[Update #2]: Overwatch 2's Season 2 has now arrived with a new tank hero, escort map, cosmetics, and a bunch of strange balance changes.

[Update]: Overwatch 2's first balance update has arrived with nerfs to Zarya, Genji, Sombra, as well as Junkrat for some reason.

While I'd love to tell you that Overwatch 2 has managed to overcome its initial problems and that it's going to be smooth sailing from here on out, I'm afraid I have some more bad news to deliver. The big balance update that was supposed to arrive this November 15th has now been suddenly delayed as the Overwatch 2 team has encountered a critical issue.

“This includes the upcoming balance changes, bug fixes, including those that affect Mei, and core content updates we have planned for this patch,” explains the brief announcement. “This delay also impacts the delivery of Overwatch League Viewership Incentives & Perks from the Postseason matches during the period between Oct 30 - Nov 4, along with the rotation of cosmetics in the Overwatch League shop.”

No further details have been given out just yet, not even a rough estimate for the new release date. As such, I can only imagine that whatever problem the Overwatch 2 team ran into is quite a serious one. Once more information becomes available, or the update goes live, I'll make sure to let you know.

Until then, I'll leave you with a brief rundown of all of the major balance changes to heroes like Sombra, Genji and Zarya. Enjoy, and here's to hoping Sojourn gets some tweaks in the near future as well!

Sombra

• Hack ability lockout duration reduced from 1.75 to 1.5 seconds

• Hacked enemies are no longer valid targets for hacking for the duration of the effect

• Hacked damage multiplier reduced from 40 to 25%

Dev Comment: With Sombra’s rework, she gained a lot more damage to help account for the reduced ability lockout duration of Hack. This has proven to be too deadly for a flanker with easy access to the enemy backlines, and we’ve similarly had to address the damage output of heroes like Tracer, Reaper, and now, Genji, in the 5v5 format.

She can also no longer channel hack on an already hacked target as feedback indicated the reduced cooldown combined with hacking from stealth proved to be too frustrating for many players. This is essentially a per-target cooldown that enables Hack to keep its current 4 second cooldown for potentially hacking multiple targets.

Genji

• Maximum ammo reduced from 30 to 24

• Shuriken damage reduced from 29 to 27

Dev Comment: Genji is a Hero that has greatly benefited from the move to 5v5. Changing to a single Tank and the reduction of crowd control has meant Genji has had less obstacles in his way, however he hasn’t received tuning updates since he wasn’t actively in the meta until launch (something also informed by our general preference to avoid preemptive adjustments when possible). We also saw that, in early beta tests, other flanking Heroes such as Tracer and Reaper were also significantly more effective in OW2. These changes will bring Genji more in line with the other flanking damage heroes.

Zarya

• Barrier duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 seconds
• Barrier cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds

Dev Comment: Early player sentiment predicted Zarya as one of the weakest solo tanks in 5v5 though her high damage potential and barrier uptime have proven to be extremely effective. For opponents, feedback has indicated this can feel as though Zarya has very limited windows of vulnerability, which feels difficult to deal with when combined with her ramping damage potential.

These changes will reduce the barrier uptime, making it slightly more difficult for her to gain energy and will provide enemies with more time to deal damage to her.

D.va

• Fusion Cannon spread increased from 3.5 to 3.75
• Boosters impact damage reduced from 25 to 15

Dev Comment: D.va ended up feeling too deadly after the last round of changes given how resilient she can be with the improved Defense Matrix. Both our stats and high-level player feedback regarded her as not effective enough before that compared with other tanks, so this is a partial revert to establish some middle ground there.

Kiriko

• Swift Step invulnerability duration reduced from 0.4 to 0.25 seconds

Dev Comment: This invulnerability window is primarily intended to help avoid instantly dying to something unseen after teleporting through walls, but it ended up being a little too long and led to some confusion when shooting at Kiriko