I want Hanzo to be a high risk - high reward hero that primarily operates as an Assassin hero over a sniper hero.
The concept:
Passive change: Hanzo now has drop-off damage on all non-headshot hits.
Primary: Damage reduced from 120 to 100. Charge speed increased by 20%,.
Sonic arrow replaced with Spirit Mark
Functionally works very similar to current Sonic arrow. Hanzo shoots out an arrow, however instead of a continious effect of wallhacks, it releases a single pulse.
Any enemy hit by the pulse receives a debuff lasting 5 seconds which reveals them to the enemy team and causes the first hit from Hanzo to deal 50% additional damage.
Within 5 seconds, Hanzo can press the ability button again to teleport to the Spirit Mark location.
Storm arrows removed. Replaced with Assassin’s Gambit.
For 4 seconds, Hanzo’s movement speed is increased by 30%. Drawspeed is increased by 30%. No longer slowed while drawing his bow and movement is completely silient.
However, drop-off damage is dramatically increased. Starting at 5m away from Hanzo and receiving maximum drop-off damage 10m away from Hanzo.
Let me know your thoughts, i expect a lot of people people won’t fully understand what I am trying to achieve with these changes. The big takeaway is that Hanzo’s tankbusting/ spam potential has been nuked. However, when he gets the drop on you, he is going to be scary AF.
So wait- he can only one shot if he doinks someone who has been pinged with his mark, or can potentially 2 shot them, otherwise he’s just sending out 100 damage arrows?
As much as I absolutely hate Hanzo and how dumb his kit is even without one-shot, this just seems like a massive nerf to him. I think you need to be a bit more generous.
It is a conditional 1-shot. If they have been marked by Spirit Mark. Then they can be 1-shot.
To your 2nd point. In terms of his passive gameplay, he will be sending out 100 damage arorws. The main reason for this is that if we are going to balance him around not 1-shotting. 120 damage is a horrible break-point. It means that Hanzo will often massivley overkill his enemies. Which is a straight up waste of DPS. Decreasing them to 100 but increasing the charge speed by 20% means less overkill on enemies, more consistent DPS output due to being able to fire faster and most importantly, can still keep Widow in check.
I guarantee my above suggestions are more likely to be OP than underpowerered and will need toning down. I say this as a Hanzo main.
His primary is buffed.
Sonic arrow is buffed
Storm arrows is replaced which is a nerf (Storm arrows is absurd) but Assassin’s Gambit would be scary AF to fight against.
I have long said 1 shots do not bother me- If theyre “conditional” to some degree. Telegraphs. Wind ups. Tells. And of course- Cooldowns when that power is off the table.
Hanzo having to land a marked arrow first accomplishes all of that. Id expect the arrow to have an audible q to it that players could hear when theyre “pinged” by it, plus the “revealed” indicator on their screen. They would then know to watch for hanzo, either at range, or if he teleports in - which is dangerous to hanzo. Further, id assume thered be a cooldown. There would be no “Random” one shots- Youd have time to realize before hand that the ability was being used, and to be cautious for it.
I actually greatly appreciate the effort to rework hanzo in a way that isnt “just give him oneshot on headshot back no questions asked”.
It would act as a debuff. Similar to when you are Anti-healed etc.
So it would be very apparent to everyone that you are under the debuff effect.
Don’t know what the CD would be. I expect 10-12 second CD on the ability. However, it is stronger than old sonic arrow obviously so the CD could be considerably higher.
If you can hit headshots, it is better. If you can’t, you will be dying. A lot.
Well his primary getting nerfed from 120 to 100 but charge speed increasing by 20% is a straight buff.
It effects zero damage breakpoints. but increases his overall DPS output very slightly higher.
The bigger buff comes from the consistency and the less overkill damage. quicker/more shots = more chances to kill.
Current Hanzo requires 3 bodyshots to kill a 250hp hero. These changes would be the same but 20% faster. (Yes you can use uncharged arrows for a similar effect but due to Hanzo’s arrow speed being tied to charge rate, this makes them much more inconsistent)
Regarding Spirit Mark. It is a HUGE buff to an already very strong ability.
It does everything current Sonic arrow does, however also makes it a mobility ability for Hanzo and makes Hanzo’s arrows deal 50% more damage on first hit.
It does have niche aspects to it however it would still be a top tier ability.
I think that it would be a nerf because you remove storm arrows that is right now the only thing that makes him being playable as his primary kind of sucks.
what I learned from the arcade mode last season is that increasing drawspeed/charge makes the character very ankward to play as he then prefer to not charge before targeting someone as it is better to remain moving and just shoot when he aims someone.
I think that 100 damage and 120 is not that a big difference as you say that you will need the same hits to kill so I wouldn’t care
Other problem that I see is that spirit mark would change it’s purpose and they would never use it for revealing enemies/utility and more for killing purposes and get out card, it would feel like playing old sombra where you have to use those 5 seconds to kill or get away, but having a character that usually get slowed while shooting and is precise, to get into close range like tracer to kill would be very ankward, just changing the drawspeed is dangerous because you get used to a rithm of hitting and releasing button, and you have to change that again.
In the end, I think the character would be like it is now because storm arrow a lot of times feel like those 4 seconds of trying to kill someone fast in close quarters, but with 1 more teleport.
Id rather instead of faster draw time they increased his arrow speed at full draw and decrease the arc of his arrow, making its path straighter and more powerful. This could alleviate the lack of fun due to the dink not resulting in a kill
Along side this they could remove his low draw time arrow option completely. 50% or above draw only