Blizzard is releasing a bunch of big Overwatch support changes to the game. There’s a Mercy nerf, Ana buff, and everything in-between for the likes of Lucio, Brigitte and Moira. Here’s when you can expect the changes to come into play, what they mean for your mains, and a list of patch notes for you to pore over.
What Are the New Overwatch Support Changes?
As per Blizzard themselves, the developer is looking at changing up every support character, to either make them more or less effective in the battlefield. Let’s start with Mercy, who has gotten a big downgrade (and some would argue is an unwarranted reduction in healing power, but I digress).
- Mercy: Her healing beam has been reduced from 60hp/s to 50hp/s, a decrease of 17%
- Ana: Nano Boost now also heals the target for an additional 300hp
- Brigitte: A slight nerf for one of the newest heroes, as her shield bash cooldown is upped from 6 to 7 seconds.
- Lucio: A sizeable buff for this support character, as his crossfade aura now covers a much larger area.
- Moira: Healing resource base regen rate increased 20%.
- Zenyatta: No changes (for now)
When is the Overwatch Support Changes Release Date?
According to Blizzard, we can expect these Overwatch support changes to land in the PTR (Public Test Region, a testing ground server for new updates on PC) over the coming weeks. If all goes well, a full rollout, Hammond-style, should be coming to both consoles and PC sometime in August.
Overwatch Support Changes Patch Notes
You can read the full Overwatch support changes patch notes on the Blizzard forums here. Of particular note is the more in-depth side-bars that accompany each support characters’ nerfs and buffs. It should really give players a key insight into the mindset behind those making the changes.
