Overwatch’s Roadhog, Winston getting nerfed and buffed

The Hog's reach shrinks, the Gorilla gets stronger

In a new Overwatch Battle.net blog, we’ve discovered that Winston and Roadhog are on deck for tweaks and changes in the coming weeks.  Principal Designer Geoff Goodman posted the short update.

Roadhog and Winston changes coming to the PTR:

We have a new build coming soon that has some Roadhog and Winston changes to test out.

Roadhog

  • Scrap Gun
    • Spread decreased by 20%
  • Chain Hook
    • Targets are now pulled to a location 3.5 meters away, up from 2 meters.
    • Cooldown increased from 6 to 8

Winston

  • Critical hit volume reduced by 15%

Basically this amounts to nerfs to the Hog, namely in his reach and the spread of his gun. However as a user in the comments below pointed out, he actually gets a buff to his close range damage because of this. Meanwhile Winston should be getting a slight tweak to the amount of damage he takes from critical hits, making him tougher. This is of course provided the changes make it off PTR and onto the live game. First Bastion was buffed, and now it seems more heroes are on deck for a little tweaking.

*Thanks for the info, Nicholas!

 

3 Comments

  1. I have to nit-pick if that’s ok? I play the game a lot. Like.. 500 hours or something lol. Anyways in the summary of the changes you listed a few things as buffs/nerfs that I disagree with. I wanted to point out that Roadhogs spread decrease is, by itself, a buff to his close range ability. While as you said, it all amounts to a nerf.. the community likes to take these things and freak out over them. The winston change is regarding his critical hitbox on his head being reduced in size, which is essentially a buff to his survivability. Anyways you prolly don’t need to change it since these are ptr changes that might not even hit live, but I had to nit-pick because Idk I thought you’d want to know. ? I love the new site man. Hoping to see you guys have a few write ups about The Ringed City as well.

    • Thanks for the insight! I’ll tweak the news a bit to reflect this. You definitely know more than me on the subject.

      • I’m honored :). Roadhog prolly needs this nerf according to the complaints on the blizzard forums anyways. Before Hook 2.0 there was counter-play to his one shot kill combo, where you could use a movement or protection ability to save yourself/someone else. Since the hook changes, he’s more deadly than ever. I think the point of these changes is to bring back the ability to escape his combo if you’re fast enough. Which should make him feel more fair to everyone except the roadhog mains. 🙂

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