What you need to know
- Ahead of the final weekend of the Overwatch 2 beta, developer Blizzard has released a new patch for the game that makes several sizable balance changes.
- Junker Queen's Commanding Shout and Rampage abilities have had their areas-of-effect reduced, and the health boost from Commanding Shout also now decays over time.
- Orisa, meanwhile, now has headshot immunity during Fortify again. Her movement speed with Javelin Spin has also increased from 40 to 50 percent.
- Other notable changes include buffs to Doomfist's Power Block and Rocket Punch, a small nerf to Zenyatta's health, and tweaks to the uptime and cooldowns of both Sojourn and Symmetra.
Ahead of the final weekend of the Overwatch 2 beta that's slated to end on July 18, developer Blizzard Entertainment has updated the game with some fairly significant balance changes in a new patch. Highlights of the update include some sizable nerfs to the new Junker Queen tank hero and a big buff to Orisa, though other noteworthy tweaks were made as well.
Commanding Shout, an ability that allows Junker Queen to buff herself and her teammates with temporary extra health and a speed boost, has been made less effective and more difficult to use. Its duration was increased to five seconds (up from four), but the radius of the ability has been reduced from 20 to 15 meters. On top of that, the health bonus allies receive also begins to decay over time, so players will need to try and take advantage of it more rapidly. The radius of Junker Queen's Rampage Ultimate has also been reduced from six to five meters, so you'll have to charge closer to your targets in order to hit them with it.
Orisa, on the other hand, has had the recent nerf to her Fortify ability that allowed her to be critically headshot while using it reverted. This is a huge buff to her ability to shrug off damage while using Fortify, which is the core skill in her kit that allows her to stand her ground and tank effectively. The movement speed of her Javelin Spin ability has also been bumped up from 40 to 50 percent, allowing her to charge forward (or retreat) faster while destroying incoming enemy projectiles.
Doomfist's Power Block and Rocket Punch were also buffed. Players now only need to block 90 damage with Power Block instead of 100 to fully empower Rocket Punch, and Rocket Punch now deals its full damage to all targets impacted by its knockback instead of only dealing damage to the target hit with the punch directly. Additionally, Zenyatta's shield health was nerfed down to 150 from 175, bringing his overall health back down to 200 where it originally was before a recent buff. This change makes him "squishier" than he's been for the majority of the Overwatch 2 beta, and Zenyatta players will need to play more carefully as a result.
Finally, both Sojourn and Symmetra were adjusted with some small tweaks. Sojourn's Railgun primary fire has had its fire rate reduced from 15 to 14 shots per second, and the size of her secondary fire projectiles now scale from 0 to 0.1 meters based on how much charge you've built up (the higher the charge, the larger the projectile). Symmetra's Photon Projector, meanwhile, has had its secondary fire charge time reduced to one second and its projectile radius increased to 0.5 meters. The cooldown on her Teleporter ability has also been knocked down to 12 seconds from 16, allowing her to use it to reposition herself and her teammates more often. For more information on the update, don't forget to check out the official patch notes.
Overwatch 2 is expected to launch on Oct. 4, 2022, transitioning Overwatch PvP to a free-to-play seasonal model and shifting the game over to a new 5v5 format. You can get access to the game's beta right now by purchasing the Overwatch 2 Watchpoint Pack, although you'll only be able to play this one for a few days before it closes. Thankfully, you'll also get access to any future betas as well.
