Ending the Hanzo Hypocrisy

General Discussion
1

Devs keep acting like they want more Tank players. Well it’s well past time to commit to that.

And one of the main things has been keeping “Tank Busters” from melting through Tanks too easily.

And so far, that’s been mostly good with Reaper and Tracer:

And way back in the day with McCree, whether he no longer dealt full damage and headshots with guys right click

But there is one gigantic oversight which I really struggle to understand why it’s still an issue.

When you combine a pre-charged normal arrow with StormArrow, you can dump anywhere between

475 damage and 990 damage onto a Tank, in 1.5sec.

Throw in a damage boost, and that goes up to

617 damage to 1235 damage in 1.5sec.

And while Reaper/Tracer/McCree are kept in check by needing risky close range positioning to unleash that firepower.

Hanzo can do it for free, every 10 seconds.

Which is a lot more often than Reaper/Tracer/McCree get to spend at close range with a Tank. (Throw in the needed time for mobility/escape cooldowns, and how a Tank can just choose to just not be in close range with McCree or Reaper)

Additionally, a Sniper or Sniperish hero, that outranges all other heroes besides Ashe/Widow, should be vulnerable at close range, and at least forced to run away.

And to an extent, Hammond can deal with Hanzo. But this glaring issue with Hanzo is a large part of why two of the most fun Tanks in the game, D.va and Winston, aren’t used much are any ELO in ranked Competitive.

You see Reinhardt mains complaining about “I dropped my shield for half a second, at full HP, and I’m dead”. And it was probably a Hanzo involved.

You want more Tank players? Then get rid of Hanzo’s “Delete a Tank” button.

Hanzo may have needed it when he couldn’t horizontally run away from Dive Tanks. But now with Lunge, that’s on a 5sec cooldown, and moves him 8m away. He does not need or deserve to just fight his way out easily, in addition to just dodging out of the way.

That said, here’s what I would propose for Hanzo

Hanzo

Storm Arrow

  • Arrows reduced to 3, down from 5
  • Damage reduced to 50, down from 70
  • Cooldown reduced to 7sec, down from 10sec

Lunge

  • Travel distance increased to 10m, up from 8m
  • Cooldown reduced to 4sec, down from 5sec.

Result:

  • Hanzo would still be able to launch 275 damage to 550 damage in 1.0sec
  • He would be more evasive than he already is. Able to stay in his ideal attack ranges.
  • He would have his cooldowns ready to go, much more often. Leading to much more fluid gameplay.
  • High skill Hanzo’s would still be a strong threat if they reliably land headshots.

The biggest change

  • More D.va and Winston usage to ranked ladder usage.
  • Generally a huge sigh of relief and thank you from all Tank players.
50 Likes
2

Hanzo is a projectile hero, he trades inconsistency for damage.

14 Likes
3

Fixing Tanks is more important than whether Hanzo stays in the top 5 DPS out of 17 in GM.

If that means Hanzo needs to drop down to below Bastion tier. So be it.

That said, the only justification for Hanzo having a “Delete a Tank” button with Scatter was that he had no horizontal escape options.

Now he does, and with this proposed change it would go farther with lower cooldown.

9 Likes
4

They should just make storm arrow a trash alt fire like Widow’s full auto fire and reduce his hp.

Hes basically like if Huntsman Sniper had the hp and movement of Demoman in tf2.

13 Likes
5

Then dont expect empathy for me, i want every hero in the game to be equally viable.

7 Likes
6

That’s unrealistic.

And besides which, if you wanna talk about the nerfs while ignoring the buffs, it’s not like you even attempted to think this one through.

2 Likes
7

Inconsistency doesn’t exist against tanks who have hit and critboxes the size of the moon.

He definitely needs storm arrow nerfs.

Dva struggles against him as it is from range. Having storm arrows at close range is a death sentence given the only way she can deal proper damage is at close range while he has no downside in damage at all. Guaranteed crits up close and all you have to do is bait out dm for two seconds or even less if he’s already pressured you at range.

Yeah he’s a clear outlier right now

15 Likes
8

Perfect balance is unrealistic. Shortening the gap between meta heroes and non meta heroes is not.

6 Likes
9

I believe making Hanzo near undivable with a lot higher uptime on StormArrow is plenty to keep Hanzo above average.

But we got an Armageddon level issue with Queue Times, and Hanzo is in the way of that.

So Hanzo needs to get out of the way.

2 Likes
10

Trades aimming for guessing.

1 Like
11

there is a reason why there buffing him right now aka being trash hero

1 Like
12

His issue is he has no range where he isn’t effective. You can land that arrow a mile away potentially but guess what?, most fights are never a mile away.

He has all the benefits of widow with no downside. Widow at least has to line up a scoped shot at close range to deal good damage.
Hanzo? Just press this button and spam arrows into the target no problem. His escape is better than hers too all while having more health.

13 Likes
13

The issue isnt Hanzo. If Hanzo is nerfed people just jump on the next most annoying hero.
People dont want to play tank because the averge joe is very selfish and doesnt want to bother with the responsibility of creating space for the team or peel for teammates. They just want click heads and appear in the kill feed.

5 Likes
14

widow gets gurrented value because shes hitscan the bullet goes where she aims at compared to hanzo where u even said u need to get lucky and have good aim

1 Like
15

Name me another hero that can launch 1235 damage onto a Tank in 1.5sec with a damage boost. At range.

6 Likes
16

Rewarding aim vs rewarding luck.

1 Like
17

again thats like saying widow should get nerfed because she can two shot tanks

2 Likes
18

I dont need to. Sombra is basically already dead and i still read people complaining and ask for hack nerfs.

1 Like
19

Would you stop putting the green tick in your subject line. It’s annoying.

7 Likes
20

The thing is Widow isn’t gonna be downing a Rein from full health to zero in the time it takes for him to firestrike then put his shield back up.

3 Likes