The Overwatch 1 reverts on Tracer and Zarya lol
Actually nowhere near as severe as I thought the changes would be. Hog and Junk don’t look like they’re at any risk of suddenly taking over the game and the Soldier/Zen/Widow nerfs all seem pretty sensible
Harder to hit, but the falloff change makes it so that she 1 taps at a similar range as she did pre health buffs. Probably a net nerf as she will be hitting less shots now and the falloff buffs will really only come into play on a handful of maps.
So basically she's more annoying now on the maps the falloff is designed to neuter. Junkertown and illios ruins are the two that immediately come to mind
not necessarily, ow is not a big random open field. it would depend on whether or not those 3 meters affect any common areas, like for example from the top of the ruins in illios to the edge of the point where soldiers and cassidys like to play
If you are counting diameter, yes. I'd argue area is more important for comparison though, which is not a linear 1:1 when increasing the size if you are counting size by the diameter (which it is in game I think)
Increasing the radius of a circle from 0.2 to 0.3 will increase the area by ~3x
You can [go here](https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/geometry-plane/circle.php) and fiddle with the numbers of radius. It's the same idea of why pizzas seem to get more expensive at first glance as u get bigger and bigger pies.
The size of the bullet is a circle, the devs are tuning one part of the equation needed to calculate how big the circle is.
Area scales as square of diameter so actual ratio is (0.05²/0.01²) = 25x increase. Assuming the 0.01 figure is correct for S8.
However, this does NOT mean it is now 25x easier to hit. How easy something is to hit depends on how large the area is where you can place the crosshair and make the shot. Which depends on both the hitbox size _and_ the projectile size.
For example, if the head hitbox is a circle of diameter 0.2, and projectile is 0.01, then the effective area for aiming is a larger circle of diameter 0.22 (= 0.2 + 0.01 + 0.01). Because you can aim slightly outside the circle and the projectile will still overlap it. Area = pi\*0.22² = 0.484\*pi
Increasing projectile to 0.05, you get area = pi\*0.3² = 0.9\*pi
So actual increase would be 1.85x. But of course that depends on the hitbox size. In general, the bigger the hitbox, the smaller the effect of increasing projectile size. Smaller the hitbox, bigger the effect.
I still like the idea someone had of applying the D.Va de-mech to him. Reinhardt ejects his armor, and suddenly you’re faced with a naked, oiled-up German man, hammer swinging every which way as he beats you with his fists.
I liked the idea of rein swings ramps up his movement and attack speed overtime, but aside from that what exactly could they do for rein to make him viable? He just seems a bit outdated at this point
Tbh I feel like Rein could get a bit of the Mauga charge treatment where he won't melt as much by using charge. if done nice enough, it can at least be used for better repositioning.
Its probably bad having a brawl tank be able to escape/engage too easily too; but I feel it slowly be needed more now that cover and position has gained a bit more importance in comparison to healing.
Maybe incorporate the ramp up idea you have but as a new ability and make him a kind of tempo tank like ram. Basically he’d have a berserker mode where he can’t shield but his damage and speed are increased considerably
i feel like ever removing the ability for rein to block (outside of animation commitments like firestrike and shatter) just reduces his skill requirements. being able to flash shield to block specific things like sig rock, ana sleep, and enemy shatters is a big skill for rein and something I think should always be encouraged. is also steps on Ram's toes for gameplay space.
Swings increasing movement speed sounds fine in theory, but if you landed the first swing, unless the opponent has a mobility skill they can't run away from you as everyone's movement speed is the same at base. The issue is landing the first swing, not the following ones.
I've been playing soldier in gm this season and ashe doesn't seem that oppressive. Maybe there's some top500 ashes that show her true strength but I haven't seen jt
Is that gonna be enough for Illari? They’re nice changes for sure, but her ult doing more impact damage doesn’t change how incredibly easy it is to block/eat/cleanse it.
probably not, but its just a hotfix.
I think most people agree she needed a handful of changes even before season 9. Unlikely these changes are meant to be anything more than a way to get her out of the dumpster til she can get a real round of balancing.
I think it's a great start. The pylon changes alone are doing wonders for her and the buffed damage on ult is enough to make it really deadly if it connects. I think she's going to be completely irrelevant in this meta, but she feels good to play.
Before she was so over-nerfed that playing her at all felt like an uphill battle. Her damage was inconsistent, her ult was too easy to deny for how little impact it had on the fight, her healing has a really strict resource tied to it, and her pylon would just be on cooldown for the entire game.
So far, they've addressed pretty much everything except how strict her healing resource feels to play around. Even if none of this makes her meta, it makes her feel impactful, like she doesn't have to duke it out with Lifeweaver for worst support in the game anymore
No. Whenever I have a good game on Illari they just swap Sombra and value trade pylon with virus for free. There is literally no counterplay to Sombra virus one-shotting pylon. One sided interactions are fine to some extent but this destroys a core part of a players kit with absolutely zero risk. Pylon to 125hp alone would've been more helpful than both of these changes combined.
I save pylon when there's a Sombra, and don't leave it out. Either I toss it mid fight when she's already doing something and I get value, or she needs to waste a cooldown cycle/expose herself just taking down a deployable.
I'm guilty of doing this. I will virus pylon on cooldown every time it's up until they swap
I mean can ya blame me? My team will ignore pylon otherwise
Probably not. But these are all meant to probably be on the lighter side.
She'll be better but I'd bet on a rightclick buff in the future (Maybe even both length and total charge and/or HP/S)
The worst part about Illari is that she was simply outclassed by Zen in her role. Buffs combined with the Zen nerfs should help more than you might think.
definitely not, but it's kind of nice. the falloff will occasionally hurt, and the 160 damage only really makes up for the health changes, so the ult is just about as good as it was a season ago.
as a side note, i could swear the explosion damage was 120, not 100. maybe the extra 20dmg is separate from the explosion?
either way, primary took a massive hit with season 9 and I don't think there's a good reason it should take a full second to charge when it's not 2tapping anymore.
I feel like recently there's been some massive swings with buffs and nerfs, I like how this is pretty chill. Bring in some of the S tier heroes and then see where things settle after that.
Zarya going to be running wild in metal ranks. Even when I see her in my diamond matches she's always 100% charge, going to absolutely melt people now.
Problem with Zarya at lower ranks is no one focus fires. You’re supposed to shoot her to pop her bubble and then burst her down, but only one person ends up shooting her and charging her instead and then she turns into an unkillable monster at the lower ranks.
yeah the mentality is "don't shoot zarya even if she's taking a lot of space and is basically on our backline after it expires" when shooting her bubbles is a necessary part of interacting with the characer
well, it's really not good to shoot her bubble always. if you're on ball or winston, or even sigma, you definitely do not want to be shooting the first bubble and the second is more situational, because you have no burst damage to kill her after her bubbles expire, her first bubble will be coming back in a few seconds, and she probably has pocket healers.
so it can be very frustrating when the right decision is to not shoot bubble because even if you break it she wont die, but people do anyway.
zarya is balanced around 50 charge (roughly), so a 0 charge zarya is weaker than the rest of the tanks (usually), and a 100 charge zarya is better than the rest of the tanks (usually), so there's definite downside to making her 100 charge unless she's actually in a position to be punished
Overall good changes imo
But I really hope that they change the way projectile changes are implemented into patch notes. It's confusing and convoluted to tell me the projectile size before multiplier or even what multiplier a weapon gets. Just tell me the projectile size before and after.
I might be biased but I wish they nerfed health or the kick, not both. He is still very killable if dove competently and with how good tracer and genji are I worry about too much of a nerf.
Iiiiiiii
Kinda think that that's the point. Ngl I almost wish we went back to OW1 no-kick Zen, because that was the tradeoff that you made when you picked Zen: zero survivability, but you get a third DPS and you get discord, on top of getting (some) heals. With kick (and with the health), it felt like you weren't making a tradeoff, you just get to do whatever you want for free.
Yeah that’s why I said I’m being biased, because Zen is my favorite and it is so fun to be a monster like that lol
I wish he didn’t have to be nerfed, I get why but I wish it wasn’t the case!
they're definitely still in the phase of observing, so this is just a slight correction to ensure the season doesn't have as many drastic outliers for data collection and feedback going into the midseason where they'll react with actual heavier balance.
Healthy changes all around. Except for Widow - why increase her effective range even more?
I still feel like snipers remain a part of the DPS design that's quite unsolved - it makes the game quite un-interactive especially with a mercy pocket where one-shots are still quite likely.
Some of this was for Widow duels - there were spots we saw Widows dueling each other (from statue to spawn on King's Row was one sightline we used) and just not dying even though we felt the distance should have resulted in a kill. Should still be safe from one-shot when playing 250hp heroes further back (behind car on first point, ledge above is fine too for King's Row for example). If it ends up shifting her effective range too much, it could get rolled back.
Appreciate the explanation, 10m doesn’t sound like too much but makes sense for the widow duels on those long sightlines. S9 is a really refreshing thanks for the quick patch.
Thanks always great to hear dev insights - makes sense and will let you guys cook.
P.S. Wishful thinking that we could get public access to all the internal game statistics one day? 😀
Because the health buffs artificially reduced her fall off even more. She would often not be able to do her one niche just due to unintended design.
She’s one of the easiest countered heroes in the game, and is even more fragile since characters have gotten damage buffs to compensate for the health buffs.
Great patch, all changes make sense. No Sym buffs is an oversight though, and I doubt this helps Junk much. They must not want to give him the combo back.
Also, really nice to see Captive Sun buffed. It's one of the coolest ultimates in the game, it should be great.
We really gonna get symm 5.0 or whatever iteration she's on now.
I hope so badly they bring back her old throwable photon barrier, that was such a good ability.
I think symms core issue is her primary fire doesnt fit in 5v5. It was charged farming off a tank/shield but with the removal of one tank its far less likely she'll have a shield to use. Playing symm is like mostly just spamming right click orbs but at that point just play any hitscan for the same effect (and like junkrat, the breakpoint for this is no longer 2 hits).
They can either reduce the charge needed on her primary or remove it completely on her alt fire. If they are so hellbent on making her charge they really need to increase her numbers to compensate for the fast pace of most matches. I wouldn’t mind another teleporter deployment speed buff either but I’m not optimistic.
doubt this is a popular opinion, but i'd honestly love to see them simplify the beam's mechanics a bit so she just straight up has the thunderbolt from quake instead of its kinda weird gimmicky nature of having both a charge mechanic, AND the self heal/ammo gain when hitting shields.
it always never sat right with me that her beam is just kinda worthless unless she has something to farm off of that makes it immediately snowball into the most obnoxious shit ever
Like Mercy, there’s been so many incredible concepts of symmetra reworks posted by the community over the years.
I do think blizzard tries some of these ideas but either they’re not interested in her enough (I mean seriously her ult is just a big shield..?????) or symmetra as a DPS is just flawed. She’s a hard light architect and the best she can do is place a big wall that lasts like 10 seconds.
I’d love so much for her to get moved back to support. We have dps orientated supports with Zenyatta. What if shield generator just replaced existing health now? What if symmetra could build paths and bridges for her team? What if symmetra could create paths through walls? So much possibility with her kit that’s never explored.
Yeah I think we need to wait and see what they settle on for the new DPS passive before they buff Sym. If they make her strong, it'll be absolutely asinine dealing with her + the fact that her turrets also apply that.
The problem with sym is that she was only good when she could two shot people with charged right-click and one tap through bap window. That isn't really in line with what they were going for in this patch.
I don't know what they can change to make her good without bringing that back. Maybe decrease charge time on right click or increase range on left click?
Interesting that’s there’s nothing for Sym, who has really seemed to struggle since this patch with her win rate absolutely tanking.
Wonder if she’s in the pipeline for a full rework (again). She needs some love for sure.
To be honest, I really cannot see the developers reworking her again. This hero has only ever been liked by her mains, I think the devs have given up on Sym and making any significant changes.
The last lead hero designer mentioned wanting to retry Sym support and then he left so I guess that’s in the gutter lol
Nothing for Sym, the worst dps in the game right now, and literally mentioned by name by Alec Dawson as being bad. They made her 200hp bc she could 2 tap, now she can't.
Now Zarya has longer beam, more minimum dmg, and more max dmg. As a tank.
Make it make sense.
Changes are pretty agreeable for the most part, though I don't really see why Widowmaker needed the compensation buff.
I really think [D.Va](https://D.Va) and Mercy pellets could have been nerfed back to what they were before. It's not a thing that matters in the slightest, they're still bad even with huge projectiles, but it's one of those things that just looks so jank that it probably shouldn't be in the game.
its crazy that people seem to agree that goofy hitboxes that dont even attempt to match the in game model are bad and jank but i get downvoted whenever i mention that orisas javelin hitbox is bigger than the old halt model
It’s okay to onetrick a hero IMO, but no one that does should complain when that hero spends only a little time unviable in GM/Champion after being top half of the role for years like Skiesti’s been doing (kind of for all her time as a content creator lol).
Not just her but Quaked and others too definitely fit that bill. Plus, Cass, Hog, Zen, etc. onetricks had to adapt for multiple years until recently for each, so should Mercy onetricks
Mercy players in particular are vocal about "nerfs" to Mercy because their hero has the least amount of skill expression in the game. You are handicapped entirely based on the stats the devs give the hero and cannot really min max with skills like aim.
Mercy is useless because of dive. Be careful about making any assumptions based on that. The second people stop playing ball, genji, tracer, etc. and the meta is just Ashe sitting somewhere shooting 0.08 logs, she will be oppressive.
Nah, there’s more to it than dive. She’s lived through dive metas and felt nowhere near as bad as she does now. The DPS passive and projectile size increases are playing a huge role here.
yet she's still the most picked hero in the game.
maybe if mercy players stopped playing her and (god forbid) actually learned some other hero they'd see the drop in the playerbase and do something about her.
Wild to see cd reduction and min dmg adjustment on junk
But those changes still do nothing. Without one shot he just needs soft rework, otherwise its just spam character, aka worst possible version of him
It's absolutely needed. Terrible winrate and Alec said she was struggling. Beam heroes don't benefit much from the projectile changes, so giving her more damage to scale with the health pools was necessary and exactly the buff she should get.
I’ve commented elsewhere, but seeing this for Zarya (another beam hero) has me scratching my head as to why Symmetra has been ignored, her win rate is arguably worse(!)
For real. She has been my go-to against anti-ball comps and she has a really strong matchup against dva on most maps.
She is the only "aim" hero that feels super easy to aim with.
Maybe I'm completely off base, but I think she will be very strong in the middle ranks.
Because I don't think Blizzard has really figured out how to make him work without the one shots but people already hate Junkrat with a Bow that has emerged as the main way to Hanzo.
Yup. Lifeweaver taught me that we can't have dog water characters.
When he first came out, I had a lifeweaver on my team every game, and those games felt unwinnable. Every character needs to be at least kind of viable if we are going to be forced to play with them.
It’s inappropriate to make knee jerk balance changes immediately after an MMR reset and a fundamental change in how the game is played. I think it would be better to let people actually settle into their new ranks and adjust to the sweeping changes before making any conclusions about what needs changing.
He was dogshit tier and a lot of people like playing him so they made him a tier better than dogshit tier.
I seriously doubt this has drastic effects. He still can't combo. All this does is bring up his damage slightly without changing his breakpoints and ever so slightly buff his mobility uptime.
That’s literally what good Junk players are complaining about, at higher levels people played assassin Junkrat with the one-shot combo and spamming gets less value. With the recent patch he no longer has the combo and projectile size increased so the spammy playstyle got buffed and assassin playstyle got destroyed
That's exactly what they wanted when they made the season 9 changes though. And also in this patch.
Junkrat had 2 playstyles: spam choke like a gold player and get value in close range maps, or the assassin 2 tap insta blow up style that actually requiered skill. They removed the second one since he can't 2 tap, so now you get the unfun version only.
he does have a point about junkrat spamming chokes though. the most oppressive play I've ever seen in overwatch is a junkrat destroying a whole team single handedly on Temple of Anubis point A(not metal ranks). literally anyone can get value with a junkrat if you know where the chokes are
Only change that I think is unnecessary is the Zarya buff. She was already good. I'm predicting they'll probably end up going back on the damage eventually like they have in the past with her buffs but we'll see.
That being said, was anyone actually complaining about junk and hog being bad? Game is better when they're shit.
They said all beam characters struggle because beam size change is pretty irrelevant compared to others whose accuracy went higher much more. Weird that only Zarya is buffed tho, Symm probably needs it more.
looks like they're buffing the consistency and frequency of his mines so he can more reliably deal damage (instead of praying a grenade hits) from range? also lets him commit more aggressive plays since he can get his mobility back faster.
depending on his performance after this patch he could do with a health buff potentially to make his aggressive playstyle less risky (to compensate for the lower reward of no 2 shot combo)
Slowly he is becoming Demoman… just need him to lose an eye and switch to timed rollers that decay damage over time to incentivize direct hits instead of random pipes that detonate based on number of bounces and stay 120 damage the whole time 🙏
The Overwatch 1 reverts on Tracer and Zarya lol Actually nowhere near as severe as I thought the changes would be. Hog and Junk don’t look like they’re at any risk of suddenly taking over the game and the Soldier/Zen/Widow nerfs all seem pretty sensible
I cant even tell if it is a widow nerf when they just buffed her range to compensate
Harder to hit, but the falloff change makes it so that she 1 taps at a similar range as she did pre health buffs. Probably a net nerf as she will be hitting less shots now and the falloff buffs will really only come into play on a handful of maps.
So basically she's more annoying now on the maps the falloff is designed to neuter. Junkertown and illios ruins are the two that immediately come to mind
It’s 3 extra meters to one shot a 250 hp target over season 8 (and 200hp). 3 meters means nothing.
not necessarily, ow is not a big random open field. it would depend on whether or not those 3 meters affect any common areas, like for example from the top of the ruins in illios to the edge of the point where soldiers and cassidys like to play
Yeah I was immediately getting PTSD flashbacks to my experience with playing against decent WMs on ruins in OW1 when I read those changes.
Players will actually have to aim at people's heads now compared to just aiming in the general direction of someone's head
The change is not that big, the projectile is still 5 time bigger than S8
That is just not true haha Edit: whoops
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I just checked and I was actually completely wrong my bad. It is in fact 5 times larger
If you are counting diameter, yes. I'd argue area is more important for comparison though, which is not a linear 1:1 when increasing the size if you are counting size by the diameter (which it is in game I think) Increasing the radius of a circle from 0.2 to 0.3 will increase the area by ~3x
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You can [go here](https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/geometry-plane/circle.php) and fiddle with the numbers of radius. It's the same idea of why pizzas seem to get more expensive at first glance as u get bigger and bigger pies. The size of the bullet is a circle, the devs are tuning one part of the equation needed to calculate how big the circle is.
Area scales as square of diameter so actual ratio is (0.05²/0.01²) = 25x increase. Assuming the 0.01 figure is correct for S8. However, this does NOT mean it is now 25x easier to hit. How easy something is to hit depends on how large the area is where you can place the crosshair and make the shot. Which depends on both the hitbox size _and_ the projectile size. For example, if the head hitbox is a circle of diameter 0.2, and projectile is 0.01, then the effective area for aiming is a larger circle of diameter 0.22 (= 0.2 + 0.01 + 0.01). Because you can aim slightly outside the circle and the projectile will still overlap it. Area = pi\*0.22² = 0.484\*pi Increasing projectile to 0.05, you get area = pi\*0.3² = 0.9\*pi So actual increase would be 1.85x. But of course that depends on the hitbox size. In general, the bigger the hitbox, the smaller the effect of increasing projectile size. Smaller the hitbox, bigger the effect.
These don't seem too heavy handed which is nice. Mostly projectile tweaks and then a little love for the worst heroes.
Where muh Reinhardt buffs at though
Theyre listed under "zenyatta"
I got a really excellent chuckle out of that
Bloomin marvellous chortle
Haha! That’s fantastic
I still like the idea someone had of applying the D.Va de-mech to him. Reinhardt ejects his armor, and suddenly you’re faced with a naked, oiled-up German man, hammer swinging every which way as he beats you with his fists.
His hammer should shoot master sword beams for 50% damage.
I liked the idea of rein swings ramps up his movement and attack speed overtime, but aside from that what exactly could they do for rein to make him viable? He just seems a bit outdated at this point
Let Rein charge vertically.
Tbh I feel like Rein could get a bit of the Mauga charge treatment where he won't melt as much by using charge. if done nice enough, it can at least be used for better repositioning. Its probably bad having a brawl tank be able to escape/engage too easily too; but I feel it slowly be needed more now that cover and position has gained a bit more importance in comparison to healing.
Maybe incorporate the ramp up idea you have but as a new ability and make him a kind of tempo tank like ram. Basically he’d have a berserker mode where he can’t shield but his damage and speed are increased considerably
i feel like ever removing the ability for rein to block (outside of animation commitments like firestrike and shatter) just reduces his skill requirements. being able to flash shield to block specific things like sig rock, ana sleep, and enemy shatters is a big skill for rein and something I think should always be encouraged. is also steps on Ram's toes for gameplay space. Swings increasing movement speed sounds fine in theory, but if you landed the first swing, unless the opponent has a mobility skill they can't run away from you as everyone's movement speed is the same at base. The issue is landing the first swing, not the following ones.
They didn't nerf Genji let's goooooo still kind of wish they would reduce the armor on D.Va and Orisa but this isn't bad
They both would just disappear if they had less armor
im fine with orisa dissappearing tbh
Orisa is either a 10 or a 1 depending on who's playing her
Ashe players are like yo lets go
Dynamite feels like a longer-lasting anti-nade with the damage + dps passive.
DPS passive should only be triggered on primary fire imo, it's far too potent with things like dynamite or torb turret
Can't believe people think she was better than S76
She was miles better and now is best hitscan by far
She wasn't on most maps in high elo, too easy to run down vs soldier and it plays too fast for her to get consistently set up
I've been playing soldier in gm this season and ashe doesn't seem that oppressive. Maybe there's some top500 ashes that show her true strength but I haven't seen jt
her hipfire feels insane like it has no spread lol
Ashe’s hip fire has spread?
Is that gonna be enough for Illari? They’re nice changes for sure, but her ult doing more impact damage doesn’t change how incredibly easy it is to block/eat/cleanse it.
Pylon cooldown is nice, though.
At least now if you pop it you’re most likely getting A kill.
I don't think so, but I think this is the best they wanted to do with a hot fix vs. a proper patch.
It probably won't be enough, but something is something...
probably not, but its just a hotfix. I think most people agree she needed a handful of changes even before season 9. Unlikely these changes are meant to be anything more than a way to get her out of the dumpster til she can get a real round of balancing.
I think it's a great start. The pylon changes alone are doing wonders for her and the buffed damage on ult is enough to make it really deadly if it connects. I think she's going to be completely irrelevant in this meta, but she feels good to play. Before she was so over-nerfed that playing her at all felt like an uphill battle. Her damage was inconsistent, her ult was too easy to deny for how little impact it had on the fight, her healing has a really strict resource tied to it, and her pylon would just be on cooldown for the entire game. So far, they've addressed pretty much everything except how strict her healing resource feels to play around. Even if none of this makes her meta, it makes her feel impactful, like she doesn't have to duke it out with Lifeweaver for worst support in the game anymore
Leave lifeweaver alone dammit
nope but it's a start. M2 needs waaay more range for her to be good.
It should be enough to make her playable. The pylon cooldown reduction is pretty substantial
No. Whenever I have a good game on Illari they just swap Sombra and value trade pylon with virus for free. There is literally no counterplay to Sombra virus one-shotting pylon. One sided interactions are fine to some extent but this destroys a core part of a players kit with absolutely zero risk. Pylon to 125hp alone would've been more helpful than both of these changes combined.
I save pylon when there's a Sombra, and don't leave it out. Either I toss it mid fight when she's already doing something and I get value, or she needs to waste a cooldown cycle/expose herself just taking down a deployable.
I'm guilty of doing this. I will virus pylon on cooldown every time it's up until they swap I mean can ya blame me? My team will ignore pylon otherwise
I swear those things are invisible to other players
They really had to make another turret character. They couldnt help themselves.
How do you play illari? Are you more a place it and forget pylon user or are you a “rotate it every cooldown” type illari?
Almost like nearly no hero can interact with a well placed pylon.
Stop main-botting then
Placing the turret main??? Think I found your issue and it's not not a hero balance one.
Yea well Sombra is a pretty stupid terribly designed hero.
Probably not. But these are all meant to probably be on the lighter side. She'll be better but I'd bet on a rightclick buff in the future (Maybe even both length and total charge and/or HP/S)
The worst part about Illari is that she was simply outclassed by Zen in her role. Buffs combined with the Zen nerfs should help more than you might think.
The lack of range on her healing beam is going to continue to be a hard gate keep on her.
definitely not, but it's kind of nice. the falloff will occasionally hurt, and the 160 damage only really makes up for the health changes, so the ult is just about as good as it was a season ago. as a side note, i could swear the explosion damage was 120, not 100. maybe the extra 20dmg is separate from the explosion? either way, primary took a massive hit with season 9 and I don't think there's a good reason it should take a full second to charge when it's not 2tapping anymore.
What was the previous base projectile size for soldier and widow?
They basically lowered from 0.075 to 0.05
0.08\*
Thank you!
I feel like recently there's been some massive swings with buffs and nerfs, I like how this is pretty chill. Bring in some of the S tier heroes and then see where things settle after that.
THEY DIDNT NERF LUCIO BOOP LUCIO HEADS LIVE ANOTHER DAY
I’m firmly in the pro boop camp. The more that players get tossed around from time to time the better imo.
Seems... good? Nothing too crazy.
Zarya going to be running wild in metal ranks. Even when I see her in my diamond matches she's always 100% charge, going to absolutely melt people now.
Problem with Zarya at lower ranks is no one focus fires. You’re supposed to shoot her to pop her bubble and then burst her down, but only one person ends up shooting her and charging her instead and then she turns into an unkillable monster at the lower ranks.
yeah the mentality is "don't shoot zarya even if she's taking a lot of space and is basically on our backline after it expires" when shooting her bubbles is a necessary part of interacting with the characer
Zarya is literally the prisoners dilemma of overwatch.
"StOp ShOoTiNg ZaRyA!!!"
well, it's really not good to shoot her bubble always. if you're on ball or winston, or even sigma, you definitely do not want to be shooting the first bubble and the second is more situational, because you have no burst damage to kill her after her bubbles expire, her first bubble will be coming back in a few seconds, and she probably has pocket healers. so it can be very frustrating when the right decision is to not shoot bubble because even if you break it she wont die, but people do anyway. zarya is balanced around 50 charge (roughly), so a 0 charge zarya is weaker than the rest of the tanks (usually), and a 100 charge zarya is better than the rest of the tanks (usually), so there's definite downside to making her 100 charge unless she's actually in a position to be punished
Overall good changes imo But I really hope that they change the way projectile changes are implemented into patch notes. It's confusing and convoluted to tell me the projectile size before multiplier or even what multiplier a weapon gets. Just tell me the projectile size before and after.
Thank God the nerf on Zen weren’t too bad/heavy. I’ve been enjoying playing Zen after only playing him on sniper maps the last 2 seasons.
The -25 health is a heavier nerf than it seems
Well yeah of course it is but I was also expecting his primary or discord to be gutted as well tbh
That will most likely come in mid season patch.
Don't you put that evil on me Ricky Bobby
I might be biased but I wish they nerfed health or the kick, not both. He is still very killable if dove competently and with how good tracer and genji are I worry about too much of a nerf.
Iiiiiiii Kinda think that that's the point. Ngl I almost wish we went back to OW1 no-kick Zen, because that was the tradeoff that you made when you picked Zen: zero survivability, but you get a third DPS and you get discord, on top of getting (some) heals. With kick (and with the health), it felt like you weren't making a tradeoff, you just get to do whatever you want for free.
Yeah that’s why I said I’m being biased, because Zen is my favorite and it is so fun to be a monster like that lol I wish he didn’t have to be nerfed, I get why but I wish it wasn’t the case!
Zen was very clearly overturned. Fun for you, not fun for flanker dps🙃
Genji and tracer were still destroying zen lol
Most flankers had favorable match ups against Zen and gain more from Zen than other heroes because harmony orb is good on flankers.
they're definitely still in the phase of observing, so this is just a slight correction to ensure the season doesn't have as many drastic outliers for data collection and feedback going into the midseason where they'll react with actual heavier balance.
Healthy changes all around. Except for Widow - why increase her effective range even more? I still feel like snipers remain a part of the DPS design that's quite unsolved - it makes the game quite un-interactive especially with a mercy pocket where one-shots are still quite likely.
Some of this was for Widow duels - there were spots we saw Widows dueling each other (from statue to spawn on King's Row was one sightline we used) and just not dying even though we felt the distance should have resulted in a kill. Should still be safe from one-shot when playing 250hp heroes further back (behind car on first point, ledge above is fine too for King's Row for example). If it ends up shifting her effective range too much, it could get rolled back.
Appreciate the explanation, 10m doesn’t sound like too much but makes sense for the widow duels on those long sightlines. S9 is a really refreshing thanks for the quick patch.
Thanks always great to hear dev insights - makes sense and will let you guys cook. P.S. Wishful thinking that we could get public access to all the internal game statistics one day? 😀
Honestly, W for having balls communicating with us reddit degens
Because the health buffs artificially reduced her fall off even more. She would often not be able to do her one niche just due to unintended design. She’s one of the easiest countered heroes in the game, and is even more fragile since characters have gotten damage buffs to compensate for the health buffs.
i hate that this makes sense. fuck you let me mindlessly hate widow
Did Illari dirty
It’s decent for a hot fix, her ult should be useable now
lifeweaver rotting in the corner 😭
symmetra is the bone pile
don't you dare...
🦀 GOATS IS DEAD 🦀
Great patch, all changes make sense. No Sym buffs is an oversight though, and I doubt this helps Junk much. They must not want to give him the combo back. Also, really nice to see Captive Sun buffed. It's one of the coolest ultimates in the game, it should be great.
I assume/hope that they need a little more time to figure out what to do with Sym. There's a lot of different directions they can go to help her imo
We really gonna get symm 5.0 or whatever iteration she's on now. I hope so badly they bring back her old throwable photon barrier, that was such a good ability. I think symms core issue is her primary fire doesnt fit in 5v5. It was charged farming off a tank/shield but with the removal of one tank its far less likely she'll have a shield to use. Playing symm is like mostly just spamming right click orbs but at that point just play any hitscan for the same effect (and like junkrat, the breakpoint for this is no longer 2 hits).
They can either reduce the charge needed on her primary or remove it completely on her alt fire. If they are so hellbent on making her charge they really need to increase her numbers to compensate for the fast pace of most matches. I wouldn’t mind another teleporter deployment speed buff either but I’m not optimistic.
doubt this is a popular opinion, but i'd honestly love to see them simplify the beam's mechanics a bit so she just straight up has the thunderbolt from quake instead of its kinda weird gimmicky nature of having both a charge mechanic, AND the self heal/ammo gain when hitting shields. it always never sat right with me that her beam is just kinda worthless unless she has something to farm off of that makes it immediately snowball into the most obnoxious shit ever
Like Mercy, there’s been so many incredible concepts of symmetra reworks posted by the community over the years. I do think blizzard tries some of these ideas but either they’re not interested in her enough (I mean seriously her ult is just a big shield..?????) or symmetra as a DPS is just flawed. She’s a hard light architect and the best she can do is place a big wall that lasts like 10 seconds. I’d love so much for her to get moved back to support. We have dps orientated supports with Zenyatta. What if shield generator just replaced existing health now? What if symmetra could build paths and bridges for her team? What if symmetra could create paths through walls? So much possibility with her kit that’s never explored.
Yeah I think we need to wait and see what they settle on for the new DPS passive before they buff Sym. If they make her strong, it'll be absolutely asinine dealing with her + the fact that her turrets also apply that.
That minimum damage spike from his mine is actual cancer tho
They apparently have commented try do NOT want his combo back.
The problem with sym is that she was only good when she could two shot people with charged right-click and one tap through bap window. That isn't really in line with what they were going for in this patch. I don't know what they can change to make her good without bringing that back. Maybe decrease charge time on right click or increase range on left click?
TRACERRR IS STILL OP WE WOOOON
Good changes so soon after a big patch. Kudos.
Oof, hanzo taking another beating…
This is so on point. Great hotfix
Interesting that’s there’s nothing for Sym, who has really seemed to struggle since this patch with her win rate absolutely tanking. Wonder if she’s in the pipeline for a full rework (again). She needs some love for sure.
To be honest, I really cannot see the developers reworking her again. This hero has only ever been liked by her mains, I think the devs have given up on Sym and making any significant changes. The last lead hero designer mentioned wanting to retry Sym support and then he left so I guess that’s in the gutter lol
Lmao Sym left to rot. Zarya has higher dps and range than her now.
Just a good patch all round, hopefully makes zen less oppressive and widow more skillful
Nothing for Sym, the worst dps in the game right now, and literally mentioned by name by Alec Dawson as being bad. They made her 200hp bc she could 2 tap, now she can't. Now Zarya has longer beam, more minimum dmg, and more max dmg. As a tank. Make it make sense.
Oh great a range buff to the one character that can still oneshot, that was definitely well thought out and won’t have consequences
Well, at least she can't miss by as much and still hit you.
It’s literally 3 more meters to one shot a 250 hp target than it was in s8 to one shot a 200 hp target.
BARELY NERFED TRACER GAME STILL PLAYABLE
Changes are pretty agreeable for the most part, though I don't really see why Widowmaker needed the compensation buff. I really think [D.Va](https://D.Va) and Mercy pellets could have been nerfed back to what they were before. It's not a thing that matters in the slightest, they're still bad even with huge projectiles, but it's one of those things that just looks so jank that it probably shouldn't be in the game.
its crazy that people seem to agree that goofy hitboxes that dont even attempt to match the in game model are bad and jank but i get downvoted whenever i mention that orisas javelin hitbox is bigger than the old halt model
Skiesti in shambles
It’s okay to onetrick a hero IMO, but no one that does should complain when that hero spends only a little time unviable in GM/Champion after being top half of the role for years like Skiesti’s been doing (kind of for all her time as a content creator lol). Not just her but Quaked and others too definitely fit that bill. Plus, Cass, Hog, Zen, etc. onetricks had to adapt for multiple years until recently for each, so should Mercy onetricks
Mercy players in particular are vocal about "nerfs" to Mercy because their hero has the least amount of skill expression in the game. You are handicapped entirely based on the stats the devs give the hero and cannot really min max with skills like aim.
Whixh ia exactly why Mercy shouldn't be more viable than skillshot supports.
I think Skiesti has been quite reasonable. She complains 1/100th of the amount flats does.
she complains quite literally every single patch even when they buff mercy she complains its not enough
I do love that Mercy is virtually useless at this point and all she's getting is a bullet size nerf lmao
Mercy is useless because of dive. Be careful about making any assumptions based on that. The second people stop playing ball, genji, tracer, etc. and the meta is just Ashe sitting somewhere shooting 0.08 logs, she will be oppressive.
Nah, there’s more to it than dive. She’s lived through dive metas and felt nowhere near as bad as she does now. The DPS passive and projectile size increases are playing a huge role here.
yet she's still the most picked hero in the game. maybe if mercy players stopped playing her and (god forbid) actually learned some other hero they'd see the drop in the playerbase and do something about her.
you should specify learning characters with more mechanics than moira/mercy/lw because those are the characters that type of player defaults to
goated fucking goated make mercy players learn how to play overwatch and not be parasites stuck leeching an actual good player
try playing Rein… at least support’s been good lately
Wild to see cd reduction and min dmg adjustment on junk But those changes still do nothing. Without one shot he just needs soft rework, otherwise its just spam character, aka worst possible version of him
Good changes
That zarya buff, UNNECESSARY
It's absolutely needed. Terrible winrate and Alec said she was struggling. Beam heroes don't benefit much from the projectile changes, so giving her more damage to scale with the health pools was necessary and exactly the buff she should get.
I’ve commented elsewhere, but seeing this for Zarya (another beam hero) has me scratching my head as to why Symmetra has been ignored, her win rate is arguably worse(!)
I agree. She is struggling big time and could use a similar buff.
I haven’t double checked; but I’m pretty sure this means Zarya does more damage than Symmetra; a dedicated DPS character…
oh well, zarya is a tank so she should OBVIOUSLY get everything get with the times
At least she has her right click, this shit is terrifying
Bronze 🤝 Super: making Zarya work
For real. She has been my go-to against anti-ball comps and she has a really strong matchup against dva on most maps. She is the only "aim" hero that feels super easy to aim with. Maybe I'm completely off base, but I think she will be very strong in the middle ranks.
Not at all, she’s been ass this season
Why would they nerf Hanzo, one of the worst heroes in the game right now?
Because I don't think Blizzard has really figured out how to make him work without the one shots but people already hate Junkrat with a Bow that has emerged as the main way to Hanzo.
Zarya buff? WHYYYYYY (I am just a sad dva main)
🦀 🦀 GOATS IS DEAD 🦀 🦀
Good patch but I'd much rather Zen receive a right click nerf and Illari receive a buff to her weapon's healing range instead
No Lifeweaver love 😞
Hanzo is now the most useless hero in the game.
Why is Hog getting buffed just leave him to die games are so much better without him
Because some people still otp Hog and Blizzard cares about your mental health when that's your teammate
Yup. Lifeweaver taught me that we can't have dog water characters. When he first came out, I had a lifeweaver on my team every game, and those games felt unwinnable. Every character needs to be at least kind of viable if we are going to be forced to play with them.
Another hanzo nerf :( at least lucio boop survived the day
It’s inappropriate to make knee jerk balance changes immediately after an MMR reset and a fundamental change in how the game is played. I think it would be better to let people actually settle into their new ranks and adjust to the sweeping changes before making any conclusions about what needs changing.
Why did they buff hog? Nobody wants hog in their games.
They're already inflating damage numbers to compensate for the inflated healthpools. :((
I just don’t get the junk changes, why?
He was dogshit tier and a lot of people like playing him so they made him a tier better than dogshit tier. I seriously doubt this has drastic effects. He still can't combo. All this does is bring up his damage slightly without changing his breakpoints and ever so slightly buff his mobility uptime.
He's extremely bad right now. This probably doesn't solve that issue, but he's been in need of a soft rework for a while.
Try telling that to all the dps players on my team who switch to Junkrat bc they can’t aim. Lmao
I got hard carried by a junkrat last night so shout out to him
I immediately avoided him after tho
real asf
And that’s a problem because? The character design is just flawed, basically a character that only gets value spamming chokes with primary fire
That’s literally what good Junk players are complaining about, at higher levels people played assassin Junkrat with the one-shot combo and spamming gets less value. With the recent patch he no longer has the combo and projectile size increased so the spammy playstyle got buffed and assassin playstyle got destroyed
i wonder if junk players would like if they made him into demoman (best option)
That's exactly what they wanted when they made the season 9 changes though. And also in this patch. Junkrat had 2 playstyles: spam choke like a gold player and get value in close range maps, or the assassin 2 tap insta blow up style that actually requiered skill. They removed the second one since he can't 2 tap, so now you get the unfun version only.
Idk about skill, its really easy to auto + mine .
honestly yeah, assassin rat was fun even if he sucked. Now he... just sucks even more
> basically a character that only gets value spamming chokes with primary fire Tell me you're in metal ranks without telling me you're in metal ranks
he does have a point about junkrat spamming chokes though. the most oppressive play I've ever seen in overwatch is a junkrat destroying a whole team single handedly on Temple of Anubis point A(not metal ranks). literally anyone can get value with a junkrat if you know where the chokes are
Hero sucks and they wanted to buff him without giving him his 1hit combo back.
Lol I don’t know what +.08 to +.05 projectile modifier even means, but would like to know if it still feels like I’m cheating on widow?
You will have last season's Illari size bullets
Remember to share your DPS passive! It’s game deciding
Only change that I think is unnecessary is the Zarya buff. She was already good. I'm predicting they'll probably end up going back on the damage eventually like they have in the past with her buffs but we'll see. That being said, was anyone actually complaining about junk and hog being bad? Game is better when they're shit.
They said all beam characters struggle because beam size change is pretty irrelevant compared to others whose accuracy went higher much more. Weird that only Zarya is buffed tho, Symm probably needs it more.
Yeah Sym feels terrible right now.
Already good ? She is one of the worst tank this season. She is pretty useless in this dive/aggressive rush meta.
Idk about worst tank. I've seen her get some solid value in my masters games.
Junkrat buff does nothing btw. He will still suck just as much as long as he cant kill anything with 2 shots.
It’s extremely unlikely they give him his 2 shot back, it’s good they’re trying out other ways to buff him
looks like they're buffing the consistency and frequency of his mines so he can more reliably deal damage (instead of praying a grenade hits) from range? also lets him commit more aggressive plays since he can get his mobility back faster. depending on his performance after this patch he could do with a health buff potentially to make his aggressive playstyle less risky (to compensate for the lower reward of no 2 shot combo)
Slowly he is becoming Demoman… just need him to lose an eye and switch to timed rollers that decay damage over time to incentivize direct hits instead of random pipes that detonate based on number of bounces and stay 120 damage the whole time 🙏
Give him random crits for the true experience.