Overwatch 2 Hanzo buff may see overall roster health debuffed

The recent Overwatch 2 Reddit AMA was enlightening for many upcoming changes, including a fairly peculiar Hanzo buff. In simple terms, the game's roster may see health nerfs to accommodate the one-shot nerf that the bow-wielding sniper from the Shimada family received last year. This nerf removed his one-shot ability, which meant players needed to shoot twice to defeat foes.

This new development took away from the satisfying one-shot kills and upset much of the core fandom. While it looks like Blizzard Entertainment aims to fix things, they may go for a roundabout approach that will baffle players even further.

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Overwatch 2 may reduce roster health to bring back lethal Hanzo headshots

AMA with Overwatch hero design team-- We'll be here to answer questions on the Season 10 midcycle balance patch tomorrow, May 23rd, from 12 to 2 PM PT! byu/Blizz_Jodie inCompetitiveoverwatch

Here's what one of the Overwatch 2 developers had to say about Hanzo's current state in the game at the AMA session:

"Hanzo is still an effective mid-range burst damage hero even without the one-shot kills. Post season 9 with the projectile size changes actually saw an increase in Hanzo's performance on the stat side. I do hear you on the loss of how good the one shot kills felt, but an overarching goal of season 9 was to reduce a lot of those burst damage frustrations for players on the receiving end of it. Armor changes in season 10 have also been a benefit to his damage."

Here's the official statement on what may be done to solve this fan complaint:

"Still very early but we've been experimenting with adjusting health pools for some of the more evasive or high damage heroes which would also put them back into the range of lethal Hanzo headshots and some other hero combos at 225 HP, but while it would bring some interesting texture to hero interactions overall there are also a bunch of other problems to solve if we want to go through with it."

In other words, several heroes that are heavy hitters (such as Widowmaker) will be seeing reductions to their health to allow Hanzo players to deal with the major threat quickly. However, this seems like a band-aid solution, especially since many players pointed out that while his projectile size has been increased, Hanzo's rate of fire is fairly slow - the slowest among all snipers in Overwatch 2.

Considering that his arrows have a projectile arc and shooting from long range is futile with the no-headshot nerf as the target can simply flee, Hanzo players' frustrations are understandable. Furthermore, Widowmaker, the other ranged sniper in the game, has her headshot ability intact and her shots are hitscan - in other words, easier to land as they do not have travel time.

As the comments on the thread clearly show, fans are upset with this response and are demanding proper changes to the character instead of tweaks that make no sense. How things play out from here remains to be seen as the Overwatch 2 team does not always pay heed to community input. A recent instance of this can be seen in Blizzard's poor monetization decisions and other hero-balancing changes.

With Season 10 live right now, it remains to be seen what further changes arrive in the future. The team has already promised tweaks for several heroes in Overwatch 2 Season 11, so here's hoping Hanzo emerges in a better state.