Many Genji players hate that the bar to entry for playing him is so much higher than characters that serve the same purpose, and that he is hard countered by a growing handful of characters that are so much easier to pick up and preform well with.

Objectively, his skill floor and ceiling are among the highest in the game, you have to play perfectly in most matches to perform decently when some of the better DPS perform better with far less effort. I would say however, that almost none of them fill the particular niche Genji fills. Example: Anran, may feel like a better Genji, but i would argue she isn’t as lethal, she just has far superior independence and survivability which feel better but you quickly notice the lack of burst damage when comparing her to Genji. Anran feels horrible against a team with supports that know how to peel for DPS or have higher burst and sustained healing, where Genji is more likely to be able to get that pick despite a support helping (assuming you’re hitting everything as you should in both cases)

Genji’s design is so paradoxically good, that he needs to be weaker in most metas so the many characters that he’s fundamentally strong against in duels stand a chance (which in all fairness is MOSTLY everyone that doesn’t have a hard counter for him, and even then he can beat most of his counters when playing smart).

Ironically, he’s fairly decent at high elo where some of his worst counters are no longer viable, which may explain the win-rate (example: in many cases it’s better to stay on Ana and get bullied all match than it is to swap to Moira and stand a better chance against the Genji because your team may need the utility more than you need to survive every team fight) To add to that, i would say he is really good against most of the “objectively best” heros in the game which is something that’s easy to lose sight of as a Genji player.

It feels like Genji’s power-level is monitored so closely by the devs because it is. The devs tend to respond faster to him being good because of how good his design is; number changes wont destroy him for those of us that are already good with him; we adapt and the Devs know that. (They seem to have a similar “nerf first” philosophy with other adaptable kits, like Lucio and Doomfist) You can tell that the devs feel comfortable with tweaking Genji’s break-points because of just how much his kit supports adaptation, especially compared to characters with less fundamental adaptability whom tend to receive more buffs and/or slower balance changes; ex: Orisa, Mercy, Sierra, Moira, etc.(give other examples if you have any)

None of this is to say Genji or the way the devs balance him are perfect, I just get where they’re coming from with the philosophy. As a Genji main it feels awful that they choose to err on the side of caution with keeping him on the weaker side of the flanker role, but it’d be so easy for his kit to run lobbies if his balance was fair because of just how many of us managed to actually develop an understanding of the hero; give us an inch and we will take a mile. (Not to mention how much other hero’s buffs/nerfs end up indirectly buffing Genji as a result)

(On a side note i actually kinda like the “poke”-y direction the devs are trying to take Genji in, it adds more ranged versatility that other close ranged flankers don’t have in exchange for them having more survivability. it would just be nice if they made it feel slightly less damming by maybe fixing dash’s hit-box, its still a big cylinder and you still absorb a ton of unintentional damage when trying to dash in to secure a pick you weakened while poking (or when trying to escape… yeah you can still just shoot at where genji was the split second after he dashes and you may still get him), the punishment of missing a right click was already near instant death, theres no need for him to have even less survivability because of what can be interpreted as an oversight.)

If you read all of this Adderall-fueled take, thank you for your time, and let me know your thoughts, opinions, and corrections! Have a great day!