Overwatch Oct 22 update changes health for multiple heroes: patch notes

A new Overwatch patch has hit the Experimental Card on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Switch, and with it come some huge changes to hero health across the board.

The radical update sees multiple heroes get their health pools revamped in the form of base health and shields.

As Overwatch Community Manager Josh Nash notes, “Historically, we’ve always adjusted health and shield values in increments of 50 for ease of understanding how many hits a hero could take. After years of balance updates and fine tuning, we want to try getting a bit more granular with this approach.”

McCree is the big winner this patch, with an extra 25 HP for some added survivability. Plus, his reload speed is getting a slight increase.

Brigitte and Symmetra are winners too, as their base health and shields are going up by 25 HP.

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However, Widowmaker sees her health drop from 200 to 175 HP. This makes her the second weakest standard-form hero in the game HP-wise, behind Tracer, who has 150.

Additionally, Baptiste and Mei are getting some nice buffs. Now, when going into Cryo-Freeze, Mei’s ammo will be refilled by 15 per second. Her Ice Wall cooldown is also lowered by a second.

Meanwhile, Baptiste is getting buffed with his primary fire recovery time reduced from 0.45 to 0.38 seconds. His healing is also upped from 50 to 60. However, the damage he does has been decreased from 25 to 24.

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As always with the Experimental card, not all of these changes may go through, but they’re major reworks that show us how the devs are reshaping the game ahead of Overwatch 2.

Full patch notes:

EXPERIMENTAL MODE

The next experiment begins! This time we’re hoping to get your feedback on some balance changes. We’re using the 2-2-2 Role Queue ruleset so that you can get a feel for how these balance changes might affect the live game.

HERO UPDATES (ONLY IN EXPERIMENTAL)

Baptiste

Biotic Launcher

• (Primary Fire) Recovery time reduced from 0.45 to 0.38 seconds
• (Primary Fire) Damage reduced from 25 to 24
• (Secondary Fire) Recovery increased from 0.8 to 0.9 seconds
• (Secondary Fire) Healing increased from 50 to 60

Amplification Matrix

• Width increased from 5 to 9 meters

Developer Comments: We’re trying out some adjustments to Baptiste’s Biotic Launcher firing cadence that will make dealing damage quicker and landing a healing grenade more impactful. His Amplification Matrix was sometimes difficult to utilize for his allies without gathering very closely together so we’ve made it much wider.

Brigitte

General

• Base health increased from 150 to 175

McCree

General

• Base health increased from 200 to 225

Peacekeeper

• (General) Reload time reduced from 1.5 to 1.2 seconds

Mei

Cryo-Freeze

• Now restores 15 ammo per second

Ice Wall

• Cooldown lowered from 13 to 12 seconds

Developer Comments: Since we previously made Mei’s primary fire relatively more expensive, she spends more time out of ammo and this was particularly noticeable when unable to reload while in Cryo-Freeze. To help smooth out this gameplay she now regains some ammo during Cryo-Freeze.

Symmetra

General

• Base shields increased from 100 to 125

Widowmaker

General

• Base health reduced from 200 to 175

Developer Comments: We’re experimenting with some max health adjustments in 25 HP increments to allow for more fine tuning of heroes’ power. Until now this was done in 50 HP increments to help simplify the understanding how many hits an enemy hero could withstand.