Why does Hazard exist

General Discussion
1

I cant believe how atrocious everything about him is. Even just talking superficially, this dude goes FAR beyond Venture, its not even about opinions or challenging conventional attractiveness, he looks like he was ripped out of Concord. Everyone Ive spoken to so far, and all reactions Ive seen online, have been “Jesus this dude looks bad”. Even his voice is insanely annoying.

Talking kit wise, its just another Blizzard classic example of “We straight up refuse to take into consideration how this character affects the game and care solely about whether or not they’re fun to play” thus creating another Venture where regardless of how fun it is to play, its so unsuited to 5v5 that the play rate is nonexistent.

And boy oh boy do we love Blizzard gradually walking back their stance on CC, as we’re introduced to a character with 3 separate instances of CC, a knockback on his leap melee, a knockback on his wall he can place wherever he likes, and the root on his ult that ignores walls and LoS.

Not to mention despite him being very much like Doomfist in his style, who has 525HP, Hazard has 425 HP and 225 armor for 650 total. I get this is isnt a very balance character right now but how do you get this so incredibly wrong?

We have a 650 HP character, 225 of which is armor, a 1 second cooldown power block ability, and somehow dont think this would cause issues?

Can we as a whole walk away from power block as an idea? Between Doom, Ram, and now Hazard Im dead tired of the trope of “I put cross my arms and take zero damage, forcing you to run CC or bionade to ever hope to deal with me”

At least with Doom its well integrated into his kit and makes sense, and at least with Doom when you actually interrupt power block he’s squishy enough that focus fire has a real chance to kill him.

In general power blocking is just bad game design in Overwatch as who on earth wins here? Either its atrocious for the attackers who can pump endless damage onto a character who shrugs it off for free, or it forces CC stacking comps and the power blocker doesnt get to have a video game because any time he stands still he gets lit with every interrupt in the game.

Its a trash volatile ability that needs to stop being used as a design crutch when Blizzard realizes their DPS character in the tank role doesnt actually have any “tank-like” ability in his kit, so they just throw on a block for funsies and call it a day.

Just another fun new addition I cant wait to watch improve the game when it comes out in season 14, an existence only meant to be enjoyable by the one playing him, and even then it wont last long when he gets counterpicked into a oblivion because thats what it takes to beat him.

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2

This was never meant for Tanks

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I remember talking about how Venture was the worst abomination to be added into this game and now here I am wanting to write a former apology letter to them.

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They certainly aren’t walking back the CC reduction, that was mostly focused on removing stuns. Only tanks have stuns now, and that remains true. Only one stun per team, despite how many they add with new tanks.

Ana being the eternal exception, as always for some reason

5

I’m sure they have yet another 20yo skinny asian girl for you next year. No use yapping about it.

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Regardless of this they cant be this outrageously blind by adding 3 CC’s to one character, it doesnt matter if CC’s are limited to the tank role if your tank has 3 of them, if anything Id almost view as worse, Id rather 3 CC’s across an entire team than 3 all given to one characater, for the sole reason that chaining them is much easier when youre in sole control of every ability.

There is no point in restricting CC’s to the tank role to limit the amounts in any given match if you overload a single character with them.

Are boops the worst CC in the world? Nope, but Id argue they’re just as infuriating for the fact that control is still wrestled away from your character, and that feeling of not being allowed to play before the dive character can one combo you is still very much present.

In what world does his leap melee even need a boop. Just straight remove it. Its not integral to his kit, if anything it just seems to be an annoying way to boop people into your wall, which again people LOVE cc chaining so much, they love being knocked around.

7

If you had to choose between Doomfist or Hazard, or Hammond and Hazard, or Orisa and Hazard

They all have a bunch of CC, you’re not really getting more or less by having one over another

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Yeah except youre ignoring the context of the abilities, how much the CC even comes into play, how hard it is to land, the counterplay against it, etc.

Doomfist has one CC outside of his ult, and the condition to getting a second is to feed powerblock, its not even innate. Plus his ult is so worthless that landing the slow is quite hard since even it respects LoS and more often used as a reset button than an offensive ult.

Orisa has one in Jav and one in her spear spin which isnt even commonly used for its CC, and is more just an engage or kiting tool, at best its used to push tanks back but if youre ever using it for CC youre out of your mind bad at the game. They could remove the knockback and it would hardly phase Orisa because its CC applications are so niche

Hammond is the only one youre making a point about, but even as much as I despise Hammond this isnt even a character than can realistically one shot you, and all of his CC has pre-reqs before even being able to be used, such as momentum and height. Its better baked into his kit, makes more sense for him to have, and is actually a part of his power budget. His ability to displace and knock up ruins his individual killing power. Its so slow just about every support in the game outside of Zen can heal enough to save someone unless theyre standing dead still.

What does Hazards CC even do for him as a character? What does he give up for them like Hammond? Is there any downside to using these CC’s vs using it for another reason like Orisa’s spin? Does it have an prerequisite like Dooms second CC or Hammond? Would he lose ANYTHING if those CC’s were removed?

Nope. They are pointless fluff additions that do little more than just make the hero do more things for no reason other than to do more things. Its just more CC for CC’s sake, accomplishing nothing than pissing people off for having control taken from them. I promise you right now if you remove the boops from both his leap and wall and not a single thing will change about how he’s played, nor will his players care as they dont even mesh with the character. It serves him in no way to have them.

9

Knockbacks are the perfect CC to have in a game. You lose one aspect of your character for like a second before you gain the ability to control yourself again maintaining all of your mobility, tool, and damage options.

Even worse knockback makes you harder to hit because the enemy team actually has to aim against you while you are moving. Unlike standing still which removes mobility, and makes you easier to headshot.

The root effect is only contained to an ultimate which you might use like 3-4 times a match which tools like healing and blocking or killing people in your LoS to stop them. The CC on this guy is like the least offensive stuff possible.

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His CC gives him a combo on his dash attack, a boop potential with the wall for opponents hanging out on those ledges(which is fine by me this time because it is forcefully pushing you sideways, may as well boop), and his ult is CC. Most tank ults are CC.

Zarya, Rein, Roadhog, Doomfist, Orisa, Winston, Mauga, Sigma, Hammond technically, D.va technically, and now Hazard all have CC on their ultimates and many of those it’s the whole point. Tanks are built around crowd control, that’s part of tanking.

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