After the calls to scale back the buffs on Bastion and the introduction of Orisa as the game's 24th hero, Blizzard has released an update to the Overwatch PTR that applies changes to several heroes.
The changes, which will affect Ana, Junkrat, Sombra, Winston, Zenyatta, and the new hero Orisa, will likely shake up the Overwatch competitive meta.
'Overwatch' Buffs And Nerfs
In a post on the official Overwatch forums, principal designer Geoff Goodman detailed the buffs and nerfs to the affected heroes. The heroes that received buffs with the Overwatch PTR update are Junkrat, Sombra, Winston, and Zenyatta, while Ana and Orisa received nerfs.
Junkrat has an effect added to his passive Total Mayhem skill that prevents him from hurting himself from the explosions that his bombs create, allowing players to take more risks in deploying them.
Sombra, meanwhile, has her Stealth skill improved by reducing the range at which other players can hear the sound effects and voice-over for entering and exiting Stealth. The hacker hero also had her Translocator skill improved, with a cooldown reduction from 6 seconds to 4 seconds. These buffs make Sombra better at launching surprise attacks and hacks against enemies, while making her entry and escape skill more accessible.
Winston players will now be able to use the Barrier Projector more during group fights, as the cooldown of the skill now starts counting once it is placed instead of when it ends. This mirrors the cooldown count for Orisa's Protective Barrier Skills.
Lastly, for the heroes who received buffs, Zenyatta received an alternate fire recovery reduction for his Orb of Destruction from 1 second to 0.6 seconds. In addition, his Orb of Discord can now pass through barriers, a buff that is relevant considering the addition of another barrier-wielding hero in Orisa.
For the heroes who received nerfs, Ana is affected more compared to Orisa. The damage of her primary weapon, the Biotic Rifle, has been decreased from 80 to 60, and her Biotic Grenade skill will see its impact damage against opponents reduced from 60 to 30 and impact healing on teammates reduced from 100 to 50. Such changes hint that Blizzard does not want an all-tank meta to return, as Ana was an essential part of teams that deployed such lineups.
Orisa was not safe from the buffs, as she saw her primary weapon, the Fusion Driver, decrease in magazine size from 200 to 150. In addition, the cost to deploy her Supercharger ultimate has been increased by 15 percent.
Orisa To Remain On The 'Overwatch PTR' For Now
It was expected that Orisa would be released from the PC-only Overwatch PTR and launched into the main game and consoles after a week, similar to the time that Ana and Sombra spent on the PTR after they were announced.
However, according to Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan, Orisa will be left on the PTR longer as the development team continues to fix certain issues surrounding the new tank hero such as the bug that makes her Supercharger ultimate unstoppable. According to Kaplan, Orisa will likely be added to the main game later in March and not after just a week on the PTR as most expected.
