Sojourn's Railgun should be precision, not AoE

It’s so frustrating being killed by a random Railgun shot just because it landed NEAR me. Sojourn’s railgun should be precision, i.e. Widow or Ana’s guns.

Basically, you should have to actually hit the target, not near them.

I also think this’d fix a few of the issues with her damage, too, as one of the main concerns with when she was first implemented was that she could charge on a tank and flick and kill a squishy. If it was a precision shot, that wouldn’t be so much of a threat.

This is mainly borne of my frustration of 1v1ing a Sojourn today, getting them down to LITERALLY 1 hp (I asked, it was literally 1) only for them to kill me from half hp because they aimed in my general direction (killcam showed they missed me by a good bit, but the railgun area’s so big it hit anyway…)

But railgun is secondary fire that only gets used after damage farming. Another way of describing it is imagine if Soldier 76 had a scoped shot and his rockets were hitscan. Sojourn railgun is basically that.

That doesn’t really excuse it? Soldier’s rockets are projectiles, they have travel time and can be avoided (and need to be predicted on Soldier’s part). Sojourn’s railgun is just a point and click, it’s hitscan. Projectile vs hitscan is a p big difference.

Plus, I’m p sure Sojourn’s railgun has a bigger, if not the same, AoE as helix, except it pierces and the AoE is on the entire length of the shot PLUS it doesn’t have to hit something to do damage. It’s quite a bit stronger than helix!

IN ADDITION, if Soldier uses helix at close range he hurts himself with it if too close, Sojourn doesn’t get that issue.

They’re not really comparable.

If I was 1v1ing a Soldier and I got them to 1hp they’d be dead.

And Sojourn is literally the exact opposite. Travel time primary fire and no travel time secondary. Ult has to be aimed while soldier is auto.

I’m not seeing a counter-point here.

In terms of the ult, sure, give the ult the AoE, but the secondary fire shouldn’t have an AoE, or at least the size of the AoE should be nerfed.

The issue I have with it is that I get killed by Sojourns that aren’t aiming anywhere near me.

It’s not aoe though, it’s a wider projectile like illari but is not aoe it cannot hit multiple people and it doesn’t have any sort of splash damage.

I do think it should be nerfed to do less than 100 damage on a body shot or at least put it to 120 instead of 130 (but if the S9 leak is true everyone will get more hp so this won’t be as much of an issue anymore)

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Mm, just double-checked, it can’t pierce without ult so fair enough on that part it’s not an AoE unless in ult.

Still, it shouldn’t be so wide. Unsure what you mean when you say Illari has a wider projectile unless you mean her ult, because Illari still has to hit the target, not near them like Sojourn can.

I was trying to avoid directly saying nerf the damage as people will get up in arms if I say that and there’s loads of posts already saying her damage needs to be nerfed, it’s a forgone conclusion for some.

I was providing an alternative solution in lowering the hitscan’s size. It should hit the target, not near it, to do damage.

Her ult is free game. It’s an ult, it’s meant to be strong, let it have pierce and the projectile width, but her normal railgun? No, it shouldn’t be that strong.

Both sojourn and illari have hitscan shots that are bigger than other hitscan bullets (as in the width of Their bullet hit box is larger like a projectile hero) sojourns is 0.1m at full charge and illari’s is 0.05m other hitscans like soldier have no width at all.

This means it is easier to hit enemies with these weapons than it is for other heroes. But they have drawbacks like a reduced critical multiplier and a charge time.

3 Likes

The Railgun hitbox was smaller in the first beta and it was pretty widely agreed that it made Sojourn too hard to play… Plus if the leaks are real then they are buffing a lot of projectile sizes in the next match to make the game easier so I wouldn’t count on any Rail hitbox nerfs at all.

One OWL player said it was too hard to use not many other people.

Doubt we’ll be seeing all of the changes in that leak because increasing hitscan hitbox size across the board is suspicious af.

sound like ping diff.
the rail needs to be a head shot and it is not a generous size.
it’s only close range with very high charge where the size increases.

It used to be smaller, but people felt like it was too hard to land and said that she was just a worse soldier.

Also, when I think about it, maybe that feedback is why illari’s primary was .1 on release. The same number soj’s rail gun is currently.

Hey OP can you give us a replay code of you dominating on Sojourn with her right click since it’s so easy and huge

Piercing is not AoE you are confusing the terms.

Season 9 is going to frustrate you to no end my friend.

Why are you standing out in the open when Soj is glowing blue?

Sojourn’s Charged Railgun Shot is a single-target precision hitscan weapon.

It only becomes a line-based area effect (think Swiftstrike, or Firestrike), when used during Overclock.

Flick-based hits are possible on hitscan weapons as well as projectile weapons like Hanzo’s in Overwatch.

Couple things here.

First, Soldier’s Helix Rocket is two times larger than Sojourn’s Charged Railgun Shot. It ties with Pharah as one of the largest projectiles in the game (with Mercy’s being the largest).

Second, Soldier’s Helix Rocket travels at a rate of 50 meters per second, and launches instantly which generally means that there’s not much in the way of prediction for targets within 15 to 25 meters of Soldier’s ideal range. As long as Soldier can hit them with primary fire, odds are good that Soldier will land a Helix Rocket on them as well.

You’re just proving the point that Helix Rocket has a small area effect explosive radius. Something that Sojourn does not have.

There’s no area effect ability on Sojourn’s Charged Railgun Shot, at all.

Unless she’s in Overclock, and it is a piercing effect, not a wide, or explosive shot.

Problem here is that the damage doesn’t equal the amount of charge time or ammo consumed to meet that number, or even current base-damage. Sojourn has to be able to critically hit with that in order to make 100 charge “worth it”.

Otherwise, you go for much leaner shots at 50 charge, and pray you land a headshot on a 0.05 shot. Because the math shows that 10 shots at 90 damage, isn’t going to kill a target at a 50 charge bodyshot for 80 damage.

Until a recent change last year, Illari’s primary fire shots were wider than Sojourn’s primary fire and Charged Railgun Shots. Most heroes not in the Damage-role tend to have wider shots, normally. Sojourn’s shots, in particular, are smaller than average even amongst those in the Damage-role.

This is slightly misleading. Most non-Damage-role heroes have larger shots, hitscan or otherwise, than those in the Damage-role.

Multiple players have said the same thing and stats from Blizzard showed indications that Sojourn’s Charged Railgun Shot is difficult to land effectively, much less land a headshot. Hence her consistently low win rating amongst the upper-mid and lower ranks. Only 10% of the playerbase is capable of landing those shots, and that’s not a good sign for Sojourn.

Under broad terms, area effect can also mean line-based, or piercing attacks. Firestrike, and Swiftstrike are also considered area effect attacks since they can pierce through multiple targets at once.

Not always that easy to see; especially in the… mess of various effects on the screen. You don’t always see a Charging Reinhardt or a Hook laying into you, do you?