Overwatch introduced new Experimental patch notes, including significant hitscan nerfs. This entails reducing the maximum falloff range for all hitscan heroes, including Wrecking Ball’s shooting, as well as testing changes for Bastion, D.Va, Soldier: 76 and Widowmaker.
Range falloff decreased from 50% to 30%
This is one of the biggest changes for hitscan heroes ever. Heroes like Ashe, Baptiste, Bastion, McCree, Soldier: 76, Widowmaker and Wrecking Ball all do less damage in long-range combat. To put it simply, the damage they do at their maximum range is now 20% less than it was before. According to the patch notes, “this change may be difficult to notice immediately as it scales damage over a range slightly more than before, but it will lower the impact of hitscan damage outside of their intended optimal ranges.”
As hitscan heroes have dominated most metas in competitive play, this changes the dynamic. Projectile heroes like Echo and Pharah can now fly far away from their counters and avoid more damage. As that role of projectile heroes haven’t been too great, this gives competitive players a better chance to win when playing them. This also helps mobile teams who can retreat quickly to avoid more damage dealt by these hitscan heroes.
Other significant hero changes
For the more specific hero changes, we start with Bastion. The team feels that, with the range falloff, his regular gun should have less spread to compensate. They decreased that from 1.5 to 1.2. This isn’t a significant change, as Bastion is mostly used for his turret form, but its a buff nonetheless. Next up is D.Va, whose Call Mech change from the last patch is finally changing. The ability itself remains but its range is 0.5 meters smaller. Along with that, you can no longer build up your Call Mech ultimate until your mech detonates. This is general nerf but focuses on Echo, who gets insane value when duplicating D.Va.
The final two changes are for Soldier: 76 and Widowmaker. Soldier: 76 is being buffed to compensate for the range falloff decrease. Now, his Tactical Visor ultimate ignores range falloff, doing 100% damage throughout. Additionally, Widowmaker’s general range has been increased from 60-85 to 70-100. According to the developers, this lets Widowmaker’s duels remain even with the significant ranged damage changes.
To clarify, these changes will only be seen when playing the Experimental game mode in Overwatch. As of yet, these Overwatch patch notes aren’t ready for live play.
Published: Jun 24, 2021 03:49 pm