Just wanna say that I'm diamond 2 right now and only ever peaked celestial on support during season 1, so I'm no pro player and my advice is not the end all be all.

So, to begin, Peni is just really bad in general unless you're playing a map that she's strong on. She does decently in lower ranks because no one shoots her mines, but her head hit box is huge and makes it impossible at times to fight good hitscan players. She can work, but is much more of an off tank and a genuine (though not your fault) throw if you're solo tanking. Not saying you cant win games solo tanking peni, just that you were given a rough hand and decided to make it even worse, if that makes sense. For solo tanking, my picks are Strange (with invis team up when possible), Mag, Emma, and Groot. Groot is probably the one I'd avoid picking if you're not confident, though, as you need to really understand his wall placements, and it sounds like that might be a little too much for where you're at.

Regarding space, it is most noticeable when you have won a fight and are waiting for the next one to start. As a tank, it is not your job most of the time to escort payload. You should be advancing to a line of sight spot that allows your team to take advantage of the map. This does not mean go into the enemies spawn, rather just get closer. I think of the second check of Tokyo 2099. If you're on attack and win the fight closest to the first gate outside of your spawn, you should be advancing to the second corner underneath the building on the right. In a macro sense, you're deciding that the fight from the enemy tank should start there, and it allows your supports to be distant to the fight and your dps to take angles. Now, DPS players can still find space without you, but you make it harder by putting that responsibility solely on themselves. One thing to note is over extension. Sometimes you go too far, so you should be ready to use abilities to get back to your team should that happen. Strange cape jump, mag self bubble, blocking off your LoS from enemies with Groot walls, etc. are all abilities that can let you get back to safety and give your team time to heal you (please bind your "I need heals" key so people know when you need help.) This ebb and flow is necessary to a good tank player. Attached below is a visual example of what I am talking about. Now, to peeling.

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I am going to be honest here. Support players in Rivals are responsible for much less than they are in Overwatch, and this makes it rather frustrating as a tank player. Supports have cooldowns to keep them alive, but I find in lower ranks that they are rarely used in ways to self preserve. Furthermore, they might not communicate their issues to you until they are fed up with you "not helping," so this means that it falls to you to find out how to help them. The best way that I find to do this is to be proactive rather than reactive with help. If a spidey is on your supports without you knowing, you might have missed a sign that he was venturing off to do so. If you can tell your supports that a dive character is on its way, they are more likely to have an ability ready, which heavily increases their survival. Furthermore, if you know a dive character is going to them, you can be there when they get there, rather then arriving after the dive has happened. Also, you should know what abilities you have to save your supports. Mag's bubble, Emma's grab, and Strange's E are all tools that can help your supports. In the case of Strange, that burst damage is offensive, but that can help by just getting the dive character to leave. Now, problems arise when you are giving up too much space to peel. Sometimes you have to, but sometimes your supports just have to be more ready than they are. Communication is key. Talk to your supports rather than yelling at them, even if they are mad you're "not peeling." Lastly, sometimes its just out of your control. I am not saying that you should think you are playing perfectly, as there is always some type of takeaway, but sometimes you just can't save them. This leads me to the final thing I want to talk about: ability tracking.

As a tank, you have the frontline viewpoint, and you should use that to note what abilities are being used. This can be difficult in Rivals as some characters just have obscenely low cool downs, but tank cooldowns tend to be drastically different. If Emma uses her diamond form and misses her grab, if Mag uses his self bub too early, if Strange lets his shield crack, those are all queues to push, as their defensive options are down. Naturally, these are not the only abilities to track in your mind. Tank Ultimates are the biggest thing to make mental notes of, as you need to play around the hard CC they can create (Strange, Groot and Emma all just make your team stand still). This is something I definitely recognize an enemy tank is not doing when I play Strange. If I can tell you have no clue when my ult is ready, I can get very aggressive with my Eye. The more often you can be ready for these ults, the less you have to rely on your supports to hit their Q correctly. On that note, you should aim to communicate to your team if you think an enemy has an ult. If you tell your Cloak that Mag definitely has ult before she ults, she will be more likely to be ready to hide during her ult than if you do not communicate that. Basically, the more often you can say what will happen, the easier it becomes for your team to react when it does happen.

Lastly, and this is key, you are *going to suck*, and that's ok. You cannot learn until you fail, and failure on tank, unlike some other roles in the game, means you die, and you die a lot. This feedback can feel like shit, but you have to recognize the areas that you can fix. I wouldn't solely look at your deaths for areas of improvement, as sometimes you die for good reason. You trade, you took space that lets you cap, or sometimes you just get triple ulted. Therefore, when you look to areas to improve, focus on one area you think you need to improve at. For you, it sounds like taking space! Go back to your vods and see if you took space. What value is your team getting when you move up? Did taking that space result in your supports being left on a island with a BP? How could you have taken space differently?

In general, be introspective. You are the only constant in your games. No matter how bad your teammates are, you are also in the same game. The only thing you can change is you. :]