In the olden days of Overwatch there was a hero Winston, D.Va and all of their flanking buddies dreaded to face. He was slow and fat, an incredibly easy target, yet his damage was so strong that they just couldn't randomly dash into the backline due to the threat he posed. The hero I'm talking about is obviously Roadhog, and back in the day he was an incredible bodyguard for his fellow supports as he just didn't take any nonsense from squishy heroes that would seek to harm them.

These days, however, Roadhog is objectively one of the worst heroes in Overwatch. His damage has been reduced to the point that his hook+shoot+melee combo is incredibly inconsistent and often fails against the targets he needs to finish off the most, while his hook has slowly but surely recovered all of the bugs Blizzard fixed throughout the first year of Overwatch. A truly sad fate for a hero to whom I owe my very first entry into GM.

While the skies may be dark and gloomy for poor ol' Hog, there is some hope on the horizon as Blizzard has just announced that they are working on buffing him. They haven't actually revealed what those buffs will be, but it would appear that they will require some new animations, so chances are they will be significant.

"Yes, Roadhog changes were intended for this round of PTR but required animation so they’ve been delayed a bit. He’s not getting a 'rework'... just some tuning/balancing," reads the brief developer comment. "Will take a bit more time then the recent PTR changes that went up, however."

I hope the ultimate stays the same. It's a bit niche, but still quite useful

Personally, I really don't see much of a point for new animations as Roadhog's problems are entirely based around numbers and bugs. Simply fixing his hook and tightening his primary fire spread would be enough to bring him back in a big way. All Roadhog truly needs is the ability to consistently kill squishy heroes like Genji or Ana, because without that massive threat zone around him, he just isn't a tank worth picking.

But if Blizzard has already committed to creating new animations, I can only assume they have found something much more interesting than my idea, so I must admit I'm quite optimistic about Roadhog's future. Once they reveal more information I'll make sure to let you know, but until then I would suggest you go and check out the currently ongoing PTR as it has some really interesting changes and reworks.