Overwatch’s new skins are great and all, but they aren’t the only things that were released with the game’s Uprising event.
Along with a bunch of hero balance changes, Blizzard added in a limited time playable event that pits Mercy, Reinhardt, Tracer, and Torbjörn against a slew of omnic baddies. In the Uprising event, players will have to take on wave after wave of enemies to defeat the extremist omnics.
Let’s break down each part of the update.
Uprising playable event
Blizzard is taking players seven years into the past with its new Overwatch Uprising cooperative brawl. Available until May 1, players will be able to take control of Mercy, Reinhardt, Tracer, and Torbjörn as they rush to save the streets of King’s Row from the omnic extremists know as Null Sector.
The event is objective-based, sending the Overwatch heroes throughout the streets of King’s Row. Players must hold different sections of King’s Row, which leads into another segment where players must protect and escort the payload. Enemy difficulty is increased with each wave, making it harder and harder to save the city.
Hero balance changes
Lúcio
- Sonic Amplifier
- Damage increased by 25 percent
- Projectile speed increased from 40 to 50
- Alternate fire now considers vertical orientation when knocking targets back
- Crossfade
- Area of effect radius has been decreased from 30 meters to 10 meters
- Heal Song
- Healing-per-second has been increased by 30 percent (also applies to Lúcio’s Amp It Up ability)
- Self-healing has been reduced by 25 percent
- Wall Ride
- Movement speed increased by 20 percent when wall riding
- Lúcio now receives a burst of speed when leaping off a wall
Blizzard made these changes in an effort to make Lúcio a bit more engaging to play, but also making him less of a must-pick hero. He’s still strong, but he’ll now be weaker with certain compositions, like rosters with heroes that tend to spread out. Lúcio will be particularly good as part of snowball-type lineups, where allies group together to push an objective.
Orisa
- The size of Orisa’s head hit box has been decreased by 15 percent
This change is intended to make Orisa a bit harder to kill. Players will likely have a bit harder time landing crucial headshots on Overwatch’s new hero, which will make her more viable in competitive play.
Map change
On Eichenwalde, Blizzard added a new route that leads the attacking team from their spawn area to the capture point. Players are able to get back to the capture point pretty quickly with the additional pathway.
Competitive play update
Blizzard added an Overwatch tracking system that helps break ties on Assault and Hybrid map types. Draws were plenty common before this change, and this update should fix it. It works similarly to the system that tracks how far teams push the payload, just with the capture point.
In instances where both teams take the first point and not the second, Blizzard will track progress made. If team A on offense captures 73 percent of the point by the time the clock runs out, team B will have to earn 74 percent.
If both teams do capture both points, they’ll both get two points. Should team A finish with three minutes left on the clock, while team B finishes with none, team A will have three minutes to capture one percent of the point. The moment that happens, team A will win.
If neither team is able to score any percentage on the first point, it’ll still be a tie.
The revamped Overwatch report system is also live with this update. Blizzard is likely hoping this feature will help mitigate toxicity in the community.
ALSO CHECK OUT: King’s Row may be in ruins, but one fan artist imagines battles in sunny Sweden.
