More hero changes were announced for Overwatch 2 during the PvP live stream on May 20; Mei and Winston have some of the biggest changes. Another notable difference is that Overwatch 2 is reducing teams to five players each. With more changes revealed, the new norm of Overwatch 2 is slowly coming to light.
Big hero changes announced
With the tank role being reduced to only one player for each team, some big changes needed to be made. As mentioned during the stream by San Francisco Shock main tank Matthew “Super” DeLisi, the overall crowd-control within the game had to change.
One of the best examples is Mei, who now doesn’t freeze with her left click. This stops tanks from being frozen constantly in team fights, which is a nice change for tank players. Along with that, tanks are getting buffs across the board.
One of the most interesting changes was the addition of tank passives that prevent displacement. Tanks like Reinhardt and Roadhog now won’t get moved as far from displacement as supports or damage dealers. Geoff Goodman, a lead designer for Overwatch 2, mentioned that they could tweak it depending on how it feels.
Some heroes are getting more specific changes. Fans who have seen some of the shifts Overwatch 2 has already announced remember things like Reinhardt’s more controlled charge and two fire strikes. However, now we have a Winston change announced.
Winston received a right-click ability where his Tesla Cannon shoots a ranged laser towards an enemy. Giving Winston more range makes his kit so much more diverse, rewarding good aim. Plus, this means Winston could have more value in dive as well, being able to poke people from range as well as dive weak players.
Other hero changes shown
The stream also showed some minor hero changes. One clear change was certain heroes being made faster over others, like Genji being faster than Mercy. From the previous reveal, we know healers all have passive healing now. Zenyatta was shown to have a different user interface, now showing the targets he heals and discords around his ultimate. Plus, the development team stated how many heroes can still be changed.
Apparently the team has clear intentions to add new, interesting changes to current heroes to adapt them to Overwatch 2’s playstyle.
