Genji is outdated and needs to be completely reworked

General Discussion
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Genji as a hero is a fundamentally flawed concept within the current design of the game. At lower ranks he is too oppressive given his mobility and burst damage output against players who don’t have a firm grasp of the game or know his weaknesses; at higher ranks he is too useless given that many of the matchups he used to be good against can now directly counter him or out-sustain him on top of the fact that players know how to aim very well.

He is considered by many content creators and players alike to be absolute garbage at higher ranks, so much so that many will rank him as one of the worst heroes in the game at the moment.

The only way to resolve this issue and allow for him to keep up with the game is to completely rework him from the ground up with the Overwatch 2 model in mind. I’m not talking numbers changes, I’m talking a complete re-evaluation of his core gameplay and abilities like we’ve seen with other heroes as of late. Upgrading him to the current format of the game like so many others have been.

What this might look like, I couldn’t say. This is something only the devs can realistically look into. However Genji has been in this state for far too long at this point and I don’t think I’m the only one who believes that we’d rather have a different, more useful Genji rather than the same Genji who can’t be adjusted in any way without causing massive issues.

It’s time that both Genji players and non-Genji players agree that the character is unhealthy for both US (stockholm syndrome) and EVERYONE ELSE and the only way to move forward is to compromise and agree to ask Blizzard for a full hero rework.

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The “issues” that Genji causes are imaginary and exaggerated. Making him viable at high-level is a matter of fixing the insane power creep. He’s not a real “problem” at low-level, the low-level meta is always “broken” and a bunch of far easier characters than him get just as much value just being picked in there. Who cares.

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this seems really severe for a character who was seeing a decent amount of OWL use like a month ago.

Genji’s kit has aged way better than some other launch heroes (Pharah, Roadhog) and keeps up in design complexity with most OW2 heroes. He’s not dated at all.

At lower ranks he is too oppressive given his mobility and burst damage output against players who don’t have a firm grasp of the game or know his weaknesses

“Delete a launch character because bronzies are bad” lmao

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being bad at genji is a skill issue. maybe you’re not the ninja you think you are.

maybe try winston instead… hmm?

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genji is a skill check hero and his kit fits perfectly into ow2 as it is faster pace the problem is genji alongside alot of ow1 heros reaper rat and such cant keep up in higher ranks but because people know thier kits so well the dominate in low ranks becuase mm is so trash. genji is not a problem and his kit is very hard to learn and master properly. he skill checks both the user and the enemy. genji is insanely easy to punish but he also punishes bad play and thats not unhealthy for the game

well to be fair that was partly because of brig and ana

that seems to be alot of peoples reasons to delete characters because mm is so trash

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I mean, if a character sees a decent amount of play due to synergies with other characters, doesn’t that mean he is pretty alright?

Obviously it’s unhealthy if a character sees play only due to other characters (Pharmercy), but Genji is at least a bit more flexible.

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the problem is hes only good with them if he doesnt have them hes trash genji like alot of old dps need a pocket badly to get anything done

hes is the problem is hes out classed by tracer sobra and now sojourn for nano bot

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Not really. He works pretty well. Problem is the difficulty relative to the rest of the game’s heroes and amount of risk he is required to take to achieve similar rewards. But this well known for the Damage-role, so…

At lower ranks he really doesn’t succeed. Most players don’t even utilize his burst damage, and instead bunny-hop and fan, taking far longer to actually do something than work as a proper hero. Moreover, he will never be supported, furthering is relative lack of success in the low to middle ranks.

At higher ranks, he succeeds more than lower ranks. At higher ranks, players are more capable of aiming his difficult primary fire and executing her burst combos, and sweeping with the team utilize Swiftstrike resets. Moreover, he’s more likely to be supported and more capable executing his ultimate with greater success.

At the highest ranks of play - the very top - he struggles for relevancy due to the nature of fundamental problems with Overwatch with regards to the Damage-role and the amount defense and denial that exists in the game. Genji - like many Damage-role heroes - is greatly impacted by defensive abilities, ultimates and control. He is not unique in this regard, but his capabilities and his success are notably impacted in the highest ranks of play. There are clear weaknesses, but these really aren’t the fault of his design, but rather a core issue of Overwatch.

No one has had a complete rework of their entire kit short of Bastion and Orisa. No one. Most of the roster has adapted to the new OW2 format and composition; though it is obvious that much of the Damage/Offense and Defense roles seem to struggle the most, given their consistently negative win ratings.

Ehhh. Pharah’s kit isn’t really outdated. Roadhog’s… that’s a ongoing problem since OW1’s early days.

Why does someone have to switch roles to play an easier hero?

Not necessarily. Rather seeing the dominance of certain character combinations could be example of a overpowering combo, or severe weakness in other choices. Soldier gets picked a lot because he’s beginner friendly; but is he being picked predominantly moreso than other Damage-role because he’s friendlier to new players, or because the rest of the Damage-role is too difficult to play or get a handle of?

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If you guys keep insulting Winston I’m afraid I’m going to have to primal rage.

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That’s the trap that so many people fall into; believing for a second that Blizzard will actually deal with the massive power creep that’s been gradually getting worse since 2016. You don’t think us Overwatch Veterans have hoped and begged and prayed that one day they might fix the power creep issue over time? Been there done that buddy.

You’re sentiment is that Blizzard should take months—if not years—to undo all the damage they caused buffing so many characters to the point of being OP just for the sake of one hero is laughable. They haven’t done it. They won’t do it. The best we can get is a buff to the one character to bring him up to everyone else’s level. The problem?

WE CAN’T.

His entire kit cannot be buffed in any way without causing massive repercussions. We’ve seen this time and time again as Blizzard has tried countless times to adjust him in the past.

That is why, speaking as a top 500 peak Genji one-trick and current GM player, I have come to the realization that there IS NO SOLUTION other than changing how he works at a fundamental level in order to allow buffs and nerfs to be made which can make him—and the game—much healthier.

He doesn’t need a complete overhaul of every aspect of his kit just for the sake of change, but he absolutely needs SOMETHING. Something like Sombra, like Bastion, like Orisa, like (hopefully) Roadhog when his rework drops. Otherwise he will stay this way forever and the same arguments will be made for/against him until the day the servers shut down.

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Let’s not rework one of the most iconic FPS characters to ever exist within the past 8 years. Just no. All he needs are buffs maybe, or for the support role to be gutted into oblivion(which is deserved btw).

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Yes it can be jyst give him a bew passive that removed all damage aims from him and boom can up his damage to 29 like it should be and up his balde to 120.

And i would rather genji stay weak yet fun thry strong but soulless.

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Low rank players have torb, mei, sym, Moira, Brigitte who can all consistently beat low rank genjis with less effort lol….

But most of the time you don’t even need those heroes as low rank Genjis would often feed himself due to bad game sense.

Don’t let the low rank plebs gaslight you…Genji causes ZERO issue at low rank. Never did lol…

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That’s what you’re missing though! They may have all the tools in the world to deal with Genji however the reason they’re low rank in the first place is because they don’t know which tools to use or even how to use them. They don’t realize that Genji is easily counterable by beams, turrets, or good game sense. These are the same players who, if they’re playing Torb, will just throw their turret into the middle of the enemy team and expect it not to get destroyed immediately. He gets value down there because he punishes bad players, that’s his niche.

The problem stems from anywhere past that. The moment you start to face GOOD players is the moment that you start to notice how bad he is in comparison. But obviously you can’t buff him as needed because, naturally, any net buffs to him will also buff his low rank play as well. Which again proves my point that there is no way to make the character a viable pick like most other heroes without reworking at least part of his kit.

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So low ranks suck at the game so genji players suffer.
Thats a bad reason to change any hero.

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I would entirely agree with you on that if Blizzard didn’t make a lot of decisions based on low ranked player experience. They have the difficult task of balancing it across the board for EVERY rank and have to take it all in mind. That’s my point, a hero that is rank dependent to punish players that are bad is a bad design that needs reworking.

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Balance trickles down if the higher levels are balance lower levels will fall into balance.

You shoukdnt rework a hero to please low ranks its how you kill the game

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the last time they tried to “modernize” this game they turned it into 5V5 and… welll… y’all know the rest

so there’s no way they’d “modernize” Genji without somehow either making him completely busted or way worse than he is now

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Such a low iq take. All the genji mains are just mad bc they wasted 209 hours of their life to still pump out less damage and get less value than a bastion that’s been playing for a month. His skill ceiling is way too high and even once you’ve mastered him there’s still 10+ other characters you’d be better off getting good with.

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Feast/Famine for his entire existence. His entire kit is back-loaded into his ult, and then they added Nanoboost which means it’s not allowed to be useful on its own anymore. Everything else is poke poke disengage poke poke.

I love Genji, but his playstyle is unviable. Too many tools in the belt makes him impossible to balance.