Edit: At long last it’s getting changed, everything written below is still on live but has changed significantly on the PTR. I’m planning to make 1 last video with the new deflect soon on a separate thread but will sneak a link here too. I’d like to thank the community for keeping this thread afloat for 5 months and helping me put together this long list of proofs
Hey guys, I’m bringing this thread back to live from the old forums. Before the old forums shut down this post gathered 1735 upvotes, which made it the highest upvoted post in the forum’s history by a large margin.
Source: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20759150839?page=1
On top of that I’ve added a few paragraphs at the bottom from when I wrote the post first because I was unable to post links so I wrote down explanations behind the videos.
I’d like to give huge thanks to iSinner for taking the time to reformat the original post for the new forums.
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First one is a bitesize showcase of the problem, future ones go into way more detail:
(Headphone warning)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAD4JzRQRRc&feature=youtu.be
Deflecting through walls has been fixed
A showcase of how “Just don’t shoot at him ;)” means dont even shoot the air outside of the animation.
Just to clarify, the size of it isn’t what’s most bothersome, it’s the fact that a large part of the hitbox is invisible
At this point I feel this needs to be said: This thread is not intended to be about balance, you may have your opinion about him but the overall purpose is bugfixes, visual fixes and getting rid of the unintuitive ways deflect works
This was recorded on the 3rd of november 2017
Update: A new, more in depth video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBB5srd4lv0
UPTADE Nr. 2: 3rd and final testing, focused on genji deflecting from behind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXGJOh0KFHo&feature=youtu.be
Update Nr. 3: Wall clipping issues have been fixed on live, just did a short test and everything seemed fine
Update Nr. 4: Some video testing done by Alex showcasing deflect being able to deflect abilities that have already hit you (I believe it can be done my only sym’s alt fire and firestike) and Deflect+firestrike generous interactions from the side
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSLksCafgso
Update nr. 5: My breakdown of what I feel are the major issues and need changing.
Should’ve added this a long time ago, but here goes:
The visuals
Even Jeff himself admitted it wasn’t the best. The “small buffer” as he put it feels rather large and looks unnatural when you shoot at nothingness at it bounces the projectile back in your face. If they think genji having a large deflect hitbox is needed for balance reason, they need to at least show it. Stretch out the animation or make a better one that’s indicative of the area it covers.
Speaking off the animation, it’s very weird because one side of it reaches further than the other. If you look at it closely, there’s an extra visual effect on one side but not the other, however it gets weirder. That extra animation isn’t always on the same side, it’s sometimes on his right side and sometimes on his left, and it seems the only rule for this is how his legs are rotated.
We went a little bit over this in testing video 3, here’s a link to the exact timestamp: https://youtu.be/pXGJOh0KFHo?t=6m21s
Off-screen deflects
Lets say you stretch or change the animation, this becomes less of an issue since you’d see the animation even if you don’t see genji in some scenarios. However I don’t believe that fixes him deflecting things from behind you, well enough to the side or behind his ally being able to protect him from any harm (I’ve tested this but I’m sorry about not having a video to back it up). I can imagine this would be a way harder thing to fix, but if you think it’s possible it definitely needs to happen.
It’s very rare this happen, but when it does you feel so cheated, not because you made a misplay, but because the game screwed you over. One way of doing it would simply be to reduce the area of deflect in front of him
Firestrike
https://youtu.be/FBB5srd4lv0?t=3m46s I know firestrike has a larger than the average projectile hitbox but can we please not have this happen?
Quite literally your entire screen is a no-go zone if genji is in your field of view, and even if he’s not it’s questionable. Not even sym’s fully charge alt fire gets deflected at those range, and it’s fatter than firestrike
I’ve gathered a few clips of instances where this happens naturally in a match.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAvPhE7OH-k&feature=youtu.be
- Genji is off-screen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIeatHqdwNc
- Off-screen again, backs into view after shot has been fired
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXu4K-TF_lw
- Rocket is shot way below the deflect. Not latency specific issue since i’ve proven the hitbox reaches that far below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TyvNj5TnXc
- Rocket flies under him and way past him, the back of deflect animation catches it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RBG-97OF4w
- Flashbang is thrown above genji, it bounces off thin air
https://streamable.com/i2l1a
- I BELIEVE what happened there is the clipping issue that has now been fixed, alongside a generous hitbox
https://streamable.com/2sshr
- Genji is straight up behind ana, deflects the grenade anyways
https://gfycat.com/gifs/detail/UglyGlumIlsamochadegu
- Bastion is shooting sideways away from genji, gets deflected anyway. See testing video Nr. 3 how that’s possible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2GMCB9aRAE
- Grav is shot nowhere near genji, still gets deflected. from 2016 but I believe this issue is still there
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7Nrjz6UV0g
- genji is either next to or behind zarya, grav gets deflected anyways
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrdl-LOLW50
- things shot at a 90 degree angle from him behind the animation still get deflected
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlE32cGSxQI
- genji is next to her, still deflects
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MKLCeDSw9Q
- Off screen, animation is not visible, genji’s next to her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRsWpe5WDyU
- Genji deflects a widow bullet that shoots him diagonally from behind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFFaWQikicA
- Mcree rolls past genji, trows flashbang, genji deflected it off screen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7yNntWEKVY
- Genji deflects grav from off-screen. DVa did not eat it since you hear the SFX and see the particle effects dissipating towards the end
https://youtu.be/US69NXWUhlE?t=33s
- Pulsebomb bounces off thin air
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5ryZgWBcGw
- sleepdart is shot way outside the animation, still deflected
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ojSI1eTEk
- Actually no clue where the grav went, i didn’t hear a Defense Matrix, genji was deflecting off screen though
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U80NGIXwOYA
- Shot is nowhere near the animation, still deflected
https://clips.twitch.tv/BlightedDistinctDumplingsGivePLZ
- After very repeated checking I can confirm Genji was pretty far to the side deflecting, you can briefly see his red outline in the explosion before he himself dies
https://gfycat.com/AjarFastDarklingbeetle
- Genji deflecting off-screen again
https://gfycat.com/IdenticalPlayfulGuineapig
- FFA specific instance, a mcree is sandwiched between a deflecting genji and another mcree. the further away mcree shoots the other one but deflect eats the bullet through the mcree, and shoots it back at the one it was meant for, claiming the kill for himself.
This applies in normal modes too, genji can stand behind his team mate and deflect, protecting his team mate from any damage from the front
https://gfycat.com/fr/gifs/detail/LightheartedAgonizingAlaskankleekai
- Another FFA specific one, hog tries to hook+shoot combo ana but genji deflects from behind ana and steals the kill. Applies to other modes too, if the ana was friendly genji could’ve saved her and deflected the shot back at roadhog
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6cg70s
Ana shoots a sleepdart, gets slept. Killcam shows Genji deflecting it from behind
https://youtu.be/R0OqgFCZlRQ?t=127
Rocket is shot WAY below genji, deflected anyway. Not latency related, I’ve shown his hitbox is very generous from beneath
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8V_x0OtcC8
Ana turns away from genji and throws the grenade at her feet, gets deflected. Caused by genji aiming slightly up, in the headshot level so the bottom of his deflect hitbox moves forward
https://plays.tv/video/5a52465984f29d4388/genjis-deflect-hit-box-just-being-genjis-deflect-hitbox-
DVa trying to shoot rockets outside of deflect animation, clearly not working
https://streamable.com/axyut
Genji being a jumpyboi, ana throws grenade way below hitbox animation, you’ll never guess what happens next!
https://gfycat.com/HandyMassiveJoey
McCree is fighting Genji. Genji jumps completely off screen. Mcree throws a flashbang at the ground, it bounces off the ground back at McCree
https://streamable.com/fe8bk
Ana got denied an easy grenade combo kill cause genji deflected it from behind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5fsXWlD4Co
slo-mo shot of flahsbang bouncing off the ground
https://youtu.be/OAVG8bcdsKs?t=2m56s
Widow’s sniping, sneaky gengu is deflecting next to her off screen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PghSJowlU4&feature=youtu.be
Roadhog is ulting, genji stands behind him and deflects, you can see in the killfeed that genji killed roadie with Wholehog
https://streamable.com/vo8mk
Genji’s jumping in the air and deflecting. Ana throws her grenade WAY below the animation, bounces off of thin air
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s836GvU40W8
McCree throws flashbang into the empty air next to genji, empty air fights back
https://youtu.be/4poe-QLnBl4?t=16m22s
Genji PoV. He double jumps above junkrat, deflects a mine thrown straight forward down on to junkrat
https://youtu.be/UAJzy4cva6E?t=3m30s
Genji walks past McCree and deflects his flashbang
https://streamable.com/t35tl
Soilder sees genji deflect, decides to switch to a target that’s away from genji, genji slaps rocket back into soilder’s face
https://gfycat.com/WhoppingFilthyGlassfrog?speed=0.25
Genji deflects a helix rocket from beneath the platform he’s standing on. This was supposed to be fixed
https://youtu.be/jokApCCWlzw?t=4m54s
iddqd shoots a helix on the floor outside of the deflect visual, is left speechless when it bounces back
https://streamable.com/b8giz
Genji stands on top of cart and deflects, ana throws a nade on the floor where there’s 0 visual indicator that it’ll get affected by deflect. gets deflected anyways
https://gfycat.com/fr/gifs/detail/bewitchedharshindianrockpython
Tracer throws pulsebomb into a grav, Deflecting genji manages to deflect it from behind himself away from the grav
https://gfycat.com/CautiousEnchantedAvians?speed=0.25
Flashback is thrown outside of deflect’s visuals, gets deflected anyways
Finally got around to making a reddit post. link below:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/7rz3wt/deflects_invisible_hitbox_3_testing_videos_31/
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Now with the original post out of the way, here’s some history and explanation behind the post
In a thread at the end of October last year Jeff himself decided to pop in, and the subject of deflect’s weird hitbox came up and Jeff responded with:
We can try to improve this. During development of Genji, the deflect hitbox used to be pixel perfect. The end result made it super unpredictable to deflect anything. We had to give it some buffer to even make the ability usable. In the meantime, if he’s deflecting, just don’t shoot at him
![:wink:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/wink.png?v=5" ":wink:")
I thought to myself “Some buffer? I feel like the buffer is more generous than you’re making it out to be. I’ve shot nowhere near genji and it got deflected anyways multiple times before” and I and my brother thought it’d be funny to release a short video showcasing how you can not be aiming at him but still get punished.
During filming we discovered that not only was the hitbox way larger than the visual, it could even shoot through walls. Thankfully the shooting through wall part has been fixed now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAD4JzRQRRc&feature=youtu.be
A follow up video was made to test the hitbox with all projectiles since people were skeptical about me using Mei in the initial video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBB5srd4lv0
A lot of people felt the same way I did about deflect, and due to popular demand I decided to make a lengthy 3rd testing video focusing mainly on how genji can deflect while off screen, whether it be behind you, to your side, or if you were shooting directly up or down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXGJOh0KFHo&feature=youtu.be
Thanks for reading if you made it this far, I hope to see some familiar names pop back up in here!
