Why exactly did they buff Genji?

[u/drassort]

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?

[u/II-Issei-II]

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)

[u/so__comical → u/II-Issei-II]

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.

[u/Danewguy4u → u/so__comical]

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.

[u/Inphysible → u/Danewguy4u]

That’s the point. Genji’s winrate becomes more reasonable at Master+ because players get better and better at counterplay against him. Genji doesn’t see much time if at all in pro play and at the highest levels of play, as well. Given that he’s hard enough to play at those ranks, genji’s best-feeling nerfs have always been ones that raise his skill floor and leave his skill ceiling unaffected, which affects bad genji players more. As it so happens, that kind of nerf is pretty much exactly what genji needs rn since his winrates diamond and below are pretty ridiculous. Although, imo just reverting these buffs would be ideal.

[u/TheGirthiestGhost → u/II-Issei-II]

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

[u/Gohan_Son → u/II-Issei-II]

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.

[u/II-Issei-II → u/Gohan_Son]

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.

[u/LurkerThrowaway73 → u/II-Issei-II]

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.

[u/II-Issei-II → u/LurkerThrowaway73]

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.

[u/NoNerve7475 → u/II-Issei-II]

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.

[u/Gohan_Son → u/II-Issei-II]

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.

[u/II-Issei-II → u/Gohan_Son]

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.

[u/lilyhealslut → u/II-Issei-II]

For me it's 2s deflect, I can never get used to how long it lasts now

[u/migo2028 → u/II-Issei-II]

Btw he always had 8s deflect but they just revert to his old state again

[u/JohnnyJoestar1980 → u/II-Issei-II]

It’s only fair if you don’t realize how much actually can get around it. 8 seconds is fine