The goal of S9 HP changes was to “Lessen the impacts of burst damage to allow for greater counterplay.”
Even if Hanzo had his one-shot for 250 hp, they would still be within the parameters of their goals for S9, as the impact of burst damage would still be net reduced, for both him and several heroes in the cast.
More heroes have HP over 250. These are the heroes that would survive a full charge 250 dmg headshot:
DPS
Bastion
Cassidy
Mei (won’t be able to HS+melee)
Reaper (won’t be able to HS+melee)
Symmetra
Torbjorn
Venture
Support
Life Weaver
Brigitte
Not only are there several heroes that he would still not be able one-shot, he would have to charge his arrows to full to hit the 250 critical threshold (Hanzo players used to partially charge their arrows to maximize RoF). His OHKs would be happening with much less frequency.
On top of this, Tanks have the -25% headshot passive. As a percentage Tanks would be taking much less damage than they did before, due to health increases as well as this passive.
Provided they do the correct thing in buffing his damage +5, nerfing Storm Arrows, and reducing his projectile size, he would be much weaker than he was in S8, and he was already by no means a must-pick.
They did mention the possibility of lowering the highly mobile heroes health to being within his current arrows one-shot window. Would make him nice a counter to the high speed dive teams.
How would giving him his one shot back against 250’s be “within parameters” of the s9 goals? Maybe the problem isn’t Hanzo, maybe it’s the people who don’t want to learn how he plays now. You do know they balance entirely around team play, right? That leaving a 250 at 10 hp for any one of your teammates to sneeze at and kill is still good? But no, people want to go back to Vegas and play the penny slots.
Read the post properly in its entirety, and maybe you’ll understand.
Maybe the problem was never Hanzo, maybe it’s the people who never wanted to learn how to play against him.
I can play Hanzo the way he is now, and many Hanzo players can. It’s just simply not very fun.
This would be a reasonable argument if every hero had the same issue. By this logic, every DPS (and even some supports) should have their TTK with primary fire around the same as Hanzo so that they wouldn’t be able to solo targets without abilities so consistently. This means for example dropping Cass’ damage by almost half or reducing his RoF to the point he fires around 3 times slower.
Not really a counter as he has always been weak against higher mobility heroes, due the the nature of projectile (even with one-shot). It would soften the interaction, though.