New ‘Overwatch’ PTR Update Includes Several Major Hero Changes

A new update is now live in Overwatch’s Public Test Realm including adding the recently revealed Combat Medic Jean-Baptiste to the game’s full roster. In addition to our first look at his abilities, seen here, the studio over at Blizzard also shared other changes made to the shooter as well including a few other hero changes.

General Update:

Armor

• Beam-type damage is now reduced by 20% when hitting armor
• Damage over time effects are no longer mitigated by armor

Developer Comments: The damage taken by armor from damage over time effects, such as Widowmaker’s Venom Mine, and beam weapons, like Symmetra’s Photon Projector, varied greatly. Now it will be more consistent and predictable.

Damage Boost

• Damage boost is now applied when a projectile is fired rather than when it hits a target

Developer Comments: Previously, the effects of damage boosting were only accounted for if the damage-dealing hero was being boosted as they landed a hit. Now, damage is applied to the projectile as it is fired. This means the damage-dealing hero doesn’t need to be boosted when the projectile hits an enemy for the damage boost to be accounted for.

Knockback

• Knockback distance is now more consistent
• Heroes that are flying can now be knocked back and slowed

Developer Comments: Knockbacks are now less affected by how the enemy was moving when they were hit. Instead of having small or large knockbacks that depend on chance, knockbacks will feel similar regardless of the enemy’s movement leading up to the knockback. Allowing flying heroes, like Mercy when using her Valkyrie ability or D.Va using her Booster ability, to be properly knocked back makes for more fluid, realistic gameplay.

Sound

• A new sound plays when you land a hit while damage boosted
• A new sound plays when you land a hit, but it doesn’t do any damage

Developer Comments: With the addition of Baptiste, we wanted to be sure that you can tell when your hits were being buffed or nullified, regardless of what hero you’re playing.

Hero Changes

Ana

• Nano Boost
  • Heal reduced from 300 to 250

Developer Comments: Giving Nano Boost an instant heal effect enabled players to survive longer and made Ana’s ultimate valuable. However, it needs to be slightly less effective for refilling large health pools.

Doomfist

• Rising Uppercut
  • Cooldown reduced from 7 to 6 seconds
• Seismic Slam
  • Cooldown reduced from 7 to 6 seconds

Developer Comments: Reducing the downtime of Doomfist’s abilities should make his gameplay feel more fluid.

Hanzo

• Sonic Arrow
  • Detection radius increased from 7 to 9 meters

Developer Comments: Because of how dense the environment is on some maps, the Sonic Arrow can feel ineffective in some areas. Increasing Sonic Arrow’s detection radius should make it more effective.

Lúcio

• Sonic Amplifier
  • Soundwave now counts towards Offensive Assists

Developer Comments: The knockback on Lúcio’s Soundwave is a great tool for pushing enemies into situations that get them killed, so they should be rewarded an offensive assist for doing so.

McCree

• Fan the Hammer
  • Damage reduced from 55 to 50
• Deadeye
  • Damage per second increased from 275 to 550 after locking onto targets for 2.5 seconds

Developer Comments: After reducing armor’s effectiveness for all heroes, Fan the Hammer doesn’t need to deal quite as much damage. Increasing Deadeye’s damage after being locked on for a bit makes it more effective when attacking high health, static targets (like barriers) and heroes with over 600 health. It will not impact how dangerous this is for heroes under 600 health.

Mei

• Endothermic Blaster
  • Primary fire damage increased from 2.25 to 2.75 (45 to 55 damage per second)
• Ice Wall
  • Health reduced from 500 to 400

Developer Comments: Increasing the damage of Mei’s primary fire should make her Freeze and Icicle move combination more potent. Making the pillars on Mei’s Ice Wall easier to destroy means less waiting for the wall to disappear on its own and more opportunities to counter it.

Moira

• Biotic Grasp
  • Heal over time duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds
  • Total healing increased from 50 to 65

Developer Comments: These minor changes make Moira’s passive healing effect on Biotic Grasp slightly more effective when topping off an ally’s health.

Orisa

• Fusion Driver
  • Movement speed penalty while firing reduced from 50% to 30%

Developer Comments: As a defensive tank, Orisa can have trouble pushing forward with the team. Allowing Orisa to move faster while firing should make it easier to apply pressure on the enemy team and use her barrier in proactive ways.

Pharah

• Rocket Launcher
  • Minimum explosion damage increased from 16.25 to 20

Developer Comments: This change sets the Rocket Launcher’s minimum damage to where it was before we rebalanced its direct impact and explosive damage in a recent patch.

Soldier: 76

• Pulse Rifle
  • Damage increased from 19 to 20
• Sprint
  • Delay before you can fire the weapon after using Sprint reduced from .5 to .3 seconds
• Tactical Visor
  • Can target RIP-Tire and Immortality Field

Developer Comments: This change should potentially allow Soldier: 76 to kill an enemy hero one shot sooner. Reducing the time between when you use Sprint and when you can fire should make the ability more fluid and responsive. Giving Tactical Visor the ability to target Junkrat’s RIP-Tire and Baptiste’s Immortality Field drone is a quality of life improvement, since these are both critical targets.

Sombra

• Hack
  • Cooldown is reduced by half when hacking a health pack

Developer Comments: The cooldown on Hack often made it feel less effective to target health packs instead of players. This will make both health packs and players viable targets for hacking.

Torbjörn

• Base health increased by 50 armor (250 maximum health)
• Overload
  • Armor gain reduced from 150 to 100

Developer Comments: Torbjörn’s survivability was a bit low, so we’ve shifted some power from his Overload ability to his base health.

Widowmaker

• Infra-Sight
  • Reveals enemy health bars
  • Now canceled on death

Developer Comments: Infra-Sight had no counter to its effect, so it now ends when Widowmaker dies. To balance out its higher risk of use, Infra-Sight now reveals enemy health bars to Widowmaker’s team.

Wrecking Ball

• Adaptive Shield
  • No longer cancels Roll mode

Developer Comments: This will make Adaptive Shields a more powerful survival tool, since being forced out of Roll mode left Wrecking Ball more susceptible to fire.

Bug Fixes

Callouts

• Fixed a bug where the “Need Healing” callout wouldn’t display in chat if the hero you targeted didn’t have healing abilities

Camera

• Fixed a bug where, when playing certain heroes, the camera would clip into the hero when looking straight upwards

Career Stats Menu

• Fixed a bug where the season labels for Competitive CTF and Competitive 6v6 Elimination didn’t display

Hero Gallery

• Fixed a bug where, if switching between Junkrat Skins, one of the bombs on his vest would spin

Heroes

• Ana
  • Fixed a bug where Ana’s clothes would clip into her hip pouch while doing the Yut Nori emote
• Ashe
  • Fixed a bug that prevented audio feedback from playing to indicate ammo was low on Ashe’s rifle if it had three or fewer bullets
• D.Va
  • Fixed a bug that made D.Va very difficult to knock back while she was firing her Fusion Cannons
• Genji
  • Fixed a bug that caused Genji’s Dragonblade to end before the deflect duration was complete
  • Fixed a bug where Genji would be knocked back unusually far when using Swift Strike to hit Doomfist’s Rocket Punch
• Hanzo
  • Fixed a bug where Hanzo’s leg would visibly move while he was in his Meditate pose
• Mercy
  • Fixed a bug where Mercy’s left knee would bend unnaturally when stunned by McCree’s Flashbang
• Orisa
  • Fixed a bug that made Orisa very difficult to knock back while she was firing her Fusion Driver
• Reaper
  • Fixed a bug where a button on the shoulder of Reaper’s Lu Bu skin appeared to be floating
• Reinhardt
  • Fixed a bug where a piece on Reinhardt’s back displayed incorrectly while using the Guan Yu skin in the Hammer Down highlight intro
  • Fixed an issue that allowed Reinhardt’s Earthshatter to hit people further off the ground than intended in specific circumstances
• Sombra
  • Fixed a bug where Sombra’s stealth exiting sound effect wouldn’t play if an emote was used to exit stealth mode
  • Fixed a bug where Sombra couldn’t quick melee while using her Hack ability
• Symmetra
  • Fixed a bug where Symmetra would gain ultimate charge while casting Photon Barrier
• Torbjörn
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Torbjörn from using Molten Core in custom games if Ability 2 was disabled
• Widowmaker
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Widowmaker’s Venom Mine from damaging a hero if they triggered it at the edge of its trigger radius

Overwatch

A few other improvements include a team’s hero lineup for the winners not lining up correctly in the Hollywood map, as well a sound tweak made to the Paris map. 

The latest PTR update is now live on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC! Thoughts on the latest fixes? Anything you just absolutely can’t agree with? Sound off with your thoughts in the comment section below, or hit me up over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy! 

Source: Blizzard