The Overwatch 2 developers at Blizzard have to struggle with nerfing and buffing various heroes constantly. Akin to MOBAs, this style of FPS game is also almost impossible to balance perfectly. This is why players will see various changes in the patch notes every few weeks.
The main problem
Unlike your standard style of FPS games, hero-based shooters are pretty challenging from a development standpoint. Making sure that heroes are constantly tweaked is the only way to keep the gameplay balanced and exciting. The fact that every hero has his own array of abilities only makes things even more difficult. Until now, Roadhog was a dominant hero in Overwatch 2, so let’s see how Blizzard is trying to fix this issue.
Roadhog and other nerfs
Roadhog is a returning hero from the first game, where he was also very popular. He is a chunky maniac that thrives in dragging people towards him with his chain before blowing them away with his trusty shotgun. He is an aggressive tank type since he doesn’t have any abilities to help him shrug off damage. His playstyle focuses on being up close and personal with your enemies with a healer backing you up.
Many players have complained that once Roadhog hooks you, it’s way too easy for him to one-shot you. This is why they’ve nerfed his hook and primary weapon. Here are the full details:
Chain hookÂ
- The impact damage has been reduced from 30 to 5
- The final position that your target ends up respective to you after a successful hook has been increased to four meters instead of three
Scrap gun
- Overall damage per pellet reduced to 6 from 6.6
- Recovery time has been reduced to 0.8 seconds from 0.85
- Reloading reduced to 1.75 seconds from 2
- It can now hold a maximum of 6 shots instead of 5
The hope here is that these nerfs will allow players to actually get to react after being hooked. Or if a healer is backing you, this might give him a window to save you, which was impossible for low-health heroes in the past.
Blizzard has also nerfed a couple of other heroes. Orisa’s health bonus from her Fortify ability has been reduced to 75 from 125. Sojourn’s railgun now gives a fixed five energy when you hit an enemy instead of it being based on the amount of damage dealt. The damage per shot has also been reduced to 9 instead of 10.
This patch came out on January 24, 2023 and if you want to read the full patch notes you can do so here.
