Overwatch Aug 13 update nerfs shields, buffs Zenyatta & Hog: patch notes

A new Overwatch patch has gone live on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, bringing in a slew of nerfs and buffs to a bunch of different heroes.

The big loser this patch is Brigitte who sees her base health completely overhauled from 200 to 150, leaving her with 50 armor in reserve. Additionally, her Inspire healing has been nerfed, meaning that it will be harder to keep teammates alive with her passive.

Brig mains should probably be looking to find another hero to play as it will be increasingly difficult to get value out of the support-tank hybrid. She’ll still be a threat, but much less of one, especially in lower ranks.

Orisa also sees an armor nerf, dropping from 250 armor to 200. Plus, her Halt ability is having its radius reduced, which will make it much harder to score environmental kills on maps such as Ilios Well.

Sigma is also being nerfed with his barrier’s health dropping from 900 to 700. It will also now take longer to regenerate, so he should be a bit more vulnerable to enemies, especially with Kinetic Grasp getting two seconds added to its cooldown.

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Elsewhere, there are some buffs to Pharah, Roadhog, Symmetra, and Zenyatta.

Pharah’s Barrage’s duration is lowered by a half a second, which should make her a bit less vulnerable. Plus, her movement speed has been increased by 20%.

Roadhog is getting a much-needed buff with his gun now dealing more damage and should be able to score kills more easily at the expense of an extra shot.

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Symmetra’s Teleporter will be active more often with its cooldown being reduced by two seconds.

Finally, Zenyatta’s Orb of Destruction is going to be charging faster and have a better rate of fire. For everyone itching for a Zen buff, now is your time to shine!

Full patch notes:

HERO UPDATES

Brigitte

General

• Base health lowered from 200 to 150

Inspire

• Total healing decreased from 130 to 90 (Healing reduced from 21 to 15 health per second)
• Self-healing is no longer reduced by half

Developer Comments:

• After gaining multiple Repair Pack charges, Brigitte was enabled to play at safer distances while still having a powerful impact on her team. Combined with her personal barrier, she ended up not needing as much survivability in terms of raw health.
• Inspire has also had a powerful team impact despite being hard to feel due to its passive nature, so we are lowering its team-wide healing output while making it more useful for Brigitte herself.

Orisa

General

• Base armor reduced from 250 to 200

Halt!

• Radius reduced from 7 to 4 meters
• Projectile speed increased from 20 to 30

Developer Comments: The large radius of Orisa’s Halt! ability made it too effective in setting up combos against large groups of enemies on a relatively short cooldown. The changes to the projectile speed and radius are aimed at shifting its use to be more effective at catching single targets.

Pharah

Hover Jets

• Movement speed increased 20%
• Regeneration rate reduced from 50 to 35 per second

Barrage

• Duration reduced from 3 to 2.5 seconds

Developer Comments:

• We’re making some adjustments to Hover Jets that should increase her flight speed and make her more agile. To compensate for this change, we’re also lowering her hover uptime.
• Rocket Barrage has such immense damage output that the tail end of the duration was often more of a liability than a benefit, especially with fewer barriers around to blast through.

Roadhog

Scrap Gun

• (General) Ammo reduced from 6 to 5
• (General) Damage per projectile increased from 6 to 7
• (General) Recovery increased from 0.7 to 0.85 seconds

Developer Comments: These weapon changes are intended to make Roadhog’s Chain Hook combo more consistent and bring back some of the heavyweight feeling it had in the past.

Sigma

Experimental Barrier

• Health reduced from 900 to 700
• Regeneration rate reduced from 120 to 80 per second

Kinetic Grasp

• Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds

Developer Comments: Given Sigma’s offensive strength with Hyperspheres and Accretion, we have reduced some of his defensive tools to bring him more in line with other Tank heroes.

Symmetra

Teleporter

• Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds

Developer Comments: We’re reducing the cooldown of the Teleporter to help lower the friction between needing to use it as both a personal and team-focused mobility tool.

Zenyatta

Orb of Destruction

• (Secondary Fire) Charge rate increased 15% (0.6 down to 0.52 seconds per orb)
• (Secondary Fire) Rate of fire increased from 8.5 to 9 shots per second

Developer Comments: Zenyatta has low healing and mobility outside of his ultimate but makes up for it with high potential damage output. With the recently lowered barrier uptime resulting in an overall faster pace of the game, we want to make sure Zenyatta still excels at his strengths. This change will make his charged attack flow a bit better in combat.