Im sure im the last person people are expecting to be asking for genji buffs, however, i wanted to steer in the topic towards him for a bit,
First, id like to start with some stats, heres a screenshot ive made to give some numbers
As you can see from the stats, we can see a few things:
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his usage peaks in platinum, basically in the average player
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it drops off in bronze, raises as you go up until plat, in which it immediattly starts dropping in diamond and master (3.86% - 3.49% respectively) and plummets in GM
Now i know what you are gonna say
“but magy, OVerbuff is unreliable!”
okay, First i want to say, we literally have no other stat source for ladder, so im using what i can here to try to get a unbias view on things…BUT
in this case, i took also a look at OWL stats,
And would you look at that, his pickrate is chilling at a 0.7%
now i hear you probably thinking “well, some heroes can have a low pickrate especially in OWL, it just means its not really their meta since OWL players mostly just play whathever is meta” and that would be valid…BUT
if we look at the highest picked heroes…Who is up there…? Winston and DVA for tanks, Tracer sombra and echo for DPS, ana and lucio for Support, a dive comp, and genji has a sub 1% pickrate during DIVE the literal thing he is designed for! this isnt normal! just like when bastion was bad during bunker was alarming, this also is alarming
Now that i tried to convince you of the fact that he is bad, let me explain WHY he is bad:
1: His damage is mediocre
Not only he has a measly 86dps on his primary (slightly higher on his alt fire, dont really have the exact number, probably arround 90-96dps) But its also a proyectile, which tend to be harder to use, and its also a triple burst type of attack, and, and this part might be a tad subjective, but triple burst type attacks are one of the hardest type to control,
So not only does this character have a terrible damage, but also has an unreliable primary fire and you could also say the same for his secondary
which as we know, a flanker is suposed to go in, burst someone down, and get out
2: His kit is plain bad
Compare him to the other 3 flankers that have higher usage rate, Not only do they by default have better damage, but they also have better escape abilities:
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Sombra has translocator, which is basically a free escape as long as you dont use it too late
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Echo has her flight, she can dash and fly away if necesary
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Tracer not only has multiple blinks, but also has recall, which similar to sombra can serve as a free escape if used right
So, what does genji have?
On E, he has deflect, this is mostly a defensive ability, in fact id probably consider it a tanking ability, but this isnt really what a flanker needs, a flanker needs a damage, and a way to get out reliably,
So the only way for genji to retreat reliably is either with deflect, or with his passive abilities,
the problem is that, unlike the other flankers, not only is genjis only way to get in closehis dash, but its also his only way to get out,
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Tracer can engage with her blinks
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Sombra can engage with stealth
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Echo doesnt really need to engage since she can just pelt you from decently far away, but since she can fly she can easily engage without getting into too much danger since she can glide for almost enough to immediatly be able to fly away
Genji has to engage with dash, you need to kill to get your dash back, then get out,
otherwise you can just, walk your way there or try to wallclimb up somewhere and get in close and try to save your dash, but then you are relying on your mediocre damage output to do the carry inestead of that instant 50 dash
So the combo burst genji generally requires him to dash in, do a full 180 into a full crit headshot and finish off with melee,
but not only is this…not easy to pull off at all, but you can simply just pick tracer and just…aim well and you will get a lot more damage, sombra is generally more of a utility pick but she can still get damage easier by just aiming, and echo can just burst you down with Sticky bombs + focusing beam
Onto deflect, its… a decent ability i guess, its pretty Meh…frankly, i dont think its a bad ability but it could be improved upon
So for my suggestion…i dont personally think its as easy as just straight up buffing him because his ultimate is a fairly strong ability that cant easily be stopped in the average set of play (hence why he is probably doing decent in plat) so buffing him can have an effect that may cause his pickrate in the medium-tier ranks to raise by a lot and him becoming a bit too strong while not getting too much of an effect on the higher ones where he is simply a bad pick compared to other flankers like now…
So frankly im going to throw in a rework idea ive been testing for a while on workshop and i kind of like how it feels,
the idea is simply to try to take him a different direction
general
- Health modified from 200 HP to 100 HP 100 Shields
Dragonblade
- Ult charge required increased by 10%
- Damage per swing reduced from 120 to 90
- Dragonblade duration increased to 8s
Primary fire
- Damage per shuriken increased from 28 to 30
Secondary fire
- Damage per shuriken increased from 28 to 30
New Passive: Blademaster
Genjis attacks with his Sword (Dash & Dragonblade) apply the “Bleeding” Debuff
Deflect
- Cooldown reduced from 8 seconds to 4 seconds
- Deflect duration reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second
New Effect: Bleeding
- Targets who have the “bleeding” Effect take 12 damage per second for 4 seconds
- Targets who have the “bleeding” effect have 25% reduced healing recieved
its a huge change im aware, but the idea was to turn genji into a character more designed as an answer to comps that have alot of healing going arround, using blademaster to pressure the enemy team with the DoT and the reduced healing, its important to consider that the DoT isnt designed to kill people, as i know a lot of people will say “12 dps can easily be out healed” which it can, but its prupose its so act as a flat reduction to healing, combined with the antiheal, this also renders genji a better pick against the likes of moira since a dash should be able to cancel moiras healing almost in its entirety, and brigs selfheal completly, alongside lucios passive self heal, preventing mercy and zenyattas regeneration, and baptistes shift
The deflect change is designed to make deflect less of a mini tanking ability and more effective as a parrying tool, rendering it less useful against overall sustained damage but better at baiting cooldowns
The shields are simply trying to feed into his playstyle of a harasser, allowing him retreat and heal
lastly, to compensate for all these new changes, his ult takes a hit in direct damage, while gaining it in the bleeding effect, The duration increase is to allow genji to take more liberty to continue harassing the enemy team with slashes, using its cleave capability to pressure the enemy team, the ult charge increase is compensation for the new damage both in his primary and on his shift,
for his primary, simply a small attack buff to adress atleast his mediocre DPS a little bit,
anyways thats it for my idea
Only genjinwould be changed with hp and balance tweaks