The latest Overwatch 2 patch notes carry a big nerf to Roadhog’s Chain Hook damage and distance.
Roadhog has been one of the most OP heroes recently. Players have complained quite a lot about his domination this season. Expect to see some more adjustments to this Hero in future updates to balance his abilities out.
Related: Overwatch 2 Tank Guide
HERO UPDATES
TANK
ORISA
Fortify
- Health bonus reduced from 125 to 75
ROADHOG (Overwatch 2 Roadhog Nerf)
Developer comments on the Roadhog Nerf: These changes aim to reduce the frustration of dying in one shot immediately after being hooked and pulled by Roadhog.
Chain Hook is still a powerful utility to forcibly reposition enemy players, so it will still often lead to eliminations. Its effectiveness will now be more dependent on specific hero matchups and how the hooked target is able to respond.
Chain Hook
- Impact damage reduced from 30 to 5
- The enemy’s final position distance from Roadhog after being pulled increased from 3 to 4 meters
Scrap Gun
- Damage per pellet reduced from 6.6 to 6
- Recovery time reduced from 0.85 to 0.8 seconds
- Reload time reduced from 2 to 1.75 seconds
- Maximum ammo increased from 5 to 6
DAMAGE
SOJOURN
Developer comments: The energy gain adjustment will help smooth out Sojourn’s average Railgun charge time because it won’t benefit as much from critical damage or damage boost abilities. Hitting armored targets or other sources of damage reduction will result in quicker energy gains than before.
Previously, damage boosts and critical damage had an amplified effect for Sojourn since it reduced the time to build energy and lowered the threshold at which her Railgun secondary fire became lethal. The reduction to primary fire damage will further slow that down as well.
Basically, Sojourn has been nerfed quite a bit in previous patches. Furthermore, these nerfs to Sojourn may have similar effects on team composition as the Overwatch Roadhog nerfs.
Railgun
- Energy gain is no longer based on damage done by primary fire. Each primary fire hit against an enemy player now grants 5 energy
- Primary fire damage per projectile reduced from 10 to 9
SUPPORT
KIRIKO
Developer comments: Despite Kiriko’s healing projectiles being slow-moving and single target, her average healing output per match is higher than we’d like. We’ve seen players tend to get overly focused on maximizing her healing potential and only use primary fire for extended periods of time.
Rather than reduce the amount of healing per projectile, which may lead to feeling locked into focusing on primary fire even more, we’re increasing the recovery time before she can start firing the Healing Ofuda. Increasing recovery times opens the opportunity to weave in secondary fire Kunai more freely.
Healing Ofuda
- Recovery time increased from 0.85 to 1 second
BUG FIXES
GENERAL
- Fixed an issue with the “Winged Sandals’ weapon charm’s ‘How to Unlock’ text
- Adjusted footstep audio mixing to make enemy footsteps more audible.
HEROES
Lucio
- Fixed an issue with Lucio’s Hermes skin exhibiting incorrect physics
Reinhardt
- Fixed an issue with Reinhardt’s Hammer appearing deformed during the Sweethardt emote
Sojourn
- Fixed an issue where Sojourn’s Cyber Detective Skin would fail to load
Wrecking Ball
- Fixed an issue with Adaptive Shield where it could be incorrectly applied before the cooldown was complete
Overwatch Roadhog Nerfs Conclusion
It remains to be seen if the players start to feel that this Overwatch Roadhog nerf is enough to make the game more balanced. However, it should be obviouis that Blizzard is not done with tweaking both Sojourn and Roadhog.
