Overwatch 2 devs lock in nerfs to Zarya, Orisa, Torbjorn and more in Season 7 patch

The Overwatch 2 team has revealed a slew of nerfs coming to multiple heroes ahead of Season 7 including backtracking on some recent changes.

Season 7 of Overwatch 2 is fast approaching and the devs have already begun to outline balance changes in the works before its launch.

The current OW2 meta is rather dynamic going into the 2023 Overwatch League playoffs, but some of the more powerful picks at the moment are going to get their power lowered once the next patch drops.

Interestingly, according to Lead Hero Designer Alec Dawson, these changes include going back on some buffs handed out in Season 6, claiming that they didn’t make the heroes more engaging or effective.

Multiple heroes lined up for nerfs in next Overwatch 2 patch

In a blog post, Alec Dawson discussed the recent buffs to Zarya which increased her allied barriers’ HP and made them larger while also reducing the cool down.

The dev explained that the team wanted to add more incentive for players to use allied bubbles and these changes did just that and while they’ll keep the reduced cool down, they will be going back on the size and HP of the bubbles.

Furthermore, Dawson revealed several other changes in the works, including some to yet another of the game’s meta tanks: Orisa.

Dawson says that Orisa’s Fortify buffs will be getting either reverted or pulled back, making her a lot easier to kill. The same goes for Torbjorn’s Primary Fire recovery time, so he won’t be dealing quite as much damage.

Mei & Zenyatta changes coming in Overwatch 2 Season 7

Mei is another hero whose freeze changes introduced in Season 5 are also getting axed, but provided some insight into how they reached that decision.

“On those reverts to Mei, it’s important to recognize when a swath of changes isn’t resulting in improved gameplay,” he said. “Our goal of trying to reintroduce some of her previous mini-game to her primary fire was a good one, but it resulted in a hero that was more frustrating to play against – especially from a Tank point of view – and wasn’t clearly more engaging or effective to play.”

These comments were further echoed on X, formerly known as Twitter, where Dawson said that improving the tank experience was a very high priority and changes to Zenyatta’s Discord orb were also coming.

Season 7 is looking like it will be one of the more intriguing yet. The season is slated to include a long-awaited Sombra rework and leaks have revealed a new KOTH map, Diablo crossover, and Hanzo Mythic skin.

Be sure to keep it locked to Dexerto for all the latest Overwatch 2 news and updates.