A new Overwatch patch has just gone live on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Switch consoles with some major changes to a number of heroes including some long-awaited nerfs to McCree.
McCree has been a dominant force in the Overwatch League and OWL for some time and finally, the devs are giving him the business, nerfing both his reload time and roll range.
With a longer reload, his damage will certainly be scaled back and with his roll range decreased, it won’t be able to get away from dive tanks such as Winston as easily.
Baptiste is also getting a slight nerf to his Exo Boots. With a one-second charge time to jump, he’ll be a bit more vulnerable.
This isn’t the change many had wanted, as Immortality Field remains strong, but it’s at least a step in the right direction to balance a support with an overwhelming kit.
Next up for buffs, the devs continue to go all in on Moira’s healing, this time letting her resource recharge three times as fast when her Coalescence ultimate is active.
It seems like Blizzard has completely abandoned the idea of giving Moira any utility, so this should keep her the strongest healer in the game by a wide margin.
Reaper is also getting a significant buff to his life steal, seeing it once again rise to 35%, meaning for every 100 damage he deals, he’ll regain 35 HP.
The devs say that changes to his shotgun range made this buff a necessary adjustment and brings him back to where he was before.
Finally, Zarya is seeing some significant damage scaling to her Particle Cannon, which will make her a tad bit weaker. This comes as Zarya remains a strong pairing with Reinhardt and the Double Bubble team composition with Winston.
Of course, Experimental Patches are subject to change, but it looks like this is the meta we’ll have on our hands for the Overwatch League Summer Showdown tournament.
EXPERIMENTAL HERO UPDATES
The next experiment begins! This time we’re hoping to get your feedback on some balance changes. We’re using the 2-2-2 Role Queue ruleset so that you can get a feel for how these balance changes might affect the live game.
HERO UPDATES (ONLY IN EXPERIMENTAL)
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Baptiste
Exo-Boots
- Charge time increased from 0.7 to 1 second
Developer Comments: Though it felt better to use, the previous reduction to the Exo Boots charge time resulted in Baptiste becoming much more evasive against some heroes. Since he already has strong defensive ability options in Regenerative Burst and Immortality Field, we’re reverting how quickly he can charge the Exo Boots jump.
McCree
- Peacekeeper
- Reload time increased from 1.2 to 1.5 seconds
- Combat Roll
- Distance reduced by 20%
Developer Comments: Much of McCree’s recent success can be attributed to his increased maximum health and we think that aspect is working well to help solidify a close-to-mid-range role for him. We’re reverting the Combat Roll distance and Peacekeeper reload times as they lead to longer distance Flashbang initiations and made the burst damage from ‘Fan the Hammer’ less of a costly investment.
Moira
- Biotic Grasp
- Resource regeneration is now three times higher while channeling Coalescence
Developer Comments: Many channeled ultimate abilities automatically reload the heroes weapon as they’re locked out from reloading for a short time. The new regeneration rate will refill about half of Moira’s Biotic energy resource over the full duration of Coalescence. This doesn’t fully refill Moira’s energy from empty as it would be unfortunate to lose that portion of her gameplay if players were able to fully cycle between ultimates with healing alone.
Reaper
- The Reaping
- Life Steal amount increased from 30% to 35%
Developer Comments: This adjustment brings Reaper’s self-healing with his Hellfire Shotguns back to about where it was before the recent weapon tuning changes.
Zarya
- Particle Cannon
- (Primary Fire) Beam damage now scales from 75-170 damage-per-second, down from 95-170
Developer Comments: Zarya’s base damage wasn’t adjusted after the beam hit detection changes awhile back but she wasn’t seeing much use at the time either. Now that she has a more dominant presence in a variety of team compositions, we’re looking at reducing her beams average damage, though the same maximum damage is still achievable.
This Experimental mode is anticipated to be available until the morning (PDT) of Monday, May 31, 2021.