Reinhardt’s big new Earthshatter buff seems to be even stronger than the Overwatch devs anticipated thanks to a bug that allows it to literally bypass shields and walls to instantly kill foes.
The January 6 Overwatch patch introduced a plethora of changes to heroes, but one of the most outrageous was for Reinhardt. Now, when the German tank hero uses Earthshatter, enemies caught by it will receive a whopping 200 damage.
That much burst damage is enough to eliminate most support and DPS heroes with a single hit and to make things even more bizarre, it can now ignore shields and walls that previously blocked the incoming damage.
As shown on Reddit and by Twitch streamer Flats, this unexpected bug makes Reinhardt an even bigger threat and something the devs may need to fix as soon as possible.
Reinhardt Earthshatter bug revealed
Redditor Ptulor posted an interesting video showing off many of the new interactions. Now, if Rein is close enough to a shield, he can still go through it and connect with a tank on the other side.
However, the issue extends beyond just barriers. Even Zarya’s Personal and Projected Barriers can be broken in an instant and send the Russian off-tank to the ground.
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This issue even extends to Mei’s Ice Wall and even regular map geometry, so anyone thinking they’re safe behind a wall can still be eliminated by a surprising Earthshatter.
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Meanwhile, Flats dug more into why this is, and in an analysis video explained how while shields may block the “stun,” it doesn’t deny the radius hit, so while the opposing tank might be knocked down, the backline will be fine.
It’ll be interesting to see how the devs approach this bug and if it gets patched out soon. If not, Reinhardt players could really take advantage and use this to help rank up by asserting their tank dominance against opposing foes.
