좋은 하루 되세요.
My name is Hana Song and I will be your private tutor for today’s lesson.
It has been a while since our last episode:
But today I want to shed some light on the effects of Hanzos upcoming projectile speed nerf.
Currently Hanzos arrows are traveling at a maximum speed of 125 m/s, starting at 25 m/s and reaching the maximum after 0.75 seconds of charging.
If you are standing 25 meters (the maximum range of my MEKAs Boosters) away from Hanzo and he is shooting an Arrow at you with full charge, it will take 1:(125:25) = 0,2 seconds to reach you.
On the PTR the maximum traveling speed is reduced to 110 m/s which results in a 12% nerf and it will now take a fully charged arrow 1:(110:25) ≈ 0.227 seconds to travel the 25 meters.
Now what does that mean for me if I am playing against a Hanzo?
According to this website the average reaction time on a visual stimulus is somewhere between 200-250ms (it also allows you to test your own reaction time):
This would put Hanzos arrows close to the limit of what a human is capable to react to.
BUT we haven’t added the latency caused by your internet connection yet, so as long as you don’t have an insane pro level reaction time and live somewhere close to the Blizzard Server rooms and enjoy a delicious 5 ms ping, your chances of reacting to the arrow after it was fired are basically just as slim post nerf, as they were pre nerf.
Your better chance is to react to the charging animation of his bow, which is (as mentioned above) 0.75 seconds for a full charge and leaves you a much more realistic time frame to react appropriately by crouching, A/D spam and defensive/mobility abilities.
The only case were the slower projectile speed might give you a marginally noticeable advantage is, if you are playing a Hero that is still effective on a very long range because he has no falloff damage. The two most relevant examples for this would probably be Pharah and Widow.
Now let us see what changes for the Hanzo player firing the arrow:
Since Hanzos arrows are projectiles, unlike hitscan Heroes, he has to “lead” his projectiles to the place were he thinks the target will move to, instead of were it is right now. A slower projectile means, that a moving target can travel a larger distance before the arrow reaches it. Since we already know that the arrow speed is nerfed by 12%, we can say that you have to take into consideration that the target now can travel a 12% larger distance before your arrow will hit, so you will also have to adjust the distance you move your mouse by about 12%.
D.Vas lifehack suggestion:
You could also try to increase your mouse sensitivity by 12% and see if it makes it easier for you to adjust to the change, though I guess that this one comes down to personal preferences.
I hope you enjoyed today’s lesson!
Questions and constructive feedback are always welcome!
Love,
D.Va
