Blizzard is working on a possible replacement for Hanzo’s Scatter Arrow

Hanzo is a divisive hero to say the least when it comes to Overwatch. Well, maybe divisive isn’t the right word. How about this: a small group of Hanzo mains love this hero more than any other while every other player hates his guts because he’s bad. Maybe that’s too far in the other direction, but you’ll never please everyone. Regardless, it looks like one of Hanzo’s most frustrating abilities could be seeing changes soon.

In yesterday Developer update, Jeff Kaplan popped up to chat about some of the community’s recent complaints. But you can’t talk about things the community hates without talking about Hanzo.

At about the eight minute mark, Kaplan drops some big news on the Japanese archer:

I think there’s a lot of frustration that players have because of the Scatter Arrow ability. We’re currently looking at options both in terms of can we re-tune Scatter Arrow to feel more fair for people involved? I think what frustrates people the most is, I always like to use the Orisa example. If you’re playing Orisa and Hanzo shoots a Scatter Arrow into your feet and you get one shot by it, it doesn’t feel real good.

We’re going to look into issues like that, see if we can balance Scatter Arrow. We also have a number of ideas that are potentially replacing Scatter Arrow. Internally, we’re doing a lot of prototyping and a lot of playtesting so we haven’t really settled on which direction we’re going to take it. I just want you to know that we are looking into Hanzo specifically at abilities like Scatter Arrow for potential changes.

If you’ve ever played a bigger character in Overwatch, then you know exactly what Kaplan is talking about regarding his Orisa example. Getting one shot by Hanzo does not “feel real good.” In fact, it feels real bad. That being said, it’s great to know that Blizzard is listening to their community and attempting to find a solution.

Whether Blizzard is able to crunch the numbers enough to remove Scatter Arrow’s weird interaction with big models or whether they replace the ability altogether, every Overwatch player will benefit.

While we sit here in speculation, what would you like to see Blizzard do to Hanzo? Should Scatter Arrow stay or go?