A new Overwatch update is now available on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, bringing in a bunch of buffs and nerfs to multiple heroes.
The big winners this patch are Ana and Hanzo, who receive some much-needed quality-of life-buffs that could end up paying dividends for their viability.
For Ana, her Biotic Grenade will now function similar to her primary fire, in that it will completely pass through allies if they are at full health.
This is an incredible buff, because it will mean that allies who run in front of Ana can no longer stop the grenade and make Ana players waste their powerful cooldown. It also means that Ana players can use their own teammates to “mask” their own position and throw the grenade through their bodies onto enemies.
Keep in mind, any enemy hit with Biotic Grenade can’t be healed and allies receive double healing for its duration. This buff simply makes one of the game’s best tools even more powerful.
Next up, Hanzo is now going to be able to cancel his Storm Arrows manually. This will be useful as players don’t have to spam the ability to opt back to the standard bow.
Mei can now cancel her Ice Wall while in the spawn room, which is a nice new feature in the event she dies while the wall is up.
Finally, Brigitte has been smashed with a HP nerf. After seeing her health go up by 25 in a recent patch, Blizzard has brought it right back down after community backlash.
Hopefully, the game can enter a nice spot with this latest update and the devs keep up the momentum.
GENERAL UPDATES
General
- Support heroes no longer say “Group up with me” when they are missing health and request healing
HERO UPDATES
Ana
Biotic Grenade
- Projectile now passes through allies with full health
Developer Comments: A significant number of Biotic Grenades are blocked by allies accidentally intercepting it. Having it collide with allies in the same manner as Ana’s primary fire will enable more deliberate placement of the ability.
Brigitte
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General
- Base health reduced from 175 to 150
Developer Comments: Brigitte was a likely candidate when looking at close range heroes to receive a health adjustment while experimenting with 25 HP increments. This ended up being too powerful when combined with her self-healing and barrier.
Hanzo
Storm Arrows
- Can now be manually canceled
Mei
Ice Wall
- Can now be manually destroyed while dead
Moira
Biotic Grasp
- Healing resource consumption rate lowered from 14 to 12.5
Developer Comments: Moira could use a small bump in healing efficiency after recent changes made maintaining her high healing output more challenging.
Symmetra
Teleporter
- Can now be manually destroyed while dead
Torbjörn
Deploy Turret
- Turret can now be manually destroyed while dead
