A Ton Of Hero Changes Have Come To The PTR
Overwatch has seen ton of hero changes added to the PTR over the past week including Ultimate reloading and a Mercy nerf. Here is an overview of them.
Ultimate Reloading
By far the biggest change, channeled and transformation ultimates now reload ammunition after their completion. The heroes this change affects include:
- Junkrat
- Pharah
- Roadhog
- Zenyatta
- Genji
- Winston
Ana
Ana is seeing a major change to her ultimate ability, Nano Boost. When she uses it on someone, they will instantly gain 300hp along with the usual damage boost.
This change comes about to help Ana use her ultimate in a wider variety of situations.
Bridgette
There are two changes coming to Bridgette.
The first will see the cooldown for her Shield Bash increase by one second from six seconds to seven. The developers state this is to help enemy players who face her.
"Slightly increasing the cooldown will give Brigitte’s opponents more opportunity to play around her Shield Bash ability."
Her other change will see players able to change the sensitivity of her Repair Packs in the options menu.
Doomfist
Doomfist's changes are based around how his Rocket Punch interacts with Symmetra's placeables.
Now when he uses his Rocket Punch, it will no longer impact her teleporters.
On the plus size, he can now destroy any and all sentry turrets without stopping.
Hanzo
Hanzo sees his Lunge ability increase by one second to five seconds. In the patch notes, the developers state this is to make him easier to hit.
"Hanzo’s Lunge ability allows him to be very evasive, the increased cooldown should make him slightly easier to catch."
Moira
Moria's Biotic Grasp has received a slight buff. Her passive regeneration rate has been increased to 2.4 seconds from two seconds, allowing her to healing to go a bit further.
Lucio
Crossfade has seen an increase in its radius from 10 to 12 metres, allowing Lucio to speed up or heal allies further away.
His ultimate, Sound Barrier has seen a 50% increase in the amount of shield it gives. It now gives 750 shield, up from 500.
Mercy
Easily the most controversial change, Mercy is set to see her healing reduced from 60 healing per second to 50. The developers state that the reason behind this is to make other supports more viable.
"Mercy’s previous healing output made her nearly impossible to replace in any team composition. Even after these changes she will still be able to deliver more healing over the course of a match than any other support hero. This change should allow for other healers to be a more viable pick."
Sombra
Sombra has a small change. The size of her head hit volume has been reduced, meaning you need to be more accurate for those critical hits.
Reinhardt
The reason behind this change is to make him block projectiles more easily.
"By smoothing out Reinhardt Barrier Field, he will be able to consistently block enemy abilities and projectiles (e.g. Junkrat’s grenades)."
Widowmaker
Grappling Hook has seen a slight nerf, with the cooldown increased by two seconds to 10 seconds.
The reason for this is similar to Hanzo, with the developers wanting her to be easier to catch.
Zarya
Zarya has seen both a buff and a nerf on the PTR.
While her energy drain has been dropped by 0.4 seconds to 1.6 seconds her ultimate range has been reduced.
Instead of sucking in enemies up to eight metres away, it now only affects enemies in a six metre radius.
"With the reduced Energy drain rate, Zarya should be at higher energy on average resulting in more overall damage and quicker ultimate charge times. We’ve also decreased the wide area of Graviton Surge, so players are more able to aid allies without being pulled in as well."
Symmetra
The final change on the PTR is for Symmetra.
Her Photon projector has seen an increase in its primary fire range to 12 metres from 10. There are currently no comments on why this change was made.
If you'd like to read over the full list of changes, you can find the PTR changes released on the 18th here and the 20th here.
