Overwatch 2's New Dev Blog Addresses Balance Considerations And Support Character Changes

Overwatch 2 PvP Beta has officially ended with amazing support and excitement for the new game. Aaron Keller, the Game Director of Overwatch 2, had a message to share to players and fans: “Overwatch as a world, as a universe, is deeply personal to the team; something that we pour our time, creative energies and passion into. It can be scary putting something that means so much to you out there for other people to look at. Especially when you know that it’s not finished and you’re asking for people’s real and valid criticisms of what you’ve made.”

Keller goes on to say how imperative these early stages and tests are, as well as how important the feedback from the community is to continue to move forward and create something amazing.

Following Overwatch 2 PvP Beta’s end, the Week 2's Dev Blog has been released in continuation after their first dev blog. This report focused on support characters and balance considerations. To start, after increasing Zenyatta’s health, the Omnic monk’s win rate increased by 5% and his death rate was reduced by 7%. Ana received a small nerf with her Biotic Grenade getting a decrease, however her overall healing output on average remained unchanged even after adjustments.

Mercy’s mobility is currently being reworked as most average players are having difficulties executing her “super jump” technique that is vital to play the character to her full potential. In addition, Junkrat and Summetra are also being reworked. Currently, the team is trying to explore better ways to direct hits as a form of skill expression with Junkrat. The dev team has also acknowledged that the reduction of shields being thrown about the battlefield makes Symmetra’s Photon Projector harder to get value from and the hero is also suffering from an increased overlap with heroes like Mei, who have better tools for close quarter survivability.

In other news, a great change was made to queue times which has always been an issue in Overwatch. From the latest patch, players experienced 48% less time spent waiting for a match. Thankfully, for both damage and support players, Beta queue times improved drastically without sacrificing match fairness or quality measures. To read the full report, please make sure to check out the post on Overwatch's site.

Note: Activision Blizzard is still under investigation by the state of California for serious harassment charges. CEO Bobby Kotick is alleged to have known about such actions within his company – and performed some himself – and shielded the perpetrators from consequences.