Geiger Hero Design | Overwatch Design Studies

Topic: Overwatch Design Studies

Fan design of Overwatch's heroes, levels, events, and balancing.

Hero Info

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A raging maniac and a cold-blooded arena fighter, Geiger sworn his loyalty to Junkerqueen, and now serves as her right hand man to keep outcasts and invaders away from Junkertown.

Role
Damage
Subrole
Flanker
Health
200 health + 50 armor
Perk XP
1750 (minor) 4600 (major)
Official concept art from overwatch wiki

Passives

Subrole: Flanker Passive️

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Health packs restore more health.

Extra health restored:
75

Weapon

Gutwrench icon

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Type
Weapon (Primary Fire)
Effect Type
Projectile

Fast cycle of mid-range boomerang blades that pierce through enemies.

Damage:
20 (fly out) + 10 (return)
Headshot:
x
Projectile Speed:
70m/s
Projectile Radius:
0.25m
Range:
17.5m
Fire Rate:
1 shot per 0.2s
Ammo:
12
Reload Time:
1s
  • Inspired by official concept art.
  • Tap faster to fire faster with a shorter range. Hold to juggle the blades on maximum fire rate (1 shot per 0.25s) within 15m range.
  • The blade returns between 0.25s (minimum) and on max range. Also returns when hitting map collision.
  • Maximum DPS: 160 (15m, all body) 280 (15m, all crit)
  • When enemies are beyond 15m, the player needs to tap fire based on enemy distance, recalling the blades at the right time so they don't travel for unecessary distances.
  • On elimination: “Come back here, ya little ripper.”
  • On elimination: "Boomerang with teeth."
  • On elimination: "Bite this murder stick ya drongo!"
  • On elimination: "That blade knows the way home."

Sneak Shot icon

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Type
Weapon (Alternate Fire)
Effect Type
Melee + Projectile

Stab with a dagger. Hold to shoot it out.

Projectile Cast Time:
0.5s
Damage:
40 (stab) + 100 (projectile)
Headshot:
√ (1.5x)
Projectile Speed:
125m/s
Projectile Size:
0.15m
Ammo:
1
Reload:
Passive reload, 4s
  • The punch is exactly the same as Geiger's Quick Melee, effect wise and category wise.
  • This alt fire provides lethal close-range threat and supplemental long-range finisher. Primary fire is still better between 3-15m range.
  • “Oi, hold this for me.”
  • “Little sting for ya.”
  • “Blink and bleed.”
  • On elimination: “Knife in the pocket, mate.”

Abilities

Cyclone E️

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Type
Ability
Cooldown
6 seconds
Effect Type
Melee + Movement

Spin and move in third person, reducing damage taken. Bounce towards current movement direction when hitting enemies.

Duration:
2s
Speed Boost:
300% for 0.45s (on initial activation)
50% (default)
300% for 0.35s (bounce on enemy hit)
Initial Speed Boost:
300% for 0.35s
Damage:
50
Damage Reduction:
65%
Enemy Knockback:
3m
  • When starting the ability or hitting an enemy, Geiger accelerates towards his current movement input.
  • Each enemy can only be hit by Cyclone once per second.
  • When multiple enemies are stacked or lined up, Cyclone can zip through them very fast.
  • Cyclone is still vulnerable to all types of CC.
  • "Try hittin’ the crazy bit!"
  • "Full scrap tornado!"
  • "Later, ya dogs."
  • On elimination: "You’re in the blender!"

Vaultbreaker Shift️

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Type
Ability
Cooldown
6 seconds
Effect Type
Melee + Movement

Slam a crowbar to pole-vault into the air.

Cast time:
0.3s
Slam range:
4m
Slam damage:
80
Pole vault cast time:
0.2s
Pole vault distance:
6-12m (horizontal)
3-8m (vertical)
  • The combined cast time before Geiger pole-vaults is 0.5s.
  • Geiger can do a short/long/high jump by holding S/W/Space when casting the ability, similar to Winston's Leap.
  • Geiger can attack mid-air after a short recovery.
  • "Open up!"
  • “Crowbar down, Geiger up!”
  • “Watch the landing, mate!”
  • On elimination: "Broke ya bones!"
  • On elimination: "That’s scrapwork, mate."

Rust Ripper Q

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Type
Ultimate Ability
Cost
2400 pts
Effect Type
Projectile

Throw a sawblade frisbee to bounce between enemies and apply Bleed. Any melee hit refreshes the Bleed duration.

Cast Time:
0.4s
Projectile Speed:
40m/s
Projectile Radius:
0.5m
Bounce Range:
12m
Damage:
100 (impact) + 125 over 2.5s (bleed)
  • When bouncing, sawblade becomes a strong projectile that can't be mitigated by Defense Matrix, Kekkai Sancturary, etc.
  • When bouncing, sawblade slightly homes but can't hit target with no LOS.
  • Bleed duration on enemy refreshes when they take melee damage from any source.
  • To enemies/self: “Round trip through the meat!”
  • To allies: "Saw out, limbs in danger!"
  • On strikeback, to enemies/self: “One more round!”
  • On strikeback, to enemies/self: “Do it again!”
  • On strikeback, to enemies/self: “Stike thrice!”
  • On elimination: “Bleed me a river!”

Perks

Blood Storm Minor Perk

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Gutwrench gain 15% lifesteal against enemies within 10 meters.

Flexible Steel Minor Perk

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Cyclone bounces 20% further when hitting an enemy.

Dopamine Crush Major Perk

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Vaultbreaker hit increases attack and reload speed by 25% for 2 seconds.

Recycled Sharpenel Major Perk

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Alternate Fire hit refills Primary Fire’s ammo.

Design Process

Hero Fantasy

In my heart Geiger is the coolest and the most definitive “Junker” by a huge margin. In the Wastelander cinematic, he’s a crazy fearless crackhead with a million different melee weapons. But at the same time he fights with intelligence and knows to respect an enemy with integrity.

Geiger’s hero fantasy is a blade dancing brawler. Unlike Vendetta, he demands less resource to bounce between groups of enemies, and deals consistent mid-range AOE damage when enemies are pressed into tight spaces.

Weapon

To differentiate him from Vendetta, Reaper and Venture, I wanted Geiger’s weapon to be more range-flexible with one special gimmick. Initially, that gimmick was bouncing blades. But then Mizuki happened – maybe for the best, since the redesign is more focused and more skill-expressive.

The redesign was inspired by Invisible Woman’s boomerang shots in Marvel Rivals, plus one twist: Player can increase the fire rate by tapping faster, at the cost of its range. Holding the key will juggle the blades at max fire rate and minimum range, making it almost feel like a magnetic chainsaw.

Gutwrench (Old) Weapon️

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Reworked: Brawler identity is not strong, player is encouraged to spam chokes and corners.

🖱Bouncing blade shots.
🖱Punch followed by a long-range dagger shot.

Gutwrench icon

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Final design - Alt fire moved to passive

Piercing boomerang blade that flies back early when another blade is fired.
[Hold to quickly juggle blades at close range.]

Brawl ability

Geiger needs an ability to take advantage of his short range. Ideally the ability should benefit from a chaotic brawl.

I don’t want to give him block, overhealth, or lifesteal since they are pretty overused. I had the idea of giving the hero an extended version of Venture’s drill attack – a round saw attack, only temporarily equipped by hitting a trick throw. But a brawl hero who cosplays Vendetta once in a while sounds boring, inconsistent, and is against my previous design direction.

The newer design was inspired by Beyblades. I wanted the hero to bounce off against walls and cut through enemies while deflecting projectiles. Eventually:

  • Due to environment complexity and lack of direction control, the bounce was changed to “bounce towards movement direction when hitting enemies”.
  • Projectile deflection became a flat damage reduction to make it more like a DPS sustain skill.

Rev Up Shift

⚙️
Discarded for: Unreliable trigger. No need for a third boomarang/frisbee in the kit.

Throw a round saw blade. Upon hitting an enemy, it returns and wields you with Revving Rush.

Revving Rush Shift

️⚙️

Attack with a revving round saw. Enemy hits extend its uptime.

Cyclone (Old) E️

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Redesigned: Lacks direction control and can be janky in complex environemnt geometry.

Spin in third person, deflecting projectiles and bouncing off from walls to cut through enemies.

Cyclone E️

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Final design

Spin and move in third person, reducing damage taken. Bounce towards any direction when hitting enemies.

Verticality

All other Flanker (except Tracer) have vertical mobility for a reason. However, vertical mobility abilities in OW has been damn near exhausted – fly, bomb jump, leap, climb, teleport… what other unique abilities could be made?

I started with an ability that grants movement and survival buffs, but it resembles Octane (Apex Legends) and Emre too much. Another idea was an explosive hammer – slamming the tool blasts the hero upward.

Plants vs. Zombies’ pole vault zombie inspired the final design. Using a crowbar to pole vault sounds crazy and athletic – the force is so huge, even the crowbar became bendy and springy. It also serves as a Melee finisher hit.

Stim Pill Shift

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Discarded: "Delayed death" gives little skill expression to justify the frustration to fight against it. Also not an interesting vertical movement.

Increase forward speed and jump height. Slightly delay death when health drops to or below zero.

Crush Blast Shift

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Discarded: Still essentially a glorified "grenade jump". Too similar to Concussion Mine.

Slam an explosive hammer to propel yourself upward.

Vaultbreaker Shift️

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Final design

Slam a crowbar to pole-vault into the air.

Ultimate: Targeted or Chaos?

Initially, Rust Ripper was designed to bring Genji Dodgeball (workshop game mode) mechanics. Give enemies a chance to parry/strike back, while Geiger enjoys the satisfaction of well-timed strikes.

But if I’m the enemy, would I want to spend 6 second punching thin air? Need to standardize this part by giving it a cast time, allowing enemies to break LOS, like many other ultimates.

Eventually, I realized that Genji Dodgeball exists only in custom modes for a reason. Constant precision parry is a mental load for both Geiger and enemies when a regular teamfight is going on. Additionally, players are attuned to the “press Q and a grand thing happens” pattern, and my design need to cater to their expectation.

The final Rust Ripper effect still combos well with follow-up melee hits, but in a more streamlined way. Geiger is rewarded for something he’d naturally do: using Cyclone, Vaultbreaker, and Sneak Shot on enemies affected by Rust Ripper.

Atomic Crowbar Q

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Discarded: Another "strike and do AOE" ultimates. This is a better idea for a CC oriented Tank ultimate.

Repeatedly bounce over enemy heads and strike. The third successful strike in a row knocks enemies down.

Rust Ripper (Old) Q

🥏
Redesigned: Enemies feel terrible to be forced to play genji dodgeball.

Throw a sawblade frisbee to be deflected between you and enemies via Quick Melee. The Frisbee applies lethal bleed on successful hit.

Rust Ripper Q

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Redesigned: The strikeback mechanic is overall not intuitive and too attention demanding.

Throw a sawblade frisbee to bounce between enemies and apply Bleed. As it returns, strike it back to enemies with any Melee attack.

Rust Ripper Q

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Final Design

Throw a sawblade frisbee to bounce between enemies and apply Bleed. Any melee hit refreshes the Bleed duration.

Discarded Perks

Full Auto Major Perk

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Discarded: This perk breaks Geiger's brawler identity, yet is not enough to make him a worthy poke hero.

Alternate Fire shoots 3 daggers in a line with 50% less damage each.

Crush 'n Roll Major Perk

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Discarded: Repetitively pole vaulting over enemies' heads is fun to play as but not so much to play against.

Vaultbreaker hit deals 20% less damage but resets its cooldown.

Adrenaline Shot Major Perk

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Discarded: This perk rewards attacking from afar to ready up a new ability cycle, instead of wisely managing cooldowns.

Alternare fire hit reduces ability cooldown by 25%.

Final Kit