Blizzard revealed upcoming nerfs to five overpowered Overwatch 2 heroes during the Halloween weekend, bringing the season 2 update forward from its original release date of December.
A post by Overwatch’s community manager Andy Belford on the game’s official Overwatch 2 forum revealed that five heroes would be receiving less loot for their heroic deeds beginning on November 15. Heroes like Genji, the game’s poster boy, Zarya, the Russian powerhouse, D.Va, the off-brand Dorito-eating gremlin, Sombra, and Kiriko, the furry-kin healer, are on the chopping block.
overwatch 2 pic.twitter.com/Qn2Qrt8SFC
— Frogger (@FroggerOW) November 2, 2022
The Overwatch 2 team had previously said in a blog post published on October 13 that no character modifications would be made until the second competitive season. Blizzard stated in their blog that while certain heroes were doing better than others, “no hero’s overall strength level is substantially out of line with our goals.”
At the time, Zarya’s ability to pick where to position each of her two Particle Barriers was the only real deviation from the norm, and the writers noted that they would be keeping a careful eye on it for “possible alterations next season.”
Blizzard opted to implement early nerfs to the five heroes mentioned in order to implement “some tactical modifications” to the game now that Overwatch 2 is no longer experiencing DDoS assaults and ridiculous loading times and its full roster of characters is playable. The following are the weaknesses that these heroes will soon have:
Genji
- Drop from 30 to 24 bullets in the magazine.
- Damage from shuriken decreased from 29 to 27
Zarya
- The time required to cross the barrier decreased from 2.50 to 2.0 seconds
- The time it takes for a barrier to cool down has gone from 10 to 11 seconds.
D.Va
- Fusion cannon now has a 3.75-mile range
- The boosters’ impact damage has been lowered from 25 to 15.
Sombra
- The time it takes for hackers to be locked out has been shortened from 1.75 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
- During the length of the effect, hacked foes can no longer be hacked.
- The multiplier for hacked damage has been lowered from 40 to 25.
Kiriko
- The duration of Swift Step’s invulnerability halved from 0.4 seconds to 0.25 seconds
These changes aren’t devastating to the heroes’ playstyles, but they will make them slightly less effective in 5v5 matches in Overwatch 2. Here’s your chance to rack up some more victories with these heroes before they’re incapacitated by Kryptonite.
Our current timeline has us releasing these modifications in a patch on November 15th, 2022. If there are any changes to that schedule, Belford promised to post them on the site. Check out the Overwatch League Playoffs on the 30th of October for a sneak peek at how these alterations will work.
Final Words
We hope you have found all the relevant information regarding the Overwatch 2 First Big Patch Weakens Genji As Usual. If you need more updated information then stay tuned with us here at Gameempress.com.