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Overwatch 2’s first major balance patch has arrived, and it has heroes like D.Va, Genji, and Zarya in its sights. Improvements to matchmaking and the enabling of aim assist for those playing on consoles while in a group with PC players have also arrived as part of the November 17 update.
As previously announced, this latest update (which arrived slightly later than originally planned following a two-day delay) targets some of the most frustrating heroes to go up against in Overwatch 2’s current meta. Tanks Zarya and D.Va have both been hit with nerfs, with Blizzard tuning down D.Va’s damage and the duration and cooldown of Zarya’s barriers.
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Now Playing: Overwatch 2 Video Review
Genji has proved to be a potent assassin in Overwatch 2 thanks to the game’s shift to 5v5, so Blizzard has reduced the damage of his shuriken and reduced their maximum ammo. Blizzard writes in the patch notes that the changes should help to bring him “more in line with the other flanking heroes like Tracer and Reaper.”
The shift to 5v5 helped Sombra a great deal as well, with Blizzard believing her easy access to the enemy backline has made her a little too powerful. Hacked enemies will take less extra damage than before and will no longer be hackable again for the duration of the eight-second effect. Kiriko is the only other hero to receive changes. An update to her Swift Step has reduced the ability’s invulnerability window, helping to reduce confusion on when she is able to be attacked.
In addition to balance changes, the update brings Mei back into the fold after an over two week-long absence due to a bug effecting her Ice Wall ability.
Console players will be happy to hear that aim-assist, once disabled when grouping with players on PC, is now enabled in cross-play PC and console lobbies. Competitive is the only mode where aim assist will still be disabled when in a cross-play group. Blizzard writes in the patch notes that its data shows many groups included players on both consoles and PC, and that “if you were playing on console and grouping with players on PC, you were opting into a bad experience for yourself to play with your friends.” Blizzard notes that it will be monitoring the change closely and “making changes quickly if needed.”
Other changes in the update include a fine tuning of the game’s matchmaking systems and increased accuracy when it comes to each role’s estimated queue time. As part of Blizzard’s Defense Matrix initiative, audio transcription is starting to roll out for the PC version of the game in select countries. Players will see a notification when entering public voice channels that their audio may be recorded, and if reported for disruptive behavior, Blizzard will use a speech-to-text program to transcribe the abusive audio in question. Audio transcription and recording is not enabled for party chat. The full Overwatch 2 patch notes can be found below.
Overwatch 2 November 17 Patch Notes
GENERAL UPDATES
Competitive Play and Matchmaking
We’re continuing to monitor the health of competitive play and matchmaking across Overwatch 2, both for returning and new players. We’ve made numerous tuning adjustments on the server for both the initial and continued determination of a player’s skill tier and division, many of which will become even more noticeable at the start of Season 2.
We’ve increased the precision of our queue time estimates for each individual role in role queue.
Defense Matrix
The audio transcription feature has been added with a limited rollout for PC players in select countries. As a piece of our Defense Matrix initiative, audio transcriptions allow us to analyze a transcript from a temporary voice chat recording of a reported player. Players will now see a notification when entering voice chat for the first time during a play session indicating that voice chat may be recorded. Make sure you report as close to when disruptive behavior occurred to maximize this feature’s effectiveness. Once reported, a temporary audio recording will be used to make a text file transcript through speech-to-text programs. No one listens to the temporary audio recording, which is quickly deleted after being transcribed. Transcriptions are only made for reports of disruptive behavior in public voice channels, which includes team and match chat—group “party” chat is excluded.
Crossplay and Aim Assist
We made a change to Aim Assist in Crossplay (PC+ Console) lobbies. If you play in a Crossplay game now, Aim Assist is enabled in all matches except Competitive.
In our data, we found many groups were crossplay groups between PC and console players. This meant if you were playing on console and grouping with players on PC, you were opting into a bad experience for yourself to play with your friends. Also, if you had a group that was primarily console, but one of your friends was a PC player, you had to leave the PC player out to have a good experience.
We’d like to reiterate—at this point Aim Assist exists only on console platforms.
We’ll be monitoring the deployment of this change carefully and making changes quickly if needed.
HERO UPDATES
TANKS
D.VA
D.Va felt too deadly after the last round of changes given how resilient she can be with her improved Defense Matrix.
Fusion Cannons
Spread increased from 3.5 to 3.75
Boosters
Impact damage reduced from 25 to 15
Call Mech
Fixed in last update- Call Mech ultimate cost reduced by 12%
ZARYA
Early player sentiment predicted Zarya as one of the weakest solo tanks in 5v5, although her high damage potential and barrier uptime have proven to be extremely effective. For opponents, feedback has indicated this can feel as though Zarya has very limited windows of vulnerability, which feels difficult to deal with when combined with her ramping damage potential.
These changes will reduce the barrier uptime, making it slightly more difficult for her to gain energy and will provide enemies with more time to deal damage to her.
Particle Barrier
Duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 secondsCooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds
Projected Barrier
Duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 secondsCooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds
DAMAGE
GENJI
Genji has greatly benefited from the move to 5v5. Changing to a single Tank and the reduction of crowd control has removed a lot of obstacles for Genji. However, he hasn’t received tuning updates since he wasn’t actively in the meta until launch—an intentional decision based on our general preference to avoid preemptive adjustments when possible. These changes will bring Genji more in line with the other flanking damage heroes like Tracer and Reaper.
Shuriken
Maximum ammo reduced from 30 to 24Damage reduced from 29 to 27
JUNKRAT
Steel Trap
Fixed in last update- Arming time increased from 0.5 to 0.75 secondsFixed in last update- Trapped duration reduced from 3 to 2.5 seconds
SOMBRA
With Sombra’s rework, she gained a lot more damage to help account for the reduced ability lockout duration of Hack. This has proven to be too deadly for a flanker with easy access to the enemy backlines, especially in 5v5.
She can also no longer channel hack on an already hacked target as feedback indicated the reduced cooldown combined with hacking from stealth proved to be too frustrating for many players. This is essentially a per-target cooldown that enables Hack to keep its current 4-second cooldown for potentially hacking multiple targets.
Hack
Ability lockout duration reduced from 1.75 to 1.5 secondsHacked enemies are no longer valid targets for hacking for the duration of the 8-second effectHacked enemy damage multiplier reduced from 40 to 25%
SUPPORT
KIRIKO
This invulnerability window is primarily intended to help avoid instantly dying to something unseen after teleporting through walls, but it ended up being a little too long and led to some confusion while shooting at Kiriko.
Swift Step
Invulnerability duration reduced from 0.4 to 0.25 seconds
BUG FIXES
GENERAL
PC Only – The Default setting for audio mix has been changed to “studio reference”Resolved an issue where some players could be stuck in Bronze 5 even after several rank updatesConsole Only – Fixed an issue where the PC interface was being forced on for some console playersConsole Only – Fixed a bug on console where your game could freeze if you opened and closed a Hero cinematicConsole Only – Fixed an issue where ‘Capture Highlight’ could not be unbound from Left D-PadAddressed multiple leaderboard issues causing inaccurate placement and orderingPlayers who getting healed will no longer see the healing status effect on their screen while they’re full healthFixed an issue where players would sometimes be placed into an empty gameResolved a bug that prevented players from rejoining their competitive game after being disconnectedFixed a bug where typing in chat could purchase an item from the Hero GalleryThe ‘No Name Card’ selection in the Name Card interface is now selectableFixed a display issue where players were shown the incorrect amount of Overwatch League tokens, which made them unable to purchase items. The display now shows the correct amount of tokens a player ownsThe ‘Avoid Teammates’ button is no longer hiding behind the Recent Players listFixed an issue with the Challenge ‘Farsighted’ not correctly tracking and/or completingFixed an issue with the Challenge ‘Damage Sponge’ not correctly tracking and/or completingResolved instances of the player’s screen becoming blurry/out of focusFixed an issue where some players were missing the Noire Widowmaker skinVarious visual improvements to the First Time User ExperienceFixed in last update – Practice bots now show up through walls correctly when you play a healer
MAPS
Junkertown
Fixed additional areas in the map that were causing performance issues in some cases
HEROES
Brigitte
Fixed a bug where Brigitte’s shield could become invulnerable under certain conditions
Cassidy
Cassidy now correctly drops the flag during Combat Roll in the Capture the Flag game mode
Doomfist
Fixed in last update – Fixed a bug with Seismic Slam being stopped early by obstructionsFixed in last update – Fixed a bug with being able to jump during Seismic Slam
Genji
Fixed an issue with the Genji Mythic Skin’s hit volumesFixed in last update – Fixed an issue where players could get infinite Dragonblade Custom Games
Hanzo
Fixed in last update – Jump/wall climb no longer destroys breakables
Junker Queen
Commanding Shout and Rampage now correctly drop the flag in the Capture the Flag game mode
Kiriko
Fixed an issue where Kiriko could escape map boundaries using Swift Step
Mei
Has been added back to the line-upFixed several issues with Mei’s Ice Wall that allowed players and projectiles to occasionally pass through it or slip off it
Mercy
Audio made a change to the sound of Mercy’s first-person glide to address frequencies that some players found uncomfortable
Reinhardt
Fixed in last update – Fixed an issue where quick melee did not swing Reinhardt’s hammer
Sojourn
Sojourn can no longer pick up the flag in Capture the Flag when using Power Slide
Sombra
Fixed in last update – EMP can no longer be damage boosted
Torbjorn
Fixed in last update – Fixed an issue where quick melee did not swing Torbjorn’s hammer
Wrecking Ball
Fixed an issue with Adaptive Shield that could cause you to lose health in some cases
