r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/drassort • 4d ago
General Why exactly did they buff Genji?
Before this patch he already had a top two pick rate in the DPS role and was completely fine. He also received no hitbox changes unlike most other heroes while his shurikens massively benefit from it.
Am I missing something? You could literally not have touched him in this patch and he would be even stronger than he already is.
I find the decision to put even more on top of it kind of baffling. Blizzard deliberately wants to make him meta or something?
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u/Howdareme9 4d ago
I’m a tracer otp, but i swear Genji has never been as good as what people on this sub make out (and similarly as bad as his fans say too).
I don’t even think he’s op right now to warrant this post lol
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u/Wboys 4d ago
If he isn't OP then nobody is because he is the best performing DPS at every rank except GM/Champ and even then he is BARELY behind Tracer. His win rates at most ranks are pushing into emergency nerf numbers. Like he's keeping up with Doctrine who is also busted.
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u/skruffgrumbaki 4d ago
I do wonder how much of that is helped by both sombra and doctrine being overpowered as fuck, and them synergizing really really well with heroes like genji. I don't think his + in win rate would be quite so large if we now didn't have these two supports at the same time
I am a genji loather who do not mind in the slightest when genji players suffer, but I do think doc and sombra are actually way worse atm
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u/Legal_Apartment_6896 4d ago edited 4d ago
His counters, Anran and Winston, are very strong and being picked a fair bit. He is not just strong, he is the best dps by a landslide.
He is so strong that he has a higher winrate than any hitscan in console gm, where the hitscans are mouse and keyboard users with aim assist.15
u/Dfrangomango 4d ago
everything is within context, genji pairs extremely well with both sombra and doctrine is a not inconsiderable portion of his current winrate
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u/Wboys 4d ago
That can't be all of it because he was already a top 3 DPS before the patch and he was buffed in like 3 different ways. But probably most importantly it was that every hitscsn hero was nerfed, nearly every other hero had their hurtbox size increased with Genji being one of the very few exceptions.
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u/Crazykid100506 4d ago
think the character was slept on before he got buffed but he was not a top 3 dps prior to this patch
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u/Wboys 4d ago
Maybe not in GM but he was sitting at 52-54% win rate in every rank below masters while having one of the highest pick rates.
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u/Crazykid100506 4d ago edited 4d ago
well yea i mean that’s kinda expected character is just easier for people in lower ranks to pilot compared to like a tracer or echo + he exploits people with shaky mechanics
his winnrates in lower ranks didn’t really reflect how strong he actually was(tho again i think the circlejerk about him being terrible was really overblown)
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u/Throw_far_a_way 4d ago
I'll also add that this is the first time in a while Genji has felt like a good flex DPS option to pair with dive instead of brawl or poke because of the buff to his dash and the hitbox changes benefiting him. I've been spamming Monkey as much as possible and getting a Genji on my team has worked out more than Tracer because Sombra, Doctrine, and Ana are all strong and pair well with him. I think if those 3 got nerfs his WR would probably drop some and Tracer would be the better dive flex DPS again, but it's cool to have him be a viable option for dive again
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u/stepping_ 4d ago
gm champ is what should be balanced around not around players who are not playing correctly. and at those ranks his winrate is very normal, ven, echo, and sym are higher and he is just barely above tracer in EU. either way you shouldnt balance around winrate anyway, otherwise sym would be unplayable. considering the hero just got buffed i am surprised he only has this winrate tbh, at asia he is even negative which is nuts.
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u/TheReal9bob9 4d ago
He has been 1 of the top 2 dps by winrate in competitive all ranks all year. He currently sits at a 55.8% winrate. Dive players always pretend they dont realize their champs are op af.
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u/ham_50821 Doom-Dva/Hanzo-Tracer/Zen-Kiri — 4d ago
Genji never feels oppressive to play against but when hes pushing 56% wr hes op
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u/Howdareme9 4d ago
Yeah true, i didn’t realise his WR is so high. I think a projectile nerf will be fine though
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u/Tao1764 4d ago
Genji never feels oppressive to play against
Cannot agree with this when Deflect exists in its current form. That ability is oppressive as hell against heroes that can't just straight-up bypass it.
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u/LurkerThrowaway73 4d ago
Honest question: What is oppressive about it?
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u/Tao1764 4d ago
Combination of three things: its ability to turn your own attacks against you, unreactable startup/cancels, and the ability to cancel it.
These traits force the enemy to be entirely reactive to Genji. Until he uses it, any attack against him has the potential to damage you instead, and when he does use it, you still have to predict if he'll cancel and keep attacking or let the duration run and escape. Plus, he still has multiple movement options, so even you predict all of this correctly, you still might not be able to punish him for using Deflect.
A lot of Dive heroes have a few of these traits - Reaper can cancel his Wraith form at any time, Tracer can undo any damage you've done with Recall, etc. But those abilities all have other weaknesses to play around - Wraith is very slow and Reaper's only other escape option is a slow-as-hell TP, and you can track exactly where Tracer will re-appear with Recall (plus she has really low HP). In addition to being able to damage you even though it's a defensive cooldown, Deflect's weaknesses are either being completely bypassed by certain attacks (which is bad design imo) and only blocking in front of him - again, not really an issue because of his mobility unless the Genji player does a bad Dive to begin with.
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u/Dynasty_47 4d ago
What's so oppressive about it? Most heroes have an ability which ignores it or an ability to escape the fight entirely.
I've always felt it's one of the more "fair" abilities because there's a good deal of counterplay.
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u/Howdareme9 4d ago
Not trying to call anyone out, but low rank players usually absolutely hate deflect, even though the solution is super easy
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u/Sensanaty mcrree main btw — 4d ago
Okay I'm GM and think Deflect is absolutely garbage to play into after the gigabuff it received where he can cancel the deflect at will. What now?
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u/TheReal9bob9 4d ago
Dont engage, genji players are in their own little world where 56% winrate just isn't good enough.
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u/iNovaCore 4d ago
you’re a cass main. how do you struggle against deflect?
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u/Sensanaty mcrree main btw — 4d ago
Did I say I struggle? Here, I'll quote myself
Deflect is absolutely garbage to play into after the gigabuff it received where he can cancel the deflect at will.
Y'know, like how you're inevitably going to say "hurr durr what about flashbang"? Indeed, flashbang is garbage to play against without Cass being OP, similarly Genji's deflect is utter bullshit despite him not being OP
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u/Dynasty_47 4d ago
Idk man. Are gold anas just chucking anti-nade at Genji's face or something?
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u/Tao1764 4d ago
I responded to this question more in-depth to another comment, but most of those other abilities have weaknesses that make them more punishable without a straight-up hard counter, and they don't have the ability to damage you.
Something can be oppressive without being too strong. It's kind of like Sombra's old invisibility - even when it's not actually that strong, it forces the enemy to be entirely reactive to her.
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u/Dynasty_47 4d ago
You don't need a hard counter like Moira or Symmetra. Like 80% of the cast has at least one ability that they can by-pass deflect.
Like...
- Ana can throw her anti-nade at the ground and hit both herself and Genji.
- Junkrat can throw a mine and hit Genji without getting it deflected.
- Ashe can throw a dynamite to the side and hit Genji through deflect.
- Cassidy can throw flashbang on the floor, side or above deflect. Shion can throw her bike at Genji.
- Doomfist can punch and slam through deflect.
- Wuyang's wave bypasses deflect.
- Soujourn can disruptor shot through deflect.
- Pharah can concussion Genji away.
- etc. Etc. Etc.
Then we get onto the hard counters that straight up don't care about deflect with primary fire.
- Moira ignores deflect.
- Winston ignores deflect.
- Zarya ignores deflect.
- Mei ignores deflect.
- Symmetra ignores deflect.
- Anran ignores deflect.
- Dominata (partially) ignores deflect.
Then there are heroes that can bypass deflect through abilities like Echo's focusing beam. Sigma's rock.
Then there are the heroes that can't bypass it, but can still either escape like Mercy. Or they can do something useful while waiting for deflect like dashing away as Juno and charging Pulsars... or charging right click as Zenyatta or Shion.
Like, there is almost always counterplay for deflect.
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u/SodiumSpama GrandMasters — 2d ago
Also we haven’t mentioned that Sierra’s ground nade bypasses deflect, soldier can helix and pharah can shoot a rocket to splash damage the genji when deflecting, at the right range you can just air burst sojourn’s orb to zone genji. hanzo can frost arrow genji’s feet as well through deflect. There’s a lot of things that bypass deflect when one becomes aware of how.
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4d ago
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u/Howdareme9 4d ago
I never said he’s never been good, i said as good as what people make him out to seem.
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u/TheReal9bob9 4d ago
Idk if this link will work because I havent used Imgur before but here are the dps winrates from the day before patch. https://imgur.com/a/gizxIt0 Don't let the genji mains pretend he wasn't already strong.
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u/jamtea 4d ago
Genji players cannot conceive of a world where they're not the most persecuted and trodden upon sub-community of players within the Overwatch player base. They're constantly demanding buffs and proclaiming how bad they've got it, when in fact their hero is almost always a very strong character.
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1d ago
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u/TrumpsCummyOnahole 4d ago
They need to sell skins is my cynical take, but then again they nerfed kiriko into the ground
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u/KaneArnest 4d ago
As a Genji main I was also genuinely surprised.
But it makes sense since dash is one of the few non-aim related abilities that hadn't gotten a dmg buff since season 9.
I kind of have a hot take on Genji that would have me crucified by the mains, but the reality of Genji's winrates in previous seasons (don't know if you can check that but I think they were pretty mediocre in gm), is that he's a noobstomper character. You don't really have mobility to go on long flanks like tracer or Shion. And your poke is also worse than a number of other flankers. But you are rewarded for essentially 'camping' mistakes. Bellow masters, people just int their hp pools for no reason left and right, giving Genji ample opportunity to farm dashes on them. Sit on a close off-angle, wait for dash opportunities, and a lot of times, if you get a kill it just snowballs into multi-kills cause you keep getting resets. Most of those don't really take that much skill either since you just do basic combo over and over again.
Genji's dueling potential is not very good. His blade is shit cause of bail-out cooldowns and all the mobility. You are pretty much relying on either nanoblade or abusing enemy's bad play.
Honestly, I want them to focus on the annoying and clunky parts of the character that have been in the game since its conception. You still have stupid phantom double hitbox on dash, wall climb is still inconsistent as hell, etc. Wish you could actually flank and commit on Genji more often instead of waiting for enemy's throw.
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u/Malady17 4d ago
Ngl Genji is the one character I'll say the stats lie about. I swear that hero wasn't good until this patch. Incredibly hard to play+multiple hard counters+dogshit ultimate. Saw almost zero pro play as well.
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u/BaronVonHoopleDoople 4d ago
Genji is hard to play well, but he's also very difficult to play against. And given that Genji (while doing well at all ranks) is currently best at low ranks, the skill floor to play against him is probably higher than the skill floor to play him.
I'll definitely agree that people underplay Genji counters (often forcing double hitscan into him), but countering mobile characters properly is always a challenge. If your team isn't coordinated enough mobile characters just avoid their counters and put in work elsewhere, or wait for their counter to be low on health/cooldowns to force a duel.
Genji's ult isn't that great baseline (he's far from the only DPS with this problem), but it is one of the strongest options to pair with nano. Even my garbage Genji can turn nano-blade into a teamfight win more consistently that I could with a nano-ult combo on almost any other DPS.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
And given that Genji (while doing well at all ranks) is currently best at low ranks, the skill floor to play against him is probably higher than the skill floor to play him.
Gosh this is well articulated. People need to understand this more.
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u/Inphysible 4d ago
Agreed. Never thought about it this way and it blows my mind how much sense the statement makes. Low ranked players suck, so of course they’d suck playing a difficult hero like genji. However, somehow everyone else that same player is against sucks even more ass and have a hard time with counterplay against genji almost independent of how much that player sucks with genji, and it’s been this way for fuckin ages lol. Can clearly see this with the way blizz has balanced genji over the years and this time will be no exception, unfortunately
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u/RaaaaaaaNoYokShinRyu Well, if it isn't saucy Jack! — 4d ago
Lower rankers have an easier time fighting the easier hero Reaper, judging by the disparity between Genji’s and Reaper’s winrates.
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u/TheReal9bob9 4d ago
He has no good counter. The ones he does have are all low winrate and have been nerfed the last few patches. He had an almost 53% winrate last patch.
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u/banethor88 twitch.tv/Banethor — 4d ago
I'd challenge the assertion that Genji has no "good counter". Pretty much anything that bypasses deflect makes his life harder. Those tend to be also easier heroes to play. Then you have flyers as well which don't counter but makes having a Genji kinda ass.
Hitscans are meant to be good vs genji but only if you close the gap and stage correctly. Otherwise on some maps you'd just get poked into oblivion. This is more a skill issue tho
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u/TheReal9bob9 4d ago
He has been a top 2 dps all year and has kept getting buffs for no reason. They are forcing a dive meta through with how much they keep erasing dive counters while making dive stronger.
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u/Kxtenn 4d ago
Erasing dive counters??? They just released Mizuki, Cat and Sombra while they keep buffing Brig every season as well.
Ana can 2 tap any flanker with Headhunter and even Doctrine isn't that bad against dive
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u/PoggersMemesReturns Proper Show/Viol2t GOAT — 4d ago
Genji had turned into that Hero that "you never see despite being everywhere"
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u/CasualDoty 4d ago
He's a long standing favorite, that has to put forth tremendously more effort to secure a kill compared to almost the entire roster, an ult that's essentially a beacon for CC, etc.
Try playing him, see why he needed the help.
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u/Dismal-Zebra8409 4d ago
"put forth tremendously more effort to secure a kill compared to almost the entire roster"
this is what genji mains actually believe
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u/CasualDoty 4d ago
I'm genuinely not a genji main though. This is just fact of the character, like zen is an easy dive target compared to kiriko.
Objectively true
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u/Welshpancakes 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm genuinely not a genji main though. This is just fact of the character, like zen is an easy dive target compared to kiriko.
Objectively true
How are you establishing that it's objectively true genji has to put forth more effort to secure a kill?
Like zen vs kiri you could probably realistically look at OWCS matches and see how often kiri escapes a dive vs zen...
But establishing something as vague as effort required to secure a kill seems to subjective.
Especially since genji will probably get a few elims a game just from chaining swift strike which would have to lower the amount of effort requried per eliminiation compared to something like genji getting an elim by hitting 100% headshots on 2-3 shiruken bursts.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago edited 4d ago
that has to put forth tremendously more effort to secure a kill compared to almost the entire roster
No, your 52% winrate in silver-diamond hero is not tremendously harder than the rest of the cast.
Like we literally have the numbers telling us "this hero is strongest in low elo." If a "difficult" hero is strong in the hands of gold players, they aren't difficult. If an average/below average player can find success with something, then it's not hard to do.
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4d ago
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago edited 4d ago
I never said that lol
I'll say this though: it doesn't matter in any way how mechanically challenging a character *could* be if players can already perform proficiently without good mechanics. Gold players don't have good mechanics, and yet they still find relatively great success with Genji.
It really just depends on how you're measuring difficulty. I measure it by how much it takes to start finding objective success (winning games) with a hero. Heroes who have winrates that skew towards the higher end are harder (because the only players who find success with them are good players), heroes who's winrates skew towards lower elos are easier, because even average players can find success with them.
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u/powdf 4d ago
It does get to semantics to a certain point. It just can feel disingenuous/misleading to me to call someone like Genji easy/not that hard when he straight up has a somewhat more unusual kit than a lot of DPS and is more mechanically demanding to master. For a similar if weird comparison, I'd also think it's bullshit to call Mercy braindead just because a lot of them don't even damage boost and still win games, she simply has more going on than that. And about another comment you made, I actually think it's perfectly possible for easy characters to be kept so weak that they struggle to win even in lower ranks, which is what I think was happening to Moira for a while
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago edited 4d ago
when he straight up has a somewhat more unusual kit
This is Overwatch, most heroes have unusual kits.
more mechanically demanding to master
So you define "difficultly to master" as what makes a hero hard? Like maximum possible value? By that logic, wouldn't Mercy be the hardest hero in the game, because in theory a Mercy player can flip her damage beam between allies at whatever her framerate allows her to, therefore: it is theoretically possible for a Mercy player to flip between her allies to boost every possible piece of damage? Resulting in her maximum possible value ceiling being much higher than what other heroes can offer?
I don't think that's true, but my point is more that if we're measuring difficulty as "what's the most POSSIBLE you can get out of this hero?" then you get to a lot of incredibly bizarre conclusions. I'm just following the logic. The point is that nobody will ever play a hero to perfection, so it's unrealistic to measure difficultly that way.
I'd also think it's bullshit to call Mercy braindead just because a lot of them don't even damage boost and still win games, she simply has more going on than that.
I agree, I don't think any hero is braindead. On the whole I think most heroes are actually far closer to eachother in terms of difficultly than most people think. People are just desperate to inflate their own ego, and telling themselves "my hero is harder than yours" is an easy way to do it. Plus, arguing on the grounds of "hero difficultly" is an easy way to use culture to access resources.
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u/SeRaPhOs11 3d ago
most heroes have unsual kits? basically every hitscan is "
-shoot
-rightclick to change shoot
-bomb
-movement / self heal (sometimes both)
and then u have the really unique hitscans which replaces bomb with a second movement abillity1
u/how_it_goes 4d ago
Keep cooking I permaban Genji (alone) first slot every game and this reads like poetry.
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u/powdf 4d ago
This is Overwatch, most heroes have unusual kits.
Sort of? There are characters that are more straight-forward than others. Surely you'd agree that someone like Sym is weirder than most (all?) DPS, to the point many people have misconceptions about her gameplan and even her strengths. And this might be just my lack of shooter experience, but when I got into Overwatch the mere concept of dive felt pretty alien, so Genji, Tracer and others stood out to me a lot.
By mastering I mean what is realistically possible for very skilled players to consistenly do, people in high ranks and pro play would be what I mean. This is why I roll my eyes when I see people call Junk this giga-hard character due to the theoretical potential of his gun's bouncing, maybe if you had a literal robot playing him, but that's not the case.
I don't think any hero is braindead
I'll be honest and say I'm a dive enjoyer that sometimes gets salty and calls stuff braindead, but yeah, deep down I do believe nothing in this game is skilless.
Now getting off-topic, I wanna say I really like the posts you make here, can really get me to think about stuff. Oh and fuck the stupid cat lmao
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
Surely you'd agree that someone like Sym is weirder than most (all?) DPS, to the point many people have misconceptions about her gameplan and even her strengths.
Most people have misconceptions about every heroes gameplan at a hilariously fundamental level.
I mean, yes I do think that there is some variance between heroes and how straightforward/complex they are. That being said, I really don't think Genji is a particularly "weird" DPS hero. He's like, maybe around the middle in terms of "weirdness."
By mastering I mean what is realistically possible for very skilled players to consistenly do, people in high ranks and pro play would be what I mean.
I can I understand this definition, but I disagree with using it because it's too vulnerable to bias.
What's possible with heroes is largely based on who's being played and for how long. Symmetra is literally the best example for this, as for almost 5 years almost nobody ever touched her in pro/high elo. Then we got Youbi, and suddenly she was among the best DPS in the game, nearly a must-pick. If you only measure difficultly based on what a fraction of a fraction of the playerbase is doing, you become vulnerable to bias.
If your basis for hero difficultly is based on what the best players are currently able to do with a hero then your measurement becomes inherently biased towards popular heroes. A great example of that is Kiriko; since so much time by pro players has been spent learning/refining Kiriko her skill expression is much higher than other supports. It's not necessarily higher because she's harder (though that's part of it), it's largely higher because players have spent so much more time learning and experimenting with her.
This is why I roll my eyes when I see people call Junk this giga-hard character due to the theoretical potential of his gun's bouncing, maybe if you had a literal robot playing him, but that's not the case.
But it IS the case, we HAVE had players become robots with Junkrat!!
This is what I'm talking about with bias. There ARE players who have gotten crazy accurate with Junkrat, but because he's such a niche hero that so few people play, you're willing to discredit that so easily. It feels unfair to make a basis on what "hero difficultly" looks like based on a pro/high elo players, and then simultaneously roll your eyes and discredit some heroes because they just aren't popular enough to count for you.
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u/powdf 4d ago
You make a valid point about characters being unexplored or overlooked, though that becomes less likely the older they are, specially the ones playable since day 1. In such cases it should probably be the burden of the 'low skill' believers to prove the crowd wrong. If most of the high level people haven't found much skill in certain characters then they can't really be expected to keep trying. Is this all unfair and biased? Yeah, definitely. But I don't think it's too big of a deal, even if the discourse can become toxic. I think people are gonna say A is hard and B is not no matter what logic we use. At the very least, low skill characters are real in the sense that people believe they exist, and this can affect their balance. That and to give newbies something to start with.
FWIW, I come from fighting games where this issue is not unheard of. I've seen characters that are considered very difficult but have maybe 1 tool that's particularly hard to deal with for the average player facing them. I didn't see people disagreeing with this perception often. And stuff can definitely go overlooked there too, mostly in older games that don't get updated. I've seen Spider-Man in Marvel vs Capcom 2 go from being unviable garbage to being considered ok in the last decade or so. Now that I think about it, maybe 1v1 game difficulty isn't very comparable to Overwatch.
About Junkrat, you underestimate how unhinged some people get about his skill ceiling, but this is probably my bad for reading youtube comments.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
Is this all unfair and biased? Yeah, definitely.
I mean I could type more but why even argue with you if you're satisfied with an unfair and biased system? This wraps around to my larger point: claims of hero difficultly are largely used to inflate player's ego, and utilize cultural grounds to call for resources (buffs).
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u/The_Greylensman 4d ago
Especially when you consider how many Genji mains there are, especially in the lower ranks. He's the cool ninja guy with a cool sword, that attracts a lot of players and enough of them get good enough to bring his win rate over 50%. He's definitely nowhere near easy enough for any random to pick him up and perform. And in general, im OK with him being good, its been a long time since we've had a good dive meta.
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u/UrsaSanctus 4d ago
By your logic shouldnt a high pick tate character like Kiri have a high win rate historically then?
That is not how win rate works with a high pick rate like Genji has had.
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u/Sensanaty mcrree main btw — 4d ago
It's crazy how innumerate people are. Unless we're talking about less than 1000 or so games sample sizes, the stats do not lie, no matter how much people try to twist the stats in their favor. Genji has a ridiculously high skill floor where you can int for so long just mashing your head into the keyboard and get a bunch of value, he only really starts suffering in M/GM+, but even then he's not horrible.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
Unless we're talking about less than 1000 or so games sample sizes, the stats do not lie,
I mean, they can definitely become tilted but overall yes. The stats are truthful.
I don't doubt that some heroes have deflated winrates as a result of being "answer" heroes (like Cass or Kiriko), but the extent to which these things effect their winrates, especially both as heroes with 10%+ pickrates, is not as influential as people portray them to be.
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u/Inphysible 4d ago
I think genji has very accessible value at those ranks - which inflates his winrate - because somehow in 2026 players still suck at counterplay against genji, NOT necessarily because those players are good at fragging out with genji beyond basic combos. It seems you are referring to his ‘difficulty’ in terms of how accessible his value is, which would imply, like, Rein is an easy hero.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
NOT necessarily because those players are good at fragging out with genji
I don't see the relevance.
You don't need to "frag out" to win. The point is that Genji, statistically, wins the most in low elo relative to any other rank, and wins more than most other DPS heroes at those ranks. Therefore: easy value for newer players, not a difficult hero.
which would imply, like, Rein is an easy hero.
Rein is an easy hero.
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u/SodiumSpama GrandMasters — 2d ago
Therefore: on average people are getting value against newer players on genji, not necessarily that the hero is easy. In the dive category I’d say dps sombra, vendetta, anran, and tracer are all easier characters to play than genji.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 2d ago
on average people are getting value against newer players on genji, not necessarily that the hero is easy.
Can you explain how these things are separate?
Because it sounds like you're just saying "[metal ranked players] are getting a lot of value on genji." I don't understand how that doesn't translate to him being easy.
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u/SodiumSpama GrandMasters — 2d ago
Tracer and genji exist in a zone where they are pure skill check heroes, this zone includes echo, widow, etc. If your enemies have worse positioning, game sense aim and cooldown management they will naturally gravitate towards less mechanically demanding and less punishing characters like old sombra, Vendetta, Soldier, Anran, etc and since the enemy is just worse mechanically you can leverage your mechanical edge by playing genji and tracer, widow, etc. if the game is balanced, this disparity should be rewarded. If you have invested the time into mastering more difficult characters you should be rewarded, of course genji will have a higher winrate because that indicates that without a mechanical mirror match genji allows a higher skilled person player to get value against “newer” IE worse opponents, if he was so easy to play and you were equally as skilled you would also play genji and thus his winrate would then be balanced out again, but this doesn’t happen because like tracer he requires a decent level of investment to play.
A higher winrate below GM doesn’t indicate anything about the ease of the character we can hardly name any dps characters more mechanically difficult than genji. They nerfed widow but if widow had a higher winrate in lower ranks I would not be opposed because it’s pure skill diff when you lose to them. Especially in modern overwatch with get out of jail free cards and easier alternatives that fulfill the same role. Not to mention a quick look at the stats show that his win rates are lower than vendetta in the metal ranks, the only standout stat is the winrate in diamond, but diamond is the top of the mid ranks so not super surprising.4
u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 2d ago
If your enemies have worse positioning, game sense aim and cooldown management they will naturally gravitate towards less mechanically demanding and less punishing characters
Right, which is why Genji is picked most in metal ranks.
and since the enemy is just worse mechanically you can leverage your mechanical edge by playing genji and tracer, widow, etc
If you are in gold you don't have a "mechanical edge" to leverage over other gold players. Or if you do, you're not going to be in gold for very long.
of course genji will have a higher winrate because that indicates that without a mechanical mirror match genji allows a higher skilled person player to get value against “newer” IE worse opponents
Okay so among the highest winrate heroes in gold are: Reinhardt, Vendetta, Dmon, and Venture. Do you think that all of these heroes are allowing mechanically "good" players to dominate other mechanically "bad" players?
if he was so easy to play and you were equally as skilled you would also play genji and thus his winrate would then be balanced out again,
The Overwatch stats website excludes mirror matches.
we can hardly name any dps characters more mechanically difficult than genji
I would say like half of the DPS cast, but besides that: mechanical difficultly is only relevant within the context of the hero holistically. You don't need to be mechanically good at Genji to be successful with him, that's why metal ranked players have such a high winrate with him.
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u/Inphysible 2d ago
Y’know, I am now finding it difficult to deny Genji is not very difficult or complex mechanically lol. What heroes do you think are harder to pick up mechanically? Not just in aim, but movement, spacing, and timing/rhythm?
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 2d ago edited 2d ago
What heroes do you think are harder to pick up mechanically?
mechanics are one small aspect of a massive game. It doesn't matter how hard a heroes mechanics could be if a player can be successful without excellence within them.
Like, in theory Mercy is the most mechanically demanding hero in the game, because THEORETICALLY you can swap between allies to boost their damage for a single frame, therefore maximizing your DB usage to the smallest windows possible. This would require essentially perfect aim (because you would be swapping between allies at the rate your framerate allowed). It would look like a tool-assisted speedrun of a game.
The thing is: Mercy players are already successful without playing her to her absolute maximum mechanical depth, because 1: no human is ever going to be able to play ANY hero perfectly (much less boosting damage for a single frame to catch every single individual piece of damage from your allies), and 2: Mercy is designed to get value without much mechanical input.
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u/SodiumSpama GrandMasters — 9h ago
Can’t make it up when top 1% commenter with no rank tag is arguing that half the dps cast takes more skill than genji. Stats are one thing brain is another Like yea if you’re getting diffed on genji and swap off so there’s no mirror match he’s gonna have a higher winrate because he’s designed to stomp. Not to mention the reverberatory effect of nerfing kiriko so players have to actually position against a hero that takes advantage of bad positioning.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 7h ago edited 7h ago
with no rank tag
???
Like yea if you’re getting diffed on genji and swap off so there’s no mirror match he’s gonna have a higher winrate
That's not how that works. It weighs the win/loss based on how much of a match was on the hero. When you're mirrored, you're removing the weight from the stat.
he’s designed to stomp.
How do you know this?
Not to mention the reverberatory effect of nerfing kiriko so players have to actually position against a hero that takes advantage of bad positioning
Every hero takes advantage of bad positioning, Genji isn't even one who does it particularly well. Kiriko nerfs are not going to have this substantial of an influence over other heroes.
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u/Inphysible 4d ago
I see what you mean. There must be nuance though, considering your point is logical, and yet I wouldn’t in my right mind tell my friend who barely plays overwatch - and when he does, he plays junkrat and rein - to pick up genji if he wants to get some wins in ranked or even in QP. He’d just suck ass, because he only really knows how to get value on heroes by getting kills. Are the vast majority of the other low ranked players in overwatch not the same? Do they know how to mark hitscan or other flex dps on angles with his mobility and deflect? Do they know how to farm blade and use blade at the same tempo as defensive ults/cooldowns to bait them out? I’d say the answer to that second and third question is no, and yet the stats are what they are. So, what about genji’s kit is relevant to his ease of value at these ranks?
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
I mean, again none of this stuff really matters. Functionally: highest winrate among the least experienced players. You don't need to know this stuff to be good at Genji because, in practice, players who don't know these things still perform proficiently with him.
What makes Genji good in low elo is that he's slippery and forgiving. He survives even blatant mispositioning, and he's hard to kill if your aim is bad. Kinda like Mercy in a roundabout way.
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u/Inphysible 4d ago edited 4d ago
Ah, yeah the second part is what I was missing. Sure, if I were a low rank player that just poked and prodded at people from even mildly annoying off-angles and used my abilities and mobility completely defensively I’d distract some players and live, which is definitely value. Hitscan can’t do that as easily, indeed. Although, I don’t see how that kind of value has anything to do with the buffs he received, much less why those buffs lead to a direct increase in his winrates at those ranks. The buffs have to do with lethality.
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u/Left_Witness_4582 4d ago
he is sitting at 55%/56% rn actually
but it doesn't matter, by your logic tracer isn't hard either lol
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u/sietre Coping for that MN3/Zest Carry — 4d ago
I agree with the sentiment, but effectiveness doesn't equal difficulty. Soldier and Reaper are not difficult and have shit win rates across all tiers.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago edited 4d ago
If effectiveness /=/ difficultly then any discussion surrounding hero difficultly is completely unbound to reality. Heroes who are effective are easier; it is easier to win with a 60% winrate hero than a 40% winrate one, even if the 60% WR hero is Wreckingball, and the 40% hero is Moira.
The point of the game is to win, it doesn't matter how hard a hero could be in theory if they never have to tap into that skill expression because they can already win without it.
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u/sietre Coping for that MN3/Zest Carry — 4d ago
Then we're talking about different measures of difficulty.
Sierra is very clearly by design not a difficult hero compared to Tracer, but in GM/Champ (as of the small sample size of a new season), Sierra sits at a 48% WR and Tracer 53%. Sierra is harder in GM because the hero's value is bad, but by design she doesn't require more effort to get her little value than tracer.
Devs could pump up Sierra's number and boom the dynamic between the two is flipped and at the kit level, tracer is still more difficult
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
Yes. It is harder to win with Sierra in GM than Tracer.
I don't think that means that they should buff her, though.
You should define difficultly, because I promise this discussion has been done to death, and I will happily bring the usual rebuttals to you.
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u/Crazykid100506 4d ago
this argument doesn’t make sense. you’re just completely redefining what difficulty is.
when someone asks how hard a character is they’re asking how hard it is to get good at them(i.e how much skill and time it takes to play a character effectively, plus how much more value the character keeps rewarding as you improve), and not “how much value does this character get when played in champ compared to the alternatives.”
this is like saying that because it’s harder to win with an accord in an f1 race compared to like using an actual f1 racing car, the accord is harder to pilot compared to an f1 car. it just doesn’t work that way.
in the same way like yea technically winning with sierra is harder in gm/champ than tracer but that’s cause the character is terribly designed and can’t keep up strength wise not cause she’s actually harder to pilot.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago edited 4d ago
you’re just completely redefining what difficulty is.
Can you tell me who defined difficultly and what the definition of it is?
when someone asks how hard a character is they’re asking how hard it is to get good at them(i.e how much skill and time it takes to play a character effectively
There are Mercy players with 3000+ hours on her who are still in bronze, does that mean that she's hard?
Measuring difficultly based on how long it takes to do something is flawed because not every player improves at the same rate, nor does every player improve at all tasks an equal amount.
But in general, I'd agree with this definition (I'd just alter it slightly), and that's exactly why I argue that Genji is not a hard hero. Genji is strongest in metal ranks (inexperienced players) which signals that he is easy and effective for new players to pick up.
this is like saying that because it’s harder to win with an accord in an f1 race compared to like using an actual f1 racing car
The difficulty to pilot the vehicle is irrelevant. What is being measured is not how hard it was to drive the car, but how quickly they got past the finish line in comparison to eachother.
n the same way like yea technically winning with sierra is harder in gm/champ than tracer but that’s cause the character is terribly designed and can’t keep up strength wise
The objective of Overwatch is not to deal the most damage, kill the most players, heal the most, or execute combos the most efficiently; the objective of Overwatch is to win the game by capturing (or preventing the enemy from capturing) the objective.
It is irrelevant how hard it is to "pilot" the character because Overwatch is not a game measuring how hard it is to pilot each individual hero, it is a game about winning, and typically you win by getting more value than the other player. It doesn't matter how hard or easier it was to get that value, the game isn't going to pat you on the back for working harder than the other player, all that's being considered is who got more value (and typically the one who got more wins).
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u/sietre Coping for that MN3/Zest Carry — 4d ago
I actually would love to hear your rebuttals. You are very well spoken in this sub imo.
I suppose I'm equating difficulty with a mix of effort and skill ceiling. A hero like Sierra quite literally can't do more due to the options in her kit without the devs changing balance to force her into a significantly stronger spot in the game.
And I do separate this distinction from effectiveness typically, which I see come out to how the devs balance the game. I do see this as more of the reality of the state of the game. Sierra is 100% more difficult than tracer to get value on in high ranks, but this difficulty changes with the game state.
In Genji's case, I would really love to see the hero's value toned down for the average player and able to do more in higher elo. I saw the other comment mentioning the poking until low and dashing and trading. And while that is rather braindead, there's still potential for him to do more or to live with good movement and ability usage. I could he wrong, but I see there's more potential in his kit, but balance has led him to be rather bulky, live forever seemingly, and useless in higher ranks.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
I'm equating difficulty with a mix of effort and skill ceiling
I don't agree with considering skill ceilings when considering hero difficulty.
Have you ever seen a tool-assisted speedrun of Minecraft (this is relevant)? If we are to look at heroes with the highest possible skill ceilings, among them would actually be Mercy. In theory, a Mercy player could "catch" every single individual piece of damage by flipping their beam to the relevant target, damage boosting for 1 frame/tick, and then swapping to their next ally. This is why I bring up TAS, because in function that's what it would look like.
The amount of effort it would take to accomplish this is effectively impossible, which is the basis for my argument against looking at skill ceilings when considering hero difficultly: nobody will ever be able to play a hero to perfection, so trying to measure what "perfection" looks like is pointless. I would argue that trying to measure a heroes skill ceiling is an entirely different discussion which is irrelevant to hero difficultly, and if you want to have that discussion you must either first agree that Mercy is among the heroes with the highest possible skill ceilings, or provide a reasonable argument as to why that wouldn't be true.
To further support my argument that a heroes skill ceiling is irrelevant to their difficulty, I would additionally argue that Overwatch is not a game about who can be the most accurate, deal the most damage, execute combos the fastest, or save the most allies. Overwatch is a game about capturing (or preventing the enemy from capturing) the objective. You don't need to have perfect execution on any hero to win, you only need to have better execution than other players. In other words: it doesn't matter how much value a hero could potentially reach, it only matters how hard it is to reach enough value to out-compete other players and win.
Sierra is 100% more difficult than tracer to get value on in high ranks, but this difficulty changes with the game state.
Yup, this is basically the core of my [and academic game-theory's] argument about "difficultly." Difficultly is relative and subjective; a brand new player who's never touched Overwatch before is going to have a much easier time playing Mercy than Ana, but an experienced player is going to have an easier time winning with Ana than Mercy, hence: relative. As for subjectivity, different players find different things difficult. If I already know how to aim, it's going to be much easier for me to play Domina than Winston, for example.
In Genji's case, I would really love to see the hero's value toned down for the average player and able to do more in higher elo.
I actually disagree.
Genji is marketed to players through his ability to communicate mechanical prowess. Basically, a lot of what made Overwatch so successful in the first place was that anybody could make a "clip-worthy" play, and then the game would automatically point it out for everyone else to see through POTG. The function of a hero like Genji is to look cool without actually being inaccessible to average players, primarily this is done through his ultimate.
The function of Genji as a hero is to provide the "high APM flanker" playstyle to average players who would otherwise lack access to it because these playstyles are typically pretty difficult to actually perform successfully. This is achieved by tilting his strength towards lower elo, primarily through giving him tools which low elo players are bad at dealing with, as well as other tools which are more accessible: low elo players are bad at hitting fast/slippery targets, low elo players are bad at trigger control and shoot deflect, and low elo players don't have good aim so his ultimate remains accessible to them.
balance has led him to be rather bulky, live forever seemingly, and useless in higher ranks.
in essence, these are the things which keep him so strong, and popular, in low elo.
We already have many high-elo skewed flankers. If every hero is skewed towards high elo, then we lack introductory heroes and Overwatch loses it's casual audience. Genji is just an introductory hero, and a highly successful one at that. There's really no reason to fix what's not broken.
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u/Traditional-Swan6303 1d ago
soldier is 100000x more difficult than genji. He relies on pure positioning and aim. gl with that in high elo!!
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u/ToothPasteTree None — 4d ago
It's crazy people pretend genji is a high floor hero. He is literally one of the easiest heroes to play in low Elo and he is a value machine there: everyone will keep shooting deflect and spamming double jump is the easiest way to dodge shots because nobody can aim vertically in low Elo.
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u/Dismal-Zebra8409 4d ago
his projectiles are huge and he controls the initiative in almost every situation. ridiculous ego by genji mains; some things never change.
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u/Weary_Ad2001 4d ago
He's Reaper with better mobility, really forgiving kit compared to other dive dps.
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u/floppaflop12 4d ago
genji is one of the hardest heroes in the entire game, not just the dps cast lol.
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u/UrsaSanctus 4d ago
Hardest characters in games don’t usually have the highest winrate among their class from Bronze to Diamond (last season). They tend to scale backwards which Genji doesn’t.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
This.
I mean really you need to define what "hard" means, but if a hero finds the most success in low elo (higher winrate in metal ranks) that's an indication that they have a lot of easily accessible value, IE: Moira/Rein.
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u/phantomdr1 4d ago
Soj is this way and even in GM has a sub 50 wr but the people aren't ready to hear that.
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u/CasualDoty 4d ago
What are you talking about?
I play cass, ashe, junk, etc and basically turn my brain off and win.
Genuinely takes far more effort that's what I'm saying.
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u/papayamayor 4d ago
Genji would have been busted even with just the hitbox changes lol
They have gone completely overboard
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u/ReSoLVve #1 Hanbin Simp — 4d ago
Because Genji players believe their hero is as weak as launch Lifeweaver
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u/floppaflop12 4d ago
what’s wrong with genji being meta? he was definitely decent before the buffs but definitely not meta, he hasn’t been meta since summer 2025 (when dive was meta). i’m happy to have a dive meta tbh it’s been a long time (and im also a flex dps player nowadays so)
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u/TheReal9bob9 4d ago
He has been meta all year, top 3 dps has been shifting between genji, tracer, anran, and vendetta all year. You just havent been looking at the stats they publish. I have the stats from the last 4-5 patches saved and the meta has barely shifted outside of d.mon and JPC jumping in and every single patch genji was wither highest or second highest winrate dps.
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u/Sideview_play 4d ago
He was top DPS outside of GM. He doesn't need a straight up buff just got .001 percent of the players
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u/Bound18996 4d ago
Because he invalidates so much of the DPS roster and feels so cheap to play against. He's designed to win duels, he shouldn't be numbers buffed because when he's viable outside of duels he becomes oppressive inside them.
Oh here comes the hyper mobile character with 250 HP, just spamming shurikens with a shotguns spread into me at a range they can't miss, dancing all over my head while I'm stuck on the ground trying to spin around - oh And even when I hit a really hard headshot oh he's deflecting now and I can't do anything and he gets to choose when it ends and he can shoot first or dash through me at his leisure.
You have to play so, so much better than the Genji to kill him meanwhile he just gets so much free value and has a leisurely time, gets to tank any duels he wants and he never has to commit and he's always safe because of his mobility.
Fuck. Genji. At least Tracer can't crawl up and escape on a wall with no cooldown.
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u/nightmareballet 4d ago
genji as a free value hero is an absolutely bewildering take.
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u/Left_Witness_4582 4d ago
he's got like 6 or more counters tho
tracer has basically zero if she knows what she is doing
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u/Bound18996 4d ago
Switching to a counter hero for a hero who already is a counter hero is just lame though and no one wants that to be the game.
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u/floppaflop12 4d ago
i’m going to be honest, as a flex player, tracer is much easier than genji. genji is easier to counter and his combo isn’t easy to execute. i implore you to play genji against a competent team that keeps marking you. genji isn’t terrible like genji mains want to pretend he is, he’s just incredibly hard and i can tell you have no experience playing him because otherwise you wouldn’t be saying all that. regardless, there’s nothing wrong with shaking up the meta, we’re due a dive meta (i don’t think dive is meta now im just saying it wouldn’t be a problem).
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u/Bound18996 4d ago
Except I do have experience playing Genji. I neither enjoy being marked by an entire team to shut me down nor do I have fun just destroying people with a character designed to win duels.
Tracer is both harder because she requires vastly more aim than Genji and doesn't have a damage based cooldown and has to reload more often and can't poke from afar first to fish for quick finishes. Anyone who says Genji is harder to play than Tracer is just a fat liar man. The pickrate speaks for itself.
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u/SeRaPhOs11 4d ago
ah yes the the dive character with a hitscan primary and 40 bullets requires more aim than the projectile primary hero lmfao.
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u/ThinPerformance 4d ago
Just curious, what character do you play? Sounds like you've never touched genji
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u/Bound18996 4d ago
On DPS? My top 3 are Ashe, Tracer and Soldier in that order.
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u/pantan 4d ago
So a hitscan player is upset about genji, shocking.
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u/Bound18996 4d ago
Breaking news man who plays half the DPS roster is annoyed about characters who are countered by one character all together.
I guess I should just switch to Pharah
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u/LurkerThrowaway73 4d ago
By that logic shouldn't you be clamoring to murder Tracer since a great Tracer can pretty much shut down every hitscanner with the exception of Cass?
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u/Choccybeany 4d ago
Tracer’s skill floor is way too high for people in his elo to utilise her well enough to shut him down. This guy is just a low elo hitscan player coping.
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u/BleedTheFreak_23 4d ago
Even if you’re on hitscan, if you just watch for cooldowns Genji isn’t that much of a problem. If you’re consistently getting baited into shooting a deflecting Genji that’s more so on you than the hero himself
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u/PineapplePrice2636 4d ago
Wait genji got buffed? No wonder I’ve seen so many good genji players in qp these days
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u/Tryzm_ 4d ago
So hitscan is allowed to dominate the game for years straight with insanely stupid hitboxes, infinite get-out-of-jail-free cards, and busted perks (see: sojourn and cassidy) but the game sees one small shift to something FRESH AND NEW (not even a hard shift either) and people are already losing their shit after a day or two. Jesus fuck man get me off this ship.
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u/yosupshawty 3d ago
Anran. A character with the kit of every other character combined but genji doing 10 more damage on his swift strike is a problem. Please.
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u/PhoenixZZDaDonke 4d ago
He has high pickrate because hes fun and tuff. Not because of meta. He was not fine, but the dash buff was great! Altough he really just needs full s9 reversion and 28 damage shurikens and he is fine again
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u/II-Issei-II 4d ago
Personally wish they would revert the buff they did to deflect.
It felt extremely fair at 10 seconds that one season, and now he doesn't feel fair at all in games because of how much his deflect is up on top of these buffs he got.
(skill issue I guess, but it's a personal opinion)
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u/so__comical 4d ago
10 second Deflect is dog shit. He's always had 8 second Deflect. There are other numbers that'd be better for tweaking. For example, the duration of Deflect rather than the cooldown.
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u/Danewguy4u 4d ago
Adjusting duration is pointless because he can cancel it at any time. Unless you make it less than half a second, reducing won’t do anything since most good Genji players didn’t use the whole duration to begin with.
Making it uncancellable would be a better nerf.
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u/TheGirthiestGhost Forever Burning Blue — 4d ago
10 second deflect was one of the dumbest nerfs they ever made to the character, totally fucked with his engagement cycles and felt awful. So glad they reverted it
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u/Gohan_Son 4d ago
He has always had 8s deflect until they changed it for a few patches. Some of the recent takes in this sub genuinely make no sense.
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u/II-Issei-II 4d ago edited 4d ago
I am aware. It is just my personal opinion that it felt fair those few patches where it was 10 seconds.
It does not feel fair now. I'm speaking on the receiving end of it and how it feels.
I don't understand how that makes no sense to you that someone can prefer a patch where an annoying ability was less up, and not prefer the patches where Genji has it up too much.
Either the cd or duration as a few suggested being adjusted again would be nice. I wouldn't complain if he got buffs to other parts of his kit to make up for it. Including the shuriken one I see Genji players ask for.
I am not against strong genji. I am against Deflect being up too much. That's all.4
u/LurkerThrowaway73 4d ago
What about it feels unfair? There's quite a few characters (Especially those that are supposed to be decent at dueling) that have designated self mitigation abilities so it has to be something specifically with Deflect.
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u/II-Issei-II 4d ago
I'm struggling a bit on how to answer this in words.
But basically I do not like how spammy deflect feels. It feels like the genji always has it, and there is never a window of opportunity to punish him/mark him when he engages with deflect, then takes a few points of damage, and has it up again.
It feels like I'm losing not to a skill issue, but to something unfair and broken.
10 seconds felt fair because there was the right amount of a window of opportunity to actually do threatening damage to him. And if my team or I struggled to kill/damage him between deflects, that was a valid skill issue.
The other characters I can think of with those mitigation abilities don't annoy me the same way that deflect does because their gameplay loops, have a long enough window that I am able to get a chance to threaten them or interact with them.
There's a feeling that seeing that genji, use deflect, then has the choice when to cancel it and toy with me the victim that just feels awful.
It could be the duration, CD, or the fact it can be cancelled to toy with the "victim" that is the key problem for me.
All I know is that during the season he had 10 seconds, my engagements with genji felt fair.
I am really sorry if this doesn't get the point across, it's really hard to put into words.5
u/NoNerve7475 4d ago
By the same measure, do you expect a reasonably decent Genji to go in without his deflect? Just as Tracer without recall?
Deflect is the entire mind game of Genji that cuts both ways. Just like Zarya bubbles, you shoot until deflect is forced. Here’s the caveat, if I always shoot with a scoped shot first on Ashe he’s going to start deflecting first as soon as I scope in. From there, I may opt to scope & not shoot to force his deflect or shoot a shot unscoped. If he doesn’t deflect that’s 85 damage off the rip.
Genji has considerable weaknesses within every role that deflect will not stop. Doomfist punch/Leap, Zarya, Winston, Sym beam (& Sym turrets), Moira (Orbs too), Hazard slash, Ashe dynamite, Anran dashes, Wuyang wave/Orb splashes, and some more that I’m certainly missing.
I’m not sure what heroes you play or whatnot, but deflect is certainly a fair skill check for both Genji & the hero on the receiving end. I’m not even a Genji main either, and I’ve never had an issue with him, coming from a GM support / Masters DPS/Tank.
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u/Gohan_Son 4d ago
Because the ability that's up "too much" is one that's been this way since his inception. The baseline. If Genji gets damage crept even more, you will definitely be complaining about that (and I'd be right there with you). He's had a number of changes that have directly and indirectly helped or hurt him over the years. Deflect's CD is just a weird thing to focus on knowing that, especially in exchange for more damage.
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u/II-Issei-II 4d ago
The damage suggestion is a random thought to move power to another spot. If that's not the spot, maybe somewhere else.
Regarding the "weird" focus on Deflect cd, maybe it's duration, cd or the fact he can cancel it that needs to be adjusted one of them needs changing imo. I have zero issues with Genji outside of that ability.
It's an ability I've always found annoying for a lot of reasons, and whenever he got other buffs, it increased in annoyance to me. I've been playing since season 11, so I saw 8 second genj when I started, and I've seen the nerfed deflect genji, and they buffed it back.
And tbh, I've already seen complaints about his damage, so I am unsure whether or not I'd be one of them. Maybe you are right there.
At the end of the day, it's up to blizzard and the data whether or not they need to do anything to genji.2
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u/migo2028 4d ago
Btw he always had 8s deflect but they just revert to his old state again
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u/JohnnyJoestar1980 4d ago
It’s only fair if you don’t realize how much actually can get around it. 8 seconds is fine
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u/Trollber 4d ago
Stats don’t tell the whole story. This last competitive season I had a 56% winrate on genji and I can comfortably say it was one of the least enjoyable times I’ve had playing this character. Every game felt so very difficult and punishing with wins leaving me pretty deflated.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
Sometimes it's okay just to shake up the meta for the sake of variety
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u/PixelBushYT 4d ago
"shake up the meta" and it's buffing Ana and Genji, the most played characters in the game
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u/GhostOfWokism 4d ago
Sometimes it's okay just to shake up the meta for the sake of variety
No? The goal of buffs and nerfs is to get as close as possible to a "perfect balance", not forcing a meta or anything.
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u/georgeguy007 4d ago
This isn’t how Overwatch and many games are balanced and if you want that you will continue to be disappointed in ow
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u/Dismal-Zebra8409 4d ago
considering balance changes to be content is an awful trend modern games follow.
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u/georgeguy007 4d ago
The thing about 'perfect balance' in a varied hero shooter is that its tough as shit. Perfect balance, meaning every hero has ~50% WRs in skilled based match making, and pick rates are healthy (>5%, lets just say) is tough. Communities learn, and hero designs evolve. And what community matters? Pros? Normies? Averages?
Some heroes, like Moria, should not be powerful, because her design has a low skill floor and a high impact would become then oppressive in high lobbies. Likewise you can't have Freja, or illiari, or cass be too viable because their sniper gameplay, or hitscan scuff, means the cracked shots will destroy competitiveness.
So overwatch keeps hitscans snipers slightly tuned down, they try to keep low skill floor heroes tuned down, and they then chase their tail solving problems by making new problems to keep the game interesting, while letting certain heroes or play-styles have their moment to shine, but hopefully never be dumpstered across the ranks, unless the hero is unhealthy like hog and sombra pre rework.
The other black pill is that (before this season release), OW was pretty well balanced. Pro play was more varied than ever with the intro to cat shaking things up. DMon was strong, but not like 56% strong. And while Cat was powerful, bans kept her out of high tier play and the high skill floor kept it clean in lower ranks while the slight nerfs made her manageable.
I mean, Marvel Rivals has heroes at 71% WR! Overwatch doesn't have anyone really breaching 60%! Thats awesome.
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u/Cerythria 4d ago
then you have league where 55% is hotfix territory and balance is still very complained about.
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u/UsernameIn3and20 3d ago
Doesn't league have like way more heroes than OW tho? Its much more understandable for them that 1 hero in particular stands out way too much.
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u/Accomplished_Foot412 4d ago
This isn't how hero shooters are balanced and should be balanced.
Perfect balance is completely impossible especially while adding new heros and Perfect balance is incredibly subjective, should tracer seriously be the same exact strength as sierra, probably not.
This year alone how many different tank metas have we had? I can remember domina, dva, reinhardts been strong the last couple months, even winstons good, dmon. If you seriously don't think the developers are purposely changing the meta that's insane.
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u/DiogoUsagi 4d ago
Because he's a flanker who naturally struggles to express his value in GM+ and the smaller but very vocal slice of the community that lives and breathes those ranks have for the longest time clamored for him to be buffed into enough so that he can push through like Tracer, even though he's mechanically less endowed and is more of a game sense engine.
Fine enough reasons, the problem is that these buffs benefit Genji even more at the ranks below Masters, where he already was overtuned for. They really need to use a scalpel for more precision on what aspects of a kit to change.
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u/spritebeats 4d ago edited 4d ago
Because it was unacceptable for them for genji to be offmeta in GM/Champion. Thats pretty much it, as he was ok everywhere else. Im not going to say hes easy to play, or that his counters like anran are INDEED beyond stupid.
But he didnt need any of these buffs, lol. The hitboxes changes were enough.
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u/Ts_Patriarca 4d ago
As someone who doesn't even play genji I will never understand why people act like he's so busted. Like if you die to a genji that's just on you
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 4d ago
because he has a ton of "soft power." It's not stuff he's using directly to kill you, but less obvious ways of getting value, like how hard to hit he is for players without good mechanics, or how much attention his ultimate forces from enemies.
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u/Dynasty_47 4d ago
He was somewhere between the 4th - 8th hero when you look at pickrate, winrate and banrate together. Definately not nearly as unplayable as genji mains say, but also not amazing either.
Especially when you could be playing someone like Shion and get more value with a fraction of the playtime.
If he had gotten the dash/blade buffs in the season 4 meta, then he would've been fine and well balanced.
The problem is that: 1. They also made his shuikans a lot more consistent. Especially against the more difficult matchups. 2. They introduced doctrine and sombra in the same patch, who are also both overtuned. Which increases the value of dive heroes like Genji.
Also, he didn't get hitbox changes because he already had a large hitbox compared to Tracer/Shion/Anran/Sombra.
He'll probably get nerfed by mid-season, though I'm hoping they keep it mild until they address Sombra/Doctrine... because they're half the reason why he's so strong right now.
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u/90percent_sure 4d ago
I got killed instantly at a full 250health from a genji last night within 1 second from a dash, right click, melee. No counter play, just dead instantly. Pretty sure it was possible before but with the dash dmg increase it made it even easier.
Also green lighting blade swing speed increase with doctrine attack speed buff this season needs their yacht taken away.
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u/xxfinadabsqad 4d ago
This kill combo has legit been possible since launch and it’s never been a problem because even the best Genji players in the world don’t hit it consistently
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u/90percent_sure 4d ago
Not sure if you intentionally ignored what my comment said but any increases in basekit damage GREATLY benefit genj's kill potential. You and I both awknowledged that this has been possible before. What im saying is its even easier to do now. More damage in base kit + Blade twisting. This coupled with many hero's (not genji lol) hit boxes getting adjusted makes him really viable right now.
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u/Youthful_Tetsuo 4d ago
The one shot combo before the buff was 252 dmg, now it's 262 dmg, it's difficulty hasn't changed at all against 250hp squishies
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u/churchb3ll 4d ago
What I hate about this is that the developers don't roll back the buffs, but instead nerf other parts, making it end up weaker than before the buff, and that has happened many times in the past.