New Overwatch Update Nerfs Brigitte and Orisa, Buffs Roadhog and Pharah

Blizzard released a new balance patch for its team-based shooter on August 13, 2020. Because all classes have a few heroes with some changes, all players should be aware of these new features. All of these changes are live in Overwatch for all platforms, affecting a total of 7 characters' in-game abilities. Whether or not this changes the game's meta has yet to be seen, but it will likely reduce the usefulness of a double shield team composition.

According to Blizzard's patch notes, Brigitte has been hit with some big nerfs that affect her health and her healing of other players. Her total base health has been reduced from 200 to 150, though she still retains a fair bit of armor before her health is affected by damage. Additionally, her passive Inspire healing has been reduced from 21 to 15 health per second, and her self healing during this passive is no longer reduced by half. Brigitte's changes seem to give her more sustain on the battlefield, but she heals her teammates less as a result.

Moving on to the other support hero affected by this patch, Zenyatta, he has gotten a couple of buffs to his damage output. The charge rate of his secondary fire has been increased by 15%, and his rate of fire has increased from 8.4 to 9 shots per second. Although his healing capabilities have not been affected with this patch, the omnic healer may begin to return to the game because of these aggressive changes.

As for the tanks, two shield heroes are getting some major changes to their kit, Orisa and Sigma. Roadhog has also received a few changes which will hopefully play him as more of a tank, rather than a DPS. Although Orisa's base armor health has been reduced from 250 to 200 and her Halt ability's radius has been decreased from 7 to 4 meters, the projectile speed of this ability has been increased from 20 to 30. In-game, this projectile speed is quite noticeable, and will take some getting used to for Orisa mains and enemies alike.

Sigma's changes focus on reducing his defensive possibilities, as his barrier health has been reduced from 900 to 700, with the regeneration rate reduced from 120 to 80 health per second. Additionally, his Kinetic Grasp cool down has been increased from 10 to 12 seconds. These significant nerfs will likely reduce his effectiveness in the double shield meta, but this does not mean that he will drop out of play entirely.

Roadhog has undergone some changes with his basic attack weapon, to make him more of a tank than a DPS in the tank category. Specifically, his Scrap Gun ammo has been reduced from 6 to 5, its damage per projectile has been increased from 6 to 7, and the recovery from shots has been increased from 0.7 to 0.85 seconds. Although his ammo count was altered less than 6 months ago, it seems that Blizzard is looking to make Roadhog the tank hero that he used to be.

Finally, the DPS class has received some changes to two of its more popular heroes, Pharah and Symmetra. Although many players have been hoping that Symmetra's aggressive capabilities would be reduced, Blizzard has only reduced her teleported cool down from 12 to 10 seconds. Her primary fire will still increase in power after damaging shields and enemies, keeping her the unstoppable force that she is known to be. On the other hand, Pharah has received some more significant changes to her movement.

Pharah's changes will make her more agile in the air, and also alters her ultimate duration so that she is not a sitting duck while she executes it. Her hover jets have an increased movement speed of 20%, with the regeneration rate reduced from 50 to 35 per second. As for her ultimate, her Barrage's total duration has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Her increased movement speed will consequently make her harder to hit and buffing her capabilities during the team fights. 

Although some of these changes may seem pretty drastic, they are intended to balance out gameplay so that players win matches through skill, rather than hero abilities. Regardless of what role you play, be sure to try out each of these new changes for yourself so that you know what to expect in-game from enemies and teammates alike.

Kieran Mouritsen
Editor, NoobFeed