Game Director Aaron Keller is back with a preview to the balance changes coming to Overwatch 2 in Season Five
Thanks for the update Aaron.
I had a lot of fun playing in season 4 and there were a lot of great changes…
I’m looking forward to season 5!
Any chance we might now get Mac support now that we have the “developer porting kit” to make it easy to do?
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“The community has also voiced concerns over the number of one-shots from both Widowmaker and Hanzo. We’d like to reduce the frequency of these in-game, as well as shore up some of the extreme sightlines in some of our maps. Widow’s damage falloff will change from 70-100 meters to 40-60 meters. The damage falloff scalar will also increase from 30%-50%. She will still have the ability to one-shot 200 health heroes at 50 meters or less, but further than that, it will no longer be a killing blow. Hanzo will receive a slight nerf to his damage so that he is no longer able to one-shot 250 health heroes. His Sonic Arrow will also be more recognizable by the enemy team–the intent here is to reduce his kills that feel like they come out of nowhere. We are constantly discussing the nature of one-shots in Overwatch 2 and whether they are healthy for the game in general.”
Darn alright okay
" We’ll be making changes to both Mei and Cassidy for Season Five with this in mind. Mei’s Endothermic Blaster will be updated. The primary fire will still slow targets, but it will also build up to an effect that will apply a much larger slow for 1.5 seconds. For players of the original game, this will feel familiar to the way her old weapon worked. Cassidy’s magnetic Grenade will also get updated to deal less damage, as well as applying an effect that slows and blocks movement abilities."
ay yoooo
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Widow and Hanzo nerfs finally!! Hanzo probably needed even more.
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HANZO DID NOTHING WRONG 
Rip one tapping reapers
Also I nearly got a heart attack when I saw they were bringing back cc. As long as flashbang remains in the shadow realm then all is well
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I was just about to congratulate you for going one thread without mentioning mac support…until you edited it in.
You disappoint me.
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YESSSS WIDOW AND HANZO NERFS AH MY DAY HAS BEEN SAVED!!!
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We’ll have specific details in the patch notes, but players can expect increases to his healing and damage output, a heal on Life Grip, a slightly reduced hitbox, and some quality-of-life changes to Petal Platform.
Slightly reduced? He’s the size of a tank!
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The widow nerfs sound amazing. Can’t wait to see! Also sonic arrow being more noticeable is huge. A huge frustration with Hanzo is not knowing when he can see you.
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Finally, close range heroes like Reaper and Mei won’t get one-shot by a point blank Hanzo arrow.
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Didn’t go hard enough on the Hanzo nerfs tbh. But congratulations to the very few heroes with 250hp that will benefit from this.
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HUH??? widow nerfs without nerfs to pharah echo and mercy??? LMFAAAAAAAAAAO A JOKE. Well hopefully this makes people band together and call for pharmacy nerfs more vigorously.
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I’m looking forwards to try out these Lifeweaver changes! Definitely my favorite hero addition in the game. I just hope these buffs don’t end up too far in the opposite direction.
Thanks for the continued updates.
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Mei’s Endothermic Blaster will be updated. The primary fire will still slow targets, but it will also build up to an effect that will apply a much larger slow for 1.5 seconds.
You think you want this, but keep in mind that there are far fewer barrier tanks to block Mei’s piercing freeze effect…
Also, everyone celebrating the Widow nerf but not realizing that 50 meters is still basically infinity since most maps don’t have open spaces that long. There’s Havana and Junkertown, basically–everywhere else you’re still going to get domed by a slingshotting Widow flying over the geometry and one-tapping you in the one frame your face is visible.
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She makes Havana and Junkertown unbearable already so maybe this will help a bit.
Seasons Three and Four were some of the most balanced in recent Overwatch history!
Press (X) to doubt.
At times, the original game felt like you were in a pinball machine.
And now it feels like the tanks are made out of paper unless pocketed or playing rein.
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We’re going through the OW1 cycle again with cc: devs are too dumb to realise hypermobility needs nerfs so they start adding cc into the game which turns it into an unplayable mess.
Game needs to be slowed down instead of adding a trillion cc abilities, 99% of which end up getting used on tanks instead of hypermobile flankers. But it’s going to take another 10 years for the balance crew to realise this.
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I think that’s ok tbh. On maps dominated by long sightlines she’s more vulnerable in the new one shot range.
dam i guss i was right about a falloff nerf for widow. wonder how much it will effect her tho and really she really needs long siteline maps to succeed or be viable at the HIGHEST levels. too bad there wasnt some sort of compensation buff like reduced charge time or something. probably a B/C tier pick now but hey people probably want more
oh well
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Im glad for Queens passive remaining untouched. Ult charge and Overheal really is problematic but the passive being this effective is needed. So thank you for leaving the passive as it is.
Im glad that Lifeweaver gets some attention, by the looks of it every aspect of him getting buffs. And oh, finally, some long range nerfs.
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