Hanzo's Problems Explained - Past & Present

General Discussion
1

Hanzo got a crazy batch of buffs this mid-season. However, while these buffs are great, they actually help to highlight his problems and what makes him less viable than most other heroes.

All of it is based on his personal consistency, and how it influences the way he plays, as well as clever ways the devs have tried to tackle it, albeit a bit unsuccessfully.

Consistency is Hanzo’s weakness. What this meant before season 9, was that it neccessitated aggressive positioning.
This is very healthy for a oneshot character. Unlike Widow, he must play at ranges where he can be interacted with. As such, I never liked the idea of buffing his projectile speed, as his current encourages more proactive playstyles.

In earlier days, experienced Hanzo players adapted to brawlier playstles, partially charging their arrows in order to oneshot 200 HP heroes.

Enter season 9 HP changes.

Hanzo lost the ability to regulate his arrow charge, meaning he was forced to play more passively, and thus his consistency suffered.

They have fully reverted his draw speed, restored arrow charge preservation with Wall Climb, and have recently buffed his projectile size, to help account for the ever-increasing mobility in the game.

However, the biggest change to his power was the buff to Dragon Fury.

Why is Dragon Fury so valuable to Hanzo, and why is this buff to Dragon Fury so significant?

It basically serves to create an interaction similar to partial charged arrows from before S9, to a degree. It enables him to play more aggressively, similar to how he used to. The recent buff makes it more consistent.

This is all fine and dandy, but there is still a problem.

For Hanzo to play his only effective playstyle, he needs to unlock Dragon Fury.
He doesn’t “wake up” until after he has farmed both of his perks. He must still play passively until then.

I maintain that what Hanzo needed wasn’t a buff to Dragon Fury. Storm Bow (primary) just needed to be buffed to 140 damage.

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2

All I gathered from this is that in order for Hanzo to get that ability, he must play like a sniper

And that makes sense to me for some reason.

Also no, you are not about to be 2 tapping with storm arrow.

3

I never mentioned anything about Storm Arrows.

4

Feels a bit like you did.

5

Storm Bow is his primary fire. Storm Arrows is his ‘E’ ability.

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6

Already do, just make sure you hit that forehead twice.

Yeah, he needs either a higher crit multiplier, or more base damage on his bow. He at least slowly but surely gaining his identity back.

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7

I literally can’t play him anymore, even though hes got most of his power back but he still doesn’t feel fluid, I liked quick flicking with him at close range ow1 to ow2 pre s9 but now with the increased HP and Psuedo tank dps it feels ages to draw the arrow for sufficent damage slowing down his gameplay even if its a few ms.
Even with the Perk activated You still cant deal with the psuedo Tank DPS (cass/reaper/mei)
Honestly should revert everything to Pre s9 and individually nerf characters.

It’s honestly sad, was a hanzo main since ow1 till S8 now exclusively play hitscan.

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8

I havent played Hanzo since S8. Honestly, put more emphasis on storm bow than storm arrow. Storm arrow is the part that i dont think anyone really likes (or hates).

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9

I miss Scatter, these kids these days could not handle dealing with OW1 Scatter Hanzo. Imagine how hard they’d just lose their minds, to see a Hanzo pop up over a wall, fire a scatter at your tanks feet, and they just… Fall over instantly, and he disappears back over the wall.

Legit one shot tanks with that ability was hilarious.

10

Yeah, and the ability is just fully charged primary shots.
So to buff that, would buff the e as well.
Shame

I don’t feel as cheated if it’s a headshot. I feel like I was somewhere I shouldn’t have been. A sniper sniping is better than just storm spam.

11

I didn’t like Scatter either, but storm arrow wasnt a good replacement.

12

What are you talking about?

Storm Arrows deal 75 damage per shot.

A buff to Storm Bow does nothing to Storm Arrows.

13

Yet, when Hanzo 180s and domes people as they try to flank him, it’s just “Luck” and “Broken” and “Fires logs”. At least you get that you can’t just go at a Hanzo without checking for stuff like Sonic Arrow or he does have SA ready.

I said when they changed out the abilities for each other “SA will be far more broken than Scatter ever was.” and look at when SA was first put in game, you couldn’t move without a barrier.

You… Do know that they can set damage values for abilities independent of each other right?

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14

Are you seriously discussing that Hanzo needs to be buffed?

15

hanzo deserves to never be good. trash hero.