Experimental Mode – Hero Balance March 2021

Hey everyone!

We’re back with another Experimental mode focused on testing some balance changes. As with all Experimental modes, these changes are not guaranteed to reach the live version of the game. Check out the patch notes here.


What are we trying to address?

This Experimental mode is focused on fine tuning previous balance changes. While there isn’t an overall theme to these changes, we want to revisit some of our other experiments.


What are we testing?

For this Experimental patch, we’re adjusting a few heroes:

Genji – We’re making a small adjustment to increase Genji’s Shuriken damage potential while also increasing his Dragonblade ultimate cost. His playstyle is currently heavily focused on using his ultimate, so we’re looking to adjust this slightly to make gameplay slightly more inclusive of his other abilities.

Mei – Last year, we rolled out a change that made Cryo-Freeze’s collision consistent with Ice Wall, namely making her untargetable by allies or enemies while the effect is active. This resulted in Mei “missing out” on healing because she was unaffected by teammates’ healing effects. We’re increasing her health regeneration while in Cryo-Freeze to balance this out.

Pharah – We’re adjusting Pharah’s fuel regeneration rate to more easily allow her to maintain uptime at reasonable heights. These changes are mindful of not allowing too high a regeneration rate to avoid her being able to maintain extreme heights.

Reaper – Our recent changes were not as beneficial to Reaper as intended, so we’re increasing his damage slightly to ensure that he’s still a viable Damage pick.

Sigma – We’re reducing the cooldown time for Experimental Barrier slightly following recent changes. We want to allow players avenues for counter-play against Sigma, but still want his shield to feel impactful and less restrictive.

Zarya – Zarya is a consistent hero within the Tank category for a number of team compositions. We’re slightly increasing her energy drain rate to bring her average energy down between engagements.


We hope you check out the new Experimental mode and provide us with your feedback! Science will reveal the truth – And all great science requires data! As always, this is an Experiment, so the changes in this test may not reach the live game.

Thank you!

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This Experimental mode is anticipated to be available until early next week.

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ha ha ha

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Nice updates overall I’d say

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EXPERIMENTAL HERO UPDATES

The next experiment begins! This time we’re hoping to get your feedback on some balance changes. We’re using the 2-2-2 Role Queue ruleset so that you can get a feel for how these balance changes might affect the live game.

HERO UPDATES (ONLY IN EXPERIMENTAL)

Genji

Shuriken

  • Recovery lowered from 0.75 to 0.68

Dragonblade

  • Ultimate cost increased 15%

Developer Comments: We’re increasing Genji’s Shuriken fire rate to enable him to have more impact outside of his ultimate and increasing the cost of Dragonblade to account for the increased damage potential.

Mei

Cryo-Freeze

  • Healing-per-second increased from 37.5 to 50

Developer Comments: A while ago there was a change to make Mei’s Cryo-Freeze collision consistent with her Ice Wall, meaning she could no longer be targeted by allies while inside the block of ice. We’re increasing her Cryo-Freeze healing rate since she isn’t able to be easily healed up by her allies during that time.

Pharah

General

  • Hover Jets regeneration rate increased from 35 to 43

Developer Comments: The intent for Pharah’s Hover Jet fuel adjustments is to find a balance where it enables her to maintain an altitude reasonably well with careful fuel and cooldown management, but not so easily climb to the extreme heights some map ceilings allow for as it can lead to less interactive gameplay.

Reaper

Hellfire Shotguns

  • Damage per projectile increased from 5.5 to 6

Developer Comments: The recent adjustment to Reaper’s shotguns ended up being less beneficial than intended so we’re increasing the damage per projectile slightly.

Sigma

Experimental Barrier

  • Cooldown reduced from 2.5 to 2.0 seconds

Developer Comments: While the previous cooldown increase for Experimental Barrier had the intended effect of opening up more counterplay, there may be a tuning value that feels less restrictive for Sigma and still achieves those goals.

Zarya

General

  • Energy drain rate increased from 1.6 to 1.8 per second

Developer Comments: Zarya has been overperforming in a variety of team compositions so the increased drain rate will bring her average energy level down slightly between engagements

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Best experimental I’ve seen in the past couple months.
While you didn’t address OP dps, I’m extremely glad you buffed weak dps and gave sigma and Zarya the respective changes they needed

Overall, :+1:

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For the love of god give doomfist some love, it’s been well over a year since he last got NERFED. You’ll buff other underperforming niche heroes like pharah, genji and reaper but not doom???

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I get excited to look at experimental changes, but then realize there’s no change to my struggling Moira :frowning:

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good stuff josh nani is pretty happy

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FINALLY A GENJI BUFF thank you so much <33

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How many years before d.va is playable again?

Still no rein nerfs?

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Oh hey, this actually got posted in General Chat.

Usually it’s posted elsewhere.

Lol, more genji right click spam…great…

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Looks okay, actually.

Thank you!
The edgelord might be saved. :pray:

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They seriously did nothing for Moira?? The absolutely worst Support in the game with the lowest pickrate and winrate? Why are they ignoring her for so long?? Why?

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I was practically squealing with excitement as I read all of the changes :joy: This patch looks REALLY REALLY GOOD. I’m so excited to try things out

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Honestly, most of this is QoL more than anything. Probably could just push these changes live.

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Thank you for giving Mei a buff, holy mackerel I would not have believed it if I didn’t just see it

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