Roadhog's hook has recently been reworked in order to be produce more consistent results, both for Roadhog and his victims. While this was supposed to leave Roadhog at around the same power level as he was before, in reality it actually made him much better because he suddenly gained the ability to easily one-shot Reaper and Mei - two heroes that are supposed to counter him. And since no hero is supposed to be stronger than his hard-counters, it was only a matter of time before Roadhog got visited by the almighty nerf fairy.

In the upcoming PTR patch Roadhog's weapon spread is going to be decreased by 20% in order to make his damage more consistent, and in order to compensate for this buff his hook will now pull targets to a location 3.5 meters away (instead of 2) and will have a 2 second longer cooldown. If you're interested in all of the details, and also the minor buff Winston is getting, I'll post the full patch notes down below. Have a look:

Roadhog

• Scrap Gun

- Spread decreased by 20%

• Chain Hook

- Targets are now pulled to a location 3.5 meters away, up from 2 meters.

- Cooldown increased from 6 to 8

Comment: The Roadhog changes overall reduce the power of his hook a bit, but his gun is now more effective when not using the hook.

Winston

• Critical hit volume reduced by 15%

Comment: Winston's head hit volume was just abnormally big, making him take more damage than he otherwise should. This change brings it more in line with other heroes.

The Winston buff, while minor on paper, is going to have a significant impact in-game. Right now if you're Soldier 76 you can simply stand your ground and shoot full-auto into Winston's head and eventually win the duel, but after this change goes through you're going to have a slightly harder time getting all those hits as headshots. It doesn't sound like much, but even a couple of misses is enough to result in a victory for Winston, which for a dive team is going to be a fairly nice buff.

As for Roadhog, I have absolutely no idea without first testing the changes. If you can no longer one-shot Ana, Hanzo, Reaper, Mei, and other such troublesome heroes, his power level is going to go down significantly. And since the enemies are being put 3.5 meters away now, you're no longer going to be able to simply melee them to add that extra 30 damage! If Roadhog is still able to one-shot 200 hp heroes then he's going to be more than fine, especially with his spread decrease, but if this change makes the hook even slightly inconsistent then we're talking about a massive problem. Whatever the case may be, its probably for the best we wait until this goes live before discussing any sort of balance implications.

And finally, if you haven't been paying attention to Overwatch news recently, the PTR has been updated with a Bastion rework, as well as minor D.Va and Mercy buffs. You can check out all of the changes by going over here. Beep, Boop!