Blizzard gives us a glimpse at the Hanzo rework

Hanzo is undoubtedly one of Overwatch’s most popular characters. It’s fair to say he’s also one of the most-hated. Thankfully, Blizzard has been working on a Hanzo rework to address player concerns and make him more balanced.

Hanzo’s most controversial ability, Scatter Arrow, looks set to go the way of the dodo and be replaced with some new abilities. Scatter Arrow has been much maligned due to its perceived lack of skill required and ability to one-hit almost any character.

Here’s hoping the Hanzo rework delivers.

Hanzo Rework

In a post on the Overwatch forums, fans asked to get some info on the updated Hanzo and Jeff Kaplan was happy to oblige. 

It looks as though Scatter Arrow will be replaced by a rapid shot. The artwork above was created by Ben Zhang at Blizzard and is a concept of what the rapid shot could look like.

Kaplan says of the Hanzo rework;

We’ve done a lot of playtesting of his new rapid shot ability (that’s the working name). We’re happy with that, the sonic arrow changes and the increase in speed of his arrows. It’s all feeling pretty good.

When asked to clarify the changes to Sonic Arrow, Kaplan said the cooldown is much faster, but its radius and duration have been reduced. The aim of this change is to allow players to use Sonic Arrow more frequently and move it around more often.

Insta-Lock Hanzo

Kaplan was also quizzed about Hanzo’s new Dash ability and confirmed that it was still in place in the Hanzo rework at Blizzard.

Hanzo’s Dash ability would allow him to quickly escape enemies and be a non-lethal replacement for Scatter Arrow.

There’s no timeline on when we can expect the Hanzo rework to go live. There’s no guarantee that the changes in their current state will even be included as Blizzard continues to test and tweak.

However, I think we can all agree that getting rid of Scatter Arrow is a step in the right direction.