On January 24, 2023, a new balance patch was released for Overwatch 2. This was the long-awaited patch where many players were hoping these soft reworks for the character would be implemented. It wasn’t, but he was addressed in terms of his lethality as a tank. So with the changes now in effect, is Roadhog not good anymore after the latest patch in Overwatch 2? Here, we’ll go over the nerfs and explain what this means for the character moving forward.
Is Roadhog Not Good Anymore After the Latest Patch?
Now comes the big question about Hog’s viability. He’s still very strong overall, but mostly lost a significant chunk of his burst damage. Typically, he was able to hook grab a Hero with 225 health or lower and kill them following up with a scrap gunshot into a quick melee.
This isn’t the case anymore given the last patch, so here are the details regarding it:
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
Doing the math before, an optimal hook one-shot combo would do just about 225 damage. With the recent changes to the damage numbers, an optimal hook combo will do 185 damage. That’s about an 18% damage decrease to the combo.
This means that the only Heroes who can still die in the Chain Hook combo are D.Va outside of her mech and Tracer. However, also looking at the patch notes regarding Roadhog’s nerfs, that still may not be guaranteed.
His Chain Hook now leaves enemies 1 additional meter away from where it used to be. Because of that change, some of the pellets fired from his Scrap Gun are more likely to miss. Also, with the extra meter of distance, affected players are able to move away from Roadhog’s crosshair, ensuring that they can survive.
Players seem to be divided on whether Roadhog is still good after the latest balance patch. On the Reddit side, he’s completely gutted. Players on Tik Tok say otherwise.
Can Roadhog Still 1-Shot Players?
According to this TikTok, there’s a new method to perform the 1-shot Chain Hook combo. All you have to do is jump and time it so that while airborne, your hooked enemy will be pulled mid-air. During the time they’re being pulled and landing, you move forward and aim for a headshot followed by a melee.
On paper, that does seem like a more skillful way to do this, but it isn’t too consistent. That extra meter does allow a hooked player to escape much more easily. Plus, in the video, the player performs this on a practice bot. When applied in an actual game, the combo is way more likely to fail at higher levels since players will tend to strafe or use other tactics to get away.
You still can, however, salvage the damage nerf. Mercy is still a thing, thanks to her damage-boosting capability. Also, with a communicative team, they can finish off the rest of the damage that Roadhog cannot do in a short time. This just makes him less of a solo Hero and requires a bit more communication to be viable.
So, in short, Roadhog is still very strong in the meta. While he’s not as damaging as before, he’s far from being “not good anymore”. This also isn’t going to be the last we’ll see regarding changes for him.
Overwatch 2 is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
