EsportsJohn Profile Blog Joined June 2012 United States 4833 Posts #1







Math of the Storm Hanzo Written by: ChaosOS







Hanzo is the newest Marksman in Heroes of the Storm, trading damage for range while providing moderate utility and mobility. He was extremely underwhelming at BlizzCon and on the PTR, and Blizzard sought to compensate for with a +10% damage boost across the board. Whether this damage boost will be enough to make him relevant is yet to be seen.



The spreadsheet for today’s article can be found











Base Kit



HP: 1323

Health Regen: 2.76 HP/s

Damage: 176

Attack Speed: 0.67

Attack Period: 1.5s

Attack Range: 7.5

Radius: 0.75



Hanzo’s base stats are on the low side for a marksman. He has the fourth lowest base health pool, ahead of Raynor, Valla, and Tracer, and his level 20 DPS is only ahead of Zagara and Lunara. Despite these raw statistical disadvantages, he does have two distinct strengths.



First, he has the longest base attack range in the game at 7.5. Second, his attack period is the longest in the game at 1.5 seconds per attack (translating to his attack speed of 0.67). While his damage point is slightly longer than the other marksmen at 0.1875s, this still results in him having some of the best stutter stepping in the game at only a 12.5% effective slow. For the record, the best stutter stepping in the game (other than heroes that can attack while moving) goes to Rexxar.



Stutter stepping is the practice of maximizing mobility while still maintaining full DPS by moving between each attack. Each character’s auto attack effectively has a cooldown equal to its attack period (attack period is the inverse of attack speed) and has a cast time equal to its damage point. Optimal stutter stepping involves a long attack period and a short damage point. Characters with fast attack speeds, like Tychus and Zarya, leave barely any time in between attacks to move, forcing them to “turret up”.





Base Kit





Storm Bow (Q)



Cooldown: 4s

Cost: 15 mana

Range: 6m-13m

Width: 0.5m

Speed: 36 m/s



Storm Bow is a major damage source for Hanzo by dealing 297 damage to the first target it hits. Channeling Storm Bow does not add any damage, only range, and does not slow Hanzo’s movespeed. Instant attacks represent 74.25 DPS, but the short base range means Hanzo must usually channel for some amount of time to actually hit a target. This reduces the effective DPS, as the cooldown starts when Hanzo fires rather than when he starts to channel.



Scatter Arrow (W)



Cooldown: 8s

Cost: 40 mana

Range: 16m

Width: 0.4m

Speed: 34 m/s



Ricochet

Range: 16m

Width: 0.4m

Speed: 34 m/s



Hanzo’s Scatter Arrow is a unique skillshot. The initial arrow only does 93 damage, however if the initial arrow hits a piece of terrain or a structure the arrow bounces and splits into 5 arrows. Each of these arrows can hit the same target and deal a total of 465 damage. Conveniently, Blizzard has created some very cool tech for Hanzo, with an indicator that shows where each of the ricochets will bounce to.



Hanzo (and Junkrat and Lucio, as of the new patch) can see the exact boundaries of the terrain around them. Because the ricochet arrows split quickly, Hanzo is much stronger in narrow jungle corridors rather than wide open lanes.



Sonic Arrow (E)



Cooldown: 20s

Cost: 50 mana

Range: 20m

Radius: 0.5m

Speed: 1.5 m/s



Sonic Arrow reveals a 10m radius around the target area, or, if the arrow hits an enemy hero, it sticks in the hero and reveals a 10m radius around the enemy hero. Sonic Arrow can do 165 damage to heroes if it hits, but the long delay of 1.5s and narrow area makes it difficult to hit. The reveal lasts 8 seconds, with a 12 second effective cooldown. The relatively constant up-time and large reveal area makes it the best reveal ability in the game, hands down.



Dragonstrike (R)



Cooldown: 100s

Cost: 100 mana

Cast Intro: 1.5s



Arrow

Range: 7.5m

Speed: 35 m/s



Dragon

Range: 36m (24 max dragon length, travels total of 12m)

Outer Width: 9m

Inner Width: 3m

Speed: 10 m/s



Dragonstrike is Hanzo’s signature ability. It deals 58 damage per 0.25s (232 DPS) to enemies in the outer radius and 78 damage per 0.25s (348 DPS) to enemies in the inner radius. Testing on the target dummy in Try Mode, an enemy standing still inconsistently takes 9 or 10 ticks of damage for a total of 522/580 damage on the edge or 702/780 damage to an enemy in the inner radius.



This may be more consistently the higher value on real heroes due to their larger radius. Given that this requires the target to stand still for over 2 seconds, this damage seems extremely low, but coupled with strong CC like a Mosh Pit or Ring of Frost, the teamwide damage it can cause might justify its poor single target damage.



Dragonstrike has a minimum range of 7.5m, making it useless as an anti-dive tool. Due to the minimum range, Hanzo needs to play back a bit further to ensure that Dragonstrike hits the intended pathway.



Dragon's Arrow (R)



Cooldown: 70s

Cost: 90 mana

Cast Intro: 0.125s

First range: 11m

Second range: 23m

Width: 2.5m

Speed: 20 m/s

Radius: 4m



Dragon Arrow fires a global skillshot that does 130 damage and stuns for 0.5 seconds to any hero hit in the first range, deals 260 damage and stuns for 1.25s to enemies in between the first and second range, and deals 390 damage and stuns for 2 seconds to enemies farther than the second range. Any enemy within 4 meters of the impact also takes the damage and is stunned.



Dragon Arrow bears close resemblance to Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow inLeague of Legends. The long-range sniping potential combined with the area of effect stun is particularly strong in combination with stunlock combos and forcing an engagement.





Talents







Preferred Build





Level 1







Target Practice is an interesting Q quest. Rather than simply hitting a certain number of heroes, Hanzo has to hit each enemy hero to gain a benefit. This encourages Hanzo to act as a roamer trying to get picks with his damage. The first tier of bonus range increases the base range to 7.8, and the max range to. The +100 damage bonus represents a 34% damage boost baseline, but as the game goes on it only represents a 15% damage boost by level 20. Versus Abathur, this talent does *not* stack off the clone.



Simple Geometry improves Hanzo’s burst damage by increasing the number of ricochet arrows from 5 to 7, a 40% increase. This increases the total damage of Scatter Arrow from 465 to 651. This damage can be further augmented by Giant Slayer, which synergizes well with the extra ricochet arrows. The quest portion requires enemy heroes to be near walls, as the spread of the arrows makes it impossible to hit someone in open space. While this applies to Hanzo in general, taking this quest is dependent on maps with narrow corridors like Tomb of the Spider Queen where Hanzo can reliably hit a hero with multiple ricochet arrows.



Redemption incentivizes Hanzo to lane and poke down a hero. Attacking an enemy hero applies a 10 second marker that is consumed by Hanzo’s next basic attack, giving Hanzo a quest stack. Because of Hanzo’s long attack period of 1.5 seconds, this can be difficult if the enemy hero retreats after being hit by a basic attack. The fastest Hanzo can complete this quest is 34.5 seconds with Hanzo constantly basic attacking a hero. The reward at 12 stacks improves Hanzo’s attack speed to 1.0 and drops his attack period to 1.5, providing a base 88 DPS increase.



Redemption and Target Practice seem to be the better talents on this tier, from play experience and expert opinion. Simple Geometry is a difficult quest to complete and the reward is inconsistent, because the extra arrows will often miss if the enemy is not right next to the wall. Several pros advocate Target Practice, but against certain heroes such as Abathur, it’s unrealistic to stack the talent.





Level 4







Explosive Arrows causes Hanzo’s Storm Bow to splash for 100% in a 3 meter radius around the target, if that target is a minion or monster. This makes Storm Bow a source of wave clear for Hanzo, and should let him clear a minion wave in two hits of Storm Bow when combined with basic attacks against the footmen. One caveat is that this requires Hanzo to get an angle to shoot the middle of the wave, which is more difficult when sieging. Furthermore, if the arrow hits a structure it will not splash, which is relevant when a wave is halfway through an enemy gate. One added benefit of Explosive Arrow is it also works against monsters, which is relevant for Infernal Shrines. This talent does *not* benefit from Piercing Arrows.



Serrated Arrows drastically improves Scatter Arrow’s damage against minions, monsters and mercenaries, from totaling 425 to 1162.5 and each individual ricochet arrow from 85 to 232.5. However, due to the unreliability of Scatter Arrow in more wide open spaces, this talent is less reliable for waveclear. It’s possible there is an angle on Battlefield of Eternity that can hit the Immortal with everything though, which would make Hanzo one of the better heroes for immortal DPS.



The primary function of Serrated Arrows, however, is to improve Hanzo’s damage versus mercenaries, as the enclosed space of a mercenary camp makes it extremely easy to ensure all of the ricochets hit the mercenaries. The initial shot of Scatter Arrow ignores mercenaries, meaning that finding the right angle is incredibly easy.



Ignore All Distractions allows Hanzo to one shot minions with his basic attacks and increases his range from 7.5 to 9.5 for 3 seconds. 9.5 range lets Hanzo outrange turrets and keeps. The buff is long enough to fire two more basic attacks with the improved range, or 3 more with a completed Redemption.



Hanzo’s level 4 tier is about synergy with his level 1 talents and what Hanzo expects to be doing. Explosive Arrows is best for waveclear and shrine clear on Infernal Shrines, but Serrated Arrows improves his mercenary clear. Ignore All Distractions improves Hanzo’s in lane harass. Unlike many other “themed tiers”, this one appears to offer genuine playstyle choices in a way that is not parasitic on other talents.





Level 7







Shieldbreaker Arrows improves Hanzo’s basic attacks to deal 440 damage against shielded targets, and his Storm Bow to deal 742.5 damage (+250 that does not scale with a completed Target Practice). This talent is another in a trend of developing anti-shield talents, partially a delayed response to the early 2017 “Shield Meta” that presaged the Genji-led dive meta.



The Dragon Hungers improves Hanzo’s spellpower by 5% every time he hits an enemy hero with Storm Bow. This synergizes with both Q and W talents, turning Hanzo into more of a sustained spell damage dealer. This takes a minimum of 12 seconds to stack and is fairly unforgiving with misses, as more than one miss in a row will drop the spellpower buff. 20% spellpower improves Storm Bow’s damage to 356.4 (a 59.4 damage increase) and increases the damage on Scatter Arrow to 111.6 damage per ricochet arrow, improving the total damage from 465 to 558. This is an increase of 18.6 damage per ricochet arrow and a total damage improvement of 93. With Target Practice at level 1, the flat 100 bonus damage is increased by 20 to 120, while with Simple Geometry at level 1, the total damage is increased by 37.2.



Never Outmatched decreases the cooldown of Scatter Arrow with every basic attack by 3 seconds. Firing two basic attacks can decrease the cooldown on Scatter Arrow from 8 seconds to 2. This is not sustainable with Hanzo’s base attack period of 1.5s but is reasonable for a short 2 to 3 second engagement. Redemption at level 1 makes this a sustainable pattern of scatter arrow, two basic attacks, then repeat.



Hanzo’s level 7 is his second damage tier. Unlike many other damage tiers, each of Hanzo’s talents synergize with two different level 1 talents, giving him significant flexibility over heroes like Ragnaros who have very linear build paths. Shieldbreaker Arrows is an obviously strong but situational talent.





Level 13







Fleet of Foot increases Hanzo’s movespeed by 0.44 m/s per stack, up to a total 1.32 m/s at 3 stacks. It takes at least 8 seconds to stack up, and if Hanzo misses a single Storm Bow then the buff will drop due to the cooldown.



Ninja Assassin reduces the cooldown on Natural Agility by 10 seconds each time Storm Bow hits an enemy hero. If Hanzo uses Natural Agility and uses Storm Bow twice, he can have it available again in as short as 5 seconds. The cooldown reset is a bonus that is conditionally relevant, however the power of the CDR provided by Storm Bow means it will probably only be relevant for Dragon Arrow or Scatter Arrow long-range finishing snipes.



Mounted Archery is an unusual take on a mobility talent, temporarily buffing Hanzo’s mounted movespeed whenever he mounts up and instantly mounting him after he uses Natural Agility. Normally it’s preferable to only mount up when traveling more than 14.7 meters, due to the cast speed of Mount Up, but with the bonus movespeed from Mounted Archery this drops to 7.3 meters. These distances of course are only for if Hanzo is purely concerned with movement and not with trying to do things while he moves, such as charge and fire Storm Bow shots or scout with Sonic Arrow. As a reference point, Vision radius is 12.75m and Hanzo’s basic attack range is 7.5m, so this moves the ‘mounting more optimal’ distance from just beyond vision range to about halfway.



The mobility options on this tier are very different and difficult to compare. Fleet of Foot offers the most mobility in open spaces where Hanzo’s trait isn’t very useful, such as on maps like Sky Temple where the objective is in an open space. By contrast, Ninja Assassin is best on crowded maps like Towers of Doom that have many walls for Hanzo to jump over, get a pick, and then retreat. Mounted Archery offers more of a middle ground, not reliant on constantly jumping over walls to gain an advantage but rather dramatically improving Hanzo’s escape and repositioning once per fight.





Level 16







Flawless Technique improves Hanzo’s basic attack damage by 44 after he hits a hero with Storm Bow and increases Storm Bow’s damage by 74.25 when he basic attacks an enemy hero. This works out to 118.25 bonus damage per Storm Bow cast, as in a teamfight it can be reasonably expected that Hanzo can weave Basic Attacks and Storm Bow together in an equitable fashion.



Piercing Arrows potentially doubles the output of Storm Bow, from 297 damage per arrow to 594 damage per arrow. This heavily synergizes with all of the earlier Q talents, as both hits can count for procs on The Dragon Hungers, Fleet of Foot, and Ninja Assassin, dramatically decreasing the time it takes to stack each of those buffs. Similar to Piercing Sands on Chromie, this talent can dramatically decrease the protection offered by enemy tanks and improve Hanzo’s fairly limited target selection.



The talent doesn’t just buff Hanzo’s Storm Bow, it also buffs Scatter Arrow. The extended tooltip is slightly misleading, as the ability to pierce refreshes every time an arrow hits a wall, rather than stacking. Even if an arrow bounces two times before hitting its first target, it will only pierce the first enemy and then end with the second.



Giant Slayer adds significant percentage damage to Hanzo’s basic attacks and Scatter Arrows, boosting both his DPS and burst. A full scatter arrow of 5 shots can deal up to 6.25% of the target’s HP, which can be worth upwards of 187.5 damage on a hero as tanky as Stitches (who, notably, has a large hitbox that makes hitting many ricochet arrows easy). This talent synergizes with both the basic attack and W level 1 quests and Never Outmatched at level 7.



As Hanzo’s third damage tier, the apparent winners are Piercing Arrows and Giant Slayer. Piercing Arrows is an important piece of the “Q build”, giving Hanzo dramatically improved access to backline targets that would otherwise hide behind. Giant Slayer is a strong talent with Redemption, synergizing strongly with Never Outmatched to provide strong tank-busting.



Flawless technique unfortunately just doesn’t add enough damage to compete with Giant Slayer and Piercing Arrows because it only adds a small amount of single target damage. Giant Slayer with 7 procs on a target per Storm Bow cast outperforms Flawless Technique if the target hero has at least 1350 base HP, which covers the vast majority of the cast.





Level 20







The Dragon Awakens can offer a significant amount of cooldown reduction to Dragonstrike. With the Redemption at 1 and Never Outmatched at 7, Hanzo can potentially

reduce the cooldown of Dragonstrike by 35 seconds every 2 seconds, with Scatter Arrow and two basic attacks. This could reduce the cooldown of Dragonstrike to as low as 6 seconds, which can easily translate into two or even three Dragonstrikes in a teamfight. The biggest liability is that Dragonstrike doesn’t work well in melee range and the long cast time may be prohibitive in a teamfight.



Play of the Game offers Hanzo a potentially global teleport, landing Hanzo 12m away from the target and dealing 132 damage if the arrow landed. Because Dragon Arrow travels at 20 m/s, it can functionally be used to let Hanzo travel at 450% MS while ignoring terrain.



Sharpened Arrowheads completely denies enemies the benefits of armor. This talent is best used against armor-reliant tanks like Garrosh, Arthas, or ETC.



Bullseye decreases the delay on Sonic Arrow from 1.5s to 0.75s and increases the radius from 0.5m to 1m. It also provides a 1 second stun if Hanzo can hit the bullseye on an enemy hero, but as mentioned before, actually hitting heroes is difficult and often counter to the proper use of Sonic Arrow.



Hanzo’s level 20 tier is a mishmash of powerful talents that all offer radically different functions. The Dragon Awakens offers an almost cheesy level of CDR on his ultimate, while Play of the Game gives Hanzo a global teleport. While certainly less flashy, Sharpened Arrowheads is a potential option for ruining heroes like Garrosh who rely heavily on armor.





Final Thoughts



Hanzo, by the numbers, doesn’t seem very impressive. His one mobility skill is unusually limited by the fact that it can only go over walls. Combined with Scatter Arrow and Sonic Arrow, Hanzo’s preferred terrain is much more of a maze compared to the usual open plains a marksman prefers.



These factors at least give him unique differences from the rest of the cast, but his overall damage numbers still seem low for a character with no major CC skills. His weaknesses in open terrain, such as sieging in a lane, make him generally a risky pick as most maps have large, open areas for teamfighting. His best maps will most likely be maps such as Tomb of the Spider Queen and Cursed Hollow, both of which have many narrow areas where teamfights break out.



It’s unclear if he’ll be competitively viable. At first glance, the answer has to be no considering there are far stronger long-range assassins like Chromie and Genji who can fulfill his role better. However, we’ll be watching with bated breath as HGC returns in January with more competitive Heroes of the Storm action.











Joseph "ChaosOS" Meehan is an avid Heroes of the Storm enthusiast who just enjoys mathing things out. You can check out his blog on HeroesHearth for more in-depth patch analysis and follow him on Twitter. Hanzo is the newest Marksman in Heroes of the Storm, trading damage for range while providing moderate utility and mobility. He was extremely underwhelming at BlizzCon and on the PTR, and Blizzard sought to compensate for with a +10% damage boost across the board. Whether this damage boost will be enough to make him relevant is yet to be seen.The spreadsheet for today’s article can be found here Hanzo’s base stats are on the low side for a marksman. He has the fourth lowest base health pool, ahead of Raynor, Valla, and Tracer, and his level 20 DPS is only ahead of Zagara and Lunara. Despite these raw statistical disadvantages, he does have two distinct strengths.First, he has the longest base attack range in the game at 7.5. Second, his attack period is the longest in the game at 1.5 seconds per attack (translating to his attack speed of 0.67). While his damage point is slightly longer than the other marksmen at 0.1875s, this still results in him having some of the best stutter stepping in the game at only a 12.5% effective slow. For the record, the best stutter stepping in the game (other than heroes that can attack while moving) goes to Rexxar.Stutter stepping is the practice of maximizing mobility while still maintaining full DPS by moving between each attack. Each character’s auto attack effectively has a cooldown equal to its attack period (attack period is the inverse of attack speed) and has a cast time equal to its damage point. Optimal stutter stepping involves a long attack period and a short damage point. Characters with fast attack speeds, like Tychus and Zarya, leave barely any time in between attacks to move, forcing them to “turret up”.Storm Bow is a major damage source for Hanzo by dealing 297 damage to the first target it hits. Channeling Storm Bow does not add any damage, only range, and does not slow Hanzo’s movespeed. Instant attacks represent 74.25 DPS, but the short base range means Hanzo must usually channel for some amount of time to actually hit a target. This reduces the effective DPS, as the cooldown starts when Hanzo fires rather than when he starts to channel.Hanzo’s Scatter Arrow is a unique skillshot. The initial arrow only does 93 damage, however if the initial arrow hits a piece of terrain or a structure the arrow bounces and splits into 5 arrows. Each of these arrows can hit the same target and deal a total of 465 damage. Conveniently, Blizzard has created some very cool tech for Hanzo, with an indicator that shows where each of the ricochets will bounce to.Hanzo (and Junkrat and Lucio, as of the new patch) can see the exact boundaries of the terrain around them. Because the ricochet arrows split quickly, Hanzo is much stronger in narrow jungle corridors rather than wide open lanes.Sonic Arrow reveals a 10m radius around the target area, or, if the arrow hits an enemy hero, it sticks in the hero and reveals a 10m radius around the enemy hero. Sonic Arrow can do 165 damage to heroes if it hits, but the long delay of 1.5s and narrow area makes it difficult to hit. The reveal lasts 8 seconds, with a 12 second effective cooldown. The relatively constant up-time and large reveal area makes it the best reveal ability in the game, hands down.Dragonstrike is Hanzo’s signature ability. It deals 58 damage per 0.25s (232 DPS) to enemies in the outer radius and 78 damage per 0.25s (348 DPS) to enemies in the inner radius. Testing on the target dummy in Try Mode, an enemy standing still inconsistently takes 9 or 10 ticks of damage for a total of 522/580 damage on the edge or 702/780 damage to an enemy in the inner radius.This may be more consistently the higher value on real heroes due to their larger radius. Given that this requires the target to stand still for over 2 seconds, this damage seems extremely low, but coupled with strong CC like a Mosh Pit or Ring of Frost, the teamwide damage it can cause might justify its poor single target damage.Dragonstrike has a minimum range of 7.5m, making it useless as an anti-dive tool. Due to the minimum range, Hanzo needs to play back a bit further to ensure that Dragonstrike hits the intended pathway.Dragon Arrow fires a global skillshot that does 130 damage and stuns for 0.5 seconds to any hero hit in the first range, deals 260 damage and stuns for 1.25s to enemies in between the first and second range, and deals 390 damage and stuns for 2 seconds to enemies farther than the second range. Any enemy within 4 meters of the impact also takes the damage and is stunned.Dragon Arrow bears close resemblance to Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow in. The long-range sniping potential combined with the area of effect stun is particularly strong in combination with stunlock combos and forcing an engagement.is an interesting Q quest. Rather than simply hitting a certain number of heroes, Hanzo has to hit each enemy hero to gain a benefit. This encourages Hanzo to act as a roamer trying to get picks with his damage. The first tier of bonus range increases the base range to 7.8, and the max range to. The +100 damage bonus represents a 34% damage boost baseline, but as the game goes on it only represents a 15% damage boost by level 20. Versus Abathur, this talent doesstack off the clone.improves Hanzo’s burst damage by increasing the number of ricochet arrows from 5 to 7, a 40% increase. This increases the total damage of Scatter Arrow from 465 to 651. This damage can be further augmented by Giant Slayer, which synergizes well with the extra ricochet arrows. The quest portion requires enemy heroes to be near walls, as the spread of the arrows makes it impossible to hit someone in open space. While this applies to Hanzo in general, taking this quest is dependent on maps with narrow corridors like Tomb of the Spider Queen where Hanzo can reliably hit a hero with multiple ricochet arrows.incentivizes Hanzo to lane and poke down a hero. Attacking an enemy hero applies a 10 second marker that is consumed by Hanzo’s next basic attack, giving Hanzo a quest stack. Because of Hanzo’s long attack period of 1.5 seconds, this can be difficult if the enemy hero retreats after being hit by a basic attack. The fastest Hanzo can complete this quest is 34.5 seconds with Hanzo constantly basic attacking a hero. The reward at 12 stacks improves Hanzo’s attack speed to 1.0 and drops his attack period to 1.5, providing a base 88 DPS increase.Redemption and Target Practice seem to be the better talents on this tier, from play experience and expert opinion. Simple Geometry is a difficult quest to complete and the reward is inconsistent, because the extra arrows will often miss if the enemy is not right next to the wall. Several pros advocate Target Practice, but against certain heroes such as Abathur, it’s unrealistic to stack the talent.causes Hanzo’s Storm Bow to splash for 100% in a 3 meter radius around the target, if that target is a minion or monster. This makes Storm Bow a source of wave clear for Hanzo, and should let him clear a minion wave in two hits of Storm Bow when combined with basic attacks against the footmen. One caveat is that this requires Hanzo to get an angle to shoot the middle of the wave, which is more difficult when sieging. Furthermore, if the arrow hits a structure it will not splash, which is relevant when a wave is halfway through an enemy gate. One added benefit of Explosive Arrow is it also works against monsters, which is relevant for Infernal Shrines. This talent doesbenefit from Piercing Arrows.drastically improves Scatter Arrow’s damage against minions, monsters and mercenaries, from totaling 425 to 1162.5 and each individual ricochet arrow from 85 to 232.5. However, due to the unreliability of Scatter Arrow in more wide open spaces, this talent is less reliable for waveclear. It’s possible there is an angle on Battlefield of Eternity that can hit the Immortal with everything though, which would make Hanzo one of the better heroes for immortal DPS.The primary function of Serrated Arrows, however, is to improve Hanzo’s damage versus mercenaries, as the enclosed space of a mercenary camp makes it extremely easy to ensure all of the ricochets hit the mercenaries. The initial shot of Scatter Arrow ignores mercenaries, meaning that finding the right angle is incredibly easy.allows Hanzo to one shot minions with his basic attacks and increases his range from 7.5 to 9.5 for 3 seconds. 9.5 range lets Hanzo outrange turrets and keeps. The buff is long enough to fire two more basic attacks with the improved range, or 3 more with a completed Redemption.Hanzo’s level 4 tier is about synergy with his level 1 talents and what Hanzo expects to be doing.is best for waveclear and shrine clear on Infernal Shrines, butimproves his mercenary clear.improves Hanzo’s in lane harass. Unlike many other “themed tiers”, this one appears to offer genuine playstyle choices in a way that is not parasitic on other talents.improves Hanzo’s basic attacks to deal 440 damage against shielded targets, and his Storm Bow to deal 742.5 damage (+250 that does not scale with a completed Target Practice). This talent is another in a trend of developing anti-shield talents, partially a delayed response to the early 2017 “Shield Meta” that presaged the Genji-led dive meta.improves Hanzo’s spellpower by 5% every time he hits an enemy hero with Storm Bow. This synergizes with both Q and W talents, turning Hanzo into more of a sustained spell damage dealer. This takes a minimum of 12 seconds to stack and is fairly unforgiving with misses, as more than one miss in a row will drop the spellpower buff. 20% spellpower improves Storm Bow’s damage to 356.4 (a 59.4 damage increase) and increases the damage on Scatter Arrow to 111.6 damage per ricochet arrow, improving the total damage from 465 to 558. This is an increase of 18.6 damage per ricochet arrow and a total damage improvement of 93. With Target Practice at level 1, the flat 100 bonus damage is increased by 20 to 120, while with Simple Geometry at level 1, the total damage is increased by 37.2.decreases the cooldown of Scatter Arrow with every basic attack by 3 seconds. Firing two basic attacks can decrease the cooldown on Scatter Arrow from 8 seconds to 2. This is not sustainable with Hanzo’s base attack period of 1.5s but is reasonable for a short 2 to 3 second engagement. Redemption at level 1 makes this a sustainable pattern of scatter arrow, two basic attacks, then repeat.Hanzo’s level 7 is his second damage tier. Unlike many other damage tiers, each of Hanzo’s talents synergize with two different level 1 talents, giving him significant flexibility over heroes like Ragnaros who have very linear build paths.is an obviously strong but situational talent.increases Hanzo’s movespeed by 0.44 m/s per stack, up to a total 1.32 m/s at 3 stacks. It takes at least 8 seconds to stack up, and if Hanzo misses a single Storm Bow then the buff will drop due to the cooldown.reduces the cooldown on Natural Agility by 10 seconds each time Storm Bow hits an enemy hero. If Hanzo uses Natural Agility and uses Storm Bow twice, he can have it available again in as short as 5 seconds. The cooldown reset is a bonus that is conditionally relevant, however the power of the CDR provided by Storm Bow means it will probably only be relevant for Dragon Arrow or Scatter Arrow long-range finishing snipes.is an unusual take on a mobility talent, temporarily buffing Hanzo’s mounted movespeed whenever he mounts up and instantly mounting him after he uses Natural Agility. Normally it’s preferable to only mount up when traveling more than 14.7 meters, due to the cast speed of Mount Up, but with the bonus movespeed from Mounted Archery this drops to 7.3 meters. These distances of course are only for if Hanzo is purely concerned with movement and not with trying to do things while he moves, such as charge and fire Storm Bow shots or scout with Sonic Arrow. As a reference point, Vision radius is 12.75m and Hanzo’s basic attack range is 7.5m, so this moves the ‘mounting more optimal’ distance from just beyond vision range to about halfway.The mobility options on this tier are very different and difficult to compare.offers the most mobility in open spaces where Hanzo’s trait isn’t very useful, such as on maps like Sky Temple where the objective is in an open space. By contrast,is best on crowded maps like Towers of Doom that have many walls for Hanzo to jump over, get a pick, and then retreat.offers more of a middle ground, not reliant on constantly jumping over walls to gain an advantage but rather dramatically improving Hanzo’s escape and repositioning once per fight.improves Hanzo’s basic attack damage by 44 after he hits a hero with Storm Bow and increases Storm Bow’s damage by 74.25 when he basic attacks an enemy hero. This works out to 118.25 bonus damage per Storm Bow cast, as in a teamfight it can be reasonably expected that Hanzo can weave Basic Attacks and Storm Bow together in an equitable fashion.potentially doubles the output of Storm Bow, from 297 damage per arrow to 594 damage per arrow. This heavily synergizes with all of the earlier Q talents, as both hits can count for procs on The Dragon Hungers, Fleet of Foot, and Ninja Assassin, dramatically decreasing the time it takes to stack each of those buffs. Similar to Piercing Sands on Chromie, this talent can dramatically decrease the protection offered by enemy tanks and improve Hanzo’s fairly limited target selection.The talent doesn’t just buff Hanzo’s Storm Bow, it also buffs Scatter Arrow. The extended tooltip is slightly misleading, as the ability to pierce refreshes every time an arrow hits a wall, rather than stacking. Even if an arrow bounces two times before hitting its first target, it will only pierce the first enemy and then end with the second.adds significant percentage damage to Hanzo’s basic attacks and Scatter Arrows, boosting both his DPS and burst. A full scatter arrow of 5 shots can deal up to 6.25% of the target’s HP, which can be worth upwards of 187.5 damage on a hero as tanky as Stitches (who, notably, has a large hitbox that makes hitting many ricochet arrows easy). This talent synergizes with both the basic attack and W level 1 quests and Never Outmatched at level 7.As Hanzo’s third damage tier, the apparent winners areand. Piercing Arrows is an important piece of the “Q build”, giving Hanzo dramatically improved access to backline targets that would otherwise hide behind. Giant Slayer is a strong talent with Redemption, synergizing strongly with Never Outmatched to provide strong tank-busting.Flawless technique unfortunately just doesn’t add enough damage to compete with Giant Slayer and Piercing Arrows because it only adds a small amount of single target damage. Giant Slayer with 7 procs on a target per Storm Bow cast outperforms Flawless Technique if the target hero has at least 1350 base HP, which covers the vast majority of the cast.can offer a significant amount of cooldown reduction to Dragonstrike. With the Redemption at 1 and Never Outmatched at 7, Hanzo can potentiallyreduce the cooldown of Dragonstrike by 35 seconds every 2 seconds, with Scatter Arrow and two basic attacks. This could reduce the cooldown of Dragonstrike to as low as 6 seconds, which can easily translate into two or even three Dragonstrikes in a teamfight. The biggest liability is that Dragonstrike doesn’t work well in melee range and the long cast time may be prohibitive in a teamfight.offers Hanzo a potentially global teleport, landing Hanzo 12m away from the target and dealing 132 damage if the arrow landed. Because Dragon Arrow travels at 20 m/s, it can functionally be used to let Hanzo travel at 450% MS while ignoring terrain.completely denies enemies the benefits of armor. This talent is best used against armor-reliant tanks like Garrosh, Arthas, or ETC.decreases the delay on Sonic Arrow from 1.5s to 0.75s and increases the radius from 0.5m to 1m. It also provides a 1 second stun if Hanzo can hit the bullseye on an enemy hero, but as mentioned before, actually hitting heroes is difficult and often counter to the proper use of Sonic Arrow.Hanzo’s level 20 tier is a mishmash of powerful talents that all offer radically different functions. The Dragon Awakens offers an almost cheesy level of CDR on his ultimate, while Play of the Game gives Hanzo a global teleport. While certainly less flashy, Sharpened Arrowheads is a potential option for ruining heroes like Garrosh who rely heavily on armor.Hanzo, by the numbers, doesn’t seem very impressive. His one mobility skill is unusually limited by the fact that it can only go over walls. Combined with Scatter Arrow and Sonic Arrow, Hanzo’s preferred terrain is much more of a maze compared to the usual open plains a marksman prefers.These factors at least give him unique differences from the rest of the cast, but his overall damage numbers still seem low for a character with no major CC skills. His weaknesses in open terrain, such as sieging in a lane, make him generally a risky pick as most maps have large, open areas for teamfighting. His best maps will most likely be maps such as Tomb of the Spider Queen and Cursed Hollow, both of which have many narrow areas where teamfights break out.It’s unclear if he’ll be competitively viable. At first glance, the answer has to be no considering there are far stronger long-range assassins like Chromie and Genji who can fulfill his role better. However, we’ll be watching with bated breath as HGC returns in January with more competitive Heroes of the Storm action.







Strategy