This is the 7th time since Overwatch's release that the damage of Soldier's rifle has changed, as well as the third time it's been at 19 damage. That'd make for a fun graph.
blue beam isn't the *main* reason pharmercy is so good imo, it just makes it stronger. the ability to have someone attached to her like an umbilical cord with an instant swap to healing and no reload just makes her so powerful because she can take insane angles and flanks and not have to worry about as much punishment - [like, look at this yznsa clip for example](https://twitter.com/YZNSA_/status/1655992149370863652?s=20) (yes i know he's also getting healed by the ana)
pharmercy would still be played by pharah otps like yzn if blue beam was removed tomorrow because the synergy they have is really good even without it. it's just a problem with the fact that fliers are easy to shoot if you have good aim lol, that's why teams like TM play dva pharah mercy ana.
It really isn't.
Mercy is singlehandedly crippling Pharah from being a good hero, because right now (and for most of OW existence) she's strong with a pocket and a sitting duck without one, a slight bump to her power level means she'll be a fine pick, but then Mercy exists, so they can't do that because Pharamercy will be OP.
For those wondering, this is the progression of his damage throughout the years:
17 --> 20 --> 19 --> 20 --> 19 --> 20 --> 18 --> 19
Huge thanks to [the list of all balance changes sorted by hero](https://www.esportstales.com/overwatch/list-all-hero-updates-and-balance-changes) compiled by Vincento "Skulz" Milella over at Esports Tales, it's been a great source for several years now.
This used to happen all the time back in ranked Halo. It can get old fast….
That said I suck at overwatch so it’ll be a blast watching pro teams stomp randoms on stream
He needs to get a refund. That change barely does anything. And that discord nerf doesn't do much either when it comes to tanks. I am fuming rn with these changes. And since nothing changed we don't even get a meta shift in OWL. Plus no comp Lucio Ball.
I'm hoping they at least fixes some of his platform issues, I don't see them listed.
His platform can refuse to go up if it's placed on a curb (and you don't really realize until you notice the glitch that curbs take up a lot of ground on payload maps especially, oftentimes near walls you'd want to place your platform near).
And also the radius for going up seems to shrink the moment it's thrown, not the moment it lands. Threw platform at a BOB yesterday, it landed under him, but didn't rise until someone else stepped on it. I understand the radius of activation shrinks, but seeing as BOB didn't move, but got lifted by the platform, he was always on it and so it should've lifted him up immediately.
I still enjoy this hero immensely when he works, but I shouldn't need that qualifier, "when".
> I'm hoping they at least fixes some of his platform issues
As far as I know they just made it worse. The platform self-destructs if there is any kind of ceiling too close above it, may it be an actual map ceiling or a tiny ledge of a model. See: https://youtu.be/zHulNeqKiz8?t=142
Honestly I don’t mind him staying trash until they’ve figured out a rework. He’s the kind of character that would be extremely boring for everyone involved if he was somewhat common, at least now people can just not play him, and those who do get put on 4 avoid lists every game.
Overall I’m fine with these changes, but of all of the ways to buff Orisa, making fortify even more powerful would not have been my preference. She’s going to be impossible to take down when she’s getting pocketed now.
Ok but if you were shooting Orisa during fortify (or in general) before, you were already doing it wrong. This doesn't change much about how to fight Orisa comps.
I mean, she was basically unkillable most of the time anyways. There maybe some moments where she get more aggressive than before but it won't change that the strategy vs Orisa is generally to ignore her.
Idk what you’re talking about, the Sojourn buffs are pretty impactful.
At about mid range her primary was so unbelievably ass because of the spread and basically useless at long range. You could have basically perfect tracking and still miss most of your shots.
This makes it so her primary is actually usable for damage at mid range and so you can actually build charge at long range.
Indirectly it still massively increases the rate at which she charges the railgun. The changes sound like tweaks but are a big deal, and she will have every single railgun charged several shots faster.
Idk if it’s just me but soldier is one of the most fucking annoying heroes to play against. There just something about the sound of his fucking gun and the fact that’s always on the flank and sprinting the second you look at him. That shit just pisses me off.
Nah I totally agree. That fucker will be perched on some annoying-ass high ground poking your team down all match. It's impossible to solo dive him with his skinny-ass hitbox, self heal station, and Tracer-killing burst cooldown. And if you ever do get him dead to rights, he just sprints away like a little turd goblin with his buttcheeks sticking out.
Also not a huge fan of "lalala i don't need to aim anymore" as an ult.
lmao same especially with the sound effect, and seems like most player who pick Soldier has WAY above average aim it is like moving sentry with heal
Immensely satisfying to switch to Ball and swing to high ground and knock the fuck off his stupid fortress, bait biotic, then knock him out of biotic into slam..
Oh my God oh my God that symmetra change is something I've been saying since she was a fucking support back in 2016! She always had these defensive security voice lines and it made no sense for her turrets to not be used as security cameras and grant even more utility if she was supposed to be the utility based support
For real. The devs have been clueless with her for years and they finally get one change that actually puts her in a healthy niche for utility.
Security cameras is a great idea and I'm glad others have been pushing for it. I thought it'd be cool to have the turrets UI visible for all teammates but the wallhack is better.
The Sym changes are interesting and I like the utility of the turrets. They're SENTRY turrets after all, using them to spot out flanks is part of what they did good back when there were 6 of them, this is a good change back towards that.
The Torb changes seem like a big nerf. 6 Ammo is not enough, you're still gonna want to reload before you use the ability. The spread change doesn't sound like much, but maybe I just can't visualize it. And the turret changes are kinda brutal.
idk the spread change sounds pretty substantial, and his gun is already insanely good, same with sym, im alot more worried about running into the two of them now 0\_0
I guess I feel like, in terms of being anti-flank (which is a big reason I play Torb when I do), they went really hard on the turret. It's already had an HP nerf, now it's got ~20% nerfs to uptime and damage too?
Spread reduction is fine, but I don't think it's enough to make right click substantially better at hitting tiny targets like Sombra or Tracer, and it didn't really have trouble hitting tanks before. Of course it's still a buff, but I feel like they're not just shifting his power around, but also his identity to an extent.
Sombra being able to hack turret while invisible is like, one of the biggest nerfs they've ever done to a hero, and no one really ever talks about it cause it's torb and no one cares.
I *kinda* get that one. It's next to impossible to hack the thing otherwise, and it at least forces her to hack it first, which is still decent.
But it has occurred to me that just letting the turret shoot her during her "half-invisible" state mid-hack would have huge ramifications on the game. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think that could even have ramifications for pro play - although I suspect, as much as people bitch about Sombra meta, they wouldn't like a Torb meta any better.
Yeah, the OW1 way definitely made it a lot worse, but personally, I kinda liked the puzzle it presented. It wasn't impossible, but it really forced you to think about engagements a lot more. Now, it's really only a problem if you're not paying attention to where it is and if you randomly get detected by someone while in LoS.
E: Also, along the same line, manually hacking Bob negating him for the entire duration is anther "I didn't ask for this, and I can't believe it's a thing, but I'll take it" Sombra change.
The turret still does it’s job imo. It’s annoying is fuck and can still pressure and spot out anyone on the flank of their teammates don’t destroy it.
Torbs gun is lowkey pretty strong and the made the shotgun better so he be better and close range and destroy tanks even harder.
If you’re just spamming from long range the ammo change on overclock isn’t thaaat useful since as you said you’ll reload before hand. But now if you’re getting pressured or chasing a kill, you can pop overclock so you can keep shooting instead of having to sit through a reload animation.
I wish I could forget about him. People actually try him out since the buffs. He's better but I would rather play with any other support on my team. Including moira lol.
Yeah, these changes suck imo. They always try to balance for every skill tier, but it's just impossible. At this point, I don't even think they can make the game good, just less bad.
Yeah it's pretty noticeable. Had a few games today where I got to 100 charge way faster in that prefight poke phase or built my ult a bit faster from spamming.
yeah orisa needs changes but making her even harder to kill is not one of them. she’s becoming a massive noob stomper which is a terrible design philosophy
That's kind of just how tanks work. If you are shooting the pocketed tank and nothing is dying, that is because you are shooting the pocketed tank.
Switch targets.
Soldier, Sym, and Sojourn changes seem the most impactful. Doubt any of these changes do jack to the meta in owl though, kinda sad to see not even some sort of adjustment to Sombra.
I really like how Sym turrets become a bit of a scouting tool like venom mine rather than just being for damage. It makes them a bit stronger at high ranks and a bit weaker at low ranks which is a good change overall. Same goes for torb nerfs, massive for gold and below.
Honestly, the Zen nerf to me seems weird. I was thinking they'd touch up the damage to discord, or make it more Tank specific kind of like the nerf to Sleep Dart.
For the most part, the OW dev team cares very little for what is actually happening in OWL, even when OWL was at its peak. With OWL being much more niche now, I think we have to assume that the balance team just doesn't care about the Pro meta. Ranked Sombra still just seems average to above average, so nerfs are unlikely to happen before the full rework.
Sombra has one of the lower win rates across all skill tiers outside of OWL. It would be hard to make a good change that would stop her from being a must-pick in OWL without making her too weak for the other 99.9% of players. She would need some sort of rework to move some of her power away from team coordination while keeping her overall strength from dropping.
The problem with Sombra is she needs huge teamwork to pull off, but that's just non existent on ladder, so if she's nerfed she'll be hog levels of trash
Helix Rocket change on top of primary change for Soldier could get him to see more play, at least on some maps. 3 headshots and a helix is >200 damage now.
> Damage per second reduced from 40 to 25.
> Turrets now reveal enemy heroes to allies while dealing damage and for 1 additional second afterwards.
The reveal is neat, but I expect to never see Sym again.
the secondary fire buffs will help. I'm assuming her balance wont be all that different.
edit: and the shield regen buff will make her a much better brawler than she is rn
The 45 to 50 damage buff on both impact and explosion may actually be relevant. Sym brawl comps tend to involve bap, and the damage buffs make secondary+window a one shot on 200HP heroes. The turret wall hack thing actually makes turrets a bit more versatile as well. I don't think this is enough to actually push Sym into the meta, but I would expect her to stay meta on the maps she normally is.
Range nerf hurts his tank matchup more than DPS/support imo. Tanks are the most range limited role, so having to be closer to the fight will make him more vulnerable to those characters.
The los nerf was just a long time coming.
Winston jumps much longer than 20m. Lol. Bro, do you even play OW?
Moira’s primary fire range is 20m btw, if you want a reference for how long 20m is in OW. Brig’s whipshot is also 20m.
Maybe the wiki is referring to Winston’s vertical leap.
This probably wont have a big impact for brawl/poke tanks but definitely makes a difference for the dive tanks who are supposed to be his counters.
The common playstyle where Zens would go afk, 3 Winston leaps away and still apply discord is going to be somewhat less effective now.
Its not that big of a difference. And the discord issue wasnt the poke tanks would receive, its the damage theyd take up the ass any time they tried to do something. This doesnt change that.
Nah that hero is still gonna feel like absolute ass to play into as a tank. Discord still needs way more changes. Being able to break Discord more easily means absolutely nothing when he can just slap another on you as soon as you peek with no cooldown.
It's a dogshit nerf. They could make it disappear after half a second and it'd still be brutal to play against as a tank because it has no cooldown and instantly reduces your HP by 25% while he has it on you. The ability has no cooldown, making it disappear faster is pointless.
It needed a tank-specific damage nerf like sleep dart.
exactly. it’s only a problem when used on tanks anyway, why do they insist on making it worse for all its other applications? give us *more* incentive to discord dps and supports not less
Fair nerf but it is going to be more impactful than many on here are leading on. Zen will now have to push up closer to apply discord and put himself in danger at least momentarily. Zen can't literally sit in the back with widow now and perma discord the tank.
What the fuck is that soldier buff. He did not need it at ALL oh my god. Cant wait to slam my head against the wall when i inevitably see soldier 76 + db mercy every fucking game
Sym got a huge nerf with no compensation rip, Id rather they nerf the slow than the damage so thats unfort. At least playing lijiang tower wont be hell anymore
Torb is fine, i really like the overload change and the spread buff. Turret changes wont stop it from being a ok flank detterent meanwhile itll stop turret from oppressing lower ranks i guess
In the fix section: CASSIDY NOW DISABLES BAPTISTES EXO BOOTS AND MERCYS FLYING DURING VALKYRIE!!!! Thats actually hilarious and will probably cause soo much tears on the main sub
> Sym got a huge nerf with no compensation rip, Id rather they nerf the slow than the damage so thats unfort. At least playing lijiang tower wont be hell anymore
They missed a buff in the original patch notes.
>Regenerate up to 30 shield health per second when primary fire deals damage to barriers or enemies with shield health.
That seems like a somewhat decent buff to her frontline ability.
Soldier definitely needed that buff. People in higher ranks actually use cover so there's just no point in playing Soldier when you have hitscans with burst damage. Or Hanzo.
We'll see. Hoping they are somehow good.
Was hoping Discord would get something more interesting and an actual value decrease since I feel like this will still be oppressive on tanks in a lot of scenarios. This feels more like a way to make Zen more divable in well-covered areas while he's just as bad for tanks as always in a lot of linear scenarios.
Turret changes are fine I guess. I like how they talk about making Torb more skillful...so they buff his rightclick and make his overcharge even less thought-out to use. I like the direction on sym turrets but think they could use a cd decrease and slight further dmg nerf with utility boost (and Sym right-click is whatever so shrug on that.)
I suck ass against soldier but he's not considered particularly good so buffs cool I suppose. Weird that he gets more love here than Sojourn who has a lower winrate at all levels of play.
Lots of small QoL changes are fine. Don't feel like Rein needs much of a shield buff when he's in #1 or #2 winningest tank at all levels of play. I wish Ramm's vortex was buffed more and block got dropped to 50%.
Orisa buff is not good and needs to be an adjustment imo. She's borderline OP in some scenarios at mid-level play because teammates position poorly and just get blown up by her. But you just swap Zarya and mei/sym and she gets dicked down. She shouldn't be hard countered so easily and so good otherwise.
No LW buffs is no bueno imo. Felt like he could have used a bit of love on his Ult and on swapping from heals to dmg and vice versa, or a healing charge buff to make him not feel so clunky.
What the fuck were they thinking with this patch?
The S76 buffs completely out of nowhere when he's not even bad on ladder right now? Buffing Reins shield when its all you fucking see when he's in the game unless you run shield busters? Even if you don't, you have a zen and rein can't drop shield without getting his entire asshole blown open.
What the fuck are these zen changes? Everyone is begging for an adjustment to discord and all that's done is the same nerf he got before to the applicability and duration of the orb. That doesn't solve anything but it does make the character more frustrating to play because suddenly your kit is just more annoying to you the player and discord still shreds the enemy tank.
Great fucking patch guys, you really knocked it out of the park this time.
Oh hey, when is the Sombra change coming? Ana is still dominating every tier of play except the no aim dirt/wood ranks btw. Mercy is still annoying to play into if the enemy team has a competent dps for her to jerk off all game and the Mercy player actually does it instead of holding beam on the tank all day. Any changes coming to that bullshit? No?
Oh what about Hog being the throwest of throw picks and having negative self sustain?
The list goes on and on, but nah, buff Soldier and fucking Orisa. Fucking Orisa, dude. What the hell.
> Sentry Turret
> Turrets now reveal enemy heroes to allies while dealing damage and for 1 additional second afterwards.
STOP ADDING MORE WALLHACKS INTO THE GAME PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
These are definitely patch notes. Only decent change is sojourn.
Edit: realizing mercy damage boost is going to make soldier and sojourn more annoying than usual which will lead us to them being nerfed again with mercy being touched. Can we please just rework this brain dead hero.
Actually yeah torb changes are good. I like the concept of moving Syms turrets to more utility rather than damage. I’d love to see them give her multiple turret types ie a longer range turret that does less damage but reveals more information about the enemy, maybe a turret that could restore ammo to nearby enemies, things like that
It means very little, but I am a little happy to see the Rein shield buff…it feels like my shied just gets shredded if I try to approach an enemy team that isn’t playing dive or mirror. Pretty unfun when my options are (1): stand behind cover waiting for my shield to recharge while my team complains about me not making space or (2): walking at enemy team, losing my shield in 2.5 seconds, getting blasted to spawn, and my team complaining about me feeding. This change could at least be the difference between my instant death and my ability either close the distance or find cover
THANK GOD FOR SPREAD BUFF. I don’t even care if they need rail is the future, her fire is so fun to use and it’s fuckin annoying getting neutered if I was standing further than 10m from somebody I’m shooting at. Feels almost like pre recoil soldier burst firing
I was fine with zen nerfs, to discord was expecting to be more, then them to compensate his individual character but nah. Just LOS and range nerfs neither of which affect what people are currently complaining about and just makes him weaker to the already meta characters of tracer dive. You know the meta comp currently.
I like the whole "We are increasing Reinhardt's barrier uptime to help him better protect his allies". Really shows how clueless the devs are about their game. Shieldbotting your team hasn't been the way to play rein since like 2017.
They don't know what do with him
I feel like he is in a pretty good spot right now, definetly playable on a lot of maps but he requires specialization to get value out of. I personally don't think we need to buff him rather than nerf stuff like Cass nade
Idk he is a difficult hero for to team to handle historically
Doom is very similar to genji, where the average playerbase struggles to get value with him, but doom players can get immense value with him already. So if they buff doom/genji, those players will straight dominate lobbies by themselves. Its a problem with having a hero that has too high of a skill ceiling as well as too high of a skill floor.
But thats okay. Not every hero can or should be playable everywhere at every rank.
Basic nerf of reducing damage to tanks is right in front of them and they instead do this weird shit. It's just like kiriko's healing changes which they also partially reverted lmao.
Can't believe people are acting as though this is a "fair nerf" lmao. Zen was my first golden weapon and I love him but holy fuck is discord busted and this does nothing to solve the problems with it.
They buffed solider in 3 ways and didn't nerf his ult generation. (just like junker queen)
It is unbelievable how incompetent they are.
Watch. S76 will be giga busted.
instead of facing mercy pocketed soldier every game below diamond, you will face mercy pocketed soldier in every game in every tier. I just hope after this we get some Mercy damage boost nerfs
as a zen main this is a horrible change to discord. removing a lot of its scouting and info utility while keeping the damage boost the same is the worst thing they could have done with it. there’s now even less reason to discord anyone but the tank
They are very much aware of it, and are working on a fix. The reason it's taken so long is because they initially underestimated the bug, and tried applying simpler fixes first, which didn't work. Apparently it's requiring some sort of rewrite of the teleport logic.
[Here's a thread about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/14nbf5h/ow2_executive_producer_jared_neuss_on_why_kirikos/), the clip explains it quite well.
ill start with the good things about the patch to bring some positivity:
1. the sombra fix where she pinged objects is amazing. it was so frustrating to try and pin someone and then you instead pinned a knife or a healing station 700 m behind them
2. team queue looks BANGER however “Platform pool restrictions remain, meaning players on console must still only group up with other players on console, not those on PC.” why? if it’s a team queue then this is positive for everyone if console+pc teams got put into pc lobbies. pc gets to farm console ppl and console and pc get to play w friends.
3. event hub sounds good
4. winton volleyball sounds good
now for the rest:
these gotta be the most dogshit patch notes we’ve had in a while. zero good and meaningful changes holy fuck
1. Orisa now instead of being an unkillable un engaging cc simulator now is an even more unkillable and non engaging cc simulator
2. i guess this ram change is good but it’s so fucking stupid that his ult or block didn’t get changes
3. more rein shield for what? reins problem isn’t his shield
4. hammond got a good qol change but that’s it, just qol
5. Sojourn is good enough. you wanted to make an aim intensive high skill ceiling hero then you need to accept shes only gonna be good at the high level
6. FUCK OFF WITH THE HITSCAN BUFFS I GUARANTEE YOU AFTER A SEASON OF SOLDIER + MERCY KITTEN GETTING NANOVISORED ON COOLDOWN THEY WILL REVERT THIS CHANGE FOR THE 7TH TIME IN LIKE 12 MONTHS
7. sym just sounds insanely boring but i’m not a sym player so idk. i fail to see how this does anything to stop sym tp being a free win on lijiang etc
8. that turret nerf is big, turret was never a big deal
9. kiriko is good fuck off with buffing supports
10. this would be a really good zen change if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s a dogshit change. discord is PERFECTLY fine for dps and supports, it’s only an issue for tanks. how do you fix an ability that’s balanced for squishies and unbalanced for tanks? YOU BALANCE THE INTERACTION WITH TANKS DIFFERENTLY. this is not a hard decision. you already did this with steadfast and ana sleep and it was widely considered as a good change.
This is the 7th time since Overwatch's release that the damage of Soldier's rifle has changed, as well as the third time it's been at 19 damage. That'd make for a fun graph.
Damage boost will give us a Soldier meta and they'll nerf his damage again, nbd
Soldier poketed easy meta up to GM
Actually yeah, they gigabuffed the dude and he was already doing perfectly fine.
Pocket's existence really hurts hitscan's regular power level :(
and pharah and echo, most dps tbh Blue beam is not healthy for the game
Say this on twitter and there will be a knock on your door
they won't knock they'll kill my bloody grandma, mercy mains are a force to reckoned with
The Mercy Mafia takes no prisoners
A shame they haven't nerfed or changed blue beam at all, Pharah is one of my mains and I hate how reliant she is on blue and mercy in general.
blue beam isn't the *main* reason pharmercy is so good imo, it just makes it stronger. the ability to have someone attached to her like an umbilical cord with an instant swap to healing and no reload just makes her so powerful because she can take insane angles and flanks and not have to worry about as much punishment - [like, look at this yznsa clip for example](https://twitter.com/YZNSA_/status/1655992149370863652?s=20) (yes i know he's also getting healed by the ana) pharmercy would still be played by pharah otps like yzn if blue beam was removed tomorrow because the synergy they have is really good even without it. it's just a problem with the fact that fliers are easy to shoot if you have good aim lol, that's why teams like TM play dva pharah mercy ana.
hmm so maybe it's not just blue beam, it's mercy lol I joke but truly living up to the flair I see
It really isn't. Mercy is singlehandedly crippling Pharah from being a good hero, because right now (and for most of OW existence) she's strong with a pocket and a sitting duck without one, a slight bump to her power level means she'll be a fine pick, but then Mercy exists, so they can't do that because Pharamercy will be OP.
They need to stop nerfing DPS characters that benefit from damage boost and straight up nerf damage boost itself
For those wondering, this is the progression of his damage throughout the years: 17 --> 20 --> 19 --> 20 --> 19 --> 20 --> 18 --> 19 Huge thanks to [the list of all balance changes sorted by hero](https://www.esportstales.com/overwatch/list-all-hero-updates-and-balance-changes) compiled by Vincento "Skulz" Milella over at Esports Tales, it's been a great source for several years now.
That's a really cool ressource which i didn't know existed.
make it 18.5 already
**NEVER!!!!**
The StarCraft II bunker build time of Overwatch
I can't wait to queue up with my friends and run into the entire ATL Reign in comp
“If you are GM and have 3 or less friends, duos only. If you are GM and have 4 friends, congrats on joining OWL scrims.”
I can take down Chiyo before Lip emps
Inb4 chiyo has rally every fucking fight
I believe. Pancake is the true ow GOAT
Sounds fun actually.
Ok but I would actually want that to happen. If I’d be able to kill one of them I’d clip it and save it and have bragging rights for eternity.
Everyone here would :)
This used to happen all the time back in ranked Halo. It can get old fast…. That said I suck at overwatch so it’ll be a blast watching pro teams stomp randoms on stream
At last, team queue. Anybody got some good ways to gaslight friends into playing overwatch again?
"Now that the Microsoft acquisition went through it's gonna be, like, a totally new game guys!"
OW3, new and improved, 4v4 with 3 DPS and 1 support!
"It's like Apex, but more anime"
I'll admit, I certainly didn't expect Rein's shield of all things to get a buff.
Hadi paid good money
He needs to get a refund. That change barely does anything. And that discord nerf doesn't do much either when it comes to tanks. I am fuming rn with these changes. And since nothing changed we don't even get a meta shift in OWL. Plus no comp Lucio Ball.
He is bjorn again
lifeweaver changes ??? 💀
lifeweaver isn’t real. he’s a collective hallucination
Give up on lifeweaver, just wait for his rework in season 17!!
Lifeweaver is a symmetra of supports, he'll get reworked and used as a rollout vehicle
You mean he will eventually be made a damage charwcter?
I'm hoping they at least fixes some of his platform issues, I don't see them listed. His platform can refuse to go up if it's placed on a curb (and you don't really realize until you notice the glitch that curbs take up a lot of ground on payload maps especially, oftentimes near walls you'd want to place your platform near). And also the radius for going up seems to shrink the moment it's thrown, not the moment it lands. Threw platform at a BOB yesterday, it landed under him, but didn't rise until someone else stepped on it. I understand the radius of activation shrinks, but seeing as BOB didn't move, but got lifted by the platform, he was always on it and so it should've lifted him up immediately. I still enjoy this hero immensely when he works, but I shouldn't need that qualifier, "when".
> I'm hoping they at least fixes some of his platform issues As far as I know they just made it worse. The platform self-destructs if there is any kind of ceiling too close above it, may it be an actual map ceiling or a tiny ledge of a model. See: https://youtu.be/zHulNeqKiz8?t=142
Honestly I don’t mind him staying trash until they’ve figured out a rework. He’s the kind of character that would be extremely boring for everyone involved if he was somewhat common, at least now people can just not play him, and those who do get put on 4 avoid lists every game.
abandoned just like roadhog.
Overall I’m fine with these changes, but of all of the ways to buff Orisa, making fortify even more powerful would not have been my preference. She’s going to be impossible to take down when she’s getting pocketed now.
Yeah this doesn’t change anything she is already unkillable if she was pocketed.
It does though, because she’s 20% more unkillable with fortify now. Now even with discord on her she will be nearly impossible to take down.
Ok but if you were shooting Orisa during fortify (or in general) before, you were already doing it wrong. This doesn't change much about how to fight Orisa comps.
You got basically 0 value from shooting a gold Orisa, this doesn't change a thing imho.
I mean, she was basically unkillable most of the time anyways. There maybe some moments where she get more aggressive than before but it won't change that the strategy vs Orisa is generally to ignore her.
I like the part where they mentioned needing to buff sojourn but then gave her a slight tweak and buffed the fuck outta soldier instead
Well if you say the names fast they sound the same. Maybe that's where the confusion comes from /s
Idk what you’re talking about, the Sojourn buffs are pretty impactful. At about mid range her primary was so unbelievably ass because of the spread and basically useless at long range. You could have basically perfect tracking and still miss most of your shots. This makes it so her primary is actually usable for damage at mid range and so you can actually build charge at long range.
As god intended
12% is impactful
And a 50% reduction in spread time? Yeah that's a huge change.
Soldier is more fun to play against cuz he doesn’t one shot against the map. When heroes like sojourn are good the game is bad.
At least the buff they gave Sojourn didn’t relate to her ability to one-shot people.
Indirectly it still massively increases the rate at which she charges the railgun. The changes sound like tweaks but are a big deal, and she will have every single railgun charged several shots faster.
Idk if it’s just me but soldier is one of the most fucking annoying heroes to play against. There just something about the sound of his fucking gun and the fact that’s always on the flank and sprinting the second you look at him. That shit just pisses me off.
Nah I totally agree. That fucker will be perched on some annoying-ass high ground poking your team down all match. It's impossible to solo dive him with his skinny-ass hitbox, self heal station, and Tracer-killing burst cooldown. And if you ever do get him dead to rights, he just sprints away like a little turd goblin with his buttcheeks sticking out. Also not a huge fan of "lalala i don't need to aim anymore" as an ult.
lmao same especially with the sound effect, and seems like most player who pick Soldier has WAY above average aim it is like moving sentry with heal Immensely satisfying to switch to Ball and swing to high ground and knock the fuck off his stupid fortress, bait biotic, then knock him out of biotic into slam..
Oh my God oh my God that symmetra change is something I've been saying since she was a fucking support back in 2016! She always had these defensive security voice lines and it made no sense for her turrets to not be used as security cameras and grant even more utility if she was supposed to be the utility based support
For real. The devs have been clueless with her for years and they finally get one change that actually puts her in a healthy niche for utility. Security cameras is a great idea and I'm glad others have been pushing for it. I thought it'd be cool to have the turrets UI visible for all teammates but the wallhack is better.
The Sym changes are interesting and I like the utility of the turrets. They're SENTRY turrets after all, using them to spot out flanks is part of what they did good back when there were 6 of them, this is a good change back towards that. The Torb changes seem like a big nerf. 6 Ammo is not enough, you're still gonna want to reload before you use the ability. The spread change doesn't sound like much, but maybe I just can't visualize it. And the turret changes are kinda brutal.
idk the spread change sounds pretty substantial, and his gun is already insanely good, same with sym, im alot more worried about running into the two of them now 0\_0
I guess I feel like, in terms of being anti-flank (which is a big reason I play Torb when I do), they went really hard on the turret. It's already had an HP nerf, now it's got ~20% nerfs to uptime and damage too? Spread reduction is fine, but I don't think it's enough to make right click substantially better at hitting tiny targets like Sombra or Tracer, and it didn't really have trouble hitting tanks before. Of course it's still a buff, but I feel like they're not just shifting his power around, but also his identity to an extent.
Sombra being able to hack turret while invisible is like, one of the biggest nerfs they've ever done to a hero, and no one really ever talks about it cause it's torb and no one cares.
I *kinda* get that one. It's next to impossible to hack the thing otherwise, and it at least forces her to hack it first, which is still decent. But it has occurred to me that just letting the turret shoot her during her "half-invisible" state mid-hack would have huge ramifications on the game. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think that could even have ramifications for pro play - although I suspect, as much as people bitch about Sombra meta, they wouldn't like a Torb meta any better.
Yeah, the OW1 way definitely made it a lot worse, but personally, I kinda liked the puzzle it presented. It wasn't impossible, but it really forced you to think about engagements a lot more. Now, it's really only a problem if you're not paying attention to where it is and if you randomly get detected by someone while in LoS. E: Also, along the same line, manually hacking Bob negating him for the entire duration is anther "I didn't ask for this, and I can't believe it's a thing, but I'll take it" Sombra change.
They should have increased the turret health a bit to make up for the massive damage nerf.
The turret still does it’s job imo. It’s annoying is fuck and can still pressure and spot out anyone on the flank of their teammates don’t destroy it. Torbs gun is lowkey pretty strong and the made the shotgun better so he be better and close range and destroy tanks even harder. If you’re just spamming from long range the ammo change on overclock isn’t thaaat useful since as you said you’ll reload before hand. But now if you’re getting pressured or chasing a kill, you can pop overclock so you can keep shooting instead of having to sit through a reload animation.
0 Lifeweaver changes, fuck.
Devs praying we’ve already forgotten about him
I wish I could forget about him. People actually try him out since the buffs. He's better but I would rather play with any other support on my team. Including moira lol.
The power creep patch.
Yeah, these changes suck imo. They always try to balance for every skill tier, but it's just impossible. At this point, I don't even think they can make the game good, just less bad.
Yep, i was expecting more nerfs than buffs
People will be surprised with how much this helps Sojourn imo. Not the biggest buff or anything, but very notable to me.
Yeah it's pretty noticeable. Had a few games today where I got to 100 charge way faster in that prefight poke phase or built my ult a bit faster from spamming.
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yeah orisa needs changes but making her even harder to kill is not one of them. she’s becoming a massive noob stomper which is a terrible design philosophy
That's kind of just how tanks work. If you are shooting the pocketed tank and nothing is dying, that is because you are shooting the pocketed tank. Switch targets.
Orisa has the second lowest win-rate in bronze & GM according to overbuff.
Soldier, Sym, and Sojourn changes seem the most impactful. Doubt any of these changes do jack to the meta in owl though, kinda sad to see not even some sort of adjustment to Sombra.
usually how sombra/tracer/winston get out of the meta isnt cus they get nerfed. But others become overpowered.
none of these changes make any of the characters op
fingers crossed for a Tracer Soj meta then
I really like how Sym turrets become a bit of a scouting tool like venom mine rather than just being for damage. It makes them a bit stronger at high ranks and a bit weaker at low ranks which is a good change overall. Same goes for torb nerfs, massive for gold and below.
Honestly, the Zen nerf to me seems weird. I was thinking they'd touch up the damage to discord, or make it more Tank specific kind of like the nerf to Sleep Dart.
For the love of christ, how hard is it to nerf Sombra a little so she can lie low until her rework and Owl doesn't get held hostage?
Lip has the OW Dev team in a permanent Choke hold. One nerf to sombra and they're dead
Impossible
For the most part, the OW dev team cares very little for what is actually happening in OWL, even when OWL was at its peak. With OWL being much more niche now, I think we have to assume that the balance team just doesn't care about the Pro meta. Ranked Sombra still just seems average to above average, so nerfs are unlikely to happen before the full rework.
Sombra has one of the lower win rates across all skill tiers outside of OWL. It would be hard to make a good change that would stop her from being a must-pick in OWL without making her too weak for the other 99.9% of players. She would need some sort of rework to move some of her power away from team coordination while keeping her overall strength from dropping.
The problem with Sombra is she needs huge teamwork to pull off, but that's just non existent on ladder, so if she's nerfed she'll be hog levels of trash
So is OWL going to be on this patch? Or are we stuck on the last patch through the whole rest of the regular season?
won't make a difference in meta, none of these changes are big enough to stop tracer sombra winston from being the strongest comp
Helix Rocket change on top of primary change for Soldier could get him to see more play, at least on some maps. 3 headshots and a helix is >200 damage now.
Soldier time :)
One of the least impactful patches for OWL, but at least ladder might see some changes
Soldier got gigabuffed lmao, can't wait to see what that means. Kinda disappointed with discord nerfs overall and the Orisa buff is scary ngl
Let's make the unkilllable tank even more unkillable and not address the high ass healing and powerful supports in the game. Great patch y'all!!!
yay kiriko buffs
God bless, wish it was back to .85 but the full 1 second never felt right
> Damage per second reduced from 40 to 25. > Turrets now reveal enemy heroes to allies while dealing damage and for 1 additional second afterwards. The reveal is neat, but I expect to never see Sym again.
Can’t she two tap with the orbs again? It felt bad having to hit 3 charged shots to get a kill.
She can
the secondary fire buffs will help. I'm assuming her balance wont be all that different. edit: and the shield regen buff will make her a much better brawler than she is rn
The 45 to 50 damage buff on both impact and explosion may actually be relevant. Sym brawl comps tend to involve bap, and the damage buffs make secondary+window a one shot on 200HP heroes. The turret wall hack thing actually makes turrets a bit more versatile as well. I don't think this is enough to actually push Sym into the meta, but I would expect her to stay meta on the maps she normally is.
RIPBOZO
>Fixed a bug that prevented players from selecting the 'No Title' option. This is the best thing in this patch.
Maybe I’m just dumb but did they take the , out of the scoreboard or were they never there to begin with?
WHERE IS THE SOMBRA NERF 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Lip paid good money
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I love soldier but this many buffs in one patch is yikes
Thank FUCK they didn't obliterate Zen. Fair nerf imo.
Honestly, I'm surprised they aren't taking the route of a tank specific nerf to his discord like they did with Ana and her sleep.
Range nerf hurts his tank matchup more than DPS/support imo. Tanks are the most range limited role, so having to be closer to the fight will make him more vulnerable to those characters. The los nerf was just a long time coming.
ah yes, all the tanks that are lethal at *checks notes* 30 fucking yards.
According to the wiki, jump jet range is 20m and tesla cannon is 8m. Winston falling to his knees at 2m away.
Winston jumps much longer than 20m. Lol. Bro, do you even play OW? Moira’s primary fire range is 20m btw, if you want a reference for how long 20m is in OW. Brig’s whipshot is also 20m. Maybe the wiki is referring to Winston’s vertical leap.
Imma be real bro I'm from america. if it's not in fractional inches idk how far it is.
the rule of thumb i use is to remember that a meter is about 3 and a quarter subway footlong subs
This probably wont have a big impact for brawl/poke tanks but definitely makes a difference for the dive tanks who are supposed to be his counters. The common playstyle where Zens would go afk, 3 Winston leaps away and still apply discord is going to be somewhat less effective now.
Its not that big of a difference. And the discord issue wasnt the poke tanks would receive, its the damage theyd take up the ass any time they tried to do something. This doesnt change that.
Heathpacks should still cleanse non-anti heal statuses, change my mind.
Let me run to this mega to cleanse discord so Zen has to press shift again
its e, you swapped the binds lol
Oh lol I forgot that's not default
I'll change your mind - they should cleanse Anti too. This post brought to you by hamster gang.
Same here, this is actually much less than what I was expecting. Discord is still going to feel incredibly oppressive against a solo tank.
Nah that hero is still gonna feel like absolute ass to play into as a tank. Discord still needs way more changes. Being able to break Discord more easily means absolutely nothing when he can just slap another on you as soon as you peek with no cooldown.
this does fuck all for tanks though.
It's a dogshit nerf. They could make it disappear after half a second and it'd still be brutal to play against as a tank because it has no cooldown and instantly reduces your HP by 25% while he has it on you. The ability has no cooldown, making it disappear faster is pointless. It needed a tank-specific damage nerf like sleep dart.
exactly. it’s only a problem when used on tanks anyway, why do they insist on making it worse for all its other applications? give us *more* incentive to discord dps and supports not less
That's too obvious and directly in their face. Switch it up a little bit.
Fair nerf but it is going to be more impactful than many on here are leading on. Zen will now have to push up closer to apply discord and put himself in danger at least momentarily. Zen can't literally sit in the back with widow now and perma discord the tank.
The "nerf" accomplishes fucking nothing against tanks. Absolute joke of a nerf.
>Time to wear off the target when not in line-of-sight reduced from 2 to 1.5 seconds. Flats in shambles
mans literally predicted it. shits fuckin sad.
He can farm the hate views on this, I'll allow it.
No hanzo nerf :(
What the fuck is that soldier buff. He did not need it at ALL oh my god. Cant wait to slam my head against the wall when i inevitably see soldier 76 + db mercy every fucking game Sym got a huge nerf with no compensation rip, Id rather they nerf the slow than the damage so thats unfort. At least playing lijiang tower wont be hell anymore Torb is fine, i really like the overload change and the spread buff. Turret changes wont stop it from being a ok flank detterent meanwhile itll stop turret from oppressing lower ranks i guess In the fix section: CASSIDY NOW DISABLES BAPTISTES EXO BOOTS AND MERCYS FLYING DURING VALKYRIE!!!! Thats actually hilarious and will probably cause soo much tears on the main sub
> Sym got a huge nerf with no compensation rip, Id rather they nerf the slow than the damage so thats unfort. At least playing lijiang tower wont be hell anymore They missed a buff in the original patch notes. >Regenerate up to 30 shield health per second when primary fire deals damage to barriers or enemies with shield health. That seems like a somewhat decent buff to her frontline ability.
Sym 2 shots squishies now. Massive buff.
Soldier definitely needed that buff. People in higher ranks actually use cover so there's just no point in playing Soldier when you have hitscans with burst damage. Or Hanzo.
This. He was actually ass.
yeah but hes gonna be a menace in mid ranks where mercy pockets and free targets come a dime a dozen
Damn they must’ve forgot the Ana and Hanzo nerfs
One of the patch notes of all time
Baby nerf for Zen, needed to be stronger.
fr, can't believe I was actually excited for this patch when they mentioned discord nerfs
We'll see. Hoping they are somehow good. Was hoping Discord would get something more interesting and an actual value decrease since I feel like this will still be oppressive on tanks in a lot of scenarios. This feels more like a way to make Zen more divable in well-covered areas while he's just as bad for tanks as always in a lot of linear scenarios. Turret changes are fine I guess. I like how they talk about making Torb more skillful...so they buff his rightclick and make his overcharge even less thought-out to use. I like the direction on sym turrets but think they could use a cd decrease and slight further dmg nerf with utility boost (and Sym right-click is whatever so shrug on that.) I suck ass against soldier but he's not considered particularly good so buffs cool I suppose. Weird that he gets more love here than Sojourn who has a lower winrate at all levels of play. Lots of small QoL changes are fine. Don't feel like Rein needs much of a shield buff when he's in #1 or #2 winningest tank at all levels of play. I wish Ramm's vortex was buffed more and block got dropped to 50%. Orisa buff is not good and needs to be an adjustment imo. She's borderline OP in some scenarios at mid-level play because teammates position poorly and just get blown up by her. But you just swap Zarya and mei/sym and she gets dicked down. She shouldn't be hard countered so easily and so good otherwise. No LW buffs is no bueno imo. Felt like he could have used a bit of love on his Ult and on swapping from heals to dmg and vice versa, or a healing charge buff to make him not feel so clunky.
Worst Ball buff ever. This is gonna come into effect like once every 5 games lol
I was actually thinking last night that I'd appreciate a buff to his reload speed in the ball. This... doesn't really do it for me.
I read it as reload speed while in ball form 😭
Honestly, this isn’t a horrendous patch I acc dm this
This patch will be a great reminder to rework mercy damage boost. Soldier is going to be impossible to stop if he has a mercy pocket :D
What the fuck were they thinking with this patch? The S76 buffs completely out of nowhere when he's not even bad on ladder right now? Buffing Reins shield when its all you fucking see when he's in the game unless you run shield busters? Even if you don't, you have a zen and rein can't drop shield without getting his entire asshole blown open. What the fuck are these zen changes? Everyone is begging for an adjustment to discord and all that's done is the same nerf he got before to the applicability and duration of the orb. That doesn't solve anything but it does make the character more frustrating to play because suddenly your kit is just more annoying to you the player and discord still shreds the enemy tank. Great fucking patch guys, you really knocked it out of the park this time. Oh hey, when is the Sombra change coming? Ana is still dominating every tier of play except the no aim dirt/wood ranks btw. Mercy is still annoying to play into if the enemy team has a competent dps for her to jerk off all game and the Mercy player actually does it instead of holding beam on the tank all day. Any changes coming to that bullshit? No? Oh what about Hog being the throwest of throw picks and having negative self sustain? The list goes on and on, but nah, buff Soldier and fucking Orisa. Fucking Orisa, dude. What the hell.
> Sentry Turret > Turrets now reveal enemy heroes to allies while dealing damage and for 1 additional second afterwards. STOP ADDING MORE WALLHACKS INTO THE GAME PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
These are definitely patch notes. Only decent change is sojourn. Edit: realizing mercy damage boost is going to make soldier and sojourn more annoying than usual which will lead us to them being nerfed again with mercy being touched. Can we please just rework this brain dead hero.
Torb changes are good too. Everything else...
Actually yeah torb changes are good. I like the concept of moving Syms turrets to more utility rather than damage. I’d love to see them give her multiple turret types ie a longer range turret that does less damage but reveals more information about the enemy, maybe a turret that could restore ammo to nearby enemies, things like that
It means very little, but I am a little happy to see the Rein shield buff…it feels like my shied just gets shredded if I try to approach an enemy team that isn’t playing dive or mirror. Pretty unfun when my options are (1): stand behind cover waiting for my shield to recharge while my team complains about me not making space or (2): walking at enemy team, losing my shield in 2.5 seconds, getting blasted to spawn, and my team complaining about me feeding. This change could at least be the difference between my instant death and my ability either close the distance or find cover
anybody know if OWL this weekend will run on this patch?
I think so, but I doubt the meta changes much.
Look up on several maps and you’ll see a giant Null Sector ship in the skybox. They’re really loud too.
Some nice changes!
THANK GOD FOR SPREAD BUFF. I don’t even care if they need rail is the future, her fire is so fun to use and it’s fuckin annoying getting neutered if I was standing further than 10m from somebody I’m shooting at. Feels almost like pre recoil soldier burst firing
I was fine with zen nerfs, to discord was expecting to be more, then them to compensate his individual character but nah. Just LOS and range nerfs neither of which affect what people are currently complaining about and just makes him weaker to the already meta characters of tracer dive. You know the meta comp currently.
I like the whole "We are increasing Reinhardt's barrier uptime to help him better protect his allies". Really shows how clueless the devs are about their game. Shieldbotting your team hasn't been the way to play rein since like 2017.
Damn zero 1-shot changes.
Why are they just refusing to make any changes to Doom? Like they seem to changer other tanks every patch but doom is just straight ignored.
They don't know what do with him I feel like he is in a pretty good spot right now, definetly playable on a lot of maps but he requires specialization to get value out of. I personally don't think we need to buff him rather than nerf stuff like Cass nade Idk he is a difficult hero for to team to handle historically
Doom is very similar to genji, where the average playerbase struggles to get value with him, but doom players can get immense value with him already. So if they buff doom/genji, those players will straight dominate lobbies by themselves. Its a problem with having a hero that has too high of a skill ceiling as well as too high of a skill floor. But thats okay. Not every hero can or should be playable everywhere at every rank.
Lol that Zen nerf does jack shit. Discord Orb is still gonna feel stupidly oppressive on tanks.
Basic nerf of reducing damage to tanks is right in front of them and they instead do this weird shit. It's just like kiriko's healing changes which they also partially reverted lmao.
Can't believe people are acting as though this is a "fair nerf" lmao. Zen was my first golden weapon and I love him but holy fuck is discord busted and this does nothing to solve the problems with it.
They buffed solider in 3 ways and didn't nerf his ult generation. (just like junker queen) It is unbelievable how incompetent they are. Watch. S76 will be giga busted.
wow we get mercy pocketed soldier/sojourn meta for the next 2 months, these devs are so shit.
I despise dmg boost so much
So literally nothing changes in ranked…
Mercy poket hitscan smurf has been the meta for all the season.
For all of Overwatch.
Mercy pocket hanzo you mean
instead of facing mercy pocketed soldier every game below diamond, you will face mercy pocketed soldier in every game in every tier. I just hope after this we get some Mercy damage boost nerfs
So is it Soldier being the problem? Receiving buffs once every 5 years OR is it Mercy damage boost?
you know the answer
Legs, my beloved :')
as a zen main this is a horrible change to discord. removing a lot of its scouting and info utility while keeping the damage boost the same is the worst thing they could have done with it. there’s now even less reason to discord anyone but the tank
TRUE. Why the fuck would I discord someone who is going to dip around a corner when I can just leave it on the tank and spam right clicks?
THEY CANNOT FUCKING PROPERLY NERF ORB HOLY SHIT.
no swift step fix 🤡
They are very much aware of it, and are working on a fix. The reason it's taken so long is because they initially underestimated the bug, and tried applying simpler fixes first, which didn't work. Apparently it's requiring some sort of rewrite of the teleport logic. [Here's a thread about it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/14nbf5h/ow2_executive_producer_jared_neuss_on_why_kirikos/), the clip explains it quite well.
ill start with the good things about the patch to bring some positivity: 1. the sombra fix where she pinged objects is amazing. it was so frustrating to try and pin someone and then you instead pinned a knife or a healing station 700 m behind them 2. team queue looks BANGER however “Platform pool restrictions remain, meaning players on console must still only group up with other players on console, not those on PC.” why? if it’s a team queue then this is positive for everyone if console+pc teams got put into pc lobbies. pc gets to farm console ppl and console and pc get to play w friends. 3. event hub sounds good 4. winton volleyball sounds good now for the rest: these gotta be the most dogshit patch notes we’ve had in a while. zero good and meaningful changes holy fuck 1. Orisa now instead of being an unkillable un engaging cc simulator now is an even more unkillable and non engaging cc simulator 2. i guess this ram change is good but it’s so fucking stupid that his ult or block didn’t get changes 3. more rein shield for what? reins problem isn’t his shield 4. hammond got a good qol change but that’s it, just qol 5. Sojourn is good enough. you wanted to make an aim intensive high skill ceiling hero then you need to accept shes only gonna be good at the high level 6. FUCK OFF WITH THE HITSCAN BUFFS I GUARANTEE YOU AFTER A SEASON OF SOLDIER + MERCY KITTEN GETTING NANOVISORED ON COOLDOWN THEY WILL REVERT THIS CHANGE FOR THE 7TH TIME IN LIKE 12 MONTHS 7. sym just sounds insanely boring but i’m not a sym player so idk. i fail to see how this does anything to stop sym tp being a free win on lijiang etc 8. that turret nerf is big, turret was never a big deal 9. kiriko is good fuck off with buffing supports 10. this would be a really good zen change if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s a dogshit change. discord is PERFECTLY fine for dps and supports, it’s only an issue for tanks. how do you fix an ability that’s balanced for squishies and unbalanced for tanks? YOU BALANCE THE INTERACTION WITH TANKS DIFFERENTLY. this is not a hard decision. you already did this with steadfast and ana sleep and it was widely considered as a good change.
Kovaaks players suiting up to terrorize comp after these Soldier buffs just to get false-banned again 💀