They improved Doomfists consistency by reducing bugs and giving his shotgun a set spread pattern, Roadhog could really use the same attention. He may not be strictly underpowered but he does have the most frustrating and RNG reliant kit in the game right now. Here are a few ideas that would help, we don’t need them all but some would be nice.
-Give his shotgun a set spread pattern like Doomfist, all of the shotgun heroes should be able to know roughly what their spread pattern will be. Smaller heroes shouldn’t be able to dodge damage by sheer luck.
-Improve Hook LoS checks, I don’t want it to attach around corners again but it does break too easily which is easy to abuse. Hook could cancel, or at least slow momentum when it lands, similar to how McCree’s flashbang works. Landing a skillshot on a long cooldown should favor the guy who through it out.
-At least reduce the cooldown if the hook breaks, this is what they did with Sombra’s hack and that isn’t even a skillshot and has far less counterplay. Maybe make it 3 seconds if it breaks, Roadhog relies on hook and shouldn’t be punished that hard after actually landing it.
-Hook should pull enemies in front of Roadhog, not so close that it would be a guaranteed OHKO, just in a consistent location. Right now it depends on a range of factors including enemy elevation, Pharah’s feet will often tank the damage if she is hooked from above you, and there isn’t even a point to hooking people from highground as they end up miles away from you (or so it feels). Hook should always pull the enemy level to Roadhog like it used to.
-Maybe just reduce the cooldown of hook, if you don’t want to fix the bugs then just give Roadhog players more chances, it’s far too inconsistent to warrant the 8 second cooldown.
-Fast Reload time, the only thing worse than a gun that tickles, is a gun that tickles and takes forever to reload.
-Maybe just give him a passive where he doesn’t charge the enemy ults so hard. I get it, this is his biggest weakness by design, but he no longer has the power to make it worth the tradeoff.
I don’t think any of these changes are too much to ask or would radically shift the balance of the game. I just want to have fun playing my favorite hero and feel rewarded for the hours I’ve put into learning him, rather than having the RNG gods determine the result of every encounter.