Changes To Hanzo That Would Actually Matter (No One-Shots)

General Discussion
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Is it tho? Hero identity is the archer arquetype. What players identify with the hero can differ by a ton. The identity was behind the concept of the hero, not what players view it.

The game had several heroes who could oneshot stuff, yet their identity were different, or you consider hanzo, roadhog, reaper and widow the same thing? All those had ability to one shot.

Which is why, one shot isn’t his identity. The archer archetype was. Is what made him unique and be identified among the cast. Japanese bowman is more his identity while bow, quiver, lunge, storm arrow, wall climb, arrow, sonic arrow and his lethality as characteristics associated to that identity.

The missconception becomes clear when what the “core of the hero” is misunderstood to his caracteristics do. Some characteristics can be the core concept of the hero for the purpose of design the gameplay. But doesn’t reflect on the hero identity.

Both designs are bad. You wanna know why? Because they conditioned folks to those characteristics, no hero should had characteristics like those since ow1 launch. Yet some did, now they’re fixing that, due not being great to have in the game.

Instead of fixing, they previously tried to “redirect” folks to do stuff differently. But that alone backfired due similar mistakes being done in the game in general.

Hanzo not being able to one shot, he could had several ways to address his lethality without rely on one shots if was ever needed, which wouldn’t if they knew better back then. Increasing his rate of fire like they did on storm arrow, putting a dot in his damage, creating other abilities and so on. Hanzo nerver actually needed one shots, devs conditioned folks to rely on it for a long time, that alone made folks take it for granted, claiming it was his identity which wasn’t.

Is “less negative” to keep buffing stuff and break the game entirely, than nerfing problematic stuff. Took them about 8 years to realize that, sadly nerfing stuff often comes with “toxic meta” but sometimes is a necessity.

Brig, sombra, doom, sigma, rq, 5v5. All those are things they did with the intent to keep stuff under certain control, instead of changing stuff that was out of their control. All those, eventually backfired pretty hard.

Doesn’t, just mask again till the same problem emerges after awhile .

Yes and somewhat no. Due the damage itself was too high. Which is why backfired and often used as tank buster due the formations of tanks going towards defensive.

His scatter was as much problematic as his primary, storm just often reflected on him using the new ability on busting tanks defense. That alone would remove him from sniper archetype that he would compete with the likes of widow, putting him in similar realm as bastion, echo and reaper.

He initially was meant to be sniper, but that “philosophy” was long gone for sometime already.

Heroes shouldn’t be generalists which is the whole problem they, at least right now, are trying to fix. Storm arrow enables him to perform better at close and mid ranges, while his lethality enables both cases, his performance at long ranges were mediocre at best. So, his effective range were always mid range, while storm enabled close quarters more reliably which often were tied with tank busting. Which means that having one less tank, becomes problematic.

If AoE healing is strong enough, should. Amp it up, brig inspire with her ult, junker queen shout, mauga lifesteal

Aoe abilities with 15 or 20 could buy time, but hanzo also shouldn’t shoot against a target being healed without someone else backing him up too. Like a discord orb, mercy beam or another hero firing on the general direction.

Dot, most likely could solve the “one shot complaints” but should be done in a way that would work on 1v1 not 1v2 or 1v3 situations.

Which is why, healing, health pack should be counterplays. And his arrows should had more utility associated to it.

Healing aren’t often instant which would be hindered by dps passive. Even at 120dmg + 60 dot if he does melee is more 40 damage on top of it (due being mid range in general). Most aoe healing sources wouldn’t be able to prevent the death if was HS.

Hanzo has tools to cut mid ranges to close range also melee range is really forgiving. A lunge + melee could hit a foe from about 10m of distance. They could give hanzo another lunge charge if needed would be able to reach about 18m. They could even motivate that kind of playstyle by if he does that melee and the foe dies his specialized arrow cooldown resets. Similarly to genji’s dash by example.

Heroes doesn’t need high rate of fire at mid and close ranges. Just needs tools, junk and mei are examples of that.

If you don’t have the ability to kill with one shot, you wouldn’t need the fall off, which is why dot can be an elegant solution on both cases.

The issue is not having one shot and tanking busting abilities. Is about having one shot, not being a good design and due the game having only one tank, tank bust abilities also doesn’t make much sense.

The reason the tanks are being gigabuffed is because those tank busters and the one shot strengths. Did you know that on open queue prior to hp increase, tanks were dying by a single shot from widow? Now open queue is more balanced than RQ with reasonable hp pools on tanks?

Open works due heroes being picked to offset certain heroes strengths. RQ doesn’t enable that entirely, which forced those problematic designs to be addressed.

The game have a ton of problems, but hanzo problems are 2 separate entities that one shots are unfun mechannic and due the reduction of one tank, tank busting abilities are problematic too.

Look d.va and reaper changes, they’re more reliable against smaller foes due less spread, while being weaker on armored targets which mostly are tied to tanks.

Hanzo problem on storm could solved by using other ability like the ones I mentioned. While his arrow itself either could be left untouched with faster RoF, but not akin to storm more akin to take 0.6s to max draw and 0.4 to recover while doing the same 120 damage. Having 3 kinds of arrow (sonic arrow with 20 additional damage, dot arrow with 60 additional damage and hinder arrow with 40 additional damage).

A critical of 120 would be 240+20~60(special)+40(on melee).

Give one charge of lunge and he would be able to perform just fine. Also disabling db effect on those arrows, while his non buffed could have.

Give something like 6-8 sec on each arrow. While killing with melee would reset the cooldown the one that hit the foe prior to it.

If needed those damages could be changed to more while reducing his base damage to offset situations like db. Storm arrow is from a era which the game had 2 tanks and isn’t suited to the current era, is not tied to the current situation of reducing/removing one shots.

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Sounds like they should just give him a new ability that is not Storm Arrows or just hard nerf it. One-shots must return, though.

Identity is pretty much just a label. You can’t deny that Hanzo was played for one-shots, and that was why he felt good to play. You take away what made him feel good to play, and he’ll feel… bad to play, hence the displeasure of Hanzo players. Maybe they were conditioned to expect something that they shouldn’t have been (which is just opinion anyway), but this means they’ll never be happy until they get back what they were conditioned to feel, and Blizz will continue losing money due to the #fixhanzo boycott.
Just because something is “annoying” doesn’t mean it should be removed. Genji is annoying to many players, does that mean his kit should be gutted?

Hanzo’s primary fire one-shots were never problematic. This showed in his winrates, stats, and presence on the leaderboards. A few players disliking it doesn’t make it problematic.

Again, players disliking one-shots is not a Hanzo problem, but a player problem. I don’t like saying “get gud”, but that’s what it boils down to in a competitive shooter.

There actually was an independent poll conducted at the OWCS Majors about one-shots, and more than the double the amount of those who disliked it actually preferred one-shots.

Guarantee you one thing, if you gave Hanzo his oneshot back and completely removed Storm Arrow without replacing it, Hanzo players would be ecstatic. Why? Because that’s why they played the hero. He would probably be pretty bad, but at least he’d be fun and rewarding to play.

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That’s the thing, didn’t made him feel good to play. Folks just got used to it.

There’s a reason why most cases they often not mess about certain stuff and prefer buff other stuff to not change. But also there’s a reason why they should do the opposite too.

To keep numbers reasonable they need to nerf stuff, but nerfing stuff will negatively impact the ones who got used to it, which often they avoid that route. Until they couldn’t due values getting too high.

One-shots are bad mechannics, while you argue it can feel good, is not fun. You can make other stuff on him to feel good without relying on one shots.

Storm arrow is just out of the place right now in the way it works. I mentioned alternatives, considering the things they already have like:
Cassidy anti-mobility, junk hunter’s trap, mauga’s cage, widow’s mine, ashe dynamite, mauga burn.

Always were, his performance were tied with his breakpoint on higher ranks which often relied on mercy db. Due one shot mechannic always being problematic.

Oneshots are non-reactive, hanzo projectiles are big due the need of some parity against hitscan projectiles. The one who dies doesn’t have fun and when hanzo does without knowing is also not fun. There’s a reason why most folks call hanzo as “luck shot” due it’s performance were often tied to it.

Too many variables that often folks weren’t stable enough in his overall performance.

Both, making the hero tied to a breakpoint and one shot being non-reactive makes the hero design become problematic when you don’t have much ways to prevent, like previously had with another tank.

The game changed towards 5v5, oneshots doesn’t have space in there. Either you consider it part of his identity or not, the game design to work on 5v5 is get rid of oneshots.

Several heroes already received changes towards it. Is natural and bound to folks complain about something they got used to it, which is why I mentioned that certain nerfs are needed because if you keep buffing stuff around it, is way less efficient and often generates problems in the future.

You should gauge hanzo by how to make a new hanzo better and fit the new intended design.

The genji part, they iterated with it sometimes already, he requires more changes but is more tied to risk/reward in his case.

It is a design flaw, when you have tools to mitigate one shots you often don’t have problems. The moment you remove those tools, you get problems. Like they had when removed most hard cc, shifting towards soft cc. The high mobility heroes who were kept at bay by tanks and cc, pretty much dominated the game.

One thing is keeping something due other stuff preventing it to be oppressive. Another is removing that thing and due that ability being non-reactive, generate problems.

One shots are unfun mechannics and problematic ones. But if you have counterplay, is somewhat fine to have. The issue becomes more problematic when you get rid of the tools who kept it “under control”.

You know that most players are damage players and those players need tanks and supports to play, right? Damage players fill 2 slots of 5. Which means that requires 3 slots to be filled with the other 2.

Devs are already doing supports becoming more dps oriented like kiriko and illari. Meaning that tanks become a bottleneck.

So, they gigabuffed tanks to them sustain those damage numbers. Which made those same “dps who liked one shots” now complain they can’t always win duels with tanks.

Most damage role dish out obscene amounts of damage, but most damage players also are bad on dishing out those said damage. If you want one shots on more heroes that would reflect on more hp and lethality on tanks, while the current level of lethality folks are complaining a lot.

Which is why, nerfs are needed. But also why listening to those you mentioned is bad, due they don’t represent the majority.

Heroes should perform good at higher tiers but shouldn’t exclusively looked only on higher tiers. The ceilling is important for higher tiers while the floor is important to lower tiers. Which is why risk and reward are good metrics to gauge both the ceiling and the floor.

If the hero gives rewards at lower risk becomes the meta on higher ranks. Which is why risk/reward is important. While being easier to be played and get value from it becomes a common pick on lower ranks.

Not always is easy to notice that. Which is why hero bans is necessary to gauge meta differences, in terms of risk/reward.

You know that, game as service. Heroes are bound to change and as the game changed, those heroes would be in need to be changed. Hanzo doesn’t fit to 5v5, mostly high mobility and sigma were the ones who actually “fitted” the transition. Even those, required some tools and nerfs to be kept on “reasonable levels” to give some space for other heroes.

Hanzo were “fine” on 6v6 with forms to prevent his one shot. Now he needs to change for the sake of longevity of the game to work on 5v5.

While Open could give more space for certain designs have more time to be changed, those designs are bound to be changed eventually.

Hanzo is a cool character, but one-shots aren’t a good mechannic. Even less when there’s less counterplay and you already have too many players in the role itself.

Just a tip, if you have most players in a single role and you use role queue. The least pleased role should be the most popular one. If you please that said role, almost nobody on other roles would want to play. Which would force buffs on other roles or nerfs on popular role.

Their inability to notice that for about an year, was what made most players leave and their retention number become pretty low.

Those changes you’re seeing is their way to get some retention, due otherwise the queue times would still keep increasing and the quality of matches would keep dropping.

Take the CC example which was a tool to deal against high mobility heroes. It ended hurting tanks more instead of those said heroes which got some impact but not as much as tanks. That led tanks play heroes who could deal against it and survive more time. Ow2 tried to get rid of it, yet just shifted towards soft cc by increasing it on overall numbers.

Soft cc didn’t impacted much high mobility heroes, which made them become meta for some time. Which increasing hp pools also helped them a lot.

To fix that, armor and hs damage reduction on tanks tried to offset that and normatize the damage forms.

That way reaper and d.va got severely impacted, which adjusting their spread, specialized them on smaller foes removing their efficiency on tanks by example.

Hanzo is in the middle of that kind of transition. Of finding a place that were should excel while being funneled to be weaker on other scenarios.

Sym got better on close quarters, due her viability against tanks not being good in a game with only one of them.

They barely touched half of the cast since the 5v5 change, in a meaningful way. Although the ground for changes to viabilize 5v5 is almost set, meaning that heroes would be more effectively changed after it.

Hp pool increase, projectile changes, hs rd on tanks, armor change. All those in a vaccum doesn’t make much sense, but in sequence actually makes sense. They’re normatizing sources of damage and if a hero needs to be stronger against pressure the ratio of armor would increase while the ratio of hp decrease and vice versa. While if it needs more resistance against burst, it’s hp pool would increase and to keep somewhat the same pressure damage, it’s armor would turn hp.

That way they can design the game to fit the new paradigm. Which was a thing that should had been done prior to RQ change.

At least they decided to stop repeating the same mistakes. Which gives me hope on balance team, just not on the other game aspects.

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There were already elements that prevented Hanzo’s one-shots, which apply to both versions of the game, regardless of whether there is another tank on the field or not.
Basic awareness, basic understanding of movement and pathing.
No other mechanic was needed to reduce Hanzo’s potential value. It already existed in his weapon design, being projectiles. Even with less players, less tanks, and less shields, he never dominated the ladder. There was way more mobility to counter him already. His one-shot was not problematic.

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Not when he simply appear and shoot. There’s no basic awareness if you actually don’t know that there’s a hanzo (which initially you don’t know) and where he is. After sometime you can notice patterns, til them you’re prone to get shotted without even knowing it.

Hanzo lunge and wall climb also can enable him to appear from non-usual locations.

I’m not saying is impossible to preemptly have the general position of him. I just saying that previously his shots had more ways to be prevented than right now. Like another tank providing some cover or a huge hitbox.

Right now you can try and do something if is at long range, mid range? Unless your team gives you intel you would not be 100% sure where he is, you can get the general direction of him, while him can get exactly where you’re with sonic’s arrow info.

Actually he had moments on ow1 that he was really strong with mercy pocket on the ladder. But generally his performance were tied to some specific maps like King’s Row and hitscan / pharah-mercy state. His sonic arrow and a good pair of headphones could give him a good edge on fights.

On OW2, he simply didn’t had much highlight due dive/high mobility heroes. But saying that he wasn’t strong just because other were strong, doesn’t make him not being strong, just others more viable on their strengths at time.

One thing being broken doesn’t make other broken things not being broken, just mask that broken thing by having other things even more broken.

When they planned to tone down those broken things they knew that he was broken like many other stuff were. Which is why they focused on Breakpoints, that would affect burst more than pressure. While after addressing that, they addressed pressure to equalize both forms of damage.

I wouldn’t be surprised if widow also lose her one shot. The concept, my guess, would be tied to dot.

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Guess we can agree to disagree. It’s all just opinions anyway.

At the end of the day, I just want my favorite hero to be impactful and as fun to play as he used to be.

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Yes, at least was a reasonable and respectful experience. Which often is really rare on forums tbh.

I wish for everybody that, we just disagree on how to get in there. Which is totally fine. I don’t see one shots being a good thing for the longevity of the game and I sincerely hope they come up with a good concept to solve the fun aspect. While you consider oneshots as a thing that could provide that fun.

At least we agree that something needs to change and storm arrow isn’t in a good place

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