Overwatch 2 players conflicted as Hanzo regains one-shot kills in mid-season patch

Overwatch 2 players have mixed feelings about the September 17 mid-season 12 patch that gave Hanzo back his ability to one-shot many heroes.

Hanzo and Widowmaker have been two of Overwatch’s most controversial heroes since the game first launched thanks to their one-shot kill potential.

Although the devs took away Hanzo’s ability to eliminate foes with one shot a few patches ago, the Japanese sniper regained some of that lost power on September 17 when he received a series of changes.

Despite his arrows being smaller and his bow’s charge-up time increasing, his arrow damage was increased from 120 to 125, meaning that a headshot will now once again be enough to instantly delete a target.

The buffs sparked quite the discussion in the community, with some arguing that other heroes should get their kill combos back, while others questioned if the Hanzo changes were necessary.

“Why can Hanzo oneshot 250 hp heroes, but Junk can’t with his combo?” asked Junkrat main and Twitch streamer Aquamarine.

However, not all of his viewers agreed, arguing that Junkrat’s grenade-mine combo is too easy to pull off.

Across social media and Reddit, players bantered about the buffs and whether it was healthy for the game.

“If the goddamn fun eraser called Widow can do it without having to engage in a Team fight at all, he should be able to headshot, too,” a player insisted in response.

“Worst thing coming out of this patch. Now he’s a tank buster and can one shot,” insisted another.

“Hanzo 1-shot basically reverted… I feel indifferent, but what were the season 9 hp changes for?” a Redditor asked, referencing the major health pool update from earlier in the year.

“His projectiles are smaller, he has less fire rate, I think it makes total sense while the health patch still does exactly what it was supposed to,” retorted someone else.

It’s still very early days since the mid-season patch’s release, so we’ll have to see how Hanzo’s place in OW2‘s meta develops, and if the archer’s balance changes need further tweaks… or if concerns about him were greatly exaggerated.