While Heroes of the Storm has made the decision to copy quite a bit from Overwatch's collection system, Overwatch has in turn taken inspiration from the Blizzard MOBA.
While Heroes of the Storm had its own Summit to let the media get some experience with the upcoming 2.0 update, Overwatch had a smaller but similar meet-up as well. In it, we were shown the next big update to Overwatch.
We are happy to share with you the patch notes that will soon arrive on the PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One servers. The below list of changes has been playtested the past months, and during our own time at Blizzard we came to realize that this is exactly what the game needs. Considering the arrival of the Overwatch League some time in the third quarter, this major rework will lay the foundation that the professional teams can soon start practicing on.
To share your feedback, please post in the General Discussion forum.
For a list of known issues, visit Blizzard's Bug Report forum.
For troubleshooting assistance, visit Blizzard's Technical Support forum.
GENERAL UPDATES
Statistics
- We’ve started gathering data under new metrics we will soon be able to share. The community has been vocal about wanting to see more numbers and we heard you loud and clear. Soon you will have access to stats including “Ultimate charge gained per minute” and “Time Ultimate held”
Competitive
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Readjusted rating gains at the start of the season in order to incorporate the last season's results more heavily. Rating gains of over a 1000 points will now be far less likely
Developer Comments: It is the declared goal of the matchmaker to produce competitive games with an about equal win percentage. Through statistical variance and sheer luck, some individuals were fortunate enough to be consistently paired with players of higher skill than their opposition. This led to significant leaps in rating when realistically an improvement of that margin rarely takes place. We now devalue data from the last season less.
Mobility
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McCree can now use his bullets as charges for his Combat Roll. As long as he has a bullet left in his cylinder, he can use it to Combat Roll (keeping the old functionality of reloading during the roll)
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Tracer is a little too easy to pin down currently; this is why we will now allow her to use her Blinks vertically. Blinks used in this way recharge 300% faster
- Reaper’s Teleport ability is now instant, and on arrival activates a seperate Wraith form that does not prevent him from firing his mega awesome weapons
Developer Comments: Because Overwatch focuses so much on mobility, we have revisited some of our oldest heroes to modernize them. We hope that these changes will keep these heroes viable in the midst of a roster with ever-increasing mobility.
HERO UPDATES
Ana
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Ana’s Biotic Grenade healing debuff decreased to 50% from 100%
Developer Comments: Initially we thought the nerf to her Biotic Rifle would be sufficient but Ana’s win- and pickrate is still a little too high. This will make her less of a hard counter to other healers and will help balance out the issues we were seeing.
Winston
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Winston’s Barrier Projector HP increased to 1000
Developer Comments: When we nerfed the shield to 600 HP, it was done mostly with no-hero-limit in mind and stacking the barriers proved to be an issue. Moreover with the introduction of Orisa, it became apparent that Winston’s Barrier needed a little help to stay competitive.
Pharah
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Pharah’s Hover physics have been significantly overhauled
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Jump Jet cooldown increased by 80%
Developer Comments: Pharah could feel a little clunky while using her jetpack. To give her a more dynamic feel, physical pushbacks from projectiles including her own are now significantly more noticable and fluid while more predictable. To balance her gain in mobility, we had to increase the cooldown of Jump Jet so gaining air via Rocket Jumps feels like a worth while risk-reward trade-off.
Junkrat
- Junkrat can now manually suicide with the press of a button (M), activating his trait along the way
Developer Comments: Junkrat has had some trouble finding his way into the meta. We believe this change will fix his greatest weakness: unpredictable damage. We have had a lot of fun with this change in our internal testing, and have resulted to calling Junkrat a poor-man's Pulse Bomb.
Bastion
- Bastion will now have to keep moving at all times while shooting, to prevent overheating
- Siege Mode now reduces move speed by 20% instead of preventing it all together
Developer Comments: Bastion has proven to be too strong, thanks to his ability to turtle up in a single place, protected by a dedicated Reinhardt or Orisa. To make him easier to counter, we now force him to keep moving while he shoots so his team requires more coordination to make him work.
Soldier: 76
- Soldier: 76's Ultimate now functions the same as Bastion's self-heal or D.Va's Defense Matrix
- Charge is used up while Visoring, and recharges while outside of content or through getting kills with the ability
Developer Comments: We like the resource management element we have added to heroes like Bastion and D.Va, and have integrated it into Soldier: 76 now as well. In this patch, Soldier will be able to use his Ultimate through a similar system, whenever he activates it. The meter will recharge outside of combat, or by kills achieved through the ability since we want to reward proper aim.
Lucio
- Soundwave now creates a mini Dragonstrike-like projectile, similar to Hanzo's, that travels through the map indefinitely
Developer Comments: We always pictured Lucio as our BattleMedic which is why we've been experimenting with several buffs to his speed and Soundwave ability on the PTR. This final buff will make the dream a reality.
Mercy
- Mercy has been given a third beam
- This new 'Homing Beam' locks onto an enemy, dealing increasing Damage Per Second while you stay within range
Developer Comments: Mercy isn't fun to play, we understand. But everybody loves lasers, and so we have decided to add this additional trick to Mercy's arsenal.
Symmetra
- Symmetra has been removed from the game, as we get ready to release a different hero with the same name
- Both of Symmetra's Ultimates will now be available to all teams by default, set up automatically depending on the state of the game
Developer Comments: We were never quite happy with Symmetra. For one, she infringes on the design space of Mercy. Secondly, it was shown that the existence of her Ultimate(s) was often unfair for teams not playing a Symmetra. We believe the above changes will be the best in the long run, while it also frees up the name for a Geometry-based hero we are currently testing internally.
Sombra
- As long as Sombra fires while Stealthed, her invisibility will stay up indefinitely
- Sombra's Stealth cooldown now starts as soon as you activate it
Developer Comments: Sombra is still underperforming, most likely because we built this game solely for the casual player base. This is why we want to improve on what makes her so relatable: being invisible. Now you will be able to keep the duration of her invisibility up as long as you are firing your weapon. Now please play her.
MAP UPDATES
Hybrid
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The Capture Point portion of these maps are now no longer required to unlock the Payload portion
- Hybrid maps like King's Row, Numbani, Hollywood and Eichenwalde can now be won by capturing the Point or moving the payload to the end of the track
Developer Comments: Overwatch is all about making decisions. This is why we are revamping the Hybrid gamemodes. No longer do you have to play half Assault/half Escort, because now you can win the game by either capturing the point or moving the payload to the end of its track. The payload will start on the map by default, no longer needing to be unlocked through the capture point. We hope this change will add strategical depth to both defense and offense, allowing for more creative team compositions.
Assault
- Assault is now called 2CP throughout the game and other official sources
- The following maps have had their second points removed:
- Hanamura
- Temple of Anubis
- Volskaya Industries
Developer Comments: We have heard your feedback and are renaming Assault maps to 2CP. Nobody used the name Assault anyway. FeelsBadMan
We have also listened to the rest of your feedback on 2CP: how snowbally these maps can get after a quick push to Point B. So we will be removing all Point B’s of the 2CP maps in order to make the matches fairer and more evenly balanced. Nothing else will change.
BUGFIXES
- Fixed a bug causing players to respawn in the enemy spawn room after being pinned against a car by an enemy Reinhardt on Oasis
- A scoring requirement clarification has been added to the Capture the Flag settings, stating that each team’s flag will need to be secured before they can score
- We have fixed an issue allowing Hanzo to miss tanks such as Reinhardt or Winston. Now, no matter where you aim your arrows will always hit the opponent’s tank closest to you
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After introducing the spray system, we found players abusing a glitch giving them the option not to use them. This has now been fixed, and sprays will be used repeatedly after every kill
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Speaking of glitch abuse, we finally managed to find the cause of what allowed Zenyattas to sometimes enter god mode. God mode is of course only available for Jeff Kaplan, and so Zenyatta has been patched to represent this
The above changes will be playable soon, let us know which you are most satisfied with in the comments below!
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