Know Your Roles: Tanking in Hero Shooters

Have you tried tanking in Overwatch or Marvel Rivals, and you just felt like you were out of your element, as though the role just didn’t vibe for you, or you didn’t really understand the assignment? Hey, it happens, and to be honest, maybe tanking just isn’t your thing… But it may just be a matter of education, which is what we’re aiming to address with this entry in the Know Your Role series, where we dive deep into the different hero shooter roles.

In hero shooters, the tank role is one of the most misunderstood positions, and not because it’s complicated, but because most players have the wrong mental model for what the job actually entails. It’s not about having the most health. It’s not just about soaking damage until your healers top you off. It’s about something more fundamental than either of those things, and once that clicks, everything else with the role falls into place. Let’s get into it.

What the Tank Actually Does: Space

The core concept when it comes to tanking in hero shooters is space. Think of space as the area of the map that your team controls and operates from. It’s where your DPS put their work in, where your supports heal from, and where the team fights from. The team that controls more useful space has more momentum and usually has its opponents on ice skates being pushed backward.

Your job as a tank is to claim space, hold space, and deny the enemy the space that they want. You’re uniquely equipped to do this because of your health pool, your ability to take damage, and the fact that more often than not, enemies have to address you when you’re there. A DPS who tries to push up and take space typically gets blown up quickly, but a tank who pushes is able to absorb pressure and create room for everyone else to follow.

This also means that a tank that isn’t actively trying to control space is hurting the team. If you’re hanging back, being passive, or not putting yourself in a position to get attention from the enemies, your team is missing out on a core mechanism that helps them maintain control and presence. The high ground the opposing team is holding, the choke point they’ve locked down, the flank route they’re creeping around… those are your problems to solve for your teammates. They can try, but they don’t have the toolset that you do.

The Archetypes Within the Role

Not every tank plays the same game, and understanding which archetype or subrole fits your hero is a key to mastering that character. There are three broad playstyles within the role, and while every hero has their own specific kit, most fall somewhere within this framework, give or take. There will always be exceptions to these concepts, especially as the hero shooter genre continues to grow and evolve.

Frontline anchors are the traditional image of the tank… the heroes who plant themselves at the front of the fight, create a line of scrimmage the enemy team has to push through, and hold space by being immovable rather than mobile. In Overwatch, there are the Reinhardts and Sigmas. In Rivals, these are your Vanguards like Magneto, Doctor Strange, and Groot. Their job is to make progress slow and deliberate, shoving the line forward while their team works behind them.

Next, you have the dive tanks, the ones that operate completely differently. Instead of holding the front, they often leap over it or walk around it, dropping into the enemy backline to disrupt and force the enemy team to turn around and deal with them. Winston, Doomfist, and D.Va in Overwatch and Venom, Thor, and Hulk in Rivals fit this grouping. The space they create is not in front of your team, it’s in the enemy backline, where a tank popping up out of nowhere forces supports and DPS to stop what they’re doing and deal with them. You don’t need kills to make this work, but you will need to have presence.

The last category we’ll touch on here is the Hybrid tank, which sits between the frontline and diver playstyles. They’re capable of anchoring a position or diving a target depending on what the situation needs. Captain America and Peni Parker in Rivals are good examples, as is D.Va in Overwatch to some degree. These heroes give you more flexibility… But they also require more game sense to use well, since you have to read the fight and react accordingly.

Understanding these playstyle differences will help you identify your ideal positioning, the plays you should look for, and what your team needs from you. A frontline anchor trying to play like a dive tank, or a dive tank just standing at the front getting poked down, is leaving a significant amount of value on the table.

Your Responsibilities Beyond Space

So, we’ve covered that creating space is the foundation of the role, but there are two other responsibilities that separate good tanks from great ones.

First: enabling your team, because a good tank is a selfless one. The kills your DPS rack up, the heals your support can pump out, and the ultimates your team lands… a lot of that is built on the openings you’ve created. That Groot who ults and groups up the enemy team before your teammates dumps a damaged focused ult might not show up on the kill feed, and neither does the Doctor Strange who portals his team into position, or the Thor who peels a diver off their support. These plays are invisible on the scoreboard, but they’re the difference-makers that give teams the opportunity to succeed.

Second: peeling for your teammates. Peeling means turning around to deal with divers who are harassing or chasing your teammates. A Spider-Man diving your support or a flanker eliminating picking off your DPS are examples where you could create more value for your team by turning around and dealing with them instead of trying to hold the line while your teammates take the express train back to the spawn room. When your healers are up, the rest of your team can feel it. If you’re leaving your supports to fend for themselves, you’re leaving the rest of your team out to dry.

That said, peeling’s not always the right call, and it’s not always so cut and dried, so this is where your judgment comes in. Sometimes, maintaining forward pressure is the correct play because your presence at the front prevents the enemy team from following up on whatever is happening in your backline. Sometimes, you have teammates who can handle those problems behind you without your help. Reading when to peel and when to stay forward is one of those things that will develop with time and experience.

Common Mistakes

The most common tank mistake in the entire genre is playing too passively. You’re playing too far back, too conservatively, or too reactively. Passivity doesn’t feel like a mistake in the moment since you’re not dying, but you’re also not doing those other responsibilities we covered. Your team can’t work without the space you’re supposed to be controlling.

Next, funny enough, is overextending. Over-committing on a play that requires a kill to convert, not getting it, only to ultimately be out of position with your cooldowns spent and your teammates left hanging. Dive tanks are often guilty of this one, where the temptation to run down a second kill after getting a first one can quickly result in being caught deep in enemy territory while your team loses an important fight.

The third is playing against your hero’s strengths. Think of a frontline anchor trying to dive the enemy backline because they’re trying to force a fight, or a dive tank just standing on the line getting poked to death while they seem clueless. Every hero in the role generates value in their own way, so if you’re playing against that design, you tend to produce mediocre results regardless of how good your fundamentals are otherwise.

Finally, the last common mistake is simply failing to read your team. Your cooldowns, positioning, and aggressive plays are all significantly more effective when your team is ready to capitalize. Pushing in when your DPS are out of position, or when your supports are low or under pressure, just means you are creating space for no one in particular. The most insane tank play in the world doesn’t win a fight if the team behind the tank isn’t ready to capitalize on it.

The tank role tends to ask you to think differently than the other roles… because you’re not there to stack kills on the feed… though, a good tank does tend to do well enough. You’re there to make fights winnable for the rest of the team, and that’s a much more interesting job than it looks from the outside.