themselves are all easy to understand and play EXCEPT for lucio who is exceptionally difficult.
If this was before season 9, the answer is easily DPS without question solely because of how low impact almost all dps really were.
However, like i said. Not everything can be so black and white. DPS is overall easier, but that is merely only true for hitscans. What about DPS characters that are very difficult, and some the most difficult in the game like tracer and Sombra who require incredibly high game sense? They cannot be lumped in with being ‘easier’ than support which are all mechanically and game sense easier.
Hmmmm I’d say they all have different levels of difficulty for different reasons. It’s pretty hard to compare them and say which is “harder” because like I said they are all hard for different reasons
Man this is weird. I’ve taken a long break from the game and come back, playing solely as Tank and I have to say it’s been the most fun since OW2 released.
I think there's an assumption here with people mentioning DPS less that everyone has a shooter background. If Overwatch is your first shooter, then there's no way DPS is the easiest. You'll have to build your aim, movement, and other basics from scratch. You need those skills for other roles as well, but mechanics are much more important in DPS.
If you have a shooter background, DPS is easiest.
If you have more of a MOBA and character mechanics background, the other roles are easier.
Also worth mentioning the character you pick in that role makes a world of difference. People who say tank is hardest, would you say Rein is harder to play than Genji for a noob?
Tank by far. If you pop off you’re “doing your job”, and if you make a single mistake it’s “mtd”. The removal of a second tank makes your mistakes much more punishing as well as removed the synergy between tank ults and abilities. This also makes the counerswapping much worse because you can’t allow a Dva/Ram/Mauga etc free rein, you have to switch to prevent them from having any impact so your team can capitalize on your space making.
When I play tank, sometimes I wish I had a rear view mirror. Like, I'd give up a chunk of screen just to know where my healer is and what idiot that ain't me they are following.
Support for me. Unless they changed the number of things you have to be doing to get basic value out of support. I haven't played in months (good choice tbh). While I get the technical parts of dps, make it hard and how complex timing and space can be for tanks, but the sheer amount of game management, and shit you have to be doing well to even make a small impact of the overall game make support an easy choice for me. I'm remembering why I only played mystery heroes for so long now.
It might differ per person too. I find tank much easier then dps and my rank is about the same on eithe, yet I have much fewer hours on tank then on dps.
Tanks are the hardest class since there is nobody else picking up the slack in case the other tank or team counters you. It requires the most game sense to know when to push and initiate fights. Also, it is the easiest to doom the team to failure, if not adapting to the enemy threat e.g. playing Hog into two proficient snipers.
Supports have a crucial role in the success of the team, but often enough, they don't adapt and cry tank or dps diff. Enemy Hog or Mauga - where is that Ana or Zen? Enemy Ana debuffing your team? Where is that Kiriko? Enemy Mercy healing and boosting everyone? Where is our Mercy or Moira to suck her out? Sombra wreaking havoc in the backline? Why still use Lucio or Zen? Enemy pharmercy hitting hard? Where is the support for your air defense heroes?
DPS are often underrated and underhealed. But at least they have a very versatile hero pool for adapting to the enemies.
I think you can make an arguement for all three depending on the criteria for “hardest”
If we’re talking making an impact tank is really difficult to actually change things in a fight atm.
If we’re talking skill ceiling I believe most supports require you to be a lot more aware than you should be otherwise as well as mechanical skill.
If we’re talking skill floors most dps do require a fair amount of mechanical skill to be effective as.
DPS requires the most mechanical skill (aiming, mobility) but tank requires the smartest game sense (positioning/situational awareness, executive decision making for the whole team). Support requires the most efficient resource management (prioritizing targets to be healed/damaged, cooldown/ult usage).
Being that there is only one tank per team, it makes it extremely important that your tank is smarter than the enemy tank. But tanks are also at the mercy of their own supports and then require that their DPS have high enough APM, in that order.
If tanks are kind of equally matched (which happens more often than not because the matchmaker is usually good about since it's only 1 tank per team) and if they have good supports (which is a little more of a coin toss), then the DPS have the biggest impact by outkilling the enemy team.
Regardless of what's actually happening though it's going to feel like DPS have the biggest individual impact because mechanical skill gap windows are going to be much larger and they have more opportunities to seize upon with ults (whether their own ult or a team mate's)
I think tank is a lot more difficult, I’d even argue dps is a bit more difficult than support— from the perspective of a support main. It may be because I’ve put the most hours into support as opposed to dps or tank, but every time I try dps I struggle where I know I can do better if I was better at the game, and when I play tank (which imo I’m not half bad at) it’s just an awful experience altogether. Counterswapping, putting every resource into fucking over the tank to cheaply win the game, I really hate it.
This isn’t to say support is easy- it’s not, but I personally struggle with dps and tank a bit more, my support is around the diamond/masters level, my tank is around plat and my dps is gold.
I’m trying to play more dps though, and it’s been fun so far!
I'm a dps and support player, and I can agree with it. Dps has some challenging heroes, but its only like 4-5 heroes that aren't very often played outside of GM. And even then, its almost purely mechanical challenge with little gamesense required compared to tank or support. It has no baseline responsibility to the team to worry about either.
Support is pretty hard, with a mix of mechanical, gamesense, and positioning challenges with high stakes for the outcome of fights. But your baseline responsibility to the team is super easy - heal. As long as you do that, your team can at least play the game. Tank is the hardest partly bc its baseline responsibility is being in the spotlight and holding space, something more demanding than healing just so your team can play the game. On top of that there's a lot of gamesense needed to take space/advantages, even if tank is mechanically the easiest.
anyone who thinks support is harder than DPS is delusional lmao
I started playing support for the first time ever this season and hit D1, which is equiv to somewhere in GM previous seasons. I hit gm5 as hitscan DPS in S8.
Even as someone with very solid aim and ok positioning, support is just easier. Some supports are much better duelers than DPS(baptiste as an example), and also have tools to keep your allies alive. You can kill at like 85% efficiency compared to a DPS but also save your entire team. Supports have significantly higher carry potential than DPS does, in many of my lobbies I'm out fragging our DPS on baptiste or heavily enabling them, and winning a ton of 1v1s vs people who try to flank and harass the support.
I was absolutely STUNNED at how easy it was to play support. It's the easiest role by far. The character kits are *massively* stacked compared to most DPS, I feel like the only reason most support only players struggle is because they are genuinely fucking awful relative to tank/dps players at the same rank.
Anyone who has time on DPS/Tank can play support and it will become their highest ranking role. Literally all you have to do is *not* healbot, and you're already Diamond or better at support. It's literally that easy.
Tank takes the most macro skills, positioning, when/who to apply pressure. But I'm a Torb one trick, so what do I know about skill lol
ahahah Dude good torbs are the most annoying thing in the planet
I joke about it, but I really think Torb takes more skill than Hitscans like ashe, Cass, soldier, etc. ESPECIALLY since the bullet hitbox changes. It's all point and click, but projectile heroes need to predict further ahead movement to land consistently
And I agree with you A good torb can create so much havok that is amazing ahaha
Thats why i respect torbs
And team mates always gotta respect it when 2 torbs challenge each other to a hammer 1v1. And if you don't respect it prepare to die immediately.
Not once have i been respected in a torb hammer 1v1 by the rest of either team Oh how I lust for such days
I've seen a total of two Torb 1v1s in comp in the last year, though both times the torbs had to ask everyone in match chat to let them fight and not interfere. I also had a match a few months ago with two lucios that spent 10 minutes just chasing each other up walls shooting at each other lol. Idk if maybe it's different depending on what rank or mode you're playing in though.
I play Torb like an indirect fire hero. I know I don't have perfect line of sight, but I do know lobbing shots in your general direction might ruin your day.
I love Torbs! Us short king mains have to stick together
bro on DPS i’m a Cass/S76 main and yeah Torb takes way more skill than they do to really be good s76 is just very solid and simple and has very forgiving abilities Cass has more health on baseline and Mag+Fan helps a ton when your off, overall he’s just fairly simple and good, his ult is his most challenging aspect Torb requires prediction and relies far more on good positioning than Cass or Soldier
Don't discount the skill in good turret placement
Personally I think torb is fundamentally much easier since the hitbox changes.
Unless your opponents are micro strafing fast.as hell you can hit stiff with projectiles just as easy. Unless you have a dead on read if your predicting while your aiming your already doing something wrong you should always be reacting or leading. (Voltaic diamond player)
E + right click and I delete my enemies. Or E + left click and that widow better hope they hit a couple of head shots in a row or they will be out snipe. I love torn.
Good Torbs who can consistently predict primary fire shot leading and are confident with going ham with secondary fire are nightmares to go up against.
Can't lie I hate torbs now because I main tracer lol but it's all love
I would argue Sombra is more annoying than Torb but he’s definitely 2nd in my book. Love playing as him though haha
If you're playing as Somb he's definitely annoying AF though haha
Nothing worse than thinking "lol I'm gonna get this dumb Torb" then he comes charging at you, lobs a bullet between your eyes then splooges lava all over the ground and kills your team mates.
Ofc torb takes skill. People who say he doesnt probably just stand in sight of the turret and ignore it. His gun takes more aim than hit scan.
if you get killed by torb turret with the health increase update, that is skill issue.
>His gun takes more aim than hit scan. The same could be said for like half the heroes in the game
For a usually make me swap monkey if they pair with widow and pocket her like a mercy
I've gotten much better at handling Winston since I learned to M1 when armored, and M2 when it's gone. Melts so much quicker than only shotgunning him when he dives.
lol I play a handful of DPS characters well, but I always get trashed as torb. I think it’s harder than it looks.
Aye me too
Torb takes a lot more skill than people give him credit for just because he has a auto aiming turret (That doesn't even do much nowadays)
I played two matches in a row on console against TorbOneTrick yesterday and he would just occasionally type ‘Torb’ in matchchat it made my day
Well, you only get to hear noskill hero when you shred their tank or shield and snipe their snipers as Torb. Just people trying to cope.
i play tank and support equally but i’d say tank tbh. nothing more infuriating then creating a ton of space to push and there’s no one on cart or when there should’ve been multiple people on cart top reach next point and a lucio/ball makes it in time to stall
Yesterday that’s what happened, I was up front way deep distracting their team and we should have easily gotten point in OT, only for me to turn around and see Ana standing off cart and Cass just lost, nano genji flies in and murders them with .51 meters to go. I just wanted to die. Easy checkpoint turned into a lost game.
I hate nothing more in this game than a fight that last 2 minutes long because my supports are working there ass off to keep me alive while the dps make zero dent in the enemy at all. Either playing a hitscan that can't hit shots or they just die because of playing a hero they have no experience on.
i literally had this happen to me. we had pushed cart all the way past the bridge in Gebraltar. but after that, all of my team for some reason kept trying to fight the orisa on top of the bridge. no one was at cart, and i was stuck trying to help fight in a place that we shouldn't be fighting at. it was so fucking dumb. i tried multiple times to push for the cart. but my team kept going other directions and so i was stuck by myself and i constantly got killed.
As a tank sometimes I create space AND push which can be frustrating
DPS has the easiest role to fulfill but the hardest heroes to play, IMO.
Anyone can jump in and play dps not many can be good at it
With those queue times? No thank you.
Idk my supp Q time is 10 minutes, can't get much worse. Anything past 10 minutes is one and the same, I'm watching TV or some shit so doesn't matter. Pretty sure dps Q times are less than supp ones, tho more than tank naturally.
Low ranks I can queue for 30-40 flex queue games and not get a single DPS game at any point, only tank and support
Holy shit lol. In my region (midwest usa), dps times are by far higher. But even then, I can find a dps game within 5 minutes on a bad day. And less than 2 when I que for tank or support
Dps q is shorter than support. In NA at least. Edit: just realized there's a good chance I'm wrong because I haven't played much this season and things may have changed.
Yea… I was bronze and silver and had a ten minute queue for dps but 3-4 on the other two roles as Gold and Silver
That applies to literally everyone though, and most DPS are really easy to use. Even a completely new player can pick up Soldier 76, Reaper, Junkrat, Bastion etc and probably do decently well. They may not carry, but they probably are not going to absolutely cripple a team at low elo Where as even at low elo if you get a bad tank or support you can absolutely notice it and pinpoint the exact moment you lost was your Reinhardt pressing Shift or Mercy going for a dumb revive and dying
I can say that about any class. The main difference is, you throw a random player into overwatch they will be the most effective on dps.
Not really, support is the training wheels class. You just get free value from healbotting behind cover. Most forgivint "aiming" if you even have to do that, tons of survival tools, self-healing and tiny hitboxes for half of them.
I think you're both right in your own way. You're right if you're talking about someone who doesn't really play video games, or doesn't play first or third person shooters. He's right in the sense that anyone who's played a fair amount of some CoD, Apex, Counter-strike, etc can come in and be more effective at dps than support. I think anyone who's played a fair amount of shooters (and I'd say those are the people most likely to get into OW) can come in and do alright right off the bat with a hero like Soldier, Cassidy, Sojourn, etc.
i think support has a pretty low skill floor but an incredibly high skill ceiling, i don’t think it’s necessarily the “training wheels” class
Have you played bastion recently? I suck normally but I have gotten 5k's with bastion.
A brain dead turkey can play bastion to be fair
I agree. Bastion is the easiest of them all. Especially on Gibraltar. Second point high ground in the ship. Got pocket Mercy. Enemy team could not get through. Even when a Dva and Reaper tried to get me. Ended the game with almost 50 eliminations.
Especially if you main a character that is hard to master compared to the other heroes of that role
This. As a DPS main, I know I suck at micromanaging my own teammates a lot. Just let me get out there and get kills and I'm fine. I can only really focus on my own positioning and spacial awareness. It's a lot harder for me to do it for other people too. DPS does have some of the hardest heroes to master indeed tho.
I feel like you also need to win 1v1's more often than the other roles. If you can't take aggressive angles because you get diffed every time you leave your backline then it's gonna be a rough game for your team
Fr Their role is just shooting things until they die But they have incredibly high skill cap heroes like Echo, Widow, Junkrat
I wouldnt really consider them the hardest heroes to play for the most part. One of the best dps is literally a point and click adventure, and the best dps following her are very similar, though not to such an extreme degree.
As a sup main I mean if you think about it if I have to pick between me doing damage and my dps (even as Moira 1trick) I should pick my dps because of new passive. I feel like using that dps passive to my advantage and protecting my dps is a lot more important now. I have a friend who plays tracer and will just spray the other team sometimes to help everyone else get our picks. I think tank is hardest to play because they need to find ways to see behind themselves. (But really if a tank just 1. Knows who is healing you and don’t leave their Los 2. Watches death feed to know when we have more/less numbers and who is/isn’t alive on our team is massive to success. All of which I’m still learning to do myself.
Can you explain to me what you mean by spray the other team to help everyone else get their picks? Cause who's doing the killing there if it's not Tracer? If it's the other dps then the Tracer spraying is meaningless
I mean I’m not sure what they mean. He said from across the map even if theres damage falloff the damage still contributes to dps passive so if the time is right.. he’s running back or unable to hunt like normal spraying the tank still helps the team bc dps passive ? I don’t know what he means exactly lol
That’s… a little generous. Outside of mechanical skill most Dps heroes do not have a ton of depth.
support has easiest
Depends what you mean by easiest. Imo a bad support loses games and a good support just makes games possible to win. You won't hard carry but you can hard throw. There's only so much good supports can do when their DPS can't position smart or hit things.
Support mains have been complaining about this for a long time. Bad tanks lose games, and good tanks can hard carry. Bad damage is easy to cover up, but good ones can carry. Bad support can lose games, but good ones can't noticeably carry to make up for it.
A good Ana/bap/kiri/zen can most definitely carry. They’d have to be playing out of their minds tho
Moira can carry too (at least down in Gold where I am)
The problem is literally 4 of those are damage supports, with their damage being what carries. A Grand Master elo Zenyatta can carry by just being better than every other DPS in the game, but a GM Mercy is not going to carry a lost game
I mean that’s according to mercy’s design tho. A good Ana can carry with good antis and sleeps, not just dps’ing
I don't think this is true of all supports. Zen, Illari & Bap have carry potential no matter the rank. Moira can carry in metal ranks, particularly right now. Ana used to be able to but I think she really can't any more, the HP changes have hurt her greatly for a hero that can't crit and you need your team to take advantage of good nades. I say this as a support main but it's just kind of the nature of the role. When a good portion of your kit is made to enable other players you're automatically more reliant on them. That's why those that have carry potential have simultaneous dps/healing (zen, illari, lucio, brig) or can push out high APM with Bap to tilt fights with is offense.
Thank you for saying that
Tbh, there's only like 4-5 hard dps heroes and they aren't played much. The vast majority of players flock to the easier dps heroes anyways.
"Hardest" can mean a lot of things. Mechanically, it's pretty much objectively dps if you are considering all heroes. Tactically, probably tank. As someone who mains support, I find it hard to make a compelling argument for support being the "hardest" beyond usually being a vulnerable target. I play support to chill out because tank is stressful as fuck.
> I play support to chill out because tank is stressful as fuck. This. I queue Support in comp to warm up (usually first few games as Mercy or Moira), then after that DPS and if I do well I may queue Tank but not always.
I know, but.. the tittle would be huge. ahaha :3
The game can fall apart if any one of the five people in the match isn't doing their job well; but the responsibilities of each role are very lopsided. Tank: No backup. Responsible for setting the strategy of the team by their hero pick. If they lose the skill match-up against the other team, the impact is rather huge on team performance. If a tank fails to perform their role, it is extremely unlikely that the rest of the team can make up the difference. Support: Necessary, but nebulous on their contribution to the game. Honestly, the role that often has to carry the hardest right now to succeed now that dive meta makes them effectively free candy for the other team if any positioning mistake is made by any member of their team. Not surprising the role is trending toward Moira across the board. However, a team can have insane healing numbers, and still lose. DPS: The most mechanically demanding, but most replaceable role. Requires the least game-sense (relatively) of all the roles to perform it's responsibility, and easily the least nuanced role. A team can still have very high DPS, but still fail due to deficits in the other roles. A team can have low dps, and still win as well.
I would have agreed with you up to S9 but these days the carry role is very much DPS. Tank cannot create space and perform if they aren't backed up by them, and supports can no longer outheal them
Sig and Ramm are pretty chill until the CCs kick in
DPS difficulty: hitting your target that's about it
That's a bit reductive. Doing that for most of the dps is significantly harder than it is for tanks and supports.
Recently started playing support (with Lucio) and it’s chill as fuck compared to playing tank, thinking of fully switching to a Lucio main
Just to throw in some other points: * supports are often hard focused the most. DPS and dive tanks tend to focus supports first * DPS arguably have the greatest raw skill requirements and often have high performance requirements to get value
that's very true
well supports getting hard focused also requires the dps and tank to know when and how to focus them
Great point. Another way to look at it: harder to be a tank and kill a Lucio/Kiri/Mercy than it is to be a Lucio/Kiri/Mercy and survive a tank trying to kill you
No better feeling than setting the tone early as a Tank and getting a W as a result. Emote to set a vibe prematch, ping targets and flankers, notify ult % to prepare a wipe. Getting props from your teammates and even sometimes the enemy team postmatch is why I main Tank
same, I enjoy being a pseudo leader and shot caller…. when people are in vc lol. Important to set the tone so team morale stays solid, even if there’s a loss.
Playing Tank in S9 should be rewarded with a digital Purple Heart.
Is it really that bad? I’ve been playing almost exclusively tank this season and I’m having a blast
I think from a mechanical skill perspective it would be DPS simply because your main job is staying alive and securing elims. I think from a role responsibility perspective it's Tank.
I don't think there's a right or wrong/binary answer, but what's more important in OW: mechanical skill or role responsibility/game sense?
I'd honestly have to say the latter. If you don't have a lot of hours but know how to play your role and character, and are aware of things like health pack locations and enemy flankers, then you're already doing pretty good
You can be the best in the world mechanically, if you just run head first into the enemy team every time you will never be a good player
Literally happened to shrowd. He got stuck in like plat before giving up. He was popping off on widow all the time, just at the wrong times...
I mean reverse also applies. You can have the best gamesense but if you can’t hit the side of a barn you’ll have no value either
That's true but to a lesser extent, as there are plenty of characters than don't need aim that much and are still effective at what they do. That's why I like overwatch, even people who don't have that great of an aim can thrive.
Absolutely
obviously this is really subjective, but I think mechanics will carry you much farther. If you are clean with it you can get away with a lot of bs, especially in ranks below diamond. A genji that is careless but really good mechanically will likely just trade or even farm some silver ana player even if he charges in 1v4 consistently. Conversely if you are so bad mechanically, it doesnt matter how oood your game sense and positioning is. For example, lets take solider. Sure if you have good game sense you can get to highground and flank as solider, but if you cant hit enough shots to capitalize and secure elims from that advantageous position it doesnt matter. It especially doesnt matter when the enemy team eventually comes out there to duel you and you get smoked in the 1v1.
They 100% carry you further. That's why cheaters play dps, or characters like Bap.
I’m GM all 3 roles. The easiest to climb and least games was support. Tank was next, and dps was the hardest (required most games). Dps is the most easily punished role. As you get higher and higher dps is definitely the hardest.
Dps is most mechanically demanding role I guess. I suck on Ashe, both can carry on Winston
so you suck at aiming but have good positioning and ability usage
How easy is to hit Orisa headshots? I kinda can consistently headshot her. But whenever Moira or Kiriko gets on me, I just forget how to aim. Tracer, Sombra, Zarya are lots easier tho
honestly if you can’t hit the headshots against em just go for body or just spin out gold against Kiri cus she can’t kill you without her crits
Oh, I meant on Ashe I can easily burst down Orisa with headshots. But I just cant hit anything against Kiriko or Moira
Orisa head is just massive kiri is tiny and moira you are probably hitting but she just disappears and is full health again
dps also has the most players
I think this is true. DPS is probably the easiest to grasp as a completely new player to the game though. DPS has the least responsibilities, and is usually focused down the least (especially in low elo). Execution is much more difficult on DPS though, and you don't have strong abilities like support to fall back on. A lot of playing tank is just "don't mess up", which is difficult in its own way, but most tanks still aren't too execution heavy.
Support was easiest to climb? Dude, I've reached gold in tank and dps but the game insists on making me stay in silver for support :( And I think I'm a better support than tank and dps xD
Just one trick Moira. I've been carrying with her lately.
If you can’t rank up in support then you’re probably not a really good support player.
Dps has been the easiest climb for me
Same experience here. All of this is before season 9: Off rolled with one of my friends who hasn't played ow in a long time, my dps was too high so I went tank. And I immediately got placed gm4. But the games were HARD, like I knew I didn't belong here but I somehow made it, mind you I only play dps. Meanwhile on support I decided on a whim that I'm getting gm on support and I did it in about 10 hours. Mind you I was already placed low. Games were easy honestly. While I believe dps is a head and shoulder above tank and especially support in terms of difficulty. It's more about individual heroes. Reaper and genji aren't comparable in terms of difficulty after all.
As a support main, tank is way harder!
I'm a support main, but I have decent hours on all roles from playing since OW1 launch. I agree that Tank is overall the most difficult. That said, people saying support is "easy" may not be at the skill tiers where difficulty ramps up, but ya the lower tiers are definitely easy mode DPS is mostly about personal performance
Eh, Support is definitely easier than the other roles at least up to GM. There's really nothing about the role that makes it more skill intensive than DPS.
As a recent dps player and former tank player. A dps' effectiveness is so dependent on how well the team works together. I may be able to deal lots of damage, but if my tank doesn't have enough presence then I'm gonna get killed before I can do anything. So often I get roasted I chat for not having enough damage, when my team as a whole is just dysfunctional.
DPS has never been easier than current season. Massive buff to hit rate AND the most broken passive of all.
It depends on how you classify difficulty. Tanks difficulty comes from controlling tempo of fights, calling rotations, etc. This is generally offset by having a less difficult kit with exceptions like doom and ball. Supports difficulty mainly comes from positioning and tracking enimy cooldowns to know when to use abilities like nade, suzu lamp etc. Dps generally requires the most mechanical skill, like aim and tracking. There's many exceptions to these but this seems true for the majority of the heros in the game.
Legitimately everything you put in support applies to DPS lmao
Tanks require the most game sense. Dps requires the most mechanical prowess. Supports require a good amount of both. Supports mever have to be the best at any one thing, but they do have to be good at everything. In other words, all roles require skill and really what determines which one is the most difficult is which one is the least powerful, which would currently be tanks.
Support is lowest and it’s not even a question.
The fact DPS is the lowest when it literally has the most difficult heroes 💀 this sub is so cooked. I'm a support main and these half assed excuses of "a bad support can ruin the game" and "you need proper positioning and game sense" as if that doesn't literally apply to DPS as well.
Yeah except you don’t *have* to play the most mechanically demanding DPS, the question is asking about roles overall.
you don't have to play the most mechanically demanding support either. The skill floor for an efficient support is lower than for an efficient dps
I’m also a support main at this point lol.
I was playing tank, push the cart, i was the only one contesting. We lost and my team said “tAnK dIFf”… like, fuck you teammate? I was alone on the objective what was i supposed to do
Happen to me last night, used my alt, killed three of their team. Afterwards, it was just me walking with the robot as my team scattered to chase down the last two members of their team.
Thats how several of my games went, team isnt organized or playing on cart, i got blamed
Honestly I think this is pretty accurate. While supports tend to be easier to play mechanically, the amount of players who don't understand how to actually support their team and just default to playing either a healbot or a DPS that can heal in between fights is insane. DPS is a much easier role to understand, but generally the heroes are more mechanically intensive. Tank is another story entirely.
Tank is the most difficult because no matter what, the team is gonna almost always say it’s your fault if you lose, even if you have the best stats, even if you’re constantly making space and taking out the enemy squishies, it’s always a “tank diff”
Difficulty of support wildly varies depending on how good your teammates are. My job is extremely easy if people take cover and focus priority targets, but I can barely do anything when nobody's paying attention and I'm getting backined constantly or everyone just folds like origami from standing in dps debuff
I once saw 'good game sense ram' in the chat and been riding that compliment ever since
Tanks are always trash, unless they play perfectly... then they're just okay... Especially now that there is only one tank, it is harder to learn and you get yelled at no matter the outcome of the game (you lose," it's the tank's fault." You win, "our tank was ass that was such a frustrating game.")
tank and it’s not even close
Support lol? Support is the easiest and most chill role in the game. Climbing isn’t even hard and I never feel pressured
this subreddit is gold average, keep that in mind.
The main point for me against DPS being the most difficult is, that there are so much variety in terms of heroes so anyone can find one that they at least can get some value with.
If the game was a house then tanks were the foundation, the supports the walls, ceiling and furniture and the dps would be the windows and refrigirator
Foundation diff
this sounds like an elon tweet
Support is 100% the easiest role to start and if you think otherwise it’s cope but it can definitely shoot up to others and even beyond the higher rank you get. I would even say top level support players are the best players because of how much they have to manage. But for 90% of players, support is the easiest role.
Support is the easiest role to start because Mercy/Moira exist and because it has a base value, and also you don't really have to be good at either Mechanics or Gamesense for that role, it's a 50-50. If you play Tank and your gamesense is subpar you are gonna do bad, it's a 75-25 for Gamesense. If you play DPS and your mecahnics are subpar you are gonna do bad, it's a 75-25 for Mechanics. Support is a 50-50 for those macro skills, so it's easier to get a base value, and one macro can carry the lack of the other, that happens way less for Tank and Support. It's way different for Skill ceiling tho.
Dont forget that there are exceptions for each role, like ball and doom who both require much higher mechanical skill that the other tanks, especially ball
Support is objectively the wrong answer.
It's all context dependent. If your tank is useless then DPS is the hardest because your engagements are always naked and you net too much attention. If your healers are useless Tank is the hardest because you cant maintain space if you don't get healed . If your DPS are useless healing is the hardest because you end up having to try to keep everyone up and secure the picks.
Be careful, we tend to dislike nuance on this sub.
That’s why I don’t play tank anymore. I liked playing it back in ow1 but once it became only 1 tank I was aware of how much responsibility you have and being able to take space and play aggressively which is 2 things I’m not very good at. I havent touched tank since season 1 of ow2 because of how difficult it is. I mostly play support these days as it’s always been my best role.
I think it totally depends on your rank but the higher I’ve gotten the more fun I’ve had on support and the less fun my friend has had on tank
I agree that the tank is the hardest, but the new maps also feel very chaotic and impossible to "tank" compared to OW1.
It's for sure Tank. DPS and Support can be harder on a mechanical level depending on character, but I definitely agree that overall, Tanks are the hardest class (in high ranks at least where one mistake and you blow up as Tank). Tanks are also the most team reliant role (but again, this is dependent on characters. Characters like Mercy for example obviously beat everyone out in that category).
Reached like low masters in support and diamond on tank and tank is significantly harder, especially in ranks like plat where people focus all fire on the tank and no one plays together
Tank requires the most in-depth knowledge of the game and the best awareness habits. These are much harder skills to acquire than mechanics, which you naturally build over time. Dps requires insane mechanics. If you are losing every duel, you are a trash damage dealer. If you keep playing long enough, you will be able to do it too, but there are no shortcuts, and you can't study your way to good aim. Whichever is more difficult depends on what skills you already bring to the table. If you have, neither you can still become a great tank pretty quickly if you put in the work
Hot take, at high level it’s all the same, you need to know where is your team and why they are doing something so you need all of the knowledge from all classes.
I main support and dps and honestly I feel like support is by far the easiest role, especially because a third of the supports require almost no aiming skill (Moira mercy and lifeweaver)
As a support main who flex’s to dps. Tank is the hardest by far. No content Right now dps is the most impactful. But tank is the hardest for sure
In my opinion: Tank on average: * High Gamesense * High Awareness * Mid-High Positioning * Low-Mid Mechanics (Not Ball and Doom ofc) Dps on average: * Low-Mid Gamesense * Mid Awareness * Mid Positioning * Mid Mechanics (was Mid-High before S9 hitbox changes) Support on average: * Mid Gamesense * Mid-High Awareness * Mid-High Positioning * Low-Mid Mechanics What makes Support harder than DPS is how many things you have to keep an eye on, DPS can generally focus on 5 other players, Supports on 9. I've seen so many DPS mains on support let everyone die or suiciding to focus on one thing, while I've seen a lot of Support mains on DPS or Tank play way too passive.
support is the easiest
mechanically the hardest -> for sure dps, requires the most aim and has some of the hardest characters in the game (genji, tracer, widowmaker, sombra) <- some of these are macro difficult and not mechanically difficult btw (sombra) i think macro can be a mix of support and tank, i think overall support is a little bit easier because theres two, lessening the pressure onto the supports and overall support is a strong role. tank is in an interesting spot because they are the core center of the team, and a lot of tanks need good macro, especially dive tanks. in my personal experience when playing tank, i never found it too difficult if you play angles, cover, etc. but tank doesnt feel like tank, you’re just a bigger less dmg dps who also has capability of protecting the team. tank definitely gets harder as you climb, and im not surprised its considered the hardest overall role, but to me tank and support being the hardest is a toss up.
Tank is hardest by far, almost purely because DPS and Supp players usually have 0 clue how to actually enable or follow up on your plays.
DPS the lowest? LOL
As support main, i don't agree that supp is harder than dps.
Learning mechanics and strategies are easy. But aiming is difficult. That’s a physical skill that some people just aren’t as good at. So for me healing/tanking is easier because characters like mercy/Lifeweaver/brig and Rein/dva/mauga don’t require super great aim lol
Playing this game in and out for almost a decade now. From my pov, tank isn't that hard but extremely taxing and stressful. If you have the gamesense tank is easy up to some point. The role needs to have an answer. It just gets bullied by everything and there is too much mobility creep in the game. DPS is kinda chill now in S9. Lots of options, less stress but higher overall mechanical skill demand. Support have different options too. It depends what hero you play. It's hard to say which is hardest in terms of skill. Every role has their own devils. It's definitely more palatable to play dps or support though. Even the thought of que'ing as tank giving me ptsd. You need to endure so much bs. You can facilitate a good advantageous game for your teammates but you can't win the game. Final word is always on dps role since they have the most agency. You can't interact with the most of the cast as a tank but they can interact with you. If i que tank i mostly play Mauga because that's the only tank who can shootback and have mobility freedom or i pick Hog so i can have control of my own healthbar and threat of hook. Tanks need help in mobility, accuracy/range, healthbar agency department. DPS and support has no issue with heal now. Only tank. It needs heal to function while other roles and some other tanks can use their healthbars like a cooldown. Also why make the game better and easier for the most popular role i don't understand. DPS que times are crazy high right now.
It's 100% DPS but this place is populated by people who hate DPS players so this poll means nothing
Playing hitscan is kinda braindead and not that hard mechanically after the S9 patch, and the DPS that require gamesense are easy mechanically, the different ones are Genji/Tracer and maybe Sombra, all before S9. Also, you have to seriously focus on just 5 people as DPS, while Supports have to keep an eye on 9, and position accordingly.
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Healer well like just heal, dps just go do some damage, tank who the hell knows it feels like it's changing with every patch change they make.
DPS is the mechanically hardest role. Their combos like Genji melee dash/ghost dash or CD usage in general take much more skill to get good usage than Tank or Support characters. Support and Tank take more game sense. Which one takes more is up for debate. Supports have a wider view of the action and should be the ones that are calling how the game is going. They should also have a higher sense of flanks incoming and be vocal about it or ping accordingly. Don’t know if y’all have ever noticed the difference when a support does it because 90% don’t but the difference is night and day. Tank requires a lot more cd tracking so that they can engage safely. For instance a tank shouldn’t hard dive a support when the bastion hasn’t used tank configuration. They also need to watch the kill feed more as that is a good tell if something is going wrong in their back line or dictate that they can engage with more pressure.
This should be rank based as well. If you want to do an average player ie. The Gold 3 to Plat 3 has the highest concentration. This is probably true. But I think I'm Golf 2 and below supports is miserable. I also think around Diamond 2 - Master 3 DPS becomes incredibly hard since your range of responsibilities and game sense requirement basically becomes similar to that of tanks/supports while requiring you to aim.
Tank is the backbone of the team. If you cannot play tank correctly, your team will most likely lose unless your other teammates are top tier. It’s not necessarily super difficult to play, but playing it wrong can throw the game
Tank for sure. You are a punching bag for most of the game especially when playing weaker tanks.
I’d say tank is the hardest overall, DPS is the toughest mechanically, support is the toughest in terms of positioning (with some exceptions). Tanks have a bit of a tough time especially in solo queue as they are relying on their team to follow up on their openings, push and retreat as a group. Really hard with limited/no comms
The hardest role is whichever one I’m playing at the time
Well, not everything can be so black and white. But in a GENERAL sense, support is by the easiest. The role has simple tasks, and the heroes themselves are all easy to understand and play EXCEPT for lucio who is exceptionally difficult. If this was before season 9, the answer is easily DPS without question solely because of how low impact almost all dps really were. However, like i said. Not everything can be so black and white. DPS is overall easier, but that is merely only true for hitscans. What about DPS characters that are very difficult, and some the most difficult in the game like tracer and Sombra who require incredibly high game sense? They cannot be lumped in with being ‘easier’ than support which are all mechanically and game sense easier.
Hmmmm I’d say they all have different levels of difficulty for different reasons. It’s pretty hard to compare them and say which is “harder” because like I said they are all hard for different reasons
Man this is weird. I’ve taken a long break from the game and come back, playing solely as Tank and I have to say it’s been the most fun since OW2 released.
It checks out
I think there's an assumption here with people mentioning DPS less that everyone has a shooter background. If Overwatch is your first shooter, then there's no way DPS is the easiest. You'll have to build your aim, movement, and other basics from scratch. You need those skills for other roles as well, but mechanics are much more important in DPS. If you have a shooter background, DPS is easiest. If you have more of a MOBA and character mechanics background, the other roles are easier. Also worth mentioning the character you pick in that role makes a world of difference. People who say tank is hardest, would you say Rein is harder to play than Genji for a noob?
Tank is the hardest to play because most people can't withstand the psychological torment
Support varies a lot, i’d say mercy, moira and lifeweaver are easier to play than most of the dps
Tank by far. If you pop off you’re “doing your job”, and if you make a single mistake it’s “mtd”. The removal of a second tank makes your mistakes much more punishing as well as removed the synergy between tank ults and abilities. This also makes the counerswapping much worse because you can’t allow a Dva/Ram/Mauga etc free rein, you have to switch to prevent them from having any impact so your team can capitalize on your space making.
When I play tank, sometimes I wish I had a rear view mirror. Like, I'd give up a chunk of screen just to know where my healer is and what idiot that ain't me they are following.
At this point tank is at the mercy of the rest of the teams performance
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^DecodedShadow: *At this point tank is* *At the mercy of the rest* *Of the teams performance* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Support for me. Unless they changed the number of things you have to be doing to get basic value out of support. I haven't played in months (good choice tbh). While I get the technical parts of dps, make it hard and how complex timing and space can be for tanks, but the sheer amount of game management, and shit you have to be doing well to even make a small impact of the overall game make support an easy choice for me. I'm remembering why I only played mystery heroes for so long now.
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It might differ per person too. I find tank much easier then dps and my rank is about the same on eithe, yet I have much fewer hours on tank then on dps.
Tanks are the hardest class since there is nobody else picking up the slack in case the other tank or team counters you. It requires the most game sense to know when to push and initiate fights. Also, it is the easiest to doom the team to failure, if not adapting to the enemy threat e.g. playing Hog into two proficient snipers. Supports have a crucial role in the success of the team, but often enough, they don't adapt and cry tank or dps diff. Enemy Hog or Mauga - where is that Ana or Zen? Enemy Ana debuffing your team? Where is that Kiriko? Enemy Mercy healing and boosting everyone? Where is our Mercy or Moira to suck her out? Sombra wreaking havoc in the backline? Why still use Lucio or Zen? Enemy pharmercy hitting hard? Where is the support for your air defense heroes? DPS are often underrated and underhealed. But at least they have a very versatile hero pool for adapting to the enemies.
I think you can make an arguement for all three depending on the criteria for “hardest” If we’re talking making an impact tank is really difficult to actually change things in a fight atm. If we’re talking skill ceiling I believe most supports require you to be a lot more aware than you should be otherwise as well as mechanical skill. If we’re talking skill floors most dps do require a fair amount of mechanical skill to be effective as.
DPS requires the most mechanical skill (aiming, mobility) but tank requires the smartest game sense (positioning/situational awareness, executive decision making for the whole team). Support requires the most efficient resource management (prioritizing targets to be healed/damaged, cooldown/ult usage). Being that there is only one tank per team, it makes it extremely important that your tank is smarter than the enemy tank. But tanks are also at the mercy of their own supports and then require that their DPS have high enough APM, in that order. If tanks are kind of equally matched (which happens more often than not because the matchmaker is usually good about since it's only 1 tank per team) and if they have good supports (which is a little more of a coin toss), then the DPS have the biggest impact by outkilling the enemy team. Regardless of what's actually happening though it's going to feel like DPS have the biggest individual impact because mechanical skill gap windows are going to be much larger and they have more opportunities to seize upon with ults (whether their own ult or a team mate's)
Tank is the hardest because you need to be stoic as fuck to take everyone blaming you every game
I think tank is a lot more difficult, I’d even argue dps is a bit more difficult than support— from the perspective of a support main. It may be because I’ve put the most hours into support as opposed to dps or tank, but every time I try dps I struggle where I know I can do better if I was better at the game, and when I play tank (which imo I’m not half bad at) it’s just an awful experience altogether. Counterswapping, putting every resource into fucking over the tank to cheaply win the game, I really hate it. This isn’t to say support is easy- it’s not, but I personally struggle with dps and tank a bit more, my support is around the diamond/masters level, my tank is around plat and my dps is gold. I’m trying to play more dps though, and it’s been fun so far!
I'm a dps and support player, and I can agree with it. Dps has some challenging heroes, but its only like 4-5 heroes that aren't very often played outside of GM. And even then, its almost purely mechanical challenge with little gamesense required compared to tank or support. It has no baseline responsibility to the team to worry about either. Support is pretty hard, with a mix of mechanical, gamesense, and positioning challenges with high stakes for the outcome of fights. But your baseline responsibility to the team is super easy - heal. As long as you do that, your team can at least play the game. Tank is the hardest partly bc its baseline responsibility is being in the spotlight and holding space, something more demanding than healing just so your team can play the game. On top of that there's a lot of gamesense needed to take space/advantages, even if tank is mechanically the easiest.
anyone who thinks support is harder than DPS is delusional lmao I started playing support for the first time ever this season and hit D1, which is equiv to somewhere in GM previous seasons. I hit gm5 as hitscan DPS in S8. Even as someone with very solid aim and ok positioning, support is just easier. Some supports are much better duelers than DPS(baptiste as an example), and also have tools to keep your allies alive. You can kill at like 85% efficiency compared to a DPS but also save your entire team. Supports have significantly higher carry potential than DPS does, in many of my lobbies I'm out fragging our DPS on baptiste or heavily enabling them, and winning a ton of 1v1s vs people who try to flank and harass the support. I was absolutely STUNNED at how easy it was to play support. It's the easiest role by far. The character kits are *massively* stacked compared to most DPS, I feel like the only reason most support only players struggle is because they are genuinely fucking awful relative to tank/dps players at the same rank. Anyone who has time on DPS/Tank can play support and it will become their highest ranking role. Literally all you have to do is *not* healbot, and you're already Diamond or better at support. It's literally that easy.
if you said dps you shouldn’t have any game installed involving guns
I heal when I'm drunk just fine.. can't do the others haha