Overwatch April 29 update sets crowd-control nerfs live – patch notes

A new Overwatch patch has hit the live servers on April 29, bringing a slew of crowd control and stun nerfs from the Experimental mode to the main game.

The patch is loaded with changes to stuns, freezes and any ability that can prevent players from being able to move for periods of time.

For instance, Ana’s Sleep Dart saw its duration lessened by one second, meaning that anyone hit by the ability will find themselves back in the action sooner than they would have on the previous version of the game.

The biggest nerf on the table comes to Mei, who sees her freeze stun duration lowered along with the duration of her Blizzard Ultimate.

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In the highest levels of organized play, Mei is viewed as extremely obnoxious to play against and sees a very high play rate. However, in ladder, she doesn’t see as much action, which is why she hasn’t been eligible for a ban in Hero Pools.

Finally, both Roadhog and Sigma get slight buffs or nerfs depending on how you look at it. With Sigma, Accretion now has a fixed stun duration of 0.8 seconds, but the cast time is lowered, so there’s a bit of a trade off that may actually help the Talon tank.

With Roadhog, his Wholehog Ultimate sees its knockback increased by 20%. This is both a nerf and a buff as the Ultimate will now be sending opponents away with its tremendous power, but it won’t be so easy to pick up kills with it unless an enemy is sent against a wall.

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Hopefully, these changes make the game much faster so players are not stunned quite as often by all the CC heroes have available to them.

Full patch notes follow:

HERO UPDATES

Ana

Sleep Dart

• Sleep duration lowered from 6 to 5 seconds

Mei

Endothermic Blaster (Primary Fire)

• Freeze stun duration lowered from 1.5 to 1.3 seconds

Blizzard

• Duration lowered from 5 to 4.25 seconds

McCree

Flashbang

• Stun duration lowered from 0.85 to 0.7 seconds

Reinhardt

Earthshatter

• Knockdown duration lowered from 3 to 2.5 seconds

Roadhog

Whole Hog

• Knockback increased 20%

Sigma

Accretion

• Knockdown duration is now a fixed 0.8 second instead of scaling with distance
• Cast time reduced from 0.75 to 0.65 seconds