Roadhog

Roadhog is a Tank hero in Overwatch.

Overview
Roadhog uses his signature Chain Hook to pull his enemies close before shredding them with blasts from his Scrap Gun. He’s hardy enough to withstand tremendous damage, and can recover his health with a short breather.

Strategy
Roadhog has a unique Tank playstyle that's focused on singling out vulnerable enemies and yanking them in for the slaughter with his Chain Hook. His Scrap Gun gives him powerful short to medium-range damage, while Take A Breather allows him to remain a persistent threat, even without a friendly Support. However, his lack of any kind of barrier makes him a lackluster pick when your focus is on protecting your teammates. He can function as a flanker, where his chain can catch enemies unawares and kill them before they can react. With his large heal on a medium cooldown, he can operate for long periods of time away from his team. However, if you can alert your team when you hook an opponent they will be likely to shoot at the target, all but guaranteeing their demise.

Weapons & Abilities

 * Scrap Gun: Roadhog's primary weapon. The primary fire is a shotgun, suitable for dealing damage at close range. The secondary fire shoots out a projectile which, after traveling a short distance, explodes and shoots out a cone of pellets, much like his primary fire. If the projectile impacts an enemy or solid surface, it will not explode.
 * The secondary fire allows Roadhog to fight at medium range effectively. You should make sure you're at the minimum range needed for the projectile to explode successfully, as the projectile itself deals less damage than the pellets.


 * Chain Hook: When activated, Roadhog fires a hook at his crosshairs that travels out to a long range before returning back to him. If the hook strikes an enemy, it will pull that enemy back to Roadhog, as well as stunning them for a brief period of time. Solid surfaces and barriers stop the hook entirely.
 * Make sure to mind your ammo if you intend to use Chain Hook as part of a combo. If you're out of ammo, you've done nothing but bring the enemy closer.
 * Chain Hook allows Roadhog to drag enemies up close to where his Scrap Gun is most effective. Combining Chain Hook with your Scrap Gun's primary fire and a melee attack is a devastating combo, allowing Roadhog to kill softer targets instantly.
 * While Chain Hook is generous when it comes to the gaps that you can pull an enemy through, enemies can still be stopped from being pulled to you if a sufficiently high wall is in the way.
 * Targets are pulled to a location 3.5 meters away, which some heros can survive from your Scrap Gun due to their small hitbox. Try to move closer once you get a hook, and doing a combo to finish the target.
 * Certain opponents such as Reaper and Mei can use their invincibility abilities after being pulled to avoid your Scrap Gun/melee combo if you're too slow. Either force your opponents to use these abilities by damaging them with your Scrap Gun before pulling them in with Chain Hook as a finisher, or aim for the head.
 * Use the environment to your advantage - a good example would be scoring an easy kill by reeling someone into the hole on the Well section of Ilios.
 * Remember that Chain Hook can yank in Junkrat's RIP-Tire and D.Va's Self-Destruct. Use your hook if you're confident that it will not backfire. For RIP-Tire, you can use the usual hook combo (Hook+Primary Fire) to destroy it, however the tire can explode before you fire - be careful, as it kills you at point blank range even if you are full-health. For Self-Destruct, if you see D.Va casting one, you can try hooking it into cover, away from teammates and activate Take A Breather to ensure that you won't die.
 * Remember that Chain Hook pulls the target in front of Roadhog, meaning you can turn while reeling in the victim. This is effective for creating environmental kills, moving enemies out of position, or overall making it easier to disrupt the enemy.


 * Take A Breather: When activated, Roadhog will inhale from a hogdrogen canister, restoring 300 Health. This is a channeled ability; Roadhog can freely move when it's being used but unable to take other actions. Roadhog takes 50% reduced damage during duration and stuns can interrupt both the healing and damage reduction effects.
 * Use Take A Breather whenever Roadhog has been damaged and you are out of sight of enemies, as he can't attack back while using it.
 * Consider use it to body-block some damage for your teammate as he can receive a high amount of damage thanks to the damage reduction.
 * Take A Breather can be safely used in combat when you're against one or two opponents, especially certain low-damage targets like Winston, Symmetra or Lúcio, as they don't have the burst damage needed to kill you while you're using it.
 * If you feel at risk of being focused down in a team setting, Take a Breather can keep you alive whilst teammates deal with the problem, or your hook cooldown comes off.
 * Take care when using Take A Breather at low health; the healing starts 0.5 seconds after using the ability, during which he can be finished off easily.
 * If you're trapped in Mei's ultimate, quickly activate Take a Breather to restore health before the freeze kicks in (Takes practice). It's not advised to do so if Mei is already freezing you, since her ultimate and her freeze spray will freeze you before healing takes place.


 * Whole Hog (Ultimate): Roadhog's Ultimate ability. When activated, Roadhog begins to fire a broad cone of pellets in front of himself for a few seconds, dealing damage to enemies and knocking them back. Roadhog can still move while using Whole Hog, but he cannot use his normal weapons or abilities. This Ultimate is channeled, and can be interrupted by stuns.
 * While Whole Hog doesn't deal a lot of damage outside of close range, it is very effective at disabling and disrupting an enemy team.
 * Being knocked back significantly can disrupt the ability of an opposing team to fight back, and makes it almost impossible to push further engagement on Roadhog. This can be exploited further by Roadhog by avoiding the temptation to focus fire, and instead treating the knockback inflicted as soft crowd control, tagging as many targets as possible with it to cripple their ability to fight back. It can also be used to sweep enemies away from objectives.
 * To maximize damage, try to position yourself so that enemies are knocked back into walls or corners, as keeping your opponents is range of as many of your bullets as possile will greatly increase the overall damage that you're able to do.
 * Roadhog can cancel his Chain Hook animation with this ability while still pulling the target. However, due to the hook restricting only horizontal movement, the enemy is going to be pushed extremely high, instead of extremely far. This technique is not that common, but it's all about experimentation.
 * Using this ultimate against fortified Orisa or against an ulting Winston is a great idea. For Orisa, since her Fortify stops any crowd control effect, it will stop the knockback and you will be able to output the full potential strength of Whole Hog at her. With Winston, however, you either can just push him away once he leaps, or, if you manage to do so, you can pin him against the wall and take him out easily, since your ultimate deals 5000 total damage.

General Strategies

 * Roadhog is an unusual Tank. While he has a lot of personal survivability thanks to Take A Breather and his massive base Health pool, he has nothing like Reinhardt or Winston's barrier, making him poorer at protecting his team from damage. In fact, playing Roadhog as a "tank" per se will help the opposing team achieve victory faster, as unlike the other tanks, he does not possess a way to prevent damage from occurring in the first place; every time he takes damage and heals it back up, he's feeding the enemy more ultimate charge. His real value comes from his ability to single out and kill valuable targets like Mercy or Bastion with his Chain Hook, as well as being able to protect his team from flankers like Genji more effectively than other tanks. Consider playing Roadhog in combination with another Tank so that you cover each other's weaknesses, and treat him like an up-close Defense assassin.


 * Chain Hook is a core part of Roadhog's gameplay. The standard combo is to pull an enemy with Chain Hook, then use your Scrap Gun's primary fire to the chest of your opponent so all the pellets hit, followed up immediately with a melee attack. If done quickly enough, Roadhog can instantly kill most enemies who are at or below 200 Health. This is an effective strategy for taking out valuable targets like Mercy or Zenyatta, as well as countering normally agile characters like Tracer or Pharah. Landing Chain Hook on Bastion in Sentry-mode will force it back to Recon and leave it vulnerable even if you're immediately slain. Note that Chain Hook's stun starts as soon as it impacts an enemy, so you'll have less time to execute your combo successfully against certain targets if you pull them from medium or long range.


 * An advanced Chain Hook combo is to first use the Scrap Gun's secondary fire, then use Chain Hook immediately after you've fired (as Chain Hook can be activated even when your gun is firing). Follow this up with the standard primary fire and melee attack. This is useful on soft targets who have extra Health from Brigitte, Torbjörn, or Symmetra or targets who have a slim hitbox (Moira, Symmetra etc.). Once you've mastered it, you should always use it since it will secure the kill.


 * Chain Hook can also be used to interrupt players, cancelling channeled abilities, including some Ultimates. Examples include Reinhardt's Charge and Pharah's Barrage, both of which will be stopped mid-effect if the hero is Chain Hooked. Other fire-and-forget ultimates like D.Va's Self-Destruct and Junkrat's RIP-Tire can also be hooked, potentially saving teammates.


 * Don't get too cocky when using Chain Hook. Try to pull targets into a relatively safe position that's protected from enemy fire, as Roadhog is immobile while pulling an enemy and an easy target for their allies.


 * The Scrap Gun's secondary fire can deal devastating damage when used correctly. The pellets fired by the projectile come out in a much smaller cone than the Scrap Gun's primary fire. Firing this projectile at an opponent's head can instantly kill softer targets if all of the pellets are headshots, and even bodyshots can be deadly if all of the pellets hit. Remember that the secondary fire needs to travel a minimum distance before it explodes.


 * It can be difficult to tell when it's the right time to use Whole Hog. Its main purpose is to push back or separate an enemy team; look for opportunities where you can split an enemy team in half with its knockback effect. In an enclosed space, it can also be used to push enemies into a corner, leaving them helpless as you juggle them in the air. It can even be used to knock enemies into open pits, instantly killing them. Keep in mind that enemies like McCree and other Roadhogs can interrupt the channeled effect, so be wary of using Whole Hog while they're around.


 * Whole Hog is countered effectively by Bastion, who ignores the knockback when deployed as a turret, and by shields, which can often endure its low damage and protect allies enough to focus down Roadhog, who gains no durability when using the ultimate, and becomes even slower, making him an easy target for focused fire.
 * An unusual, but effective strategy for Roadhog on Defense is the "Hook and Cook". On maps such as King's Row, Roadhog can use Chain Hook to pull enemies into a corridor, filled with Symmetra turrets. This is a useful strategy for eliminating Supports.

Story
"I'M A ONE-MAN APOCALYPSE." 7'3" (221 cm) tall, and 550 lbs (250 kg), Roadhog is a ruthless killer with a well-earned reputation for cruelty and wanton destruction. He remains silent most of the time. He wears a mask with "hogdrogen" inhalers, which contain a pressurized chemical mixture that helps counteract the effects of radiation exposure.

Background
"We fought a war to protect our home. We got the apocalypse. And everyone's left fighting over the ashes."

- Mako Rutledge

After the Omnic Crisis, government officials gifted the Australian omnium and the surrounding area to the omnics that had nearly destroyed their country, hoping to establish a long-term peace accord. This arrangement permanently displaced Mako Rutledge and a large number of the Outback's residents, a scattered collection of survivalists, solar farmers, and people who just wanted to be left alone.

Furious over the loss of their homes, Mako and others turned to violent rebellion. They formed the Australian Liberation Front and struck against the omnium and its robot population to take back the lands that had been stolen. Events continued to escalate until the rebels sabotaged the omnium's fusion core, resulting in an explosion that destroyed the facility, irradiated the region, and littered the Outback with twisted metal and wreckage for kilometers around.

Mako watched as his home became an apocalyptic wasteland, and he was forever changed.

Adapting to his environment, he donned a mask and took to the broken highways of the Outback on his ramshackle chopper. Little by little, his humanity was forgotten. The last vestiges of Mako faded away and the ruthless killer Roadhog was born.

Wasted Land
"World deserves them. They could scrap every panel here, and it wouldn't get them a mile toward a real city. But it'll get me something."

- Roadhog

Roadhog continued to dwell in his farm, which was located on the outskirts of Junkertown.

At some point after making himself an enemy of the Queen of Junkertown (though he was still allowed inside the settlement as long as he took no weapons in) Roadhog found some Junkers attempting to loot his farm. He hooked one of them, but the Junker told him he was sorry and Roadhog could take all of their scrap and weapons in exchange for their lives. Roadhog accepted, stating (inwardly) that the world deserved them, and that they could scrap every panel around and it still wouldn't get them a mile to a real city.

He headed to Junkertown and (after some thinking on how he hated it there and how the Queen and the Junkers deserve what they get) went to a Junker named Bruce. He gave Bruce the scrap and weapons from the looters in exchange for some hogdrogen canisters. Bruce also told Roadhog "The world wants to forget blokes like us, Mako. Wants us to stay quiet. Don't give 'em the satisfaction."

Afterwards he headed to the bar and silently bought a beer with the leftover coins from the looters. While there, he overheard some Junkers confronting Junkrat about what treasure he'd found and also overheard him say he'd offer a friend he could trust a ten percent share. Junkrat pointed at Roadhog as he said the words. Roadhog ignored this at first while some Junkers told him to stay out of it. Junkrat offered higher percentage shares while an unnamed Junker told Roadhog to sit where he was. Roadhog then incapacitated the Junkers threatening Junkrat.

Roadhog demanded fifty percent of Junkrat's treasure, and after some haggling, Junkrat relented. He thought about Junkrat as the two walked away: "This idiot. He's a liar. Lies to himself most of all. But he's not the quiet type. The world deserves him. Deserves both of us. And we'll make sure they don't forget it."

On the Road
"Well that's a fine 'how do ya do?'. What was it you think that got us the boot? The stealing the queen's cash? Blowing up her summer shack? The beatdown at the bar? Whatever it was, you really ticked off the big boss this time."

- Junkrat to Roadhog

Roadhog grudgingly agreed to be Junkrat's bodyguard in exchange for a 50/50 share of the spoils.

For some reason, Junkrat and Roadhog were kicked out of Junkertown, following a string of incidents that included stealing the Queen of Junkertown's money, blowing up her summer shack, and a bar brawl (possibly the one where they first met). Whatever the reason, Junkrat blamed Roadhog for it. Still, as Junkrat was well aware, there were two things that solved every problem&mdash;money, and explosives. That gave him an idea...

The pair left the Outback, and embarked upon an international crime spree leaving nothing but havoc and bedlam in their wake. They were responsible for a string of robberies, arson, murder, and other crimes stretching from Sydney to King's Row. They had a creed of "no job too big, no score too small." It is known that they performed a heist of the Banco de Dorado by digging a tunnel. While in the United Kingdom, they stole the crown jewels. Their spree of mayhem and chaos caused untold millions in property damage around the world.

British, French, and Latin American authorities offered rewards for information on the fugitives, and theorized that they were intent on crossing the Atlantic to North America. Their activities were reported on by A Moment in Crime, by which point the bounty on their heads had reached $25 million.

Going Legit
At some point during their escapades, Roadhog and Junkrat were offered a job by a "Suit" from Hyde Global. The Suit claimed that a factory of his in downtown Sydney had been attacked by omnic terrorists, with his workers taken hostage. The Suit told the pair that he wanted to keep the police out of it, and that there "was no-one better" at keeping things quiet than the duo. The pair accepted the job, and made their way to the factory. Their 'quiet' approach consisted of detonating explosives on the roof and entering the factory in force. They blasted their way through the factory's robots, exited, and brought the whole structure down. As Roadhog reminded Junkrat, there were meant to be hostages, except there were none. And the robots they'd destroyed weren't omnics, but cop bots. At this point the actual police arrived, but the two made their escape. Upon realizing they'd been set up, the pair headed back to see their corporate friend. They strung him up on a crane and headed off, leaving the suit to die in an explosion that consumed the entire Hyde Global building.

Return to Junkertown
"Idiot."

- Roadhog, after Junkrat messes up

Their worldwide heist complete, Junkrat and Roadhog returned to Junkertown, with a hover-trolley loaded with gold and explosives. At the town gates, Junkrat laid out his plan&mdash;light the fuse, put on 'inconspicuous disguises', sneak into town, get the trolley to the queen's throne, reveal their deception, and kaboom! Roadhog had Junkrat refine the plan so that it included them escaping the detonation, and escaping with the gold at that. The plan was set in motion, only to be screwed up as Junkrat revealed their identities to the gate warden. The gates were barred shut, leaving the pair with a trolley of gold, useless disguises, and a ticking fuse. Breaking his long silence, Roadhog uttered a single word...

"Idiot."

Trivia

 * Roadhog wears a pin depicting Greentooth, the Polycount mascot.


 * Both Roadhog and Junkrat's designs, as well as the state of Australia in Overwatch's setting, are references to the post-apocalyptic Mad Max universe.


 * He is the only hero whose face is never shown in any of his skins.


 * Roadhog's hook was made in the Man At Arms series who are part of the Azeroth Armory series.


 * A Roadhog-themed hoodie is available from JINX.


 * A Junkenstein's Monster Roadhog figure is on sale.


 * When grabbing enemies with the Chain Hook, Roadhog might yell: "Get over here!" or "Come here!"; a possible reference to Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, who also has an ability that allows him to grab enemies and often yells the same lines.


 * A Roadhog skin exists for Stitches in Heroes of the Storm.

Nationality

 * Roadhog's official nationality is Australian, but there are many hints that may point to him as being a Kiwi and/or of New Zealand Maori descent.
 * Roadhog's name, Mako, means "Shark" in the New Zealand Maori dialect. The meaning and use of Mako in his legendary skin supports this as well.
 * The legendary skins Islander and Toa are strongly linked with New Zealand over their neighbors Australia, as Toa is used as an adjective to describe "Brave/Bold/Victorious" in Maori.
 * New Zealand has the biggest population of Polynesian ethnicities which is reflected through the Islander skin that also uses a Tamoko/Tatau/Tattoo to reflect his heritage.
 * Mako can be heard saying on Dorado, "If I wanted to go to the wop-wops, I could have stayed at home." The use of "wop-wops" is strictly an informal noun in New Zealand as opposed to Australia which uses "out in the sticks" to imply that it is out in the middle of nowhere.
 * In a forum thread discussing what pet each hero would have, Michael Chu stated that he thinks Roadhog would have a kunekune. Kunekune is a small breed of domestic pig and the Maori word for "fat and round."
 * Roadhog's blanket on his bed in the Junkertown map and the tea cup in his Toast victory pose both feature a Kowhaiwhai pattern, which is part of Maori tradition.

Development

 * The Junkers originated as a group that would have appeared in the cancelled Project Titan, with Roadhog being a concept for one of its members. During early development of Overwatch a flamethrower was briefly considered for his weapon, a holdover from the Juggernaut class in the original pitch for the game that became Overwatch, which also served as a basis for the design of Reinhardt.


 * Concept artwork of Roadhog portrayed him with a tattoo of an eagle and a pig in the Overwatch cinematic trailer. In his final design the eagle was replaced with a motorcycle engine and a banner with the words "Wild Hog Power."


 * Early artwork of Roadhog depicts him possessing an actual pig visage (or mask).