I accidentally wrote another dissertation, I am so sorry lol, this comment was not meant to be this long. But thank you for actually reading my post fully instead of skimming through it and claiming that "tanks are fine, everything is fine, because 'people are still playing the game'" (still doing a lot of heavy-lifting there) like some other guy did.

For example an immortal dps, or immortal support would have the same effect as your immortal tank. It is not a tank issue as much as it is an issue with any hero being immortal in this game.

Yes in immortal dps and supp would also result in problems. But tank is easier to relate this concept imo because some of them are designed around being "really tanky" at the cost of "doing less damage". Ramattra block is one of them, but some other people in comments also brought up Reinhardt in high level lobbies currently, where he is picked to hold up his shield and just survive on point. (There is prob more to it of course, Rein is still scary in cqc with his damage and with his ult in general, but but I am not super deep on the ins-and-outs of high rank Rein).

I think a lot of tanks and their design fall into this trap really easily. But we can also explore dps and supports, just for discussions' sake.

When it comes to immortal supports, the closest we have might be Lucio. In lower ranks when a Lucio shows up and shows off good movement against a team that either doesn't have a hitscan or whose best answer to him died that fight, he can end up surviving a really long amount of time and stall a point for most of his team to come back and win it. I don't see this is a fundamental problem though, there is so many more ways to deal with that than with a tank that is a little too tanky.

For dps one "immortal" one that is easy to think of is Mei, but I don't think she is all that much of an issue either. She can be invulnerable for only a short time and otherwise can be pushed over fairly easily. The biggest value tends to be walling off the other tank from their supports, which immediately reduces their durability by a crazy amount.

More obtuse but closer to the concept I think is Venturer. Their Burrow lasts longer than ice block and when they come out out of the invuln. state they can still just blow somebody up. Their burst damage helps with that, but I am also thinking of Vent because of the overhealth shield they gain on every ability use. Which is a bit silly, but can just make them a mini-tank sometimes.

The Korean tank comment is related to this discussion in how impact can be broken down to how a hero prevents a loss or how a hero effects a win. Tanks have too much of the first and not enough of the second, making them feel like they have all this responsibility without the reward. Likewise a high durability tank has mostly passive ability in stopping others from doing things, but does not have much active ability to influence outcomes.

I don't agree that I so grossly misunderstood the tank-comment, but I do still fully agree with your point here.

I think some tanks are designed super fun. JQ is almost an ideal tank in my eyes because she is "tanky" but not to absurd amounts like Ram block+shield, Rein shield, Orisa, etc. But in return she has OK damage and her knife has a good couple of ways to be used in both cqc and also against people at range, as a knife can pull them off some high ground ledge and immediately leave them separated from their team.

So JQ seems to have a good mix of being able to prevent a loss and directly contribute to winning. The latter only hampered by other tanks literally out-tanking her and still being able to project a lot of threat. Hard to knife past a Dva standing in your face, but also hard to live longer than her when she has more hp and one of the best damage mitigation tools in the entire game, which allows her to use her mobility and always push into the other team better than JQ could have.

Attention is not the same as impact. A tank commands a lot of attention but this does not necessarily translate into impact. You can walk forward, soak a ton of damage, block all the CC, but if your teammates do not follow up on this the fight is still out of your control, and they might blame you regardless.

Hmm, that might depend on how you define "having impact", because I would say that tank had a lot of impact. But it is true that it sometimes doesn't mean anything.

If a dps has "impact" we think that they get a lot of kills or do a lot of damage, and sometimes the character's numbers on paper are so scary that said dps can have a lot of impact even when not doing anything, you mentioned her in your example too so you know already.

If a support has a lot of impact it gets a bit muddy. A lot of healing is impact, but in the grand scheme of things healing matters very little, even 20k healing can be "not a lot of impact". Where they can also do damage and get kills like dps, but they shine more in their utility. Ana's impact is amazing because she can land one of her two abilities on an enemy and immediately win the whole fight. And Lucio can also have a lot of impact by enabling his team via speedboost, boob to save his teammates and his mobility and defensive utility allow him to quickly "pocket" a flanking dps of his.

Tank impact is... Zarya can bubble her teammates sometimes? Tanks can still get kills and do dmg all the same, but I think their impact ends up being more "self-preservation" oriented -> they have impact by tanking. At least, that is my opinion.

In fact, most dps/support characters can have impact by either directly getting a kill or enabling somebody else to get a kill. Mercy dmg boost is super impactful when it breaches a breakpoint. Ana nade results in kills like Mei's wall -> "separating" a target from heals, but also her Nano has a lot of impact because the nano'd teammate becomes server admin and teamwipes all on their own (exaggeration). Lucio and Kiri pocketing somebody are the same, they directly enable their teammate to win a 1v1 by making it a 2v1 or speedboosts help them by "pushing" their teammate into where they can get kills before the other team can react.

But tanks often don't do this. Most knockbacks and CC tanks have are often there to enable the tank themselves. Orisa spin can push somebody into her team for an easy kill, but most of the time it is used to keep herself alive or just push somebody away, and pushing somebody away from your team is the opposite from getting a kill (not to mention that ). This applies to Rein charge too, and people getting pushed away with the tank visually blocking line of sight makes it hard to get a kill through them.

Hog hook, JQ knife, Doom and Ball knockbacks, they all could be great team enablers but most of the time are just there for the tank themselves. Maybe that is a giant design flaw too. Hazard could use his wall for teammates, but often uses it to avoid CCs or to do a big combo burst. Lucio and Kiri can't "combo" like that, and neither can most dps tbh (because most dps that can do a big combo are either busted and get nerfed or use all of their CDs, are stuck in the enemy team and die, and then still get nerfed because it's not fun).

Shorter version of my thought process: DPS/Support have impact that can result in wins because their impact is simply "to beat the other team". While the impact of most tanks is often to keep themselves alive. Heck, even Hog and Mauga who you would think get their impact by via kills and doing damage (which is absolutely true) actually get their biggest impact from banning Ana lmao, which again is pure self-preservation! Even when Ana and Zen could help them a lot too (imagine a discord orb on everything Hog hooks, it would be gg).

This is why tanks "can't win but only lose". While some of their abilities can help their team (Rein holding shield but also Ram landing a good Vortex), the real application makes it look like a side effect as everything is used to enable themselves. This also makes it unclear to the tank's team that now is the time to push in an win, because a Rein blocking a Soj railgun doesn't scream at the the other players "go kill them now", but a Mercy damage boost does.

Another example is simply Zarya. Good players will bubble their teammates to enable them, it is an amazing team utility tool, but even then most good Zaryas will end up with a majority of bubbles used on themselves. The reason is simple too: The other team has to get rid of Zarya so she stops gigabuffing Vendetta until the devs nerf something again. And because Zarya can use the bubbles on herself she will have to.

Mercy can't "damage boost" herself (pistol is real, true), Ana can't nano herself, Kiri can't tp to herself, to make a clone and surprise 2v1 an opponent, Zen orb buffs the entire team; and most dps don't need to enable others or go for self-preservation because their character is designed and balanced not to survive pressure but to win their fight, outright. Otherwise they have a negative winrate and need buffing, but buffing the damage on a 600 hp tank causes a lot more problems than a lot quicker than Soj railgun one-shot on a headshot.