Overwatch 2 devs discussing changes to “frustrating” one-shot abilities

Overwatch 2 developer Aaron Keller has released an update regarding the game’s one-shot abilities and combos, which some players claim are “frustrating” and unfair.

When it comes to discussing frustrating Overwatch 2 mechanics, there are few heroes mentioned as frequently as Roadhog.

The Hog has seen a glorious comeback when the game switched over from 6v6 to 5v5, but it has come at the cost of the enjoyment of the game of the enemy team.

His hook into primary fire combo guarantees a “one-hit” elimination against most of the game’s cast. There’s also no room for a counter once a player has been hooked.

This issue has been addressed and, while you can still use this combination to secure one-hit kills, the game gives the enemy a second or two to activate their defensive skills and possibly escape.

Aaron Keller has now assured that such “frustrating” one-shot combos and other mechanics are being studied by the devs, while also assuring hotfixes will address potential problems down the line in a timely manner.

Aaron Keller adresses Overwatch 2’s “frustrating” mechanics

Here is Aaron’s full statement from the January 27 developer update post:

“Balance frequency is a big topic. Bug fixes to hot fixing should enable us to address balance faster and would have enabled us to tune Hog earlier in S2. We’re still planning an initial and midseason patch each season, but now have the full ability to fill in between those as necessary.

One-shots and frustrating hero mechanics are being discussed a lot in the community and on the team. This is an ongoing discussion, but the topic has a lot of nuances that involves the frequency of those mechanics, trade-offs for using it, the overall power level of a hero, how often the hero is played, as well as things like a hero’s fantasy.

Know that we’re listening here, the feedback has been great and very welcome, and we’ll come back to this when we have more to share.”

This bodes well for the game’s health in the long run, as the community will always find some trick or combo the devs missed, and some of those things must be addressed swiftly.

An example of this is the fact that the community is already experimenting with the Roadhog “one-shot” combo to bring it back to its full glory.

This is hogs current combo from Overwatch

For the time being it is impossible to tell in which direction this “arms race” will go, but developers being more responsive to the community’s feedback is never a bad thing.