Genji First Impressions!
by JR Cook - 7 years ago show comments
Blizzard is keeping pace with their hero releases, and has announced the addition of another Overwatch favorite in Genji. The masked assassin will be making his debut in the Nexus today, along with an Overwatch-themed battleground in Hanamura. Blizzard gave us the chance to sit down and play this new hero at the recent Media Summit, where Heroes 2.0 and Cassia were also announced. This article will be going over our first impressions of the hero; we have the full ability and talent list in a separate article.
Genji makes a smooth transition to the Nexus, similar to the other Overwatch Heroes currently in the roster: Zarya, Lucio, and Tracer. Genji will also enter the Nexus with his Oni Skin; the same one that was available for Overwatch players who played Heroes in last year’s Nexus challenge. Like Tracer and Lucio, he attacks while moving! If you’ve played Genji in Overwatch, you’re already ahead of the curve and have an idea of what he brings to the table.
This powerful, mobile assassin is going to bring some serious gank potential to Heroes, with the drawback of having a very squishy health pool. To make up for this weakness, he is extremely mobile (as he is in Overwatch) with his trait, Cyber Agility, which allows Genji to jump to a targeted area. Using this, he can get in and out efficiently for quick kills or escapes. Talents can improve this ability giving it more charges, greater range while mounted, or a speed buff for jumping over terrain.
Shuriken will be Genji’s Q ability: he throws Shurikens in a fan pattern out in front of him (think of the alternate fire on his attack in Overwatch). This allows him to attack bunched-up heroes and spread damage across an entire team instead of just one focused target. Talents for Shuriken will allow him to increase the damage (with a quest talent among others), get charges back using Cyber Agility (his trait), and even, at 20, a talent that will allow it to pierce enemies (negating armor).
Deflect is the W ability, allowing him to do exactly what is advertised and deflect damage back at enemies (prioritizing Heroes). This will project Genji for 1.25 seconds and initiate a counter attack if struck. With talents the deflect can deal more damage, give him a shield, or reduce its cooldown by reflecting damage. The storm talent at 20 lets Deflect hit ALL nearby enemies, making this a particularly dangerous talent for chaotic late game team fights!
Swift Strike is Genji’s E: he dashes forward, dealing damage to any targets caught in the line of movement. Just like in Overwatch, if this executes a hero within two seconds, the cooldown and mana cost are refunded! Talents can decrease the cooldown by hitting heroes, add bonus damage to your next Swift Strike, and more! This ability will be great for closing out kills and chasing low health heroes; in conjunction with Cyber Agility, no hero should feel safe from being chased down!
The Heroics are pretty self explanatory. First is Dragon Blade, which is similar to the Overwatch Ultimate of the same name: it powers Genji up for eight seconds and can be reactivated to lunge forward and slash in a huge arc. Heroes killed within two seconds reset Swift Strike’s cooldown. The 20 talent increases the duration of Dragon Blade by one second for each enemy hit: bunched up enemies beware!
X-Strike, the second heroic, lets you fulfill your ninja fantasy: disappearing from the battlefield in a puff of smoke, Genji performs two large slashes that ignite and do additional damage to enemies caught within their path. The storm talent upgrades the ability so that each hero hit reduces X-Strike’s cooldown by 12 seconds!
So that’s a deep look into his abilities. There are a lot of directions Genji can go in with his talent builds and he looks to be a very strong Assassin that will make a quick impact on the meta in skilled players’ hands. If you can play him aggressively and get out without getting caught by CC on the other team, you should be very successful with his kit. His learning curve is likely to be fairly high, though, as getting caught out is going to be his weakness (even with his escapes, he’s highly susceptible to crowd control). The amount of threat and damage I saw him putting on opponents at the Media Summit (from players much better than myself) was incredible. This is one of those heroes that in the right hands will be an absolute monster, much like Genji himself in Overwatch.
