Overwatch 2 devs already considering Mauga rework months after his release

Mauga’s been an absolute menace in the Overwatch 2 meta from the moment he launched, and the devs are considering completely changing some of his abilities to make him more of a dive tank.

When Mauga was first released, he was dubbed a “pay-to-win” Hero. If you didn’t have him unlocked, you’d lose the game. And, while he’s been nerfed enough to evolve past the Mauga vs. Mauga gridlock it used to be, this Tank is still controversial.

Despite being released in December 2023, Overwatch 2’s devs are already considering reworks to portions of his kit to change his identity as a Tank.

As explained by Alec Dawson, Overwatch 2’s Lead Gameplay Designer, the team is looking into reworks for both his Cardiac Overdrive ability & his incendiary bullets to shift the balance of his kit.

“We’re looking at some things longer term for Mauga. There may be tweaks along the way, but we’re looking in particular at Cardiac Overdrive and what we wanna do with that ability. We’ve run experiments before, but maybe there are bigger steps we can take,” Dawson explained in an interview with Spilo.

Cardiac Overdrive, meanwhile, lets Mauga buff up allies so they take reduced damage and heal from dealing damage. Reworking this ability would make sense if they’re trying to make Mauga a dive tank.

“We’re looking at, like, ‘Hey, how effectively can he set squishies on fire? Can we bring that effectiveness into the kit somewhere else?’

“So, we’re looking into that as well, I think that would give him more reward for diving some of those characters and feeling like he can accomplish that without having to shoot them a bunch before getting them to ignite.”

Mauga currently needs to land 10 shots with his incendiary gun to ignite his opponent. This is a pretty simple ask against Tanks, but it makes him hard to use against smaller Heroes.

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It’s incredibly difficult to hit someone mobile with a small hitbox like Tracer, Moira, or Mercy enough to set them on fire. Why not just shoot the tank at that point?

Dawson hinted at this in the interview. He claimed that Mauga’s play rate and pick rate aren’t too high at most ranks but that he does well in “coordinated environments.” In other words, he’s still really good in high-level ranked and pro play.

If they revert Mauga’s nerfs to help him out against smaller Heroes, he’ll return to shredding tanks in seconds. So, they’ve got to find a way to make him more effective and easy to use without dominating high ranks.

The dev team will have to come up with a creative solution closer to a rework than just tweaking some numbers and applying buffs/nerfs.

Overwatch 2’s developers are planning a series of tank buffs through Season 11 and into Season 12, so there’s a good chance we’ll see Mauga changes soon.