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 full patch notes here.
What are we trying to address?
While we don’t have an overarching theme for today’s Experimental patch, we’re hoping to get your feedback on a handful of hero updates for under- and over-performing heroes. These changes are not intended to be hugely impactful to gameplay, but rather numbers adjustments that should improve some heroes’ performance.
What are we testing?
We’re making some adjustments to a number of under- and over-performing heroes. These changes are focused on improving performance of the following heroes:
Baptiste
McCree
Orisa
Roadhog
We’re also aiming to make some adjustments to Ashe’s Dynamite since she’s currently pretty powerful across the board.
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.
For those wondering and are too lazy to go searching:
Ashe is still a bit too powerful, but we’d like to keep her rifle feeling impactful so we’re taking some power out of her Dynamite ability.
Dynamite
- Explosion damage reduced from 75 to 50
BAPTISTE
Baptiste generates a majority of his ultimate charge through area-of-effect healing. As we reduced area healing values recently, we’re also scaling down the cost of his ultimate.
Amplification Matrix
- Ultimate cost decreased 15%
MCCREE
After scaling down the damage output of McCree’s primary fire, we’re looking to give back a bit of power through improvements to his abilities.
Combat Roll
- Can now be activated in the air - Distance increased 20%
Flashbang
- Stun duration increased from 0.7 to 0.8 seconds
ORISA
Increased projectile speed will help Orisa’s weapon feel more responsive, reducing the need to lead targets. We found that recent adjustments to Orisa’s abilities were more impactful than we originally anticipated and have increased her armor to compensate.
- Base armor increased from 200 to 250
Fusion Driver
- Projectile speed increased from 90 to 120
ROADHOG
After the last round of shotgun improvements, Roadhog’s Chain Hook combo still wasn’t effective against some of the smaller enemy heroes. This change pulls targets closer to melee range for swifter, more reliable combo execution.
Chain Hook
- Now pulls targets 0.5 meters closer (3.5 meters down to 3.0 meters)
I can definitely see the game shifting towards a more healthy state with a lot of the underperformers being buffed and the most unbalanced part of Ashe’s kit being nerfed! A good set of changes
While overall this is a good patch, I have few concerns.
For Baptiste, this is the wrong buff direction, we all remember the days when Baptiste had his ultimate everytime, and we were all waiting for that Wall to leave to engage a fight, used like a time killer, scared of that being back now.
For McCree, Im scared of that stun duration increase, he will be able to land 2 headshots on a single Flashbang, he will be able to kill 250hp heroes, thats too much. Just remove that Flashbang buff, that Combat Roll buff is perfect.
For Roadhog, this is a very bad direction, you guys need to bring his damage to 6.XX, with 6 dmg/bullet, he doesnt even one shot a Sombra literaly stick to her on a headshot, go try for yourself on Training range people. If the enemy hooked gets healed up during the hook, then we have the same issue in the past, he doesnt oneshots…
He is still and still will be after that patch worst than before the Hog buff patches ago.
He’ll just be building ult at around the same rate that he was before his Regen nerf (maybe even a little slower). I believe this change was to simply compensate for his now lowered healing output.
He can’t. He could only do that when he was McMachineGun
