First of all, Roadhog is not terribly bad. He is not a troll pick. He is not completely useless.
But he lacks purpose if compared to other tanks, there is literally no real reason to play him. There is no situation when your teammates would say “Hey mate, you should go Roadhog!”. Okay, except Illios Well map.
Roadhog has a very obvious weakness - he is a giant walking easy to hit ultimate charge sponge with zero mobility. And this weakness is okay by itself, but it is not justified by Roadhog strengths. Because he is not strong at anything. He has nothing worthwhile in his kit to pick him over other tanks.
His defining ability is his Hook. Without Hook Roadhog would be not Roadhog at all. And yes, Hook has some usefulness, it can be used to interrupt some ultimates, or to ruin momentum for heroes like Hammond. But it is not something that cannot be done by a lot of other heroes. More to say, heroes like McCree or Mei or Brigitte - all of them are also very good at something else, there are a lot more reasons to pick them. It is always a safer bet to pick them for DPS slot instead of wasting Tank slot for Roadhog.
Outside of Hook Roadhog offers nothing special for his team. His Take-a-breather is good ability, but it is only useful for Hog himself. His ultimate is nice in some situations, but it is not very powerful and cannot be considered as game-changer. His weapon is terrible by itself and was only kinda okay at bursting down barriers with RMB, but there are a lot of other heroes that can do it better. Oh, it is also was secretly nerfed on PTR.
Guess what? I think that it is fine. Hook should be a defining thing for Roadhog. Hook should be a main reason to pick Hog.
And here we come to the main point of this thread:
Roadhog should be able to consistently and reliably instakill hooked targets with 150-250 health.
“Woah-woah Shonbz, we don’t need that, we already struggle with Briggite, Doomfist and Widow! No more cheesy instakills please!” - you may say.
But lets talk about instakills for a little bit.
Instakill as mechanic is absolutely okay for action games, but only if properly designed. Ability to very quickly or almost instantly kill target is a high reward that should cost a lot. It should be either very risky to use or require higher skill and/or more effort to perform.
For example, Widow’s instakill is fine because it requires much better aim than other heroes. McCree’s Flashbang+FtH instakill is fine because it is tricky to land and either punishes enemy for bad positioning and/or puts McCree himself in a risky position of close combat. Mei freeze combo requires time and to be in very close range to enemy. Brigitte is required to waste all of her CDs for a single target and she is very vulnerable during Whip animation. Doomfist Rocket Punch has a preparation time and very noticeable animation and sound while it is also puts him in risky position. But all of these examples have one common thing: if everything is done right it rewards player with kill.
So what about Hook?
Hook is very easy to perform. It has a high projectile speed which feels almost like a hitscan. It has a pretty huge hitbox. It can be used from safe position. It does not need preparation.
But is does not guarantee a reward. Hook itself is very buggy and inconsistent, so even if you perfectly land it on enemy it does not mean that you will pull enemy to you because chain frequently breaks for various reasons or not reasons at all (see this thread [MEGATHREAD] Fix Roadhog's Hook! (5 Cases, 18 Video Examples)).
But even you perfectly land Hook on enemy and even pull him to you it does not guarantee a kill thanks to inconsistent spread on Hog’s weapon. The problem is that reward from Hook combo depends not on Hog player skill, but purely on luck and randomness.
Hook should be designed in absolutely opposite way. And here we cone to the second point of this thread:
Hook should be harder to use and require more skill and/or effort to successfully perform, but reward should be reliable and consistent.
This can be done in various ways, I want to suggest only one of them:
Scrapgun:
I don’t want to suggest accurate numbers, because it can be done is several ways, but the goal is to adjust damage and/or spread so Hog can reliably and consistently one-shot hooked 150-250HP heroes.
And the most interesting part:
Chain Hook:
- Base range decreased from 20meters to 7meters
- Hook is no longer launched instantly
- Pressing and holding (double tap is optional) Shift now starts wind-up - Hog starts to spin his chain like a true maniac
- Every 0.5 second of spinning increases the Hook range by 7 meters, up to maximum 21 meters
- Releasing Shift (or second tap if Double tap option is on) launches Hook
- Hog can spin hook infinitely
- Hog can move with 30% reduced speed while spinning
- Hog can freely aim while spinning
- Spinning can be interrupted by enemy CC, or if Hog shoots or uses other abilities
- Spinning has loud metal sound that alarms enemies that Hog is dangerous
- Of course numbers could be tweaked. For example, initial range can be set to 5 meters so it increases by 5 every 0.5 seconds, so max range achieved in 1.5 seconds instead of 1 second. And maybe some tweaks of CD would be needed.
So what these changes do for Hog?
First of all, he still would be able to instantly interrupt someone, but instant Hook would be limited to 5-7 meters (on par with other instant CCs like Flashbang or Shield Bash).
Spinning alarms enemies with sound (similar to how Doomfist works) and gives them a little bit more time to react, while also rises skill floor for Hog player. It makes Hook more fair and skill-depended, but it also justifies the huge power increase for his weapon - with more fair Hook instakills would feel more fair and deserved.
And it perfectly fits Hog fantasy. After all, he is a murderer and spinning chain with metal noise and some creepy voiceline would perfectly fit his menacing fantasy.
So what do you think about these changes? What changes would you do to improve Roadhog performance and viability to put him on par with other tanks?