Really? I can't think of a character that was more complained about than Roadhog.
Was it warranted?
I don't really think so but people were just so vocal about how unfun he was and have been asking forever for a nerf.
Roadhog (and Genji. Jesus Christ) got away with murder sometimes that I'm okay with them potentially changing the characters a bit so they have to play more in line with their team.
If they are actually balancing around salty people on the blizzard forums then I guess I'll sign up and start contributing, lol.
I know a lot of people disliked him but I remember back in the open beta/release that Bastion was always the bane of newer players and that wasn't something that they caved in on because people learned how to get around it. He was later reworked to try to not be ass, but otherwise wasn't changed even if a basic rein + bastion WRECKED new players. Plus things such as Hanzo Scatter have never been touched AFAIK and are frequently complained about...just seems weird to hit that now? I disagree that RH gets away with murder when Blizz has made people dedicated to playing him go through more hell than anyone else what with them fundamentally changing how hook pulls, how LoS works, the scatter on his gun, his cooldown, etc.
The reason this irks me is because Roadhog is a character clearly designed in a such a way because of the strength he had in his hook. He has no mobility, a huge hitbox, a small clip size with a painfully long reload, which come together to make him an infamous ult battery for the opposing team. He was never a traditional tank, but this all worked into how he used Hook. Hook is super strong, so the character with it must be weak. A big tradeoff. I love that! Even then, they changed him a lot--Hook 2.0 as mentioned, hitting CD (also fair), and all that. Basically making it so that despite his one shot capabilities he's kept in line with others and will always have those inherent downsides built into his very design. But this change? It's straight up half assed nonsense. Now hook doesn't have the payoff anywhere close to how it used to be, and this character that is gimped because of it now lost his very soul with such a huge gutting of his damage. Yet he still has all of the downsides,
including the fairly recent hook CD nerf, which was always working towards balancing his one shots. What this means is, well, he has all of the stacked nerfs and changes built for a character that one shots, and then they take away his ability to do just that...every balance tweak they've worked on since the game came out basically got dumped into the trash. Upping his firing speed and giving him another shot still makes his overall damage her clip lower and he still has to deal with the huge reload on top of it too.
I'm not against a rework like you said either, but this isn't that. If it is then...well, it's essentially a half done change that is reworking him into a role he isn't currently designed for. A year after the game came out. I've never felt like harshly towards a patch in OW but I am genuinely turned off super hard by this going forward.