New Map: Runasapi

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Hero Updates

General

• Knockdown time when two charging abilities collide reduced from 2 to 1.7 seconds.

Developer Comments: This stun time reduction applies to the knockdown that happens when two charging abilities collide and result in a tie (with Reinhardt, Doomfist, Brigitte, Mauga, Bob). The counterplay and interaction of two charging abilities impacting each other is great, but it took both players out of the fight a little too long.

Tank

D.Va

Developer Comments: These changes will improve D.Va’s effectiveness against smaller targets as she became less effective against armored enemies in the previous patch.

Fusion Cannons

• Weapon spread reduced from 3.75 to 3.375 degrees.

Boosters

• Impact damage increased from 15 to 25.

Junker Queen

Developer Comments: The Tank knockback resistance passive was affecting Junker Queen’s pull effect more than intended. The distance can be affected by their movement, but Tanks are now pulled in about 5-6 meters instead of only 3 meters or so.

Jagged Blade

• Now pulls tanks further.

Rampage

• Startup time reduced from 0.75 to 0.5 seconds.

Orisa

Developer Comments: Orisa’s survivability was reduced more than necessary in her last round of changes so we’re partially reverting the cooldown increase to Javelin Spin.

Javelin Spin

• Cooldown reduced from 9 to 8 seconds.

Roadhog

Developer Comments: Roadhog’s already-powerful survivability increased significantly with the headshot damage reduction from the tank role passive so these changes are to help bring that back in line.

• Base health reduced from 650 to 600.

Take a Breather

• Damage reduction reduced from 50 to 40%.

Damage

Cassidy

Developer Comments: We’re reverting the Magnetic Grenade ability to be deployed like Cassidy’s previous Flashbang ability, but it will keep the Hinder effect instead of a full stun. We’ve heard feedback surrounding the Magnetic Grenade ability and agree that while the fantasy of a homing grenade was fun, the moment-to-moment gameplay of it often felt too unpredictable as to whether it would land or not. The Hinder effect has been a useful tool to act as a counter to highly mobile heroes without going back to a full stun and the enemy player losing the ability to fight back.

The Deadeye ultimate is getting an adjustment to increase its flexibility toward the end of its duration, enabling it to get value outside of buying time for Cassidy or his allies, though it may be riskier to hold it for a long time as the damage reduction will fade away along with the movement speed penalty.

Peacekeeper

• Secondary fire “Fan the Hammer” damage reduced from 50 to 45.

Combat Roll

• Damage reduction reduced from 75 to 50%.

Flashbang

• Magnetic Grenade ability is now Flashbang.
• Hinders enemies instead of Stunning them for 1.2 seconds.
• Movement speed reduction increased from 30% to 50%.
• Hinder now prevents crouching movement.
• 45 explosive damage.
• 12 second cooldown.

Deadeye

• Movement speed penalty now scales down over time, from 70% to 35%.
• Damage reduction now scales down over time, from 40% to 0%.

Mei

Developer Comments: Mei’s damage output over time is intended to be on the low end for a Damage hero, as she offers strong utility and survivability through her ability kit, but we would like to make the secondary fire icicle more rewarding by increasing the damage and slightly more difficult to land consistently.

Endothermic Blaster

• Secondary fire base projectile size reduced from 0.15 to 0.12 meters.
• Secondary fire damage increased from 75 to 85.

Reaper

Developer Comments: With the previous patch change to how armor reduces damage, shotgun weapon heroes like Reaper lost some value since much of their gameplan revolved around pressuring large tank heroes. To help shift Reaper toward being more effective against smaller targets we’re tightening the weapon spread on the Hellfire Shotguns and reducing the amount of time enemies have to react to his Shadow Step teleport.

Hellfire Shotguns

• Weapon spread reduced from 6.5 to 6 degrees.

Shadow Step

• Cast time reduced from 1.5 to 1.2 seconds.

Sojourn

Developer Comments: This change is reducing the burst damage potential of the secondary fire Railgun shot to both lessen frustration from playing against that burst damage, and to shift power into her sustained primary fire damage. This should smooth out the feast-or-famine nature of Sojourn consistently hitting the secondary fire shots.

Railgun

• Secondary fire damage scaling reduced from 30-130 damage down to 1-100 damage.
• Secondary fire projectile no longer requires Overclock to pierce enemy players.
• Primary fire shots per second increased from 14 to 16.

Overclock

• Energy charge rate increased from 100 to 120 per second.

Symmetra

Developer Comments: To help solidify Symmetra as a close-range threat, we’re increasing her health to better survive in that range, along with how quickly her primary fire beam damage ramps up.

• Base health increased from 100 to 125 (Total health increased from 250 to 275).

Photon Projector

• Primary fire charge rate increased 25%.

Support

Illari

Developer Comments: Illari’s Healing Pylon is intended to be useful for healing her team in relatively safe positions without much focus required, which enables her to either apply pressure with her primary fire or spot heal in bursts from her more limited secondary fire healing beam. To encourage this, it now has improved health and healing output, but is less effective when Illari uses it to heal herself.

Outburst

• Damage increased from 10 to 25.

Healing Pylon

• Healing per projectile increased from 30 to 40.
• Pylon healing is now only half as effective when targeting Illari.
• Max health increased from 100 to 125.

Kiriko

Developer Comments: “Hard knockdown stuns” refer to most all of the existing knockdowns where the player is stunned and laying on the ground (such as Reinhardt’s Earthshatter), with the exception of Ana’s Sleep Dart effect, which is removed upon taking damage or Protection Suzu’s cleanse.

Swift Step

• Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.

Protection Suzu

• No longer cleanses hard knockdown stuns.

Map Updates

Colosseo

• no glass

Roadhog

Developer comments: Roadhog benefitted greatly from the recent headshot reduction passive for Tanks so we are nerfing his survivability. This change to Take a Breather is aimed at encouraging more mindful resource management. The change to Whole Hog will make the ultimate more of a zoning tool while lowering its lethality, especially against tanks with their recently increased knockback resistance.

Take a Breather

• Resource regeneration rate reduced from 10 to 8 per second.
• Maximum healing reduced from 450 to 400.
• Cooldown reduced from 1.5 to 1.25 seconds.

Whole Hog

• Knockback increased from 14 to 16.
• Damage per pellet reduced from 7 to 6.

Sigma

Developer comments: Our last patch aimed to make some Tank ultimates more forgiving to use during combat. Sigma’s Gravitic Flux can suffer from missing due to slight line of sight checks but we don’t believe this change had proper communication for all instances. We may return to this change for Sigma down the line with updated visuals.

Gravitic Flux

• Gravitic Flux now requires line-of-sight to lift targets again.

Venture

Drill Dash

• Cooldown now begins when the ability is used.
• Cooldown is no longer decreased by half when used underground.
• Cooldown is accelerated by 90% when underground.

Burrow

• Added a 0.2-second grace period after the Burrow timer runs out where emerging can still be charged.

Developer Comments: As we continue to monitor Venture’s gameplay throughout their release Season, we are making a change today that adds more flexibility to using Drill Dashes. Players will now be less punished for using their Drill Dash above ground and immediately burrowing due to the new accelerated cooldown while underground.

MATCHMAKING UPDATES

• When a player is currently on a loss streak, the matchmaker will try to avoid putting the player on a team that is statistically calculated to have a lower chance of winning.

HERO UPDATES

GENERAL

• Armor health has been reverted to provide a flat damage reduction of 5 per projectile, up to a maximum of 50% damage reduction.
• Out-of-combat health regeneration changed from 20 health per second to 10 health per second + 5% of maximum health.

Developer comment: Armor is being reverted to its original functionality to better resistance rapid fire damage and shotgun-type weapons. Out-of-combat health regeneration has been a positive but subtle addition to the game, but had a much smaller impact for tank heroes due to their massive health pools, so we’re adjusting it to heal for a percentage of maximum health.

TANKS

Role Passive

• Tanks now have 25% damage reduction against critical headshot damage.
• Knockback resistance increased from 30% to 50%

Developer Comment: Although armor health will now be more effective in some of the more difficult matchups, it will also be losing potency against the typically slower, higher damage instances. To help reduce the feeling of tanks being taken out too quickly by high bursts of damage, the role-wide passive now provides improved defense against critical headshot damage.

Junker Queen

Commanding Shout

• Can now be activated while using other abilities.
• Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds.

Developer Comment: Junker Queen being able to activate Commanding Shout while swinging her axe or during her Ultimate ability will make it more responsive for when an additional burst of health or movement speed is needed.

Sigma

Gravitic Flux

• No longer requires line of sight to the center of the effect.

Developer Comment: Similar to how Graviton Surge functions, Gravitic Flux no longer needs line of sight to affect enemy targets in its area. There are a fair amount of counterplay options to deal with this ultimate so we’re making it more reliable to grab enemy targets within its area of effect.

Wrecking Ball

Grappling Claw

• Impact damage increased from 50 to 60.

Piledriver

• Movement lockout duration for enemies increased from 0.5 to 0.75 seconds.

Minefield

• Damage increased from 130 to 165.
• Explosion knockback increased from 5 to 10.

Developer Comment: Wrecking Ball has been performing much better after his recent update and these tuning changes will help his abilities feel more impactful.

Zarya

Graviton Surge

• Radius increased from 6 to 7 meters.
• Duration increased from 3.5 to 4 seconds

Developer Comment: We have been increasing the value of some tank ultimate abilities to account for the increased health pools and it helps to make the decision of when to counter-swap more of an interesting tradeoff. Graviton Surge was still very useful to set up combos with other ultimate abilities but we want to makes sure it’s powerful enough on its own.

DAMAGE

Junkrat

Frag Launcher

• Impact damage increased from 40 to 45 (Total damage increased from 120 to 125).

Developer Comment: Junkrat’s weapon has great damage output but is unreliable outside of close range due to its slow projectile speed, which is an intended drawback to its high output. The Season 9 health changes affected Junkrat more than most other heroes since it now requires one more shot to secure an elimination. We’re increasing the damage on direct impacts to return to 2 direct hits for an elimination, without making his combo with Concussion Mine as deadly as before since that one is much easier to execute.

Echo

Duplicate

• Ultimate gain multiplier while transformed increased from 4 to 4.5.

Developer Comment: While the main benefit of Duplicate is a second health pool and the utility of another hero’s abilities, it was often too difficult to charge an ultimate in the Duplicate time limit so we’re increasing the bonus multiplier slightly.

Hanzo

Dragonstrike

• Speed increased from 12 to 15 meters per second.

Developer Comment: The Dragonstrike ultimate hasn’t been very effective outside of being used in a combo with other abilities that restrict enemy movement, so we’re increasing its speed to help position it as less of a zoning tool and more likely to deal some damage.

SUPPORT

Brigitte

Rally

• Now resets Shield Bash cooldown upon activation.

Developer Comment: Resetting the Shield Bash cooldown on ultimate activation was too much potential burst damage for Brigitte when the average maximum health of everyone was lower, but it’s much more reasonable now that it won’t be as lethal.

Perhaps no one asked for it, yet it strengthens and promotes both brands. It’s good to keep the game in the mainstream.

HERO UPDATES

• Damage role passive healing reduction increased from 15% to 20%.

Tank

Orisa

Fortify

• Duration reduced from 4.5 to 3.5 seconds.
• Orisa now moves 20% slower while fortified.

Javelin Spin

• Cooldown increased from 7 to 9 seconds.

Damage

Venture

SMART Excavator

• Maximum explosion damage decreased from 45 to 40.

Drill Dash

• Initial impact damage decreased from 40 to 30.

Tectonic Shock

• Ultimate charge cost increased by 10%.