On review of many forum posts and comments, I’ve found the general consensus of many players is that a hero with a one-shot should not also have a Tank Buster ability like Storm Arrows.
I have long agreed with this sentiment as a Hanzo player, but never really expressed it or really wondered what other players’ opinion of it may be until now. I believe it is time to revisit it.
I have said in past posts that what made Hanzo different and unique from Widowmaker was that his one-shot, more readily available (though less effective) mobility, and his Storm Arrows made him a more versatile pick than Widow. The trade-off was consistency, which means that while he did not have glaringly advantageous maps like Widow, he could be viable on more of them on average.
In Season 10, we Hanzo players have this issue where we have lost what made this hero magical to us, but were “compensated” with a Storm Arrow buff to keep the hero relevant. However, Storm Arrows on a shorter cooldown turns out not to be fair compensation for a hero that was primary fire focused. The problem with this change is that it completely changed the identity of the hero, making him a spam bot, as he’s only really effective once every 8 seconds when he has Storm Arrows. Many of us have said that we would sooner have one-shots and no Storm Arrows than OP Storm Arrows and no one-shot. It’s quite simple. We picked up the hero for the satisfaction of hitting calculated one-shots and the reward from it. The dopamine hit for many of us was unmatched.
The proposed idea is that Hanzo should become more reliant on his primary fire (what we play him for) rather than his Storm Arrow. This would line up with the Balance Team’s goal to reduce burst damage in the game, while at the same time make Hanzo players happy.
Suggestions:
For both options, buff primary fire to deal 125 damage with bodyshots (250 with crits), while reducing the projectile sizes to pre-S9 levels.
Nerf Storm Arrows to deal 65-70 damage and cut the count down to 3 or 4, while at the same time reducing its rate of fire to where it once was (I don’t remember the exact details or patch). With the new reduced crit damage for tanks, this would severely reduce Hanzo’s ability to burst them down as he has been since the Season 9 patch.
Alternatively, reworking it into a secondary primary fire on activation with a toggle similar to Life Weaver’s old mechanic of heals vs damage. This secondary fire would enable Hanzo to fire faster charging arrows dealing 75 damage per shot (150 for a crit). This would give him a little more flexibility, but in essence make him a different hero with different advantages/disadvantages while Storm Arrow is active, adding a recovery time between switching arrow types would be unnecessary, as you would have to charge a new arrow regardless of the type. I really like the skill expression with hitting bounce shots, but I’ll take this over what we currently have now. The people who like the idea of different hero builds would love this idea and maybe we would see connoisseurs of different arrow types maining the “build” of their choosing. This would likely encourage more players to play Hanzo while reducing the pain points of Hanzo players and those on the receiving end alike.
Please let me know what you think of these changes, and feel free to add ideas of your own. I’d love to hear from you!
I’ll dump the best ideas from users here:
And my favorite so far:
*Added 100 damage at maximum reduction to maintain Hanzo vs. Widow matchup.
Dragon Strike
A buff that would actually make it better would be to give the player some control to curve it.
During cast time, player can move their mouse to influence Dargon’s curve direction, giving more potential to deny area and/or secure kills.
