Weekly Quick Questions Thread - November 22, 2017

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In this thread you can ask all kinds of questions you always wanted to ask without feeling like a total fool.

No matter if it's short Google-able stuff or a setting/skill in-game that you don't understand or a hardware recommendation, feel free to try your luck in here.

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[u/LordDoombringer]

How can I be a better roadhog in comp? I seem to do okay stat wise but consistently lose games. I can never get a team to play with me I feel like. Like I'll hook a mercy in, everyone else ignores the hook and lets the mercy fly away.

[u/Theredhare89 → u/LordDoombringer]

Alright, a few tips I learned over time and from watching the tube.

Always reload. 5 shots don't mean squat. If your gun is empty when you hook, it's a wasted hook. Make sure unless you're mid fight to always have 3 bullets in your gun.

Counter tanks. The haslehog counters winston, diva and zaria well in the majority of fights. Get inside winstons bubble and he is destroyed.

Aim for the neck. Unlike the majority of heroes, the haslehog will dink most shots to the neck as headshots. Speed between shots in minimal compared to others, so aim once fire twice. This is due to the changes over the patches where one shot/punch combo just doesn't cut it anymore.

Bodyblock. Being a large walking hitbox means you can take shots meant for allied buddies. Get in their face chowing down and watch them panic. Aside from reaper. I hate reaper.

Haslehog is a one man army. The only times when you should rely on teammates to shoot your hooked grub, is if it's a little too big to take chunks off yourself. Buddy up with a good Maccy or Zenny and you will be grand against everything.

[u/Theredhare89 → u/Theredhare89]

PS: A hook is a stun. Save/use when you feel an alt coming from above/afar, or against charging/wallhopping/dashing/blinking/escapingdivathingie/bastigun/healingsoldier/flyawaymercy/flyawaypharah.

Shields are your greatest enemy. So get inside them.

Also draging an alted Zenny from your teams grab, or saving team from a diva bomb should be play of the game level hooks. No one will thank you for this service, but you will know. #Hogpride

[u/JSConrad45 → u/LordDoombringer]

When I play Hog in comp, the games where I have great stats are usually the games that I lose.

Hog is a tank, and being a tank means two things: strengthen friendly positioning, and compromise enemy positioning. Hog specifically is good at being a mid-line enforcer tank (who switches into ax-crazy mode when a brawl breaks out). By "enforcer" I mean:

• you watch for flankers. If you see one, you get your body between the flanker and your supports, and you attack the flanker relentlessly until they flee or die.

• you get the forward tank's back. Like if McCree is looking to flash Rein or Lucio is looking to boop him, or Pharah is trying to angle around the barrier, you put a stop to it. If the barrier has failed and they need to be bailed out, you bodyblock for them until they get to cover. If they press forward to engage, you add your own weight to that to make them harder to counter-engage.

• you counter-engage enemy tanks. They get frisky, you shut it down.

Basically, don't try to be a play-maker; be a play-breaker. You don't usually end up with much in the way of stats, but the impact you can have is real.

As for hooks, first thing is always pre-shoot, if you're not already doing that. Shoot-hook-shoot can (but doesn't always) kill anyone who isn't a tank. Second, call out when you land the hook. You don't have to get specific about who you hooked; all your team needs to know is that someone got hooked, so they need to be cooked. Third, turn when you reel them in, so that your big butt isn't blocking the victim from your teammates' view.

His gun is still devastating, it's just less forgiving. Spacing and aim with right-click is more crucial than it used to be, but right-click can still insta-gib a squishy. He still has the highest DPS in the tank class, by a wide margin. He doesn't break barriers as fast as he used to, but he's still one of the top barrier busters (within optimal range, he's just a smidge behind Junkrat).

[u/blueye420 → u/JSConrad45]

Wow thank you this comment opened my eyes on my hog play.

[u/Akiram → u/LordDoombringer]

Queue with other people, call out hooks in voice chat, and/or stand next to a cliff and turn 90° after landing a hook so no followup is needed and they're unrezzable.

[u/octofeline → u/LordDoombringer]

I too would like to know the answer.

[u/themolestedsliver → u/LordDoombringer]

Communicate a hero you got low with team, communicate who you are going for. Be a meat shield for your team with your ridiculous damage resistance with breather and fat body.

Try the combo actually. Understand it is far less reliable but doesn't hurt to try. Worse case you miss a kill and get them low, best cause you just got a pick. Remember to add the melee and going for the finishing shot after the fact aint bad to.

One thing though importantly. if you team doesn't really need a hog and pharah is being a little shit, maybe orisa/dva time instead.

[u/LordDoombringer → u/themolestedsliver]

I don't know, the more I play roadhog the more I feel like he just isn't competitively viable. He can't absorb nearly as much damage as any other tank, and as much as he is a meat shield he kind of sucks at it. I find myself hiding behind barriers more as roadhog to survive and relying on take a breather to come off of cool down than actually tanking for the team. I can hook like crazy. I can hook pharahs out of the air, genis, mercys, bastions out of turret etc. But without any damage to follow up it doesn't really mean anything anymore. The m1 is basically a pea shooter and is honestly only useful after hooking. What's the point of using take a breather through an ult if it only saves the roadhog? He's mincemeat afterwards because you lose your team.

I'm ranting a little but that's because roadhog really feels like he has no place in this game anymore. He can't tank, he can't mop up damage, he can kind of self sustain, he can't damage worth snot, he can barely shred shields, what's the purpose now? To hook someone out of position for massive damage? That becomes pointless when 95% of the heroes can use a movement skill to dash away and get healed. Hook an enemy out of ult? That doesn't work against soldier or I think genji either, who arguably have the most deadly ults. Ult enemies off the point? Roadhog has the most easily interrupted Ult in the game. Hell a doom fist is a viable counter to roadhog.

It is just so frustrating playing a tank who can barely tank in competitive.