It’s not a return to six-vs-six, but it’s clear the Overwatch 2 devs knew something needed to change fast following the release of one of the most unpopular balancing updates in recent memory.
The season 11 midseason patch on July 9 shipped widespread buffs to tanks, among other changes—and made the game feel awful to play for many. I can personally attest to ranked feeling less balanced than ever, with almost every game feeling like my team was either rolling over our enemies or we were just getting flatted by the opposition, with little room for evenly balanced games. And the centerpieces of all those games were almost exclusively tank characters, with Maugas and Ramattras running rampant. Today, Blizzard addressed a few of those concerns, specifically as it pertains to Ramattra, and further toned down Pharah, who is still proving to be annoying for many players to deal with.
https://x.com/GW_Alec/status/1811827444812513473While the nerfs have come quickly, they’re not drastic changes by any means. Only five heroes are affected, and evidently, Blizzard doesn’t see Mauga as the problem child the players think he is with his hypercharged Cardiac Overdrive and more burst-y stomp. Instead, lead gameplay designer Alec Dawson indicated the dev team was happy to see “a better middle ground for tank survivability,” and indicated the team was playing a longer game to see just how all the changes from such a big patch make an impact—even if that patch inspired a renewed push for just changing the game back to the six-vs-six experience from the original Overwatch.
Overwatch 2 July 9 patch notes
Hero nerfs:
- Ramattra
- Zarya
- Pharah
- Lucio
- Illari
In his base form, Ramattra is essentially getting a 50 HP nerf, losing 25 health and 25 armor, while his incredibly strong Nemesis form also had its cooldown raised from seven to eight seconds. Pharah also got a straight HP nerf from 250 to 225.
Notably, no heroes have been buffed in this patch. Lucio received a boop nerf, reducing the knockback of the Sonic Amplifier by 10 percent. Illari‘s Healing Pylon got a cooldown increase of two seconds, and her ultimate also now costs 12 percent more to build. Finally, both Zarya‘s personal and projected barriers received the same nerf to their cooldown and duration, with each going from 10 to 11 seconds on the cooldown and having their uptime reduced from 2.5 to 2.25 seconds.
These changes aren’t going to set the world on fire, but they could help balance out the current state of the game. And if not, Blizzard may need to be as quick to respond with even more changes.
You can find the full patch notes for today’s update on the official Overwatch site.
