We recently reported on Blizzard planning on making changes to Roadhog’s Hook ability. Blizzard intended to make the hook more balanced, as Overwatch players have reported on being hooked around corners and through walls.
Last week, Overwatch Principal Designer Geoff Goodman, revealed that the team is working on making changes to Roadhog, and later that week, a new update was available in the PTR. After the update’s release, and its testing, Geoff Goodman shared his thoughts on the changes made to Roadhog.
He shared his thoughts on the changes in a Forum post. In the post, he talked about how the nerf was a little too harsh, and more changes are being made to the hero. He said that a new PTR update has been released which adds,”some more line of sight checks towards the left/right of a potential hook target.” Goodman explained. “This means it should be easier to hook someone who is sticking halfway out of a doorway, or behind a thin pole, etc. These checks are also used for the persistent line of sight check, so if a hook target moves behind a slim object like a stump or a light pole, they won’t be released anymore.”
The Overwatch developers also made changes to how the hook effects the target if hooked in mid-air. Goodman explained,”Hooked targets are now slowed heavily while they are stunned, even if they are in the air. This means if someone is strafe jumping away from you and you land a hook, they are a lot less likely to slide out of line on sight, breaking the hook.”
The upcoming update does not impact Roadhog only, it makes changes to the support sniper, Ana, and the hacker, Sombra. The cooldown on Sombra’s Hack drops ability has been rescaled from 12 seconds to 8 seconds, while Ana’s Biotic Grenade has been reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.
Blizzard did not announce a release date for the update, but we can expect it to drop later this month. Overwatch is developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, and is available on the PS4, Xbox One and PC.
