It’s been four days since the latest patch for Overwatch has gone live. A lot of changes have been implemented -for all the changes go here– but none are more important than the changes to Reaper and Roadhog.

Reaper: The Tank Killer

Reaper has always been Overwatch’s designated tank killer. However, before the recent patch, he wasn’t that good at his job. This was due to his low mobility and survivability that made it easy for enemy teams to deal with him. As a matter of fact, before this patch, it wasn’t uncommon to see Reaper die to tanks in 1v1 situations.

But with the recent changes, Reaper is not losing to an enemy tank unless they have backup.

Reaper’s old passive let you pick up health orbs from killed enemies. As the devs said it “was useful if you could kill a bunch of enemies in a row.” But how often do you kill most of the enemy and need healing? Not often. Because of this, they changed Reaper’s passive so that he now regains 20% of damage done to heroes as health.

In my opinion, this change was necessary because it makes Reaper a viable counter to the current dive meta. Before, Reaper did not have the sustain to deal with the diving duo of Winston and D.Va. This made it easier for teams to steamroll objectives. But now Reaper stands a fighting chance and enemies will have to fear the reaper.

Which is good because with the changes to Roadhog no one will fear him (as much).

Roadhog: The Flanking Tank is Dead

Before the patch, Roadhog was always a tank character with more kill potential than all of the DPS. He one-shotted his enemies unless they were a tank. He would initiate fights by flanking the whole enemy team and killing a squishy. The man was, in his words, “a one man Apocalypse,” but not anymore.

Yes, the Roadhog that we all know and love is dead. At least the one that used his hook to secure instakills. Due to the damage changes, Roadhog’s hook combo no longer kills someone instantly as can be seen in the video below. This allows enemies to fight back and even gives their teammates some time to save them. Squishies can breathe a littler easier now that the chances of Roadhog flanking are lower.

Yet, Roadhog can still punish people that are out of position on his own it just takes more time.

This change forces Roadhog to play with his team more and act as a peeler for them. I myself am not a fan of these changes because there is nothing more satisfying than hooking someone and instakilling them, but I understand Blizzard’s reasoning. Blizzard does not want one character to be a must pick because it makes the game stale. And the point of Overwatch is to constantly be switching team compositions based on the situation.

I don’t believe that this is the end of Roadhog but do expect to see less of him and more of Reaper in your future games.

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