Roadhog Specialists Say Nerfs Completely Killed Him
Not too long ago, Roadhog was on top of the meta. The retail patch that had hit on August 13, 2020 had increased his pellet damage from 6 to 7, giving Roadhog so much potential that some of the Overwatch League teams have been playing the offtank hero exclusively. In competitive mode even at high ranks, he became a staple next to D.Va or Orisa, manifesting one of the first main-tank-less metas in Overwatch history. He was strong, despite two additional nerfs that came alongside the buff, reducing his ammo from 6 to 5 and increasing his recovery time between shots from 0.7 to 0.85 seconds. In the patch that had hit live servers on September 10, 2020, Roadhog's projectile damage had once again been nerfed back to the initial value of 6 though his nerfs remained, putting him in a worse spot than even before this row of changes.
Pro players and streamers who are considered specialists on the hero responded to the changes on social media in a harsh way. Community favourite Anthony "harbleu" Ballo had no kind words for the developers, stating that he had "lost faith" in Blizzard's balancing team. While he agreed that Roadhog had been too strong, he didn't understand the severity of the changes.
Former pro player Max "Moose" Kießling who had made a name for himself with Roadhog during his stint in Clockwork Vendetta seemed to share the belief that Roadhog had been nerfed to infeasibility.
"He'd be completely fine if he was like before the damage buff", moose stated in a follow-up tweet.
The Overwatch League will continue to play on the patch that saw the Roadhog buffs, so the changes won't impact the remainder of the season. During the playoffs, Roadhog had been played 33.6% of the time, being the third most-played tank behind D.Va (69.0%) and Winston (45.3%). The Washington Justice, who are currently in the lower bracket quarter-finals where they will be playing the Los Angeles Valiant, had almost exclusively been playing the hero with Hyeon-Woo "JJANU" Choi playing the hero.
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