all at the same time. Throw a mercy and the rest of his team in and a decent Hanzo can steam roll pretty much every member of the cast, especially the tanks while being able to retreat to his teams safety when need be.
Tanks weakness to Hanzo
Rein, Orisa, and Sigma’s shields will get spammed, leaving them and their team mostly defenseless.
D.VA will just get demeched due to her huge critbox.
Winston can try and dive, but the Hanzo will likely just use his mobility to reposition away from the Ape or kill him with storm arrows.
The general range advantage he has over them.
These are the primary advantages Hanzo has over tanks when alone, but throw in a Roadhog, Ana, and Mercy the Shimada now has free rein over the battlefield. This let’s him make perfect opportunities for hooks, sleeps, nades, and even more DMG boosted arrow oneshots consistently. This leads to the Shield tanks (And Ball) getting naded, sleep or hooked by the hog.
This leaves the only true counters are Widow or another Hanzo, meaning it’s a battle between snipers (again).
My primary point here though is that Tanks realistically don’t have many options to counter a team built around a good Hanzo. This is especially frustrating when your own team does not have a DPS player who can contest in the sniper battle.
I know the argument is going to be made that Hanzo requires skill, which he does. That however, does not excuse the disproportionate rewards he receives for the skill that is put in.
That’s my take. I know I’m probably gonna get ripped to shreds by the forums.
Edit since people keep trying to derail the thread: I’m not saying other heroes aren’t more or less problematic than Hanzo. I’m just focusing on Hanzo.
only at really long distances (Havana or Junkertown)
the problem is that widow has a bigger critbox than hanzo and also has -65% movement in scope. At the average distance, a good Hanzo (though projectil) has an advantage because he’s more mobile himself, has no falloff, and only needs 1 head + 1 body hit with Stormarrows.
Biggest problem is Hanzo is too mobile. For a character who is supposed to play mid/long range he is viable all ranges. Also if he is going to be so strong he needs to be less mobile to keep him balanced. As of right now he has everything.
Sniper Hanzo is super inconsistent. A decent Soldier can beat a Hanzo of the same Skill on long ranges due to consistency and Helix.
Close range hanzo xan easily get oneshot by Cass, or Hog, or Reaper. Tracer and Genji are also super annoying to deal with in close range fights. D.va can absolutely melt him if he doesn’t get team support or flees instantly.
Mid Range? Hog would be the first one that comes to mind. A good Soldier or Cass or even Ashe can deal with him as long as their Aim is okish and they don’t get headshot.
Storm Arrows does 350 damage with bodyshots only and any simian can chain a primary adding up to 475 damage in under 2s at a very low skill requirement.
But make no mistake, devs care a lot about the player experience, tanks are not low priority. That’s why they buffed Storm Arrows in January 2022 and also in January 2021. And have kept Storm Arrows busted since June 2020, at which point it was buffed as well.
uh… lets start with you know the characters that have been the most problematic for the game for the past 3 YEARS!
maybe sig, bap, brig, zen… these heroes are literally just doing everything and doing the job of multiple heroes… these heroes are just boring because nothing happens.
i will be honest he is a bit op especially his ult but i luckily managed to stop him from doing his ult as tracer as when he was about to execute i took him out as Tracer which taking him out before he can release the ult is i think rare
get rid of all the shields in hitscans face and i bet hanzos pick rate drops to 5 or 6.
then lets see who is going to be a must pick dps, my guess Ashe, Soldier (who are already picked a lot) just get picked over hanzo. hanzo is just a shield buster and a residentsleeper one shot kill bot because he doesnt do anything else
That’s inherently an issue with hitscan more than anything and soldier especially has been needing a nerf alongside hanzo. However, hanzo as he is and has been for what, well over a year if not 2 years now has been needing a meaningful nerf as he simply does too much. Projectile is inherently spammy because they lack the consistency of isn’t travel time.
If hanzo has to stay this way, then other projectiles should be buffed to match hanzo, as hitscan dominate too heavily and hanzo gets an unfair advantage over the other cast
Sig isn’t really an issue since he got nerfed with clunkiness and brig hasn’t been an issue for ages since she got absolutely trashed. Bap and zen are fair game though but zen only being so being damage creep has been rampant in the past few years
So the hero that actually needs to be nerfed is Roadhog then. It sure is nice to snipe and instantly kill 200 HP heroes with his recently buffed gun. Good job with the game balance Blizzard.
