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%
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% to 50%
- Crossfade
- Speed Boost’s effect reduced from 30% to 20%
- Sonic Amplifier
- Soundwave now counts towards Offensive Assists
- Wall Ride
- Speed buff increased from 20% to 40%
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% to 30%
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% to 40%
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% 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% to 25%
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.