Good job. All that fun you had with Hanzo’s rework is already getting him nerfed

Okay, okay. It wasn’t you specifically that got Hanzo nerfed in Overwatch. In fact, it’s a fairly common occurrence among Blizzard games to introduce new or updated heroes that feel (and are) overtuned. It’s not very much fun to have something brand new receive tons of hype only to premiere significantly weaker than expected. In Hanzo’s case, his rework’s major change was the removal of Scatter Arrow, with Storm Arrows taking its place.

Storm Arrows gives Hanzo a limited duration to fire off a total of six high-damage, full-speed arrows without needing to charge his shots whatsoever. Currently, these arrows each do 80 damage with a normal hit and 160 damage with a critical hit (headshot). For comparison, a fully charged normal arrow from Hanzo does 125 base damage. It makes Storm Arrows very deadly — too deadly, as it turns out.

In an upcoming patch, the base damage is being dropped to 70. As a result, a single Storm Arrow will no longer be able to one-shot 150-health heroes like Tracer, nor will it be able to one-shot 200-health heroes while under the effects of a damage boost (which it previously could). Geoff Goodman hopped on the forums to announce the nerfs:

In a follow-up, one player asked if Blizzard would also look at the charge rate of Hanzo’s Ultimate. At the moment, Hanzo is able to fire off his infamous Dragonstrike fairly frequently. Goodman, however, says they’re not looking at the charge rate just yet:

It makes sense when you think about it. The nerf to Storm Arrows is a nerf to the charge rate of Dragonstrike. It may be an incidental nerf, but it’s a nerf all the same. Plus, it’s reassuring to know the developers aren’t afraid to revisit it if it remains an issue.

Overall, I’m objectively happy with this adjustment. Yes, it’s been fun decimating enemies with Storm Arrows, but that fun is a one-way street. And that sort of fun is never healthy in competitive video games.