Hero Design - Tanks

[Nerraw]

From a Hero Design perspective, this is something we've talked about a lot on the team. In years past the conventional wisdom was that a "tank" had to be hard to kill, and do things that are sufficiently disruptive (damage/CC) that you can't simply ignore them - which in turn allows them to soak damage for their team.

However, around the time frame between D.Va and Garrosh, we sought to establish a more clear definition of what's required to "tank" for your team and what tools a Warrior needs to do that effectively.

This isn't a comprehensive list, but I believe we landed on something like the following:

• Durability/Mitigation (so they're not easy to blow up)
• Self-sustain (so they can stay in a fight)
• Peel (so they can protect vulnerable allies)
• Interrupt (so they can disrupt cast/channeled abilities)

We've found that Warriors who don't have enough of one or more of these qualities end up being used as bruisers to harass the enemy backline. Most of the time it's "peel" that's lacking, as this is the aspect that wasn't as clearly defined in the past. Even now I'd say it's hard to say precisely where that line is, and that it's subjective based on what other heroes are capable of.

If you look at someone like Sonya with 2 stuns, you'd think she could be a tank - and indeed to some extent she can, but other aspects of her kit push her to be more aggressive and limit how effective she can be at protecting a squishy backline (compared to someone like Muradin or Arthas). I think this is something we're trying to be much more aware of earlier on in the development and playtesting process for new Warriors. Do we want them to be able to tank? If so, do they have all the necessary tools? Are there aspects of their kit that make it unintentionally more difficult for them to do so?

This is something I'd encourage all of you to think about (and feel free to disagree with us on!) when discussing whether a Hero can tank for their team, and what they need to be doing to tank effectively.

[RH92]

For me the most important qualities for a tank are:

1. Ability to peel or harass
It is more or less self-explanatory, but I like Warriors who can use their abilities to both peel and harass depending on their use. For example ETC's Powerslide, you can use it as both as initiation and peeling tool depending on situation, a great example of good ability. On the other hand you have Johanna's Codemn which is pretty okay as harassment tool, great peeling ability but absolutely sucks at setting anything up.

I am not saying Johanna is bad though, she is just slightly more niche due to her defensive nature while Muradin, ETC or Diablo can use their abilities to punish and protect. The other extreme is Anub'arak who I find just much stronger at pushing the aggressive pace rather than adjusting to specific situations.

2. Damage sponge
Another self-explanatory thing. I don't really agree with Blizzard to need great deal of self-sustain though, I think it can be tricky depending on what you really mean by that. For example I prefer the design of Muradin or Diablo with Devil's Due to reset fight over being able to sustain through it like ETC, Stitches or Garrosh. I think it feels more fun to go hard for 30 seconds and wait 10 seconds to heal up rather than playing it slow for 40 seconds.

3. Way to force an engage
This can be achieved in many ways though. I think you can split Tanks into 3 categories:

• Aggressive engage: Muradin, Diablo, Anub'arak, Varian and even Tyrael
• Ability to force engage from enemies: Stitches and Garrosh
• Versatile: ETC, Arthas and Johanna

To explain Stitches and Garrosh more, playing against them is like fighting a guy with longer reach. On their max range they can threaten your team with dangerous pick while leaving their team relatively safe. That means in order to nulify their pick potential you need to close the gap as soon as possible.

Less important qualities that I like on my Tanks are mobility and ability to scout map.

[caervek]

Hopefully they won't make all warriors tanks going forwards.

It's really cool having such a variety, you have tanks, you have bruisers, then you have control warriors like ETC and Tyrael. Likewise with assassins you have AA focused ones, burst focused ones, execute focused ones, etc. It would be a huge step backwards if they made all warriors tanks just to even out quick match, especially after they renamed specialist and changed their icon specifically to communicate to players they were no longer just designed for PVE.

[Nerraw]

I honestly hope they do more proper tanks. Garrosh was the first since Johanna, and his status is still up in the air. And ironically enough, so is hers after the rework.

[Gallahadd]

Hopefully they won't make all warriors tanks going forwards.

Seeing as they've not released a proper tank since... Freaking ages, I don't see them suddenly releasing a bunch of them. I'm sure we'll still get the standard mix of tanks, bruisers and controllers.

[RH92]

Hopefully they won't make all warriors tanks going forwards.

It's really cool having such a variety, you have tanks, you have bruisers, then you have control warriors like ETC and Tyrael. Likewise with assassins you have AA focused ones, burst focused ones, execute focused ones, etc. It would be a huge step backwards if they made all warriors tanks just to even out quick match, especially after they renamed specialist and changed their icon specifically to communicate to players they were no longer just designed for PVE.

This response was made to a topic purely discussing what a Tank is as Blizzard released a lot of Warriors, but only three since initial roster who could actually Tank (Anub'arak, Johanna and Garrosh).

It is very interesting topic as you also have have Warriors who are actually capable of being Solo Tanks or Warriors who can serve as Main Tanks in double Warrior composition, but would be rather weak as Solo Tanks (Garrosh or Arthas for example). Then you also have special cases where both Tyrael and Anub'arak are fine as solo Warriors considering their composition is built around heavy dive as they excel in that area.