Every Overwatch2 Players have opinions on balance changes and reworks of their favorite heroes. Sometimes it’s impractical power fantasies to make their main character more powerful, but sometimes there are genuinely thought-out ideas floating around forums and social media. Blizzard gave a handful of developers the chance to create characters for a one-off arcade mode in its eleventh seasonand some of the changes are so good that fans would like to have them in the main program Overwatch2 Balance patches.
Community Crafted mode is available in the Arcade menu and allows you to play as revamped heroes with new kits created by Overwatch2 Content creators. Emongg, It costs, TQQAnd Eskay all made design suggestions for each hero, with each focusing on a specific role. Emongg handled tanks, Custa and TQQ split damage heroes into projectile and hitscan kits, and Eskay rounded things out for support heroes. The mode is playable from June 20 to July 8, and while Blizzard describes it as “crazy” and “chaotic,” some of the changes are a net gain for the respective heroes.
Some of the changes, such as here on the Overwatch Subredditshift numbers, such as increasing or decreasing damage, but a whole lot of them completely change the utility for characters. Orisa gets her Crowd Control Halt ability back from the original OverwatchMei gets a little more mobility when she sprays the ground with her cryo weapon like she’s skating on the ice, and Mercy’s revival now only brings an ally back for a limited time. Some of these are silly, but hidden amongst the excess are some pretty good ideas.
Of particular note is Eskay’s version of Brigitte, which specifically affects her Inspire ability, a passive healing ability that triggers when she damages an enemy. So when she swings her flails or hits an enemy with her shield, she heals her teammates if they’re within a certain range. However, Inspire has always been pretty difficult to read on the field. When Inspire triggers, Brigitte sends out a yellow pulse, but the actual effect reaches much further than the visual indicator and lasts longer than it appears. Some people don’t even realize Brig can heal this way because it’s so discreet. To make this easier, Eskay had Blizzard add an icon that displays Brigitte’s portrait next to an ally’s health bar on their HUD, similar to Mercy when she’s actively healing you with her staff. This allows Brig’s teammates to know when they’re in healing range and conveniently help her push through enemy forces. It’s such a good quality of life improvement that I’d be surprised if Blizzard didn’t implement it in a future patch, and fans seem to agree.
“Eskay needs to be a developer on the balance team,” said @mysticscouter on Tick Tock. @Hogonetrick said on Youtube“This inspiring change in life should be in the [actual] Game [rather] as a fun game mode.”
“Some are wild and crazy, while others I think were genuine nudges at what they thought would be good for the hero. Like the Brig Inspire icon or the LW weapon swap speed,” CosmiqCowboy said on Reddit“I would love it if Blizzard implemented it in the lower ranks, where people think Brig only heals with the packs […] I thought the same thing when I first played it for about two or four hours.”
Not every change was met with universal approval, such as Junkrat’s ultimate loss of direct player control, but the original intent of the mode was to create something silly, so none of it needed to be popular. But I applaud these folks for taking this opportunity to make some light suggestions to improve the game that fans can rally behind (no pun intended).
Overwatch2The eleventh season of began on June 20th and the main changes include a new push map, a Power Rangers-like Battle Pass themeand the return of the Pink Mercy Skin in favor of breast cancer research.
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