Sanjay Hero Design | Overwatch Design Studies

Hero Info

"Order is liberation."
Using one-of-a-kind technologies, Sanjay executes necessary evil under Vishkar and Talon, shaping the world into his vision of absolute order.

Role

Support

Subrole

Survivor

Health

100 health + 150 shields

Perk XP

1700 (minor) 4500 (major)

You can try Sanjay’s Ultimate Ability on this webpage.

Scroll to his ultimate ↓

Passives

Subrole: Survivor Passive️

Movement abilities start passive health generation.

Tap to fire only the bolt. Hold to keep spraying the beam. 1.2s of beaming triggers the explosion, and makes the weapon recover for 0.3s before shooting another bolt.
The beam disconnects but keep spraying when target is out of LOS or beyond Tethering Range (18m).
Player can still spray the beam when bolt misses or after the beam disconnects.
The beam's trailing is more forgiving than Moira's, but less than Sierra's.
Shoot only bolt headshots for maximum DPS potential.
Yes, this weapon feels like a tazer :)

Sanjay's weapon was one the earliest part in his kit to be confirmed. I wanted the weapon to perform like the reverse of Domina's, and inherit OG Symmetra's flexible beam.
Until around March, the beam was designed to tether to the target until LOS breaks. After Sierra is revealed, and receiving feedback from other designer friends, I differentiated Photon Lance from Sierra's Tracker Shot by moving a big chunk of damage to the end of each shot as an "explosion". This gives the enemy a defined period to break LOS, and also requires Sanjay to constantly reapply bolt shots.

"Trace established."
"Detonation!"
On elimination: "One at a time."

Reconstitution Passive️

Healing allies restore your shields and barrier.

Shields restore rate:

20% of healing done

Barrier restore rate:

120% of healing done

Shields restore rate is half as fast as the Medic subrole passive's self-heal rate.
Barrier restoring applies to Sanjay's ultimate, where he can repair his prism shaped barrier by ~100 per second.

Weapon

Photon Lance ️

Type

Weapon (Primary Fire)

Effect Type

Projectile + Projectile beam

Bolt shot that tethers a beam to its target. Explodes on continuous beaming.

Damage:

60 (bolt) + 72 over 1.2s (beam) + 40 (explosion)

Headshot:

√, 2x (bolt)

Fire Rate:

1 shot per 0.5s (bolt only)
1 shot per 1.6s (bolt and full beam)

Projectile Speed:

90m/s (bolt and beam)

Beam tethering range:

18m

Beam maximum range:

30m

Explosion radius:

Ammo:

100

Ammo cost:

5 (bolt) + 12.5/s (beam)

Reload time:

1.5s

Tap to fire only the bolt. Hold to keep spraying the beam. 1.2s of beaming triggers the explosion, and makes the weapon recover for 0.3s before shooting another bolt.
The beam disconnects but keep spraying when target is out of LOS or beyond Tethering Range (18m).
Player can still spray the beam when bolt misses or after the beam disconnects.
The beam's trailing is more forgiving than Moira's, but less than Sierra's.
Shoot only bolt headshots for maximum DPS potential.
Yes, this weapon feels like a tazer 🙂

Sanjay's weapon was one the earliest part in his kit to be confirmed. I wanted the weapon to perform like the reverse of Domina's, and inherit OG Symmetra's flexible beam.
Until around March, the beam was designed to tether to the target until LOS breaks. After Sierra is revealed, and receiving feedback from other designer friends, I differentiated Photon Lance from Sierra's Tracker Shot by moving a big chunk of damage to the end of each shot as an "explosion". This gives the enemy a defined period to break LOS, and also requires Sanjay to constantly reapply bolt shots.

"Trace established."
"Detonation!"
On elimination: "One at a time."

Photon Coating ️

Type

Weapon (Secondary Fire)

Effect Type

Projectile

Four-round homing healing bursts.

Healing:

14/round

Fire Rate:

4 rounds in 0.4s (+0.5s recovery)

Projectile Speed:

40m/s

Lock-On Range:

25m

Ammo:

Projectile locks onto an ally within 25m, and still have a slight auto-homing beyond that range.
Alternate between damage (left) and heal (right) to maximize total output.

"Hard light reinforcement."
"Restoring structural integrity."

Abilities

Compliance Capsule E️

Type

Ability

Cooldown

15 seconds

Effect Type

Arcing Projectile

Release an exploding capsule that weakens enemies, reducing their damage dealt.

Projectile Speed:

30m/s

Explosion Delay after landing:

0.2s

Explosion Radius:

Explosion Damage:

Damage Reduction Rate:

50%

Weaken Duration:

2.5s

The Capsule rolls for 0.2s before detonating.
Weakened enemies get audio and VFX feedback, plus a sound filter to make hits sound lighter.
When there's more than 1 Sanjay on a team, their Weakens don't stack.
Weaken is subtractive, not multiplicative. A player with nano boost (150% damage) drops back to 100% when weakened.

"Neutralizing aggression."
"Pacification complete."
"Stand down!"

Prime Vector Shift️

Type

Ability

Cooldown

14 seconds

Effect Type

Movement + Area

Shoot a floating zipline that moves allies on interact. Zipline’s endpoint can be destroyed.

Deploy Time:

0.5s

Max Distance:

25m

Zipline Speed:

18m/s

Zipline Uptime:

Zipline Endpoint Health:

125

Zipline can start and end in the air, not attached to any surface.
Zipline is two-wayed, but only its endpoint (not origin) has the destroyable device.
Press interact to attach to zipline and start moving towards the direction based on player's movement input before connecting.
Players on zipline are vulnerable to most hard and soft CCs.
Press Jump to detach and jump off the zipline. Like Teleporter, a player need to wait for 1s before using it again.
Sanjay can hold Shift to immediately start ziplining after casting.
Sanjay's Photon Lance beam can still tether enemies while ziplining.
Zipline's interact priority is lower than Teleporter and Lifeline, but above everything else.

"Position realigned."
"Moving important personnel."

Converged Amplifier Q

Type

Ultimate Ability

Cost

2250 pts

Effect Type

Fly up in a prism shaped barrier with no front or rear protection. Fire faster with infinite ammo. Enter third person view when healing.

Cast Time:

0.6s

Duration:

Barrier Health:

500

Barrier Dimensions:

6m (length)
5m (hex radius)

Fire Rate Boost:

35% (Caps at 50%)

Speed Boost:

35%

Increased fire rate also means that the bolts explode faster from beaming, and less interval between healing bursts.
Sanjay can safely observe a firing enemy by moving crosshair slightly away, so the barrier blocks their shots.
Sanjay will expose himself to the target he's shooting bolts at, but after the beam connects, he can look to the sides and be protected.
Sanjay can shield allies in third person while healing them by holding right click. With his passive, Sanjay can restore ~100 barrier health per second when healing teammates.
When the barrier breaks, the ability ends early and Sanjay falls off.
Sanjay can't use abilities during Converged Amplifier.

To enemy/self: "व्यवस्था ही मुक्ति है।"
(ORDER. IS. LIBERATION.)
To allies: "Chaos ends in my design."

Perks

Repurposed Energy Minor Perk

Trailing enemies with Photon Lance overfills your next healing burst.

Extended Shelter Minor Perk

Converged Amplifier’s barrier gains an extended section when healing.

Express Trail Major Perk

Photon Vector grants allies 30% speed boost for 2 seconds.

Spreading Tether Major Perk

Photon Lance tethers to all enemies in its explosion, consuming more ammo.

Design Process

I still couldn’t forget that one April Fools event (2021 I think?) where Moira has the weakening orb, which I used to save my team from a Nano Blade with Beat.

I wanted to make an “enfeebler” hero to introduce the weakening debuff again. It’s the big 26, we have so many get out of jail cards and OP effects in the game – Suzu, Kashimoto Return, Life Grip, Swift Step, on top of increased TTK and less dependency on one-shots, you get what I’m saying. A weaken debuff (50%) wouldn’t be as game breaking as in OW1.

Sanjay has a clear hero fantasy: Force the enemies to comply. Clean, logical, merciless, like an enforcer with a shackle and a taser.