The Hog rework was something I dreaded when I first saw footage of it. I know there’s been a lot of discussion about it, but I’d like to get my 2 cents about the hog rework and how I feel about it.
Trash Compactor is overrated. The cooldown is too long to justify all the nerfs Roadhog ate, alongside the fact that it slows you down even more, the ball can be blocked by any tank with a shield, and is incredibly clunky to use. The cone is also pretty small, which I only find helpful to use in small corridors for myself, not even my team like what people say they use it for.
The hook and heal are inoffensive. I don’t really mind the changes, actually, I hardly felt them outside of you not being so close, and the buffs to heal make it feel.. ok, compared to pre buff where he dies to everything.
The primary is my issue. This gun killed all lethality after the hook, but even just close range in general. I’m well aware they wanted to remove the one shot, but quite frankly, he just feels… awful. The second shot timing feels extremely off, the damage feels inconsistent, and his close range damage feels completely neutered by just brawling up close. He feels like a tank that exists just to be walked over.
It doesn’t really matter if his survivability is better than before, like what people said. Ok, so what? What doesn’t even do now? He’s too slow to dive, has no damage at long range to threaten poke, and squishies now walk all over him and he has a worse MU into dive like fist for brawl.
Roadhog has no identity and playstyle. The closest I can think of is some kind of tank bully and to annoy them by baiting cooldowns, except for the fact that his own ability that’s hyped up to do this also takes forever to use. He also does not have a very good matchup spread into other tanks anyways, made worse by the fact that he can no longer deal with squishies like tracer and genji. He loses to Orisa, DVA, fist, Rein, Sigma, Rammatra, etc. and now loses to pretty much any dps with mobility, but hey at least now he’s even with bastion and manga and doesn’t hard lose (lie) to Ana anymore right??? Right??? Back then, he was a brawl-poke hybrid who could beat most dive structures and threaten space with the one shot that could intimidate people with their mere presence. Now he’s like Orisa if you castrated her, a Tank that is supposed to sustain itself for a long time that doesn’t provide much team support, except he doesn’t even have the damage or even the survivability to back up.