'Overwatch' Roadhog Nerfs Coming To PTR: Hook 2.0 On Its Way

Every Overwatch player has been there before. You are standing in a hallway or on a ledge, maybe on Watchpoint: Gibraltar, and have your sights locked on a squishy support. All of a sudden you can’t move and your hero goes flying through the air. You see a big squishy belly and a gimp mask, a shotgun blast directed at your head and then you are dead. Roadhog hooks are one of the most frustrating aspects of Overwatch , and it doesn't help that they are extremely broken.

A Roadhog hook can catch you anywhere inside your hitbox, to pull you closer to big, mean and smelly. It doesn't matter if it hit the base of your model, like your foot or the air around your head, you’ll be coming from a ride. It’s frustrating to spend all that time trying to juke a Roadhog only to have him grab you in some bullshit way. Thankfully, “Hook 2.0” is heading to the PTR very soon according to Geoff Goodman, principal designer for Overwatch .

In a blue post on the Blizzard forums , Goodman says the Roadhog changes are coming to the PTR as soon as this week. There are three big changes that “will likely make Roadhog a bit weaker,” but the Overwatch team will have their eyes on him so he isn’t completely useless.

Here’s a quick rundown of the changes coming to Roadhog:

• Roadhog’s hook will no longer move enemies in a straight line directly to him, but will always go right in front of him.

• The hook is measured from where Roadhog is, not where the hook is. You can’t get hooked if Roadhog can’t see you, meaning it’s going to impossible to pull off cheesy plays like throwing a hook and dragging an enemy off the map.

• If you dash or move out of Roadhog’s LOS when the hook has landed, it will now break.

These are some serious changes to the one-man apocalypse. His hook is going to lose some serious power now that line of sight is so important to its mechanics. Currently, a smart Roadhog player can grab an enemy squishy and pull them into a crevice or checkpoint that neither can see. That is going to be impossible once these changes go live. I’m curious to see how these bug fixes and nerfs impact Roadhog’s play style.