Along with the release of Orisa (except in competitive mode), a whole bunch of changes came to Overwatch today, including a slew of buffs and nerfs to everyone’s favorite heroes.
Overwatch patch 1.9 released today bringing nerfs to Ana and Bastion and buffs to Sombra and Zenyatta along with a few other small tweaks to other heroes and a change to Route 66 — attacking teams now receive an additional 60 seconds after pushing the payload to the first point to make it even with other escort maps.
Check out all the notable hero changes below along with a breakdown of how each tweak will affect the hero.
Hero updates
Ana
Biotic Rifle damage decreased from 80 to 60.
Ana is one of the most-played heroes in competitive Overwatch given her abilities to both attack and heal from a long range. The damage nerf to her rifle makes her slightly less threatening to enemies and less viable in 1v1 situations.
Bastion
[Console only] Bastion now takes 20 percent less damage while in Configuration: Sentry or Tank, down from 35 percent.
Bastion became pretty powerful after the last update (actually, way too powerful), especially on consoles where heroes’ turrets do less damage because of the difference in aiming speed compared to PC. To make up for Bastion’s overpowered buffs, he can now die a little bit easier.
Junkrat
Junkrat’s explosion no longer hurts himself.
The explosive-loving Junkrat gets to love his explosions even more now that they don’t damage him. Junkrat’s explosives weren’t super effective at long range but were too painful to use in short range situations, so this buff makes him a more well-rounded and less death-prone hero.
Sombra
Sombra’s teammates can now see hacked healthpacks through walls.
Sound effects and voice over distance has been reduced to 15 meters when Sombra enters or exits Stealth.
Translocator cooldown reduced from 6 seconds to 4 seconds.
Sombra has been buffed again. The hacker hero’s teammates can now see if she has hacked a healthpack through walls so they don’t run in to grab some emergency HP and end up getting locked out, plus she can use her Translocator every 4 seconds instead of needing to wait 6 seconds. On the flip side, enemies can now hear her coming in and out of Stealth within 15 meters, which is the range of her Hack ability.
Winston
Barrier Projector cooldown now starts when the barrier is placed, instead of when it ends.
This change gives Winston a much-needed buff, making him a more viable option as a support tank with the ability to drop his barriers much more quickly and even replace current ones before they’re destroyed.
Zarya
Particle Barrier and Projected Barrier no longer protect Zarya or allies from knockback inside the barrier.
This Zarya nerf is a reversal on a previous change and makes Zarya and her allies susceptible to knockback that originates from inside the barrier. This means Winston’s Primal Rage and Reinhardt’s Charge will not be stopped by Zarya’s barriers, but Pharah’s Concussive Blast will be blocked.
Zenyatta
Orb of Destruction’s alternate fire cooldown has been reduced from 1 second to 0.6 seconds and weapon spread has been removed.
Zenyatta was in need of something, and the cooldown reduction on his alternate fire (which already has a long charge) may help him see a bit more action in the game. Along with this, all of shots now have perfect accuracy and won’t have any infuriating spread, however minimal.
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