Blizzard is making Overwatch 2's Roadhog more viable with this new ability

Blizzard just released details on a slight rework for one of the oldest tanks on the Overwatch 2 roster, Roadhog. 

Overwatch 2's silent but deadly tank hero, Roadhog, just got a new ability, and hopefully, this will finally make the character viable to play. Announced via a Twitter post, Roadhog has received changes to Take A Breather and Scrap Gun as well as the entirely new skill, Pig Pen. 

The details of this character update were covered in great detail via a Twitch stream with the lead hero designer, Alec Dawson. Starting with Scrap Gun, its secondary fire will be removed, while its primary will receive a damage boost (from 150 to 160). There will be fewer scattered pellets per shot, but it'll fire four large pellets in the center, effectively combining the primary and secondary fire. Unfortunately, the weapon's critical multiplier is decreasing from 2x to 1.5x, making the hook-fire-melee combo weaker. 

Take A Breather; the healing ability that Roadhog has is also changing. It will now be assigned to secondary fire as default. Instead of being available on cooldown, it's changing to a resource management ability; a meter will gradually fill, much like Moira's healing spray, taking 12 seconds to fully charge. Unfortunately, Roadhog's damage reduction is also dropping from 50% to 30%, meaning it won't be as easy to survive a D.Va bomb now. 

Roadhog will also be getting an entirely new skill, Pig Pen. This new feature will let the tank hero launch a trap that can slow and damage enemy players. Not unlike Sojourn's Disrupter Shot or Mei's Blizzard, this ability will work as a crowd control skill, slowing enemies down to make killing them more manageable.

It's exciting to see Roadhog undergo some changes, as this character has become quite stale in recent months. Roadhog has more than a few counters, with Ana's Biotic Grenade and Sigma's Accretion usually signaling the end for this squishy tank. No doubt Roadhog isn't as menacing as he once was.

However, it's strange to see crowd control features added back into Overwatch 2 after Blizzard made such a big deal of removing them for the sequel in an attempt to speed the first-person shooter up. We initially lost Cassidy's Stun Grenade and Mei's ability to slow enemies down while using her Freeze Gun. 

After these features were gradually added back into Overwatch 2, it looks like Roadhog's Pig Pen finally cements the fact that Blizzard isn't shying away from Crowd Control any longer.

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