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Someone that hasn’t been talked about here for a while is Hanzo. The bowman had always had a very large upside, but his unreliability compared to most other projectile heroes as well as the other long ranged heroes tended to make him a poor option.
This changed once Blizzard put him into the patch spotlight. Hanzo was inconsistent at the top level, but his Scatter Arrow proved frustrating for more casual players. Blizzard figured they could kill two birds with one stone and gave Hanzo a rework. They made him more mobile with an extra leaping jump, and Scatter Arrow was replaced with the barraging Storm Arrows. They also increased his projectile speed.
This was absolutely huge. A good Hanzo could get value out of him beforehand by leading his shots, but now he played almost like a hitscan hero. Storm Arrows were crazy good as well, being able to deal big, consistent damage to unprotected tanks and just providing reliable chip onto just about everything.
The Hanzo meta warped the game. Hanzo got his ultimate extremely fast now, and Dragonstrike was excellent for clearing space. This led to the true exploration of what is now known as the Bunker Composition.
Image Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
Orisa had been a pretty poor choice overall for most of her Overwatch career, but now was her time to shine. Her unique toolkit made her perfect for protecting the slow, stationary compositions that had suddenly become viable. This was also the period in time where Orisa/Hog became a household name. Roadhog wasn’t the most mobile hero to begin with, but Orisa solved this problem. Orisa’s Halt! also created prime opportunities for Hooks. The rest of the team would then focus the unlucky hooked hero, and a kill would be had, even if Roadhog couldn’t finish it himself. The stationary barriers also worked really well for Mercy, who could now use Resurrection safely while also boosting the damage of the high damage heroes. Brigitte and D.Va also made frequent appearances on this new composition.
This was a very odd change for Overwatch. The esport had always been known for being lighting quick. Now it was a poke fest where teams tried to slowly wear each other down. This departure wasn’t super well received by players, but it would soon come to an end.
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