Here’s what you can expect in the next major Overwatch update

Genji nerfs and Mercy buffs, lots of competitive changes

By now, lots of people have had a chance to check out the new version of Overwatch‘s Public Test Realm (PTR). While we went into some of the fun stuff yesterday, there’s a lot of balance tweaks that launched at the same time. Many of the changes made on the PTR will eventually make their way to the retail PC and console versions of the game, so if you’re interested in what the developers have planned, it’s worth keeping an eye on. I’ve played some on the PTR myself, so I’ll add my thoughts on the updates.

We’ll start with the general and character-specific changes and then move into competitive play, which seems to be getting the most updates. 

As we discussed yesterday, all characters will have access to new sitting and laughing emotes. There’s also been a text filter added to the phrase “GG EZ” used in match chat. This latter update probably won’t make it to the console versions, since those players don’t tend to use keyboards for communication.

Ultimate abilities that drain the ultimate charge meter when activated will do so more quickly (0.25 seconds instead of 1 second). This means that if you’re killed in the middle of using your ultimate, you’re less likely to have any of your charge refunded.

The Watchpoint: Gibraltar map has had the first checkpoint removed, meaning the attacking team has to push twice as far to receive their first time bonus.

A new “Allied Health Bars” option has been added. It’s a little hard to get used to, but can help if you need to know who needs healing the most as a support class.

Contextual menus have been added on the hero selection screen, which gives players the ability to report or group with other players. Prior to this change, you would have to right-click in chat on an abusive player’s name to report them. I haven’t gotten to try out the grouping feature yet, but it sounds as though it’s intended to make casual grouping easier.

Matchmaking UI is now purple in the Competitive Play queue. Can’t say I noticed this one.

Several minor adjustments to typography in the Spectator UI. Ditto for this one, wouldn’t have known if it weren’t on the list.

A recent change to the size of heroes’ projectiles was reverted. According to the developers, “Altering the size of projectiles in flight had too many unintended side effects to keep in the game, at least in its current form. We will continue watching this and make additional changes if necessary.“

All of the healing characters (Ana, Lúcio, Mercy, and Zenyatta) will now tell other players to group up if they want to be healed when they use “Needs healing” from the quick communication ring. Doing this will add a marker to the healing character so that it’s easier for the injured player to see. This makes healing a lot easier and subtly reminds players that if they go off into the weeds to hunt the other team, they’re on their own for health restoration. I do hope that Soldier: 76 has this code added as well, since he can also heal other players with his Biotic field.

Torbjörn was added to the practice modes and can now be controlled by the artificial intelligence in Practice vs. A.I., Play vs. A.I., and Custom game modes. This is nice, but the A.I.-controlled Torbjörn isn’t as sneaky at hiding his turret as players tend to be.

Symmetra had some new voice lines added that will inform her team of how many charges are left on her teleporter. As a Sym player myself this is nice, but most players only care if there’s a teleport pad in the spawn room, not how many charges it has.

D.Va‘s Defense Matrix got a small nerf, and doesn’t begin regenerating until a full second has gone by, up from half a second. The developers stated that “Defense Matrix was too efficient when tapped repeatedly, instead of being held. Now, the recovery delay matches the ability cooldown.” In the last patch, D.Va had gone from being one of the least-picked tanks to a pink, bunny-hopping god, so this may bring her back down to earth a little bit.

_Source

Genji was probably the character hardest hit by the nerf bat. His double jump no longer resets when he’s wall climbing, meaning he has to touch the ground before he can jump in midair again. His Dash ability no longer destroys traps laid down by Junkrat and Widowmaker, and in fact if he passes over either of these he will trigger them. His Swift Strike ability no longer interrupts quick melee attacks, meaning players can’t get a free punch in before striking. Finally, his ultimate ability, Dragonblade, was reduced in duration by 2 seconds, from 8 to 6.

The developers said that “Genji was a little too difficult to pin down, and these changes will balance his speed. Swift Strike no longer cancels the recovery time from a quick melee attack, so players will no longer be able to get a free melee attack before using Swift Strike. Lastly, Dragonblade’s duration was long enough that it often felt too difficult to reasonably counter.“

Genji has always been the character with the highest skill cap, and playing against a really good one can be maddening. It’ll be interesting to see if some of these changes might be walked back in a later patch if people stop playing as Genji.

Hanzo will be able to fire his bow 30% faster, and his movement speed while aiming has been improved (30% speed reduction, was 40%). The developers said that “Hanzo has the potential to deal a lot of damage, but he can feel really inconsistent, even at a medium distance. By increasing the projectile speed, we’re extending his reliable range, making it easier to land shots without having to perfectly predict enemy movement.” This does make Hanzo feel more viable in competitive play, and players should expect to see a lot more of him in the back ranks once the patch goes live.

Lúcio‘s Speed Boost got a bit of a nerf. His Amp It Up ability when used in conjunction with Speed Boost no longer doubles his party’s speed, now merely boosting it by 70%. This helps capture point maps feel a little more balanced since they don’t necessarily go to the team that rushed to the point first.

Mei‘s ultimate ability, Blizzard, got a couple of serious boosts. During this ultimate, she tosses the small robot on her back to freeze an area around it for a few seconds, which can stop an enemy push dead in its tracks. Previously, the robot projectile would be stopped by barriers like Winston’s dome shield or Reinhardt’s barrier. The robot will now pierce those barriers, making it easier for Mei to place the freezing zone exactly where she wants it. The zone’s radius was also increased from 8 meters to 10 meters, meaning it’s a lot harder to escape from. From the developers: “Mei has an interesting toolkit, but her ultimate often felt like it was too difficult to use effectively. Consequently, it felt weak compared to many other ultimate abilities. The freeze effect has been piercing barriers for some time now, but the projectile would still be blocked. Now, you can throw it down exactly where you want it, so it’s much easier to utilize the full radius effectively.“

你好!!! (・∀・ ) pic.twitter.com/76TgnBOe4Z

— Hoshizora (@HoshizoraOCE) August 12, 2016

If you ask me, Mei doesn’t need the help. But, nobody asked me.

McCree‘s ultimate, Deadeye, will now drain completely when used instead of using half when activated and half when confirmed. McCree players who were killed or otherwise interrupted before they fired during High Noon began at 50% charge, so it felt like he got to use his ultimate a lot more than he probably should have. 

Mercy‘s healing-per-second has been increased by 20%, and her Resurrection ability allows her teammates to get back into the fight faster. The delay between being resurrected and the ability to move and fight has been reduced from three seconds to 2.25, which helps her teammates keep Mercy in one piece once she’s granted them the gift of life. The boost to her healing-per-second really helps her to keep the whole team topped off, and she feels more efficient as a result.

Roadhog‘s Chain Hook was slightly reduced in effectiveness. If the hooked target isn’t in his line of sight when he begins to pull them in towards himself, they won’t get pulled. I do hope that doesn’t mean we won’t see plays like this anymore.

He nerfed it. pic.twitter.com/WB16l60JYq

— محمد (@Zee_IV) August 16, 2016

Zenyatta got a couple of balance tweaks. His Orb of Discord debuff now causes his team to do 30% more damage to an enemy target, down from 50%. To compensate for this, his primary fire, Orb of Destruction, had its damaged increased slightly, from 40 damage to 46. The developers stated that “Zenyatta is in a far better place since the last update, but the strength of Orb of Discord has turned him into an almost mandatory pick. These changes reduce Orb of Discord’s effectiveness, but his damage-dealing potential has been increased. The amount of damage that he delivers should feel largely unaffected by the change.“

Competitive play for season one finished up on August 17, and everyone who participated got some competitive points that can be used towards unlocking golden weapon skins, and a new spray tag that indicates they participated. Blizzard has said that competitive play will receive significant changes in season two.

The biggest change to competitive mode is probably that Sudden Death is going away. Instead of the oft-maligned coin flip, matches can and will end in ties. Furthermore, players will have to complete more matches to clear their penalty status for leaving a match early. Hopefully, this will help keep people from dropping out when their team isn’t doing well during a competitive match.

Instead of a 1-100 skill ranking, the range will now stretch from 1-5,000, which should help clear up confusion about how well people are doing in relation to one another. They’ll also be introducing tiers that players will achieve based on their skill rating, ranging from Bronze to Grandmaster. Players in the top tiers will have to play at least once a week to maintain their ranking, and players above the Diamond tier (3,000 and above) will begin losing skill rating if they don’t check in at least every 24 hours. Failing to play in a competitive match for more than seven days will automatically remove a player from their platform’s top 500, regardless of their current ranking.

There’s a lot more changes coming to competitive, but if you’re interested, I’d recommend checking out this Blizzard forum thread that goes into granular detail on the updates. 

Finally, there were also several bug fixes, all of which were pretty minor. 

General

• Fixed a bug that allowed the kill participation metric to go above 100 percent
• Fixed a bug in the Custom Game settings preventing the Ability Cooldown modifier from affecting Ana
• Fixed a bug that caused heroes to die when first spawned in a custom game if Health and Damage modifiers were used simultaneously
• Fixed a bug preventing the hero list in Custom Game settings from being organized alphabetically
• The spectate option now becomes unavailable (the button will be greyed out) when all spectator slots have been filled in a Custom Game lobby
• Fixed an issue causing in-game statistics to run off the edge of the screen in 16:10 aspect ratio

 AI

• Fixed a bug that caused Bastion to become stuck, continuously healing himself in the spawn area

 Heroes

• Appropriate sound effects now play when Ana shoots barriers, shields, and armor
• D.Va no longer communicates her ultimate status for Self-Destruct while charging her Call Mech ultimate
• Hanzo’s Spirit Dragon voice line now plays when using his Okami and Lone Wolf skins
• Fixed various issues with Junkrat’s emote and highlight animations
• Fixed an issue causing Mei’s Ice Wall to push herself to the side when cast at her feet
• Fixed a bug preventing Mei’s Ice Wall from being destroyed by a moving payload
• Fixed a bug that prevented Mei’s Ice Wall from appearing at the target location when cast
• Fixed a bug allowing Reaper to reach unintended map locations using Shadow Step
• Fixed a bug causing Reinhardt’s shield to jitter when turning in third person
• Fixed an issue that prevented Roadhog’s chain from displaying correctly in some situations
• Fixed several issues with Symmetra’s emotes and highlight intros
• The scarf on Tracer’s Slipstream skin is no longer stiff in the Hurdle highlight intro
• Fixed a bug preventing overtime from being triggered while Zenyatta is using Transcendence
• The names of Tracer’s Sprinter and Track and Field skins now display correctly

 Maps

• Fixed an issue preventing Genji and Hanzo from reliably climbing a specific crate on Watchpoint: Gibraltar

Overwatch PTR now available – August 17, 2016 [Blizzard]
Additional info re: season 2 [Blizzard]