Blizzard reveals changes to Overwatch 2 which will take effect on 15th November

Blizzard Monitor 2 has been a surefire hit with the game consistently appearing in the top four most-watched games on Twitch since the game launched earlier this month, eclipsing both Fortnite from Epic Games and Apex Legends from EA. The Overwatch 2 development team took to heart official forums to outline some of the changes they will bring in the game’s next software update. The changes were going to be part of Overwatch 2 Season 2, but Blizzard believes they should be brought forward sooner. So they plan to implement the changes you can read below on Tuesday, November 15.

Overwatch 2 Changes:

“With several weeks on the books, we’ve been so humbled and honored that over 25 million players have answered the call for Overwatch 2. With the live service now more stable, we’d like to take some time to focus on what we have planned for hero balancing in an upcoming game update, ahead of the changes we have planned for Season 2 (something we’ll have more to say about later).

As we talked about our plans for Season 2 in our previous Dev Blog 1.9k, there are a few hero balancing tweaks we’d like to make sooner. As promised, we’re focusing on some tactical tweaks meant to bring current standouts like D.Va, Zarya, Genji, and Sombra in line with the rest of the roster.

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Hack ability lock duration reduced from 1.75 to 1.5 seconds Hacked enemies are no longer valid targets for hacking for the duration of the effect Hacked damage multiplier reduced from 40% to 25%

Developer Comment: With Sombra’s rework, she’s taken a lot more damage to help account for the reduced duration of Hack Ability Lock. This proved too deadly for a flanker with easy access to enemy backgrounds, and we also had to deal with damage dealt by heroes like Tracer, Reaper and now Genji, in 5v5 format.

She also can no longer channel hack on an already hacked target, as feedback indicated that the reduced cooldown combined with stealth hacking proved too frustrating for many players. This is basically a per-target cooldown that allows Hack to maintain its current 4 second cooldown to potentially hack multiple targets.

Genji

Max ammo reduced from 30 to 24. Shuriken damage reduced from 29 to 27.

Developer Comment: Genji is a hero who has benefited greatly from the move to 5v5. The switch to a single tank and reduced crowd control meant Genji had fewer obstacles in his way, but he didn’t receive any tuning updates as he wasn’t actively in the meta until at launch (which is also informed by our general preference to avoid preemptive adjustments when possible). We also found that in early beta testing, other companion heroes like Tracer and Reaper were also much more effective in OW2. These changes will allow Genji to better align with other companion damage heroes.

Zarya

Barrier duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 seconds Barrier cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds

Developer Comment: Early player sentiment predicted that Zarya was one of the weakest solo tanks in 5v5, though its high damage potential and barrier availability proved to be extremely effective. For opponents, feedback has indicated that this can make Zarya feel like it has very limited windows of vulnerability, which feels difficult to manage when combined with his increasing damage potential.

These changes will reduce the Barrier’s uptime, making it a little harder for it to gain energy and giving enemies more time to deal damage to it.

D.va

Fusion Cannon spread increased from 3.5 to 3.75. Booster impact damage reduced from 25 to 15.

Developers Comment: D.va felt too deadly after the last set of changes, considering her resilience with the Enhanced Defense Matrix. Our stats and high-level player feedback considered it not efficient enough before compared to other tanks, so it’s a partial return to establish some common ground there.

Kiriko

Swift Step invulnerability duration reduced from 0.4 to 0.25 seconds

Developer Comment: This invulnerability window is primarily intended to avoid instantly dying to something invisible after teleporting through walls, but it ended up being a little too long and leading to some confusion when shooting at Kiriko.

Our current goal is to roll out these changes in an upcoming update on November 15, 2022. Should this plan change, we’ll be sure to update you here. For those who want a preview of how these changes will play out, check out the Overwatch League Playoffs on October 30.

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