Overwatch Retail Patch Notes – August 18, 2020

A new patch is now live on Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Read below to learn more about the latest changes.

To share your feedback, please post in the General Discussion forum.
For a list of known issues, visit our Bug Report forum.
For troubleshooting assistance, visit our Technical Support forum.

EXPERIMENTAL MODE

The next experiment begins! This time we’re revisiting Moira and doing some further experimentation on adjusting her abilities. In making these changes, we’re hoping to permit Moira to make bigger plays, while also ensuring that she is both fun to play and fun to play against (may need edits, but good to make notes on what we’re hoping to test). We’re using the 2-2-2 Role Queue ruleset so that you can get a feel for how these balance changes might affect the live game.

HERO UPDATES (ONLY IN EXPERIMENTAL)

Moira

Biotic Grasp

• Attach angle reduced by 37%

Biotic Orb

• Now sticks to enemies when impacting them, instead of piercing through them

  • Only deals damage if stuck to a target

    • Now deals a constant 60 DPS to all enemies

    • Will remain on a stuck player for 3 seconds or until 120 damage is dealt to that player, whichever happens first

• Now is destroyed if it hits an enemy barrier

• Reduced max number of bounces to 1

• Increased projectile speed from 20 to 25

Fade

• Now phases out all allies within 6 meters (and self) for 1 second after exiting Fade
• No longer frees Moira or allies from Zarya’s Graviton Surge or Sigma’s Gravitic Flux
• Cooldown increased from 6s to 8s

Developer Comments:

This round of changes is an iteration on the first Moira experiment we tested with in July. With these changes, we’ve tried to reduce to overall power level of this new Fade ability, as it was just capable of doing too much in its last form. Now, it cannot cleanse negative effects or easily allow people to escape Sigma or Zarya ultimates, but is still a powerful tool to reduce significant incoming damage if it is timed well. As for the Damage Orb changes, this is a totally new direction to try and accomplish the same goals as before: change the ability from an easy to use but low impact ability, to a more skillful and higher potential impact ability. Landing a Damage Orb is now much more challenging but the reward is also much higher.

This is the kind of iteration we’re constantly doing internally when making changes or designing new heroes. The Experimental card gives us an interesting opportunity to show how things evolve and are tested over time. Keep in mind that these are purely experiment changes and are not likely to go live.

Reaper

Wraith Form

• No longer frees Reaper from Zarya’s Graviton Surge or Sigma’s Gravitic Flux

BUG FIXES

General

• Fixed a bug that caused player names to not appear properly when viewing a replay
• Fixed a bug allowing turrets to get placed in invalid locations
• Fixed an issue with the Union Jack spray appearing incorrectly

Heroes

Genji

• Fixed a bug where Swift Strike would not deal damage if used on a target that is against a wall

Mei

• Fixed a bug that caused Ice Wall to boost characters upwards inconsistently
• Fixed a bug allowing Ice Wall to be placed on top of Mei’s Cryo-Freeze

Mercy

• Fixed a bug that caused yellow orbs to not display over deceased allies

Zenyatta

• Fixed a bug that caused Zenyatta’s melee animation to not appear properly when using melee to cancel out of a secondary fire charge
• Fixed a bug that caused primary and secondary fire to not activate properly after dying, in rare cases