Any trap talents I should avoid? (e.g. level 1 pathfinder, is that ever good? Level 20 sharpened stars (shuriken pierces)?)
Also, is genji viable? I feel like he deserves some small buffs generally (rather than just buffs to underpicked talents)
Avoid at all costs Pathfinder at 1, Augmented Guard at 7, Double Jump at 13, Steady Blade at 16 and Sharpened Stars at 20. These are really bad, at least compared to the other options on that tier.
His best build right now is:
Level 1 - Swift as the Wind
Level 4 - Strike at the Heart
Level 7 - Perfect Defense
Level 10 - Dragonblade
Level 13 - Shingan
Level 16 - Final Cut
Level 20 - The Dragon Becomes Me
If the enemy has a heavy lock down comp with a lot of CC and you are really scared to play aggressive, you can change the ultimate to Xstrike and get its upgrade at 20. It is also really good for single target burst damage (E, proc strike at the heart, xstrike on top of it immediatly then shingan).
I made that thread asking for some changes to some talents on Genji that are bad or could be better compared to the others on those tiers if you want to read. There’s some good info there.
In the link above I explained wrote a good guide on how to play Genji and talked about talents as well, draft, mechanics etc. It is also a good read. There’s some other really good tips I gave in other replies in that thread, so check that out as well!
If you have any questions after all this, feel free to ask me and I’ll be really happy to help you <3
EDITED: About him being viable, yeah, he is definitely viable and is quite strong if you know what you are doing. I usually get the most kills and hero damage, while also getting good siege and exp soak with him. You just need to make sure to have a good frontline (tank + bruiser) and waveclear on your team, because you lack that a lot.
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I sometimes found Augmented Guard good in QM or Brawl against more than 1 heavy spell caster (gives him a really massive shield upon successful deflect, no point taking cd reduction) but other than that it is a pretty bad talent.
In Ranked it is a dead talent compared to cd reduction too.
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@Darak, thanks! That was a nice writeup.
Augmented guard got a sizeable buff recently, not sure if worth a try now? Also, double jump and sharpened stars both sound good in theory, why are they bad? I read in your posts that ult upgrades are too good to pass up. Would you ever consider sharpened stars in games where you need late game waveclear?
Also I noted in your post here: Minor Genji Changes that you mentioned the level 13 tier is pretty balanced.
I read the two threads, nice info there too, thanks 
You can definitely try it and see how it goes, but from my experience you get much more value from Perfect Defense than anything else on that tier. The cdr is really good and can put your W in a 6 seconds cooldown, so if you use it well and at the right time, you deny a lot of damage and will have this up again really soon.
Augmented would only be good if you are already doing all the aggression possible, like using it during Dragonblade so you can be on top of the enemy team without worrying too much about your hp. Perfect Defense allows you to do your aggression, use W, get out and you will have your W up again soon to do more aggression.
If you are good with using W at the right time, you should get more value from Perfect Defense.
They are good in theory yeah. Like, having 2 charges on your trait, especially with some builds like Q build (you get charges back after completing the quest and using trait), sounds good, but you are actually giving up shingan. Shingan is just too good to not take it. It is kinda hard to proc the damage when you start playing Genji, especially in the middle of fights, but once you get some practice you see the value you get from it. And not only in teamfights; Shingan procs on anything, so you can speed up camps, destroy structures faster, race the immortal and other things.
Sharpened stars also is good on paper, but at level 20 you have both ult upgrades that are simply amazing upgrades. Usually at 20 you want to get talents that will help you win late game fights and win the game, and both ult upgrades offer that.
Never. Like I said above, at 20 you want things that will help you win teamfights. If you need Sharpened Stars to waveclear, then your team failed draft. You can also clear waves pretty well with Final Cut at 16.
Yeah, it actually is a pretty balanced tier. Shingan is really good though, and because Genji’s E damage suffered some nerfs, it became kinda the best option for him at this tier. Flow like water is still good if you go for full E build with dragonblade, but it is harder to get value with it.
Double jump is very niche and could be the pick if you are like playing Q build with spell shield on trait in QM, but I wouldn’t pick this ever tbh. It is also not a bad talent, but I’d like to see some buffs to Q build first to make this more worth picking.
Btw, drafting question. Assuming your team has waveclear, when would you draft genji and when would you avoid drafting genji?
E.g., is genji a good pick on every map? Is he a good first pick or first few picks? Is genji countered by CC or anything else specific?
Does genji have any hero counters that you should avoid picking him into?
you should never first pick genji as they’ll clearly counter you with CC. heroes like varian with taunt can make your life hard on genji when you try to dive his team you’re taunted and deleted by his team. never first pick genji no matter what! that could be said about tracer too or nova etc… he’s hard countered by CC. any hero with point and click stuns / silence like valeera / uther / varian taunt / garrosh taunt or even ETC slide if he aim it right and so on.
To draft Genji I usually look for these 3 things:
1 - Waveclear is covered and we don’t need another assassin with waveclear (by waveclear is covered I mean like you have a good mage that has a lot of waveclear and your bruiser also has it).
2 - Your other assassin is a mage. Genji has a lot of sustained damage through his auto attacks and a single target burst damage though his abilities. When you have a mage on your team to do big burst damage/waveclear/AoE damage, you definitely set genji up to do his thing, get resets and all that. Any mage is good except Mephisto because he lacks waveclear a lot. Hanzo is also a good pair with Genji as long as it is not on Tomb, otherwise you need more waveclear than just Hanzo.
When you draft a mage together with Genji, usually what happens is Genji is pressuring the frontline with his AAs (always play like more on the side so you can dodge stuff better and the enemy has to choose between hitting you or your team), and your mage is pressuring the enemy with spells. Playing this way the enemy will feel the pressure from both sides and they will either get a bad engage or just run.
3 - We have a good frontline. Genji needs a good frontline on his team to draw the attention to them and to soak damage. If your frontline also has good CC/stun lock potential, that is really good for you because you can quickly follow up with all your abilities for a big burst and maybe reset.
He works on every map as long as you have the right comp tbh. It is much more about the comp than the map. Feel free to pick him whenever you have that. Also, his best map is Braxis because of how fast he can rotate between lanes and pressure the sololaner.
You can pick him first, but as most people don’t ban him now, you don’t have to worry about that. I usually don’t pick him first because I don’t like putting my trust on people to draft good frontline + waveclear, so I usually pick him late. If you are playing with friends, just go for it if you want.
CC counters anything, so I don’t put this on his counter list. You should just always remember what the enemies cooldowns are in terms of CC and play around that. Garrosh just used his Throw + Q + taunt? That is an opportunity to play really aggressive.
He is mainly countered by AA heroes. Raynor, Zuljin and others like that can really poke you down way before you get to start doing your team, so be careful when you are against them. Usually how I play against them is by just pressuring their frontline first and trying to avoid getting hit by their AAs.
Nah, as long as you know what you are doing and you keep track of enemies cooldowns, you’re fine. Some point and click CC heroes like Uther or BW can be a pain sometimes, but just dont go in when you know they have their CC available.
This is not true. If Genji is getting hard countered by the enemies’ CC then he is a bad Genji. There’s no way in hell you get stunlocked if you just keep pressuring their frontline first until you see an opening. Most Genji’s mistakes come from this, they think they need to dive the backline no matter what and then they get stunlocked and die. “look guys I’m getting hard countered”, well, you’re playing dumb tbh.
Also, Genji counters varian. If he ever uses his E on you to try and taunt you, just E into your team and now Varian is in Africa. You do the same thing with Tracer, it’s quite funny.
Also, if you pick first and they draft 5 point and click CC or something like that, their comp is trash and they probably forgot everything about synergies. Drafting is much more about synergies together than hard countering the enemy hero. That is a big mistake people do.
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who would draft 5 specific heroes just for 1 hero anyways and ignore everything else around them? and i guess most of genji players are just horrible in general in that case. also taunt varian isn’t the only issue for genji or tracer valeera takes big part in this she’s also the best against zeratul too after all it’s all about patience not being in rush to engage.
You’d be surprised D:
I see that a lot in SL.
That is so true.
He is not really an issue, really. He can’t do anything to both of them tbh.
She is only good because of her silence, but that counter anything in the game just like Alarak counter anything in the game. She isn’t really considered a hard counter because of that. And Genji actually has really good tools to reveal her.
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he does indeed but a good valeera doesn’t engage from stealth. and a good genji won’t dive in blindly either it’s like mind games when both players are good but when 1 of them isn’t good then it doesn’t seem much of a problem. as for me i make my enemy use their abilities on me outside of stealth so i can instantly go in stealth when i’m close to them and attack them without being revealed since they already used their stuff on me and that’s where they die.
Yeah, it is definitely a matter of skill match. Just like Tracer vs Genji. Whoever outplays the other first, wins.
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the tracer vs genji is awesome. when i play tracer back then and there’s a genji we 1v1 and whoever do the wrong move dies but it’s mostly tracer timing the deflect to stop attacking so she doesn’t kill herself instead. that’s actually my favorite 1v1 so far
Much to absolutely no one’s surprise. I love picking Blaze into a Genji. Both of Blaze’s level 13 damage reduction tools work well, and Bunker will make it so that Genji either won’t go Dragonblade, or if he does, it won’t accomplish much. Taking Genji poke is rarely a problem for Blaze, and if he is a bad Genji and tries to do the dive/Protected into my back line, hello Jet Propulsion.