Counters of the Storm: Hogger

:meat_on_bone:


Welcome to another episode of “Counters of the Storm” where I try to highlight a Hero’s strengths and weaknesses and ways you can play around them.
Feel free to disagree or ask questions in the comments or share your own experiences, what does and what doesn’t work against the Hero.


What's in Hogger's kit?

    He has:

    • Trait Rage: Instead of Mana, you have Rage. If you deal AA dmg or take any kind of dmg, you gain Rage. Rage lowers your CDs.
    • D: Create a small Terrain (undestroyable obstacle; you can Cancel it to get Fresh Meat to Heal yourself).
    • Q: An aoe Knockback (you’re the centre, everyone is pushed away from you in a straight line) that can Stun if it hits Terrains or Structures. (Like Diablo’s charge.)
    • W: An delayed aoe (kinda like Gazlowe’s bomb) but it Slows and if you hit someone with its centre it immediately explodes.
    • E: Become Looney Tunes’ Tazmanian Devil Unstoppable and go beyblade. You can Cancel it whenever you want, it has a set duration which resets if you Ricochet from Terrains/Structures.
    • R1: You catapult yourself to spot, creating a small Terrain (identical to your Trait’s one, but different CD and only Cancelable with pressing R again). This deals Dmg and Slows on impact, and can provide additional Meat (Heals). If you leave its aoe, it decays faster.
    • R2: You deal Dmg and Stun ppl in an aoe in front of you, and in a narrow line. The Line (secondary impact) deals less Dmg and Stuns for a shorter time.

How to counter him?

    Hogger is “sluggish”. His stuff takes time (preparation). His combos are slow (like D+Q). So mobile Heroes are definitely in advantage.
    He’s also Melee, so combine that with his speed and telegraphed abilities and you have a Hero that is kitable.

    His Sustain is also fairly limited, so you can bully him out of the lane with strong Sololaners.
    Plus his Rage build up is also slow (no CDR = high CDs), so his waveclear is also kinda “allin” (so basically he uses everything on one wave) and be defenseless/non-threatening.

    He can also be hindered by large, open places (like on Hanamura).


So what should we're paying attention to?

    Watch out for:

  1. Tight places where he can easily Stun, get multiple W hits, Ricochet freely and close down your pass with his D ( :smirk: ).

  2. His E, if he used it for engage, you can CC him, he won’t be able to escape. But if he still has it, he’ll just E out, don’t focus him.

  3. He can take camps relatively fast (but have a harder time with clearing them).

  4. Consistent/frequent but small Dmges (like Burning Rages and similar Auras) generate Rage quickly for him.

  5. If he picked the “self-catapult” Heroic, he can Dive the backline hard (and he’s tankier near it).

  6. His lvl 20 talent “No Control” gives him a strong chasing tool.

  7. He creates Chaos!


Suggested counters:

    Some Heroes who work well with Hogger due to his Terrains are also really great against him for the same reasons, like:

    • Diablo
    • Hanzo

    “Just because you’re Unstoppable that doesn’t mean you cannot be stopped” (TimeStop):

    • Zeratul
    • Chromie
    • Medivh
    • Maiev
    • Mei

    Best kiters imo:

    • Valla
    • Lunara
    • Genji
    • Junkrat
    • Orphea
    • Tracer
    • Lúcio (who provides movespeed for the whole team)

    Obviously Hogger is high on the HP bar and can talent for Armors so:

    • Tychus
    • Malthael
    • Leoric
    • Kharazim
    • all the other %-based dmg Heroes
10 Likes

The best counter is still ban Hogger, if you can’t get him. :joy: And I guess it will be happen a lot, because he is new and people don’t like to get used to new things.

But great topic to prevent such things a bit. If mobile heroes are kinda advantagerous against Hogger, does it mean Tracer, Samuro or Zeratul are on the rise with the Hogger meta? :smiley:

2 Likes

I wonder how well hanzo is capable of using that blocked path to his advantage with the scatter arrow. The arrows cant realy leave the area as easy then and are far more likely to hit hogger.
Could this potentialy even allow 1 shots to happen in optimal cases?

With W build, I’d say I’m 99% sure it can happen.

Nah, who needs these topics when you can just cry about Hogger being OP and Unfair because you’re bad against him? :new_moon_with_face:

2 Likes

Zagara with % dmg and Maw to interrupt Hogg Wild. Creep Tumors give her enough kiting capabilities.

6 Likes

Already?

Pretty quick

Oh, right, poor Zag who can:

  • kite
  • has % dmg
  • and can stop Unstoppable cuz Maw
1 Like

I think its a bit early to bring out the “how to counter” thread but nonetheless, here are my thoughts.

Hes extremely reliant on having good positioning him self so easy knockbacks like raynor and lucio W might be a good way to mess him up. I think deathwing has the potential to mess up hogger sense his unstoppable makes his Q nearly useless against him and deathwing generally thrives in closed spaces hogger likes to fight in.
Assuming it doesn’t get nerfed, hoggers pve is also very strong and will be something well have to look out for. Spinny attack can clear camps very fast and he can do briusers at level 1. Spinny attack can also be used to go from lane to lane faster then on a pale house.
I think hogger has the potential to be an insane lane bully. As far as bruisers go, hes got decent poke. You can walk or spin up to your opponent, hit with an AA and a W and then Q to immediately disengage much like yrel can for some very safe damage. Granted, attacking like that wont do as much damage as yrel but hogger dosent have mana issues. Hogger can also safely push the lane all the way to the gate sense spin attack is unstoppable and and potentially cover the entire lanes worth of ground. If youve gotta lane against hogger it might be a good idea to pick a ranged hero who cant be as easily approached or someone with better waveclear.
Another thing that i feel is worth mentioning is that hogger is probably going to be a viable tank. But most of his tanginess comes from self healing rather then damage reduction so if you see a potential hogger tank then some healing reduction might be a good idea.
And then ine final thing I wanna mention is how deep he can dive if he chooses. Spin attack and lootapult both have almost a full screens worth of range. Imo this will probably just be something youll need good positioning against rather then something that will some kind of counter in draft but we’ll see.

Certain kits have certain weaknesses.
Certain aspects of it have clear “rock paper scissors” attributes.
So we can theorycraft.
(Plus I tested a few things on the Ptr and watched a few Streams with him as well.)

2 Likes

Who the best duo for Hogger?

Only a guess, but these are my top candidates:

  • Diablo
  • Hanzo
1 Like

Tassadar and naz could be good sense their walls should count for the stun aswell.

Hogger + Gaz and junkrat : chaos team

6 Likes

Love chaotic Heroes :smiley:

2 Likes

I actualy think diablo has the issue that he cant knock hogger out of his E. And makes counterplay very restricted because of that.

Hanzo however can jump over the wall hogger created, and use the wall to his advantage.

I think chromie is going to be an intesting one aswel, since her timetrap can block hogger and disrupt him that way. And later on with talents also potentialy teleport herself away by swapping positions.

But i would say that any hero that can cross terrain with basic abilities, that do not require targeting, is going to barely get disrupted by hogger. So hanzo, anubarak, genji, ETC (by talent), zeratul.

And heroes that can abuse narrow regions for extra damage are also going to benefit (like: nazeebo, li ming, junkrat, and ofcourse hanzo aswel. As these can funnel their damage to one of the exits of the path making easy hits).

You know that those people who are active here and would read his guide are 0.00000000000000000000000000001 of a % of the playerbase.

And yes people will cry about him and call him op as this is a trend on every hero release.
I have yet to see a hero release that did not have 20 topics about the hero being op within the first week.

Thats just shows that people that makes the complains are unwilling to learn and cant be bothered with something that takes too much time and effort. Its more easy just to rant on the forum like most do.

Thats how the mentallity of this decade is. Is it hard and does it take long time then its not worth the effort.

I made about:

  • Qhira: 5.1k views
  • Deathwing: 4.4k
  • Mei: 1.3k

I think it’s slightly bigger than that percentage :smiley:

3 Likes

And even if its just 1% of the playerbase, then thats still quite a healthy number in total players.

1% of the playerbase reads Karabas guide. Karabas: My mission here is complete. Time to go home.