A huge new Overwatch patch went live on PC, Xbox One, PS4 and Nintendo Switch, bringing a bunch of radical updates, including a less crazy version of D.Va’s April Fools buff.
The big change of this patch comes for Baptise, who brings some lunatics into his field of immortality, while his healing is slightly renewed.
The Field of Immortality has been an extremely controversial skill since Baptiste was added to the game and will now allow colleagues to survive only 10% of their maximum health, down from the previous 20%.
In addition, its healing range has been reduced, but direct healing shots will give another 20 health, so it should be a little more enjoyable to play.
The immortality of the Baptist immortality field could help balance the hero.
D.Va’s April Fools buff is also underway, though it’s not as crazy as a capacity as it was back on the joke patch. Now, her last Call Mech will deal 250 damage, which is still enough to eliminate enemies like Reaper and Mei.
Echo’s double is also nerfed. Finally, after a lot of requests, once the Duplicate is finished, it will return to the state of health it had before activating the ability or to 100 HP, whichever is higher.
Moira receives a nice amateur, with the cooling time of Biotic Orb reduced by two seconds. This should let her be an even stronger healer, not to mention inflict additional damage on her team.
These passionate Moira could be quite annoying to play against.
Elsewhere, both Orisa and Reinhardt were changed. Reinhardt’s armor was reduced again, from 250 to 200, while the cooling time of Orisa’a Halt was improved. It is clear that Blizzard wants to have more diversity in the role of the main tank.
Roadhog damage also gets worse with pellet damage increased from 6 to 6.6. Although this doesn’t seem like much, it will be added, so fighting Hog could be a much bigger challenge in the future.
Finally, the Shadow receives a nice bonus of movement speed when it is invisible, increased from 50% to 60%.
The shadow will be an even bigger threat in the back line.
As always, with these experimental changes, there are chances that not all will pass, but it is clear that the developers want to address the dominance of comp Rush, especially with season 4 OWL starting on April 16th.
Full patch notes:
EXPERIMENTAL ERROR UPDATES
The next experiment begins! This time we look forward to receiving your feedback on some balance changes. We use the 2-2-2 Role Queue set of rules so you can get an idea of how these balance changes could affect the live game.
HEROES UPDATES (EXPERIMENTAL ONLY)
Baptist
Biotic launcher (secondary fire)
- The explosion of healing projectiles reduced from 60 to 50 health
- Healing the direct impact of the projectile now restores 20 more health
The field of immortality
- Now protects teammates at a minimum health threshold of 10% maximum health, decreasing from 20%
D.Va
Call Mech
- The damage increased from 50 to 250
Echo
Duplicate
- When the Duplicate ends, Echo will return to the health value it had before activating the ability or to 100 health, whichever is higher.
Moir
Biotic blind
- Reduced recovery time from 10 to 8 seconds
Oris
Stop!
- Reduced recharge time from 8 to 6 seconds
Reinhardt
General
- Reduced armor from 250 to 200 (Health / total reduced armor from 550 to 500)
Roadhog
Garbage gun (primary and secondary fire)
- Damage to the projectile increased from 6 to 6.6
The Shadow
Stealth
- Stealth input or output fade time decreased from 0.75 to 0.45 seconds
- Movement speed bonus increased from 50 to 60%