The long-awaited and heavily hyped next major patch update for Overwatch 2, which was supposed to launch in late October alongside the OWL Playoffs and Halloween event, has been pushed back to mid-November, delaying Genji and Sombra nerf.
The update’s patch notes were leaked last month, detailing huge nerfs to the likes of Genji, Sombra, DVa, and Kiriko. The folks over at GGRecon made the claim that both Genji and Sombra would be the focus of the next big patch, which was initially expected to go live on the OWL Practice Servers on October 24, ahead of a planned big launch for all players on October 26.
That never occurred, and instead we saw a smaller patch that saw the return of Tobjorn and Bastion following their temporary removal, as well as the return of the Junkertown map.
Word has now come through that the next big patch won’t happen until November 15. The leaked patch notes have turned out to be accurate, according to a new blog post by Blizzard directly.
“There are some Hero balance adjustments we’d like to make sooner,” the blog details. “As promised, we’re focused on some tactical adjustments meant to bring current standouts like D.Va, Zarya, Genji, and Sombra more in line with the rest of the roster.”
Regarding Sombra’s planned rework, the Overwatch 2 team says she will gain a lot more damage to help account for the planned reduction in her ability lockout duration of Hack.
“This has proven to be too deadly for a flanker with easy access to the enemy backlines, and we’ve similarly had to address the damage output of heroes like Tracer, Reaper, and now, Genji, in the 5v5 format.“
Sombra will no longer be able to “channel hack on an already hacked target”, per the feedback, which indicated the reduced cooldown, combined with hacking from stealth, provided to be too frustrating for many players.
“This is essentially a per-target cooldown that enables Hack to keep its current 4 second cooldown for potentially hacking multiple targets.“
As for Genji, Blizzard says that he is a Hero that has greatly benefited from the move to 5v5.
“Changing to a single Tank and the reduction of crowd control has meant Genji has had less obstacles in his way, however he hasn’t received tuning updates since he wasn’t actively in the meta until launch (something also informed by our general preference to avoid preemptive adjustments when possible).
We also saw that, in early beta tests, other flanking Heroes such as Tracer and Reaper were also significantly more effective in OW2. These changes will bring Genji more in line with the other flanking damage heroes.“
Zarya is also set for a significant nerf, with her Barrier duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 seconds, and Barrier cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds.
“Early player sentiment predicted Zarya as one of the weakest solo tanks in 5v5 though her high damage potential and barrier uptime have proven to be extremely effective.
“For opponents, feedback has indicated this can feel as though Zarya has very limited windows of vulnerability, which feels difficult to deal with when combined with her ramping damage potential.“
It looks set to be a pretty significant change the meta when the changes come into play from November 15.
What are your thoughts on the proposed nerfs to Sombra, Genji, Zarya, and others? Sound off in the comments below!