The triple and quad-tank meta may finally be coming to an end in Overwatch, as update 1.7.0.2 has now gone live, along with the Year of the Rooster seasonal event. The patch features changes to multiple heroes that should shake up the way the game is played in a couple ways.
Ana, D.Va and Roadhog all saw significant changes, as well as a buff to Sombra that should give her more viability and playing time. Lucio got a tweak as well.
- Biotic Grenade
- Effect duration has been reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds
- Healing boost on allies has been decreased by 50%
- Health increased from 200 to 400
- Armor decreased from 400 to 200
- Fusion Cannons
- Bullet damage decreased from 3 to 2
- Number of bullets per shot has been increased from 8 to 11
- New Hero Option: Allow Backwards Wall Ride
- When enabled, allows Lucio to start wall riding while moving backwards.
- Chain Hook
- Targets are now pulled directly in front of Roadhog (rather than straight to him), except in cases where Roadhog drastically rotates
- Hooked targets are now released if they leave Roadhog’s line of sight before being pulled
- Line of sight checks (which determines if targets are hit by the hook) are now done from Roadhog’s position, rather than the hook’s position
- Hack
- Cooldown has been reduced from 12 seconds to 8 seconds
- Time it takes to hack a target has been decreased from 1 second to 0.8 seconds
The nerf to D.Va is huge, as she now has less armor than ever before and will feel way squishier than ever. Roadhog’s hook should be more consistent, and Ana’s healing should, in theory, not be as ridiculous. But the buff to Sombra may have the biggest implications, as her Hack ability will now be in play much more often, making her more viable than she ever has been.
The update also made big changes to the killfeed, which now shows how someone was killed along with the hero’s icon and a bolder font. The crouch function also has a small cooldown in between usage to prevent spamming it in a gun-fight, and there has now been an addition of wheels to use multiple voice lines, sprays and emotes.
Check out the full patch notes here.
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Image: Blizzard
