Overwatch 2 mid-Season 9 balance changes go big on support buffs
Blizzard published its Overwatch 2 Season 9 balance change preview highlighting upcoming nerfs and buffs in the multiplayer game, and it’s leaning more heavily toward “buffs,” especially for support heroes. These changes will go live with the mid-season update planned for March 12, 2024, which is also when the Overwatch 2 Cowboy Bebop collaboration event begins.
Director Aaron Keller said in the update blog post that the team’s goal this time around is addressing unexpected consequences from recent shakeups, including damage passives, so healing reduction is dropping from 20 percent to 15 percent. Tanks can pop out sans fear of getting destroyed in a second, or at least that’s the hope.
Keller also said about half of the hero roster is getting changed in some way. One highlight is Ana’s health-slash-hurt grenade, which is getting its damage and healing bumped from 60 to 90. It’s damage-over-time effect remains untouched, a well-aimed grenade could quickly dispatch squishier heroes such as Tracer or Widowmaker. Lifeweaver is also getting a small buff. His heals can restore up to 80 HP, though the ability’s charge time is slightly longer as well.
On the tank side, Doomfist’s ultimate, Meteor Strike, will deal at least 50 damage from now on, up from the previous, piddly 15 it would dish out to enemies caught on the edge of its blast. Mauga’s Cardiac Overdrive ability will last four seconds, instead of five, and its cooldown is 10 seconds, instead of 12. Keller said the idea is to help Mauga survive longer – which is kinda necessary for a tank – so it’ll also give him 100 passive overhealth.
At the end of the blog post, Keller said the next Quick Play Hacked experiment is Double Trouble, which will remove the limitation on the number of the same hero who can participate in a match. It’s only for damage and support roles, though, so don’t expect to sweep a match with four D.Va and a Mercy.
