Players have been calling for changes to Roadhog’s hook for a long time now, and on January 24th, they finally got what they had been asking for. But what have these changes actually done to our resident pig-man?
The very nature of Roadhog’s hook defines its use. It is an ability that can be frustrating to deal with, as it is made to punish squishy enemies for being out of position with a very swift death. This frustration has made it the target of a lot of calls for adjustment, especially when paired with some of the absurd and seemingly impossible hooks that he could land due to latency and the generous hitbox of the hook itself. Most of these calls for adjustment were, predictably, calls for nerfs.
The good news for Roadhog players is that the most recent changes still allow him to dole out this swift punishment for enemies who dare stray too far from their teams. In fact, many believe he is now better than ever at it.
While Blizzard was adjusting his hook, they fixed some old bugs that made certain heroes fly toward him at odd angles or land at varying distances. This has been fixed with the patch, and now when Roadhog lands a hook, all heroes will routinely land directly in front of his blunderbuss, ready to be promptly one-shotted by its massive damage output. This is true even of characters who were previously problematic for him like Mei and Genji.
This comes at the price of his hook now breaking if he loses sight of his target before he pulls them in…or at least, it is supposed to.
However, with the patch being on live servers for about a day now, complaints and gifs are beginning to roll in that prove this isn’t always true. Yes, if Roadhog’s target manages to put a wall or some other solid piece of cover between themselves and him, the hook will break, but the new hook is proving particularly problematic for character’s that have movement-based abilities. A Genji getting hooked during a Swift Strike or a Tracer getting hooked during a blink will still put them directly in front of Roadhog, even if the movement ends up putting them completely out of his sight or behind him. This is all despite the patch notes expressly saying that the hook now breaks based on Roadhog’s line of sight.
All in all, Roadhog mains should be rejoicing, at least for now. He may not be able to hook people through alternate dimensions and around corners and walls anymore, but he got some quality of life changes that proved to be a substantial buff and gave him his strongest iteration yet.
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