For Overwatch 2, a lot is changing with the start of the new season. Blizzard’s shooter will feel different – as all heroes will be changed.
Since the developers of Overwatch 2 announced that the PvE mode will never be properly released, the community has been angry. Some have not forgiven Blizzard for reducing the team size from 6 to 5, while others feel cheated for various reasons. However, Blizzard is doing its best to revamp the shooter and further refine the PvP aspect. This Tuesday, on February 13, 2024, there will be plenty of changes.
The adjustments are so extensive that some in the community are talking about an “Overwatch 3”.
The most important things in brief:
- All heroes receive more health points.
- All heroes heal passively when they take no damage.
- The projectiles of nearly all weapons will be significantly larger.
- The matchmaking and ranking of all players will be reset.
All heroes in Overwatch 2 will become stronger
Blizzard wants to reduce the impact of burst damage, meaning high damage in an extremely short time. This is especially aimed at reducing the “one-hit potential,” so that enemies won’t be killed with a single combo in a fraction of a second. For this reason, all heroes will across the board receive more health points.
This means for the individual characters:
- Heroes with 150-175 HP: +25 HP
- Heroes with 200-300 HP: +50 HP
- Heroes with 300+ HP (Tanks): +75-100 HP
Ultimately, these changes mean that almost all characters will need at least one additional hit to be eliminated. This leaves more time for healers to intervene or to make use of the new self-healing mechanics.
Everyone will be a healer – at least for themselves
The major controversial change, however, is that all characters will receive self-healing. Once a character has not taken damage for 5 seconds, they will start to heal with 20 HP per second until their health points are fully restored. Damage taken stops this healing immediately.
Support characters have an improved version of this healing, as their self-healing begins after just 2.5 seconds without taking damage.
But that’s not all. In addition, damage characters will receive a new passive trait. When a damage dealer hits an enemy, that enemy receives a new debuff, causing them to receive 20% less healing. This allows DPS characters to focus better on enemies and weaken the healing of the opposing team.
All weapons will hit more often – as the bullets will be larger
It is also new that almost all projectiles in Overwatch 2 will become larger. An increased hitbox for the projectiles means that bullets will hit their target more often and less precision will be required, making it slightly easier to deal damage. How much various projectiles will increase depends on the type of weapon and projectile.
The changes to projectile sizes are as follows:
- Hitscan projectiles from weapons with very high fire rates or wide spreads (like Reaper or Tracer): +0.05 meters
- Hitscan projectiles from precision weapons (like Cassidy or Soldier: 76): +0.08 meters
- Projectiles with flight time and a fast fire rate (like Roadhog or Ramattra): +0.05 meters
- Projectiles with flight time that travel faster than 50 meters per second (like Zenyatta): +0.10 meters
- Projectiles with flight time that travel slower than 50 meters per second (like Pharah or Junkrat): +0.15 meters
- No change for particularly large projectiles (like Orisa’s spear or Reinhardt’s fire strike).
Fresh start for everyone – matchmaking will be “reset”
The last major change is that the personal ranking of all players will be completely reset. No matter what rank you had before – with the start of Season 9, everyone starts from scratch and must prove their skills in placement matches.
This is the perfect opportunity to finally break out of the “Elo hell” and not remain stuck in the bronze ranks – or to cement a place there forever.
Additionally, there will now be more transparency. A progress bar will show you after each match how close or far you are from the next rank – and how much the win or loss affected it.
What else is changing?
Apart from these major adjustments, there are also a lot of individual balance changes to the heroes. Many DPS characters will deal more damage in the future to somewhat compensate for the increased health points of the heroes.
In general, these changes aim to make healing have a little less influence on the fight. Support heroes should find it more difficult to keep the entire group alive.
Moreover, the start of a new season also means that there is a fresh battle pass – this time, apparently, cosmic secrets and corruption from dark tentacled aliens are on the agenda. C’thulhu fans should get their money’s worth, and especially the mythical Moira skin looks really nice.
In addition, there has already been a teaser for a collaboration with the anime “Cowboy Bebop” – but there are no further details yet.
What do you think of these changes to Overwatch 2? Is that enough to give the game a fresh coat of paint? Or is it a futile effort?
