A new patch is now live for Windows PC. Learn more about the latest changes here.

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A list of known bugs can be found in the Forum Bug Report.
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PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

New feature: Role selection

Role Selection is an update to Overwatch’s player assignment system. Players can now specify which role they want to play in matches. In ranked matches, players now select their role before searching for a match. The player assignment system then creates a team with two tanks, two supporters, and two damage heroes. At the start of the match, players then choose a hero in their chosen role. At the end of a ranked match, players return to the main menu and select their role again before queuing up for the next match. For more information on role selection, check out our detailed blog post.

New Hero: Sigma (Tank)

Sigma is an eccentric astrophysicist and unpredictable tank who can influence gravity through an orbital experiment gone wrong. He has been manipulated by Talon and used as a living weapon, as there is no way around him on the battlefield. Sigma can hurl two hyperspheres (gravity charges) that bounce off walls and implode after a short time, damaging enemies in a large radius. When he uses Experimental Barrier, he moves a floating barrier, which he can dissolve at any time, to any location. Kinetic Conversion allows him to stop enemy projectiles in midair and form a shield from them. Accretion allows him to hurl a boulder at enemies and knock them to the ground. Sigma unleashes his true power with Gravity Flow. It lifts off the ground, hurls enemies in the target area into the air, and then slams them back down to earth.

GENERAL UPDATES

Recognition System

• Players can now give out recognitions in the following game modes:
  • Surprise Heroes
  • No restrictions
  • Deathmatch
  • Total Chaos
  • Low Gravity
  • All game modes of PvE events (Uprising, Retribution, Storm Sign)

Game modes

• Surprise Heroes – Heroes are now redistributed between rounds on control cards.

Workshop

New Events:

• Player Dealt Healing
• Player Received Healing
• Player Joined Match
• Player Left Match

New Actions:

• Start Transforming Throttle
• Stop Transforming Throttle

New values:

• Healer
• Healee
• Event Healing
• Host Player

Developer comments: Many players have asked to be able to track healing in the Workshop, so we’ve added two new event types and three new stats to make that possible. We’ve also added events that make it easier for you to see when players join or leave matches. So that custom matches have similar privileges to administrators, you can now use “Host Player” to find out who created the match. In addition, you can now scale, invert, and rotate player input throttle, making it easier to control characters in shoulder perspective.

HELDUPDATES

General

• The cost of all ultimate abilities has been increased by 12%.

Developer comment: Ultimates can be used too often considering how powerful they are. We are slowing down the recharge speed a bit so that fewer battles are decided by the use of ultimates.

• Your own and your opponent’s slowdown effects no longer add up, only the stronger effect is applied.

Developer comment: This change mainly affects Heroes who slow themselves down (for example, when Widowmaker uses her scope or Reinhardt activates his barrier). In such cases, these Heroes will not be affected by enemy slowing effects such as Symmetra’s Self-Shooting Devices or Mei’s Frost Ray unless they end their own slowing effect or the enemy effect is stronger than their own.

• Fixed a bug where abilities that lock on/lose targets in a short amount of time (like Zarya’s and Symmetra’s primary fire mode beams) were not doing full damage.

Developer comment: This is a fairly significant change that allows ray weapons to do much more damage in certain situations. Zarya and Symmetra in particular will occasionally feel much more powerful as a result of this change. We’ll keep a close eye on the affected heroes and make sure they don’t get too powerful.

Ashe

• The reload time per bullet has been reduced from 0.3 to 0.25 sec.

Developer comment: The reload time felt very restrictive when Ashe had to reload all the bullets. However, the long reload time is intentional to balance the strength of her weapon. So we don’t want to remove it completely.

Brigitte

Inspiration (Passive)

• Healing has been increased from 100 to 130.
• Self-healing from Inspiration is now halved.

Repair kit

• Now has 3 charges.
• Healing has been reduced from 150 to 120.
• Now heals over the course of 2 sec instead of immediately.
• When a hero picks up multiple sets, the current effect duration is extended by an additional 2 sec.

Flail Strike

• The speed of the flail when it strikes has been increased from 60 to 80.
• The time to pull in has been reduced from 0.6 to 0.3 sec.

Barrier Shield

• Barrier hit points have been reduced from 500 to 200.

Shield Strike

• Stun duration has been reduced from 0.9 to 0.75 sec.

Fervor

• The cost of the ultimate ability has been increased by 10%.

Developer comment: With these changes, we want to make Brigitte a more powerful healer for your team at the expense of her survivability. Because you can only have two support heroes on your team in the future, Brigitte should definitely be able to heal more to fulfill her role.

D.Va

Request Mech

• The cost of Request Mech has been reduced by 12%.

Developer Comment: This change is simply to counteract the general increase in ultimate ability costs. Outside of her mech, D.Va should still be able to recharge her ultimate ability just as quickly as before this update.

Doomfist

Melee Attack

• The melee attack no longer pauses reloading.

Developer comment: This enhancement to the player experience allows Doomfist to use his melee attack as part of his combos without penalty.

Hanzo

Storm Arrows

• Storm Arrow ammo has been reduced from 6 to 5.

Developer comment: The overall damage of Storm Arrows was a bit too high, so we’re reducing the number of possible shots.

Orisa

Protective Barrier

• Cooldown increased from 8 to 9 sec.

Developer’s comment: In the game against Orisa, one point in particular was frequently criticized: It doesn’t seem to make sense to attack her barrier, since it gets re-placed so quickly. With the increased cooldown of Protective Barrier, it is now more rewarding to destroy it.

Reinhardt

New passive ability: “Steadfast

• Reduces knockback effects by 30%.

Developer Comment: As a frontline melee tank, Reinhardt is more affected by knockback abilities than most Heroes. To alleviate some of the frustration and make Reinhardt a little more steadfast in his role, we’re giving him some resistance to knockback effects.

Sombra

Hack

• Duration on enemies has been reduced from 6 to 5 sec.

EMP

• Activation time increased from 0.2 to 0.35 sec.

Developer comment: Hacking incapacitates enemies for quite a long time. The slightly shorter duration makes it feel less crushing to the player being hacked without sacrificing the strength of the ability too much. EMP’s increased activation time gives the enemy team more time to react and counter.

Symmetra

Teleporter

• Now remains in place until destroyed.
• Players can now destroy their teleporter with the reuse of Ability 2.
• The cooldown now begins when the teleporter is destroyed.
• The maximum range has been increased from 25 to 30 meters.
• The teleporter will be destroyed if the entrance and exit are more than 40 meters apart.

Developer comment: Symmetra’s teleporter is a very interesting ability, but its use often felt too limiting. The unlimited duration opens up new possibilities for using Symmetra on different maps and in certain team compositions.

Tracer

Pulse Bomb

• The damage has been increased from 300 to 350.

Developer comment: the Impulse Bomb was toned down a bit some time ago because it was too powerful against tanks, who could be hit very easily with it. That’s still our goal, but we’re taking the weakening back a bit to allow the Pulse Bomb to crack other tough targets like Bastion or enemies with bonus Brigitte armor.

Wrecking Ball

Minefield

• Projectile speed has been increased from 10 to 12, spreading the mines over a larger radius.
• Activation time has been reduced from 0.25 to 0.1 sec.

Developer comment: Wrecking Ball has a very active playstyle, but it often felt difficult to use his ultimate ability effectively. With this change, he can spread his mines wider as needed (when he’s high in the air) or lay down a dense carpet when he throws them near the ground, as before.

CORRECTED ERRORS

General

• Fixed a bug where subtitles were not displayed while waiting for resurrection.
• Fixed a bug where heroes with rush abilities (Reinhardt, Doomfist, Brigitte) were not reliably knocking each other to the ground when colliding.
• Fixed a bug so that certain abilities (Hanzo’s Dragon Strike and Roadhog’s Tow Hook) now work more smoothly in slow motion (at the end of a round or custom game).
• Fixed a bug that caused the template interface to appear in the wrong order in custom games.
• Fixed a bug so that skill placement previews (Reaper’s Shadow Step, Mei’s Ice Wall) now display much more smoothly.
• Fixed a bug so that placement preview positions now persist after clicking until confirmed by the server.
• Fixed a bug where the alignment indicators for placeable abilities (Mei’s Ice Wall, Baptiste’s Reinforcement Matrix, Symmetra’s Photon Barrier) would sometimes flicker at higher latencies.

Maps

Route 66

• Fixed a bug that allowed attackers to leave the starting area before the round began.

Heroes

Ashe

• Fixed a bug where her weapon would slightly cover the camera view if Ashe jumped while aiming with her visor.

Doomfist

• Fixed a bug so that Doomfist now gets through doorways better when grazing corners while using Steamhammer.
• Fixed a bug where Steamhammer could not destroy Sombra’s Translocator as intended and was stopped by it (similar to Symmetra’s selfies).
• Fixed a bug so that targets hit by Steam Hammer now move straight backwards and no longer retain the momentum of moving sideways.
• Fixed a bug so that targets that are immune to stuns but not to knockback effects (Zarya with Particle Barrier, Zenyatta during Transcendence) can no longer affect their trajectory when knocked back.
• Fixed a bug where Doomfist would move slower when using Meteor Strike if he used the ability while ducking.
• Fixed a bug that caused Doomfist to move slightly slower backwards when using Meteor Strike.

D.Va

• Fixed a bug where Defensive Matrix could not be aimed down when D.Va was aiming down while moving.

Lúcio

• Fixed a bug where Lúcio’s animation would sometimes target the wrong landing location when wallriding.

Orisa

• Fixed a bug that caused some visual effects to stop displaying when Orisa’s highlight intro “Oh!” was viewed multiple times in the Heroes Gallery.

Reinhardt

• Fixed a bug where Ansturm could knock enemies back multiple times.

Wrecking Ball

• Fixed a bug where Wrecking Ball could get stuck on his serve animation when landing on very flat and smooth surfaces.
• Fixed a bug where Wrecking Ball could get stuck temporarily when using collision course on slippery surfaces.
• Fixed a bug that caused Wrecking Ball to not receive the intended amount of shield points when using Adaptive Shield.

Zarya

• Fixed a bug where the animations of Zarya’s weapon and arm appeared strange when viewed in the chase perspective during her emotes.

Zenyatta

• Fixed a bug that caused a delay in the animation for Zenyatta’s melee attack when it interrupted his primary fire mode.

OVERWATCH

Overwatch is a team-based 6vs6 shooter that was released on May 24, 2016. Overwatch stays true to the true style of Blizzard’s previous titles. It was developed by Jeff Kaplan and is considered a “new concept” shooter in the FPS genre. The game was officially unveiled at BlizzCon along with 12 heroes on November 7, 2014.

The story of Overwatch is set on a highly fictionalized future version of Earth. In a time where humans and robots, which are called Omnics, live together (Chris Metzen hinted that the story deals with this very robot race). 30 years before the time when Overwatch takes place, the so-called “Omnic Crisis ” occurred. The robots, once helpers of humans, rebelled against their creators for reasons as yet unknown and triggered a worldwide chaos. Faced with the imminent destruction of human civilization, the best soldiers of all nations came together to form a program called “Overwatch”.

Their job was to protect the world from the Omnics, which they succeeded in doing. For the next 25 years, they were the protectors of the planet, united in an international coalition. Some agents stayed, some were replaced, but at some point something changed: the Overwatch disintegrated. However, 5 years later after this event, incidents with Omnics are again accumulating, a worldwide terrorist organization also seems interested in destabilizing the world order. A new crisis is looming. At this point, your career as an Overwatch agent begins.