It’s Official. Hanzo has been nerfed into an even greater throw-pick than he has historically ever been.
Back in early OW1, he was considered a throw-pick, but he had 2 saving graces: he could OHK and he had Scatter Arrow. Even then, if you were very good with hitting his shots, you could still make him work. He no longer has Scatter, and no longer has one-shots.
Let me explain why this change absolutely destroys this hero:
Hanzo’s primary fire is capable of 120 damage, and with a 2x multiplier with a critical hit, this allows him 240 damage. With the HP changes in S9, the entire cast, with the exception of Widow, Tracer, and Baby D.Va, can no longer be killed by one well-placed arrow to the head.
Granted, they buffed his Storm Arrows, but this is an ability, not primary damage. He will become a Storm Arrow bot, since it would be the fastest way to secure kills IF you have perfect accuracy.
Ashe will need two headshots to secure a kill, but she is hitscan (buffed in size, mind you), and can shoot ~3 times faster than Hanzo. This simply makes her objectively the stronger pick, while at the same time very comparable in play-style. She effectively replaces him.
Hanzo’s damage was a critical breakpoint for the hero because it was the only thing keeping him viable or even playable at all. I am surprised (or maybe I’m not) that the dev team does not realize this.
Without one-shots, Hanzo loses his flexibility as a sniper, a flanker, an off-angle threat. He will no longer be able to take a mid range duel without Storm Arrows. He will also be very ineffective as a sniper, since accuracy drops the further you stand. He has likely been turned into a frontline spammer, because it will be the only way to maximize value with Storm Arrows and Sonic.
Here is my advice to all my Hanzo brethren:
If you want to continue playing Hanzo, go through your friends lists and find your most selfish pocket Mercy, because that will be the only way this hero will be viable at higher ranks.
Otherwise, play any other DPS that isn’t Junkrat, Genji, or Hanzo.
The dev team made a massive global change when the problem itself was never a global issue. Not damage, not healing. Fixing the outliers is what we asked for, not a lazy patch that does nothing to solve the issues we actually had. This is why this patch fails. Regenerative healing was a good change - I wish they just applied this to all heroes and removed role passives entirely.
Here is hoping there is a rollback on the HP changes and the heavy nerfing of this broken DPS passive that they added. Until then, no more Hanzo for me unless he has his damage reverted back to 125. Nobody wants to be running around with a Mercy pocket just so their hero can be viable.
