By Steven Asarch

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Overwatch's latest hero, Baptiste, has made his way off of the PTR and hit the main servers. The support has a smile that could melt a tank and can leap over Mei's ice wall and block all enemy projectiles is already slated to shake up the Overwatch meta. Along with Baptiste, there are a number of other big changes coming to Overwatch , like damage-type augments and changes to the game's knockback system.

Here are the patch notes straight from Blizzard:

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

General Updates

Armor

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• Beam-type damage is now reduced by 20 percent when hitting armor

  • Mei: Primary Fire
  • Moira: Alternate Fire, Coalescence
  • Symmetra: Primary Fire, Sentry Turret
  • Winston: Primary Fire
  • Zarya: Primary Fire

• Damage over time effects are no longer mitigated by armor

  • Ana: Primary Fire
  • Ashe: Dynamite
  • Hanzo: Dragonstrike
  • Mei: Blizzard
  • Moira: Biotic Orb
  • Widowmaker: Venom Mine
  • Zarya: Graviton Surge

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

Winston's primary fire now deals less damage versus armor.

Damage Boost

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

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

Knockback

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

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

Sound

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

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

...

HERO UPDATES

Ana

• Nano Boost

  • Heal reduced from 300 to 250

Developer Comments: Giving Nano Boost an instant heal effect enabled players to survive longer and made Ana's ultimate valuable. However, it was a bit too strong when healing heroes with large health pools.

Doomfist

• Rising Uppercut

  • Cooldown reduced from 7 to 6 seconds

• Seismic Slam

  • Cooldown reduced from 7 to 6 seconds

Developer Comments: Reducing the downtime of Doomfist's abilities will give him some power back and make his gameplay feel more fluid.

Hanzo

• Sonic Arrow

  • Detection radius increased from 7 to 9 meters

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

Junkrat

• Frag Launcher

  • Impact damage increased from 40 to 50

• RIP-Tire

  • Cost increased by 10 percent

Developer Comments: Junkrat is one of the best barrier and tank busters in the game, and this change will help solidify this role. This doesn't change the Frag Launcher's explosive damage, which remains at 80. The total damage for direct impact is now 130, up from 120. Since we increased Frag Launcher's damage output, Junkrat builds his ultimate too quickly. We're increasing the cost of his ultimate to balance this change with his increased damage-dealing capabilities.

Lúcio

• Amp It Up

  • Speed Boost's amplification reduced from 70 percent to 50 percent

• Crossfade

  • Speed Boost's effect reduced from 30 percent to 20 percent

• Sonic Amplifier

  • Soundwave now counts towards Offensive Assists

• Wall Ride

  • Speed buff increased from 20 percent to 40 percent

Developer Comments: The knockback on Lúcio's Soundwave is a great tool for pushing enemies into situations that get them killed, so they should be rewarded an offensive assist for doing so. Lúcio's ability to increase his teammate's speed was too strong, especially when used on high health/low range heroes. We're decreasing the overall power of Lúcio's Speed Boost but increasing the speed bonus he gets from using Wall Ride so his mobility isn't impacted too much.

McCree

• Fan the Hammer

  • Damage reduced from 55 to 50

• Deadeye

  • Damage per second increased from 275 to 550 after locking onto targets for 1.5 seconds

Developer Comments: After reducing armor's effectiveness for all heroes, Fan the Hammer doesn't need to deal quite as much damage. Increasing Deadeye's damage after being locked on for a bit makes it more effective when attacking high health, static targets (like barriers) and heroes with over 250 health. It will not impact how dangerous this is for heroes under 250 health.

Mei

• Endothermic Blaster

  • Primary fire damage increased from 2.25 to 2.75 (45 to 55 damage per second)

• Ice Wall

  • Health reduced from 500 to 400

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

Moira

• Biotic Grasp

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

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

Orisa

• Fusion Driver

  • Movement speed penalty while firing reduced from 50 percent to 30 percent

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

Pharah

• Rocket Launcher

  • Minimum explosion damage increased from 16.25 to 20

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

Reaper

• The Reaping

  • Healing received from dealing damage reduced from 50 percent to 40 percent

Developer Comments: A recent change that increased Reaper's healing while he dealt damage was a bit too strong, sometimes making opponents feel like Reaper was unstoppable.

Soldier: 76

• Pulse Rifle

  • Damage increased from 19 to 20

• Sprint

  • Delay before you can fire the weapon after using Sprint reduced from .5 to .3 seconds

• Tactical Visor

  • Can target RIP-Tire and Immortality Field

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

Sombra

• Hack

  • Cooldown is reduced by half when hacking a health pack
  • Changed the visual appearance to more clearly indicate when something has been hacked

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

Symmetra

• Photon Projector

  • Primary Fire's damage ramps up 20 percent faster

Developer Comments: This will allow Symmetra to more consistently reach peak damage output from her Photon Projector.

Torbjörn

• Base health increased by 50 armor (250 maximum health)

• Overload

  • Armor gain reduced from 150 to 100

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

Widowmaker

• Infra-Sight

  • Reveals enemy health bars
  • Now canceled on death

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

Wrecking Ball

• Adaptive Shield

  • No longer cancels Roll mode

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

Zarya

• Particle Cannon

  • Alternative Fire's explosion radius changed to 2 meters, regardless of energy level

Developer Comments: Zarya's damage greatly increases when at high energy, while also gaining increased beam size and a larger explosion radius. This often allowed Zarya to deal too much damage and made the explosions from the Alternate Fire on her Particle Cannon nearly impossible to avoid. This change will still allow Zarya to deal a lot of damage, but makes it more difficult to actually apply the damage.

Zenyatta

• Orb of Destruction

  • Damage increased from 46 to 48

• Orb of Discord

  • Effect reduced from 30 percent to 25 percent

Developer Comments: Zenyatta's Orb of Discord makes him a nearly irreplaceable support hero on your team. We're reducing its impact for Zenyatta's team, but increasing the potency of the Orb of Destruction to compensate for its lesser effect.

This Overwatch patch was needed to keep the game fresh. Currently, the GOATS team composition, which features Zarya, Reinhardt, Lucio, Brigette and Zenyatta, is the only viable option. If someone would rather play Widowmaker or Tracer, the game is pretty much already over. This patch tweaks the damage of pretty much every hero, potentially making other compositions viable.

Zarya and Zenyatta are both getting major nerfs to their viability, limiting their damage and Lucio lost 10 percent of his speed. If any patch could kill the toxic GOATs meta, it's this one. Add Baptiste to the mix and Overwatch feels like an entirely new game. I hope to see more Hanzo and Doomfist and less of everyone else when the patch hits the Overwatch League stage sometime during stage two.

How do you feel about this Overwatch patch? Tell us in the comments.

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