Source
r/OverwatchUniversity•
ByAny

How would you approach this enemy comp, on this map, as a Tank?

Question

For context: I'm a low Plat solo queue Tank player who primarily uses pings to communicate, to preserve what remains of my mental health. And I've been a flex player since OW1, so while I agree that rock-paper-scissors swapping isn't always the answer, it usually works pretty well for me.

Yesterday on Colosseo I faced an enemy squad running:

*Ramattra *Pharah *Mercy *Bastion *Kiriko

I ran through my usual mental flow chart and hit walls. When I see Bastion, I usually go Sigma, but the Pharmercy and Ramattra were chunking me down, since I needed all my cooldowns for Bastion. When I see Pharmercy, I usually think I'll dive the other Support. But Kiriko is too slippery and then I'm face to face with Bastion. DVa might work, but there's not a lot of angles to play, and I think matrix is much better for high damage cooldowns than high damage primary fire spam.

I'm half thinking I should have just mirrored the Ramattra and tried to survive long enough for my team to do something. I like being more proactive than that, but this was oppressive. I even broke my comms silence to compliment the enemy team. They made fun of me.

So I know the actual answer depends on what your own team is running, but if you had your choice: what would you run against this comp on this map?

Posted Jul 3, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

7265
MjrPayne95•

Tbh i personally go orisa into ram/bastion. She's very good at keeping ram away from your team during nemesis/ult and all of her abilities are good at dealing with bastion, just try n bait the turret form/stay near cover. The pharmercy is your teams problem and if they dont take care of it, there's kinda nothing you can do. Tank cant counter everything at once ya know.

I am the same ranks as you essentially tho so take my advice with that knowledge in mind

69
Stinkepups•

I would second this. Orisa counters Ram and Bastion. Pharmercy should be handled by your team. Orisa is also a Bonuspick as you can interrupt Pharahs Ult.

Pick depends also from the individual skilllevel of the other team. If the Bastion and Ram are bad but Pharmercy really good I would go Dva.

10
Brayth-0•

Dva here. Best Pharmercy counter you can pick as a tank. On top of that like another poster said, since they’ll be playing as a unit that leaves bastion and kiriko on an island, with the high mobility you should be able to get in and out. The other best counter to pharmercy is to just run on their team as fast as possible and kill everyone on the ground before pharah has a chance to do anything, if you can coordinate that with your team to some extent that’s your best bet.

15
KeenInternetUser•

dva with an ana pocket feels almost unkillable

5
Wertico567•

Pharah mercy will be operating as their own unit which leaves Kiriko and bastion kinda alone. Kiri, bastion and ram are also very cooldown reliant. That makes me think Dva could be good here, she can go in and out rapidly forcing the cooldowns like nemesis form, turret mode, swift step and clense, all while not dying. She is also good against pharamercy herself if an opportunity arises. Dva has more mobility than them so she can control the map better.

Maybe even Doomfist or ball could work the same way. The key things to realize are that playing pharmacy leaves their other support and dps vulnerable, and if they play stacked you've already won the game. Tracer would be ideal in this scenario and Dva is basically a fat Tracer.

9
viking_sys•

I'm half thinking I should have just mirrored the Ramattra

Same Plat player here. I would stay as Sig - Bast can melt almost anyone else, and you can not counter all 3 enemies at once. Ramattra would got slaps from both DPS and will not be able to damage Pharah.

Counter Bast and yell at teammates to focus Pharmercy and heal you as much as they can.

Note: if Pharah is stupid - she can fly closer to Sig and get full face of gravity balls.

7
cyberfrog777•

Sig is great, but relies heavily on being able to hit rock on ram in nemesis form imo. If inconsistent with rock, things can get ugly.

2
strugglebusses•

Dva

6
ImawhaleCR•

I wouldn't go dva here, unless your team was going full dive. I doubt you'd be able to kill the bastion or pharmercy without help, and going for either one leaves you exposed to the other. It's not a bad pick, but I'd like to go a bit more defensive against that comp. I also suck with dva though so that might just be it

2
SINYACHTA•

Dva can destroy bastion even getting a heal pocket. Just gotta wait his turret mode out and jump him. DVA is definitely the best pick here.

1
fuyz•

You don’t need a full dive comp to get help from your team. Poke heroes like Ashe, Hanzo, Widow all contribute damage without diving. Other hitscans on your team can poke.

Dva excels at chasing out Mercy and Kiriko’s kites so that they’re stranded.

DM eats Bastion up and his hitbox is so big that you burst him almost instantly if you use the boosters + shotgun + boop + missiles + melee combo.

I’m diving Kiriko I’m that comp over and over and over. Forces Mercy to leave Pharah, forces out Kiriko suzu and TP, keeps Kiriko from healing up Ram (low health pool) and Bastion (massive hitbox).

1
strugglebusses•

It's Plat, it doesn't matter what the rest of the team picks tbh

-7
Georgejefferson19•

somebodys been watching too many unranked to GM vids

-1†
strugglebusses•

I've never watched a single one. Team comps don't matter in Plat. Everyone sucks.

1†
Ser_Anonymous•

Masters tank. I definitely would go D.va assuming you’re comfortable playing her. She’s good into pharmercy, bastion, and fairly neutral into ram.

I’d also ask my team for a hitscan. Never hurts.

My simple gameplan would be denying the pharmercy and bastion value as much as possible and diving them when the opportunity arises.

3
Wontforgetthisname•

This. Diamond 1 tank here and dva hard counters bastion and pharah. Pick one healer first then choose one of the dps next is what I would do.

2
darkfighter3000•

Post the replay code

2
Dead_Optics•

Against their comp there’s little that you can realistically do, I’d pick a tank with good survivability and let my team deal the damage. I would say Ram, Orisa, Dva, or Zarya would be decent picks and you should look to mainly cycle your defensive cooldowns and hold corners to make it difficult for the enemy to push.

2
Forrest319•

Ana feels like the counter here. Sleep and Nade are both very strong against bastion and ram. And primary fire is strong against pharah. As far as your tank goes, I would lean Orisa, Ram, or Sig.

2
Vortex432•

Ram. Bait out bastion turret while you are in wizard form. After that, you go hulk smash and target the kiriko. Easy.

2
one_love_silvia•

Just... kill the kiriko 4head.

1
InbredBog•

Play sig and tell my dps to hitscan, easy.

2
Ei_Sekigahara•

If it can fly, Dva. If it shoot many bullet quick, Dva. If Rein, Not Dva. (For reference I am a low diamond tank rn so if a gm finds issues here listen to them.)

Against that comp I would've suggested Dva because although your impact as far as elims would have been minimal with the mercy pocket, you could still shove Pharah around if she got too close to your team, and saved Matrix for an escape from Bastion afterwards.

The main problems to avoid as tank are to not give the enemy free ult charge and not let your team die. If you were getting gunned down, swapping to Dva just so you could have a chance to slip away if you positioned yourself well would mean that your team would have an extra gun (albeit a lil baby pistol) during team fights even after your tank form was destroyed.. And you would divert attention from your teammates simply because gremlin mode dva is too much of a wildcard for people to leave alone.

End of the day, you're one person. Your priority is the enemy tank as that is the one character you're on par with in strength. If you do the work of 1.5 people, you're doing great. Don't try to do the work of all 5 people, or you'll end up doing none at all.

2
Half-Sole•

You don't play DVA into Rein?

How does Rein gets value against DVA?
You eat both firestrikes, when he gets close you fly to their backline.

3
Ei_Sekigahara•

With Pharah long range pressuring your team you would not have as much fire on the rein and so he could dive you and win a 1v1 with his swings if you're distracted with the bastion or Pharah for a second.

If enemy went Rein you would want to go Ram to pressure him back with high shield piercing damage instead of Dva's lil shotguns that take a few seconds to see progress if the Rein gets defensive and backs up with shield.

Also if your purple field is placed well, you could be mitigating Pharah's nonsense, too. But the main thing is Dva will lose hard to Rein if she's focusing on protecting her losing team and not skirmishing the other tank. Diving their backline would be far to risky seeing as the Pharmercy would be pressuring your team into a corner so you would be taking on possibly 2 supports with a Bastion envoy with no help, potentially letting your team get picked off by a powered up Pharah and diving Rein.

Hence I say Ram for Rein and Dva for countering the team comp presented.

1
Antiprimary•

Thinking too hard about counters to be honest, just focus on your play style while on one of your best heroes

2
Wontforgetthisname•

dva is a hard counter to bastion and pharah. Sure, the healers complicate thing but then you can target one of the Kiriko first and then pick between the bastion or the pharah next and it’s a domino after that.

2
trevers17•

dva is the best choice. she has mobility to dive pharamercy, she has matrix for bastion, and she can thruster away from ram and pressure him when he gets super close. the rest of your team, assuming they’re half decent, will pick to handle these threats as well.

2
LPC123ABC•

Just mirror the ram. I would personally sh.it on that comp as a hog otp, but that's just me.

1
one_love_silvia•

Your best bet is probably go dva and peel hard for your team and hope they can land shots.

1
Public_Stuff_8232•

For the most part the answer to this is just trying to figure out how you could have played better.

People can't give you specific advice without a replay, but a GM Tank would probably have been able to free up space regardless of pick.

Orissa is a good pick, as well as Ram, Sigma, but again it doesn't really matter.

Like a good enough Hog could hook Mercy then Pharah out the sky you know what I mean.

1
fuyz•

Talking about how a GM could play in lower ranks is so senseless. Yeah someone with elite mechanics and game sense can manage to win games without playing meta. But what would a GM tank play against other GMs using this comp?

1
Public_Stuff_8232•

The issue is more, regardless of rank there's enough skill expression to do something in that situation. I'm sure a Top 500 hog against a Top 500 of the enemy comp with Top 500 team mates could still do something.

1
Natural-Thing6303•

If i could get a list of your comp that game i can give a more accurate answer. But personally i would try ram or rein( the two i main) but sigma/orisa/zarya/dva/winston would be my choices. Dva to dive mercy and then use bomb on the silly ground specs, zarya/rein to help my team push forward and wreck bussy with a stun ult after kiriko pops suzu, sigma/orisa to help counter ram and bastions pokes and use shield to stop kiriko from healing the team or to help block pharah( i have murdered pharahs with sigma primary so im personally confident with that), winston to drop bubble on team or to help grab corners and drop a bubble on ram to slow heals or slow his poke(plus winston can randomly help kill mercy during jumps if able).

I dont think ball/road/junker/doom would do well against that comp due to bastion alone and they have no reliable way to deal with flyers. (Ik otp can pull it off with either their team comp or just know the hero well enough to lay the hurtin on em)

But you are right that it also depends on your comp on which tank you can effectly run with your team. Ultimatally your job as tank is take space and soak up and dish out heavy dmg. The way i look at it you pick one problem and try to either help solve it or solve it yourself.( like your sigma pick against bastion is great but your team needed to have your back against the other team or helped take bastion/kiriko)

1
Jamersob•

Zarya is my go for this but I'm low ranking lol. She can absorb rats punches and a lot more things vs what sigma can absorb.

1