During the recent Horizon Lunar Colony Update Blizzard added some much needed buffs to Reaper and McCree, but also a massive nerf to Roadhog. Back then I was still a bit optimistic for the big ol' fatso, but as I've played more and more games a realization slowly started to emerge: Roadhog is just not a good hero anymore. However that was only the beginning of the fall, because once people realized how vulnerable Roadhog truly was they started becoming more and more aggressive, fully secure in the knowledge that he can no longer one-shot them. The end result of these changes is that Roadhog now sits at the second lowest pickrate in Grandmaster (very slightly above Bastion), and most disappointingly of all, the very worst winrate!

Given the dire state of the hero it should come as no surprise to hear that Blizzard is currently looking into giving him a couple of buffs, but what might come as a surprise is that those buffs will mostly come in the form of extra survivability. Here's the full quote from Overwatch's Principal Designer Geoff Goodman:

"We're testing some stuff internally for Roadhog. The focus of changes we're trying are around his defenses, rather than his offensive capabilities. Even though the hook combo is weaker now he can still dish out a lot of damage over all. If he had some more survivability he would be in a better place."

While this obviously doesn't tell us much, it does at least show that Blizzard is aware of how atrocious Roadhog is right now. Unfortunately, I'm not sure extra survivability alone is going to make him any more viable of a hero. The biggest issue I've encountered throughout my gameplay is that people no longer respect Roadhog's 20m threat zone, and for good reason as the hook combo is nowhere near as consistent as it was before. So if the Genjis and Hanzos of the world do not fear Roadhog, what exactly is his purpose in a team? He isn't a tank as he doesn't protect his team from incoming damage in any way, and as a DPS he is vastly outclassed by other picks. So while he might not be completely useless as people are saying, he is outclassed in just about every area and as such not worth the trouble.

That said, there is very little information to go on right now so I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what Blizzard has planned. Hopefully it ends up working out as the world really could use someone like Roadhog to break up all of these pesky dive teams.