Overwatch August 22 PTR patch notes – new Workshop options, Sigma, Symmetra, Zarya nerfed

A new Overwatch patch has gone live on the Public Test Region with a few changes to Sigma, Zarya and Symmetra’s beam weapons and lots of new Workshop options.

Sigma is getting some slight nerfs to his Hyperspheres and ultimate cast time, but he’s getting a buff to the damage of his Accretion ability. 

Additionally, beam weapons for Zarya and Symmetra have been nerfed. 

In the Workshop, players will now have the option to create a dummy bot – a full player that isn’t controlled by AI or another person. 

For a full breakdown of the upcoming changes, check out the full list of patch notes below. 

Full August 22 Overwatch PTR patch notes 

NEW FEATURE: SHARED INSTALL (PTR AND LIVE)

The PTR and Live Overwatch PC clients can now share storage when installed to the same file path on disk. This should reduce the disk space required to install and update multiple clients. As a result, today’s PTR client should require only ~1.2GB of additional disk storage. Players with previous Overwatch PTR clients installed can uninstall and reinstall to a common disk location to benefit from this feature.

Note: Overwatch League Replay Viewer also supports shared installation with the PTR and Live clients.

HERO UPDATES

Bastion

Self-repair

•     Self-repair no longer consumes resource while Bastion is at full health.
•     Bastion now correctly initiates .25 sec of recovery time when canceling Self-repair with weapon fire.

Symmetra

Primary Fire

•     Beam width lowered from 0.3 meters to 0.15
•     Beam DPS per level lowered from 65/130/195 to 60/120/180

Zarya

Primary Fire

•     Beam width no longer scales with energy (from 0.1 to 0.2) and is now always 0.15.
•     Max Beam DPS lowered from 190 to 170

Sigma

Hyper Spheres

•     Explosion damaged reduced from 35 to 30

Experimental Barrier

•     Added a toggle option for deploying Sigma’s Experimental Barrier

Accretion

•     Explosion damage increased from 50 to 60

Gravitic Flux

•     Intro cast time increased from 0.4 seconds to 0.6

WORKSHOP UPDATES

New Workshop actions:   

Create Dummy Bot    

• Creates a dummy bot, which is a full player that has no human or AI controlling it. Using other Workshop actions, dummy bots can move, aim, press buttons, and do most things that human players can do.

Destroy Dummy Bot    

• Destroys a dummy bot.

Start Throttle In Direction

• Either sets or modifies the throttle (directional movement input) for a given player (human, AI bot, or dummy bot).

Stop Throttle In Direction

•  Stops the change to throttle being caused by Start Throttle In Direction.
  

Create Beam Effect

•  Creates a beam effect between two positions (either or both of which may be a player).

New parameters to existing Workshop actions:

Create HUD Text

•     New SpectatorVisibility option for defining when spectators can see the text.
•     New colors have been added to Text Color.

Create In-World Text

•     New SpectatorVisibility option for defining when spectators can see the text.
•         New colors have been added to Text Color.

Create Effect and Play Effect

•         New colors have been added.

New Workshop value:   

Is Dummy Bot

• Whether a given player is a dummy bot.

New Workshop Inspector features:   

Copy current variables to CSV [PC-Only] :

• Copies the currently visible variables to the system clipboard in CSV format. These can be pasted into text and spreadsheet applications.

Copy all variables to CSV [PC-Only] :

• Copies all variables throughout the Inspector history for the currently selected entity to the system clipboard in CSV format. These can be pasted into text and spreadsheet applications.   

Copy current variables as actions:

•  Copies the currently visible variables to the clipboard in Workshop text format. These can be pasted back into a Workshop action list.

BUG FIXES

General

• Workshop – Fixed a bug that caused the “Enable Workshop Inspector” option not to reset when using Restore Default   
• Workshop – The “Is Firing Primary” Workshop value now correctly reports whether Sigma is using his Hyperspheres

Maps

Paris   

• Fixed a bug that allowed Moira’s Biotic Orb to pass through the attacker’s spawn door

Heroes

Ashe   

• Improved the ability for Bob to get through doorways and more consistently make it to where he was launched towards

D.Va   

• Fixed a bug that allowed D.Va’s mech to block Earthshatter briefly during the destruction animation

Orisa   

• Fixed a bug that caused players to be thrown further than intended when escaping the pulling effect of Orisa’s Halt

Sigma   

• Fixed a bug that caused the first-person animations for Kinetic Grasp, Accretion, Experimental Barrier return/retract, and primary fire not to play correctly when used immediately after being frozen   
• Fixed a bug that caused Hyperspheres to appear without any VFX or animation after letting the cast timer on Gravitic Flux expire   
• Fixed a bug that incorrectly allowed Sigma to gain shields after absorbing a healing orb from Moira with his Kinetic Grasp   
• Corrected various Sigma team color visual effects

Wrecking Ball   

• Fixed an issue preventing Wrecking Ball specific stats from showing up in the Career Profile

Zenyatta   

• Fixed a bug that prevented Zenyatta from using a Teleporter while Transcendence is active