Lunge contradicts Blizzards statements on hero balance

[Cyclotol-1972]

I’m still baffled by that addition.

Community: “Scatter arrow is too inconsistent, please do something about it.”
Blizzard: “Okay, we’ll buff every aspect of Hanzo all at once.”

[BadWidowEU-2419]

No surprise there. Being a Mercy main really helps me see a lot more contradicting statements.

[Krojack-1117]

Weird, when I take on Hanzo with a close range hero I always melt him. Lunge does little to save him.

IMO, Lunge is more of a tool to get around than to escape.

[taco-12703]

The discussion is about how giving him mobility is contradictory to Blizzard’s balance statements. Therefore Lunge must be seen as mobility. And it… really is not. Therefore it is hardly contradictory. Maybe it is, but to an extremely limited degree. SA remains the real problem.

[uOneHundred-4729]

Fine. Nerf something about Hanzo. He cannot stay like this. He has too many strengths and too little weaknesses.

[Chess-11652]

Blizzard’s statement was:

@GeoffGoodman

I think its worth talking a little about our balance philosophy here. People often will post things such as “why doesn’t Blizzard see that this hero has X as a weakness and that is what should be fixed.”

One aspect of our heroes that is very important is that they all have various strengths and weaknesses. This is a core aspect of what makes teamplay so important in Overwatch. If you have an Ana on your team, this gives you certain advantages such as being able to be healed from very long range, having a more offensive-favored ultimate, and having the ability to disable healing on enemies (which can be especially vital against heroes that really rely on healing such as Roadhog). That said, she also brings her own weaknesses that must be managed, such as low mobility and lower self-healing. A team may opt to run Brigitte or Lucio with Ana to help peel attackers off of her, for example.

When we want to buff a hero, sometimes it can be the right call reduce these weaknesses. For example, if a weakness is just too overbearing or a hero just has too many weaknesses compared to their strengths. But more often we would rather amplify a heroes strengths and make the hero just better at what they do, which leaves their weaknesses still around for enemies to exploit and for allies to try to manage.

I hope this helps explain how we look at balance issues and heroes in Overwatch in general.

Thus, it’s possible that they are following the philosophy and felt that the weakness in Hanzo’s lack of mobility was too overbearing or that they felt that he had too many weaknesses compared to their strength.

My guess is that it was more a case of hey look the changes we’ve made aren’t that exciting or unique how can we spice this up and make it a bit more fun. The ability also significantly differentiates bad Hanzo’s from good ones in 1 vs 1’s. I got absolutely stomped in the Hanzo FFA’s on the PTR.

[Mrat13-2812]

• relatively long CD
• often accidentally used while climbing
• pushes you only a tiny bit of a distance
• relatively predictable
• telegraphed movement

So much mobility. So OP.

Are we talking about hanzo lunge, or mccree roll?

[kminito-2602]

Hanzo wasn’t a buff but a rework. It is not the same. They have changed several heros with reworks in ways heros were intented to work in the first version. That’s understandable as thoose are reworks and not just buff. If you can’t change a hero from the deep then it’s not a rework.

[Trogdor-12103]

Ok, so this is how dumb I am. I read the title of the thread and I think to myself, “ok… who is this lunge guy and why do people care what he said about game balance?”.

[Rocktopus-11683]

Storm arrows could root/slow hanzo, that way he can’t be mobile and made out of damage at the same time.

[Sn1per0-1536]

• relatively long CD
• often accidentally used while climbing
• pushes you only a tiny bit of a distance
• relatively predictable
• telegraphed movement

So much mobility. So OP.

if 5 seconds is a long CD then why did we have to raise brig CD on her mobility/stun?
If you accidentally use it thats on you.
Pushes you just out of winstons tesla cannon and with his movement speed buff he can infinitely outrun winston.
The last 2 can be said about any movement. GA, Roll, SB, ect ect.

[Storm-25182]

Storm arrows could root/slow hanzo, that way he can’t be mobile and made out of damage and the same time.

Wait, what? You want to balance a powerful ability by adding a weakness? Like Mercy being frozen in place while rezzing?

No way! At least not for Blizzard’s favoured Shimada Bros.

[January2035-2426]

Hanzo’s weakness isn’t mobility. He always had a really good mobility passive.

Hanzo’s weakness is having to use a self slowing weapon which shoots gravity affected projectiles, which is easily the hardest form of weapon to use.

[Justin-17714]

Well, Hanzos Lunge removes one of his key weaknesses: mobility

hanzo has never been immobile. hes had wall climb his entire existance.

[Rocktopus-11683]

I know that’s s/ but they’ve been chipping at Genji for a year so…

[Storm-25182]

Hanzo’s weakness is having to use a self slowing weapon which shoots gravity affected projectiles, which is easily the hardest form of weapon to use.

That’s why they made im shoot treetrunks sweetheart.

[Sn1per0-1536]

Hanzo’s weakness is having to use a self slowing weapon which shoots gravity affected projectiles, which is easily the hardest form of weapon to use.

100m/s is not slow and with that speed of arrow his drop is negligible.
I had someone tell me yesterday that it was sometimes easier to hit with projectiles than hitscan because of the size of them. Can we agree on anything here? Nope that goes against the way of the world.

[RDK-11145]

Hanzo hasn’t shot tree trunks in almost two years.

[Sly-13591]

Hanzo has already had added mobility since launch in the form of Wall Climb. So technically yes, they are just buffing his strength to give him a horizontal movement on top of his pre-existing vertical ability.

[Storm-25182]

Maybe he is not shooting coast redwood anymore, but at least birches.