[Update]: Overwatch experimental update has heavily nerfed Roadhog and rebalanced shotguns as a whole.
Only a few weeks have gone by since the last batch of balance changes, and already Blizzard has unleashed another dose of nerfs for Overwatch. This time around they're all focused on the various DPS and support heroes, with the intent being to reduce the overall power level and cut back on some of the power creep that has been going on since the GOATs (triple tank/triple support) meta.
Rather than babble on, allow me to share with you what exactly has been changed. Have a gander, there's some rather solid nerfs in here:
Armor
- Beam-type damage reduction against Armor health pools increased from 20% to 30%
Ana
• Biotic Rifle
- Ammo reduced from 14 to 12
Ashe
• The Viper
- Max ammo reduced from 15 to 12
- Secondary Fire
-- Aim-down sights damage reduced from 85 to 80
Baptiste
• Biotic Launcher
- Secondary Fire
-- Grenade ammo reduced from 12 to 10
• Regenerative Burst
- Total healing reduced from 150 to 75
- Baptiste now receives twice as much healing from Regenerative Burst
Junkrat
• Frag Launcher
- Impact damage reduced from 50 to 40 (Total 130 to 120)
McCree
• Peacekeeper
- Recovery increased from 0.42 to 0.50
Moira
• Biotic Grasp
- Healing
-- Lingering heal reduced from 4 seconds to 2 seconds (Total healing from 65 down to 35)
-- Healing per second increased from 65 to 70
-- Healing resource consumption rate increased from 11 to 14 (27%)
- Damage
-- Attach angle reduced by 37%
-- Healing resource gain rate increased by 50%
Orisa
• Halt!
- Radius increased from 4 to 5
- Projectile speed reduced from 30 to 25
Pharah
• Rocket Launcher
- Recovery increased from 0.75 to 0.85
Symmetra
• Photon Projector
- Secondary Fire
-- Max damage reduced from 140 to 120
Widowmaker
• Widow's Kiss
- Max ammo increased from 30 to 35
- Secondary Fire
-- Scoped ammo cost increased from 3 to 5
-- Scoped shots now have up to 50% damage falloff from 60-85 meters
Zarya
• Particle Cannon
- Secondary Fire
-- Ammo cost increased from 20 to 25
While it is unlikely that these changes alone will revert the power creep and make it so tanks don't melt within the span of a second, it is still a solid step forward and hopefully the first of many such updates. Personally, I hope the next one includes even more nerfs because the sooner we establish a new baseline, the sooner we can start figuring out just what needs to be tweaked further.
Once the next update goes live I'll make sure to let you know, but whenever that may be, these are bound to be exciting times for Overwatch!