Overwatch players want Hanzo buff reverted as hero becomes tank killer

Hanzo’s new Storm Arrow buff may have flown a bit under the radar when it was first introduced, but Overwatch players have soon discovered just how devastating he is with an improved shot recovery time.

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On January 12, the Overwatch Kanezaka Challenge update went live, bringing some nerfs to Wrecking Ball, Ashe and Sigma as well as a buff to Hanzo that saw his Storm Arrow shot recovery time reduced from 0.3 to 0.25 seconds.

As it turns out, this buff is a lot bigger than it seemed on paper and has turned the Shimada archer into a tank buster.

Hanzo main ‘Arrge’ took to Twitter to explain just what this buff meant. After firing one normal arrow dealing 125 damage, he can follow it up by spamming Storm Arrows. Considering they do 70 damage each and he has five of them, this means he can deal 475 damage.

While Arrge’s math was slightly off, the fact remains the same: Hanzo can destroy tanks. Plus, that 475 doesn’t include headshots.

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If every single shot was a headshot then the original arrow would deal 250 damage and then 140 for every Storm Arrow shot after that. This all adds up to a whopping 950 damage in under two seconds.

With 950 damage, Hanzo can delete any tank in the game with the exception being a Winston in Primal Rage, who would have 50 HP by the time it’s all said and done. However, with any sort of damage modification, Hanzo would be able to down him as well.

Blizzard Entertainment

Hanzo’s Storm Arrows got buffed big time.

“I feel conflicted because it seems more viable to go for braindead frontline spam instead of using the strats I have practiced over the past few months,” Arrge remarked when asked how he felt about the buff.

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“I don’t think this is a good change. They give him burst when he’s meant to be a sniper. They should do something different about storm arrows. And bring back his projectile speed,” another remarked.

Plenty of users seemed to be in agreement that a change to his primary fire speed would be better than this Storm Arrow buff. We’ll have to wait and see how the developers handle things, but for the time being, Hanzo may be the best tank-killer in the game.