Blizzard Says Overwatch 2 Nerfs Are Designed To Protect Supports

As expected earlier this month, several Overwatch 2 nerfs are expected in the next update, which will be released on November 15, according to Blizzard. The hero balance changes are primarily intended to help keep the FPS game’s support characters alive, with nerfs to high-output heroes like Sombra, Genji, and D.Va making them harder to get into. them on the opposing team’s baseline.

Changes in the November 15 update include:

Dark

• Hacking skill lockout duration reduced from 1.75 to 1.5 seconds.
• Hacked enemies are no longer eligible targets to hack for the duration of the effect.
• Hacked damage multiplier reduced from 40% to 25%.

Genji

• Max ammo reduced from 30 to 24.
• Shuriken damage reduced from 29 to 27.

Sunrise

• Barrier duration reduced from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds.
• Barrier cooldown increased from 10 seconds to 11 seconds.

From them

• Thermonuclear gun spread increased from 3.5 to 3.75.
• Thruster damage reduced from 25 to 15.

kiriko

• Swift Step invincibility duration reduced from 0.4 to 0.25 seconds.

Lead Hero Designer Alec Dawson explained the design team’s approach to each of the game’s changes. Twitter Space will take place on October 28.

He explained that Sombra is deadly effective at sneaking into the back of opposing teams, where he can wreak havoc on their support. The team also wanted to limit their ability to “chain hack” and thus prevent the retargeting of hacked targets for the duration of the hack.

Lately, the design team noted that Genji had “too much burst damage,” which also made life difficult for support players.

“We want to put him on par with the other flankers,” Dawson said. “I think those numbers should do it, make it more like the Harvesters of the world.”

The nerf to new hero Kiriko’s window of invulnerability after using her quick step ability is more to prevent confusion than to change the balance of the character. Dawson says that players were a little confused when they saw the ability in action: “Hey, Kiriko teleported into Reaper’s ult and didn’t die, what happened there?” he said.

Kiriko’s invulnerability window remains to prevent players from teleporting to someone’s ult instead of dying, says Dawson, but the reduction should make it feel more natural.

Dawson says the team is looking into Doomfist and Sojourn for potential adjustments based on player feedback and match data.

Check out our Overwatch 2 tier list to see which characters are the best to play right now.