March 19, 2019 Patch

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS

 * New Hero: Baptiste (Support)

Baptiste is battle-hardened combat medic who wields an assortment of experimental devices and weaponry to keep allies alive and eliminate his enemies. Baptiste’s Biotic Launcher fires a three-round-burst that rewards accuracy and recoil control with significant damage output. His alternate fire lobs grenades that heal allies near the point of impact. With Regenerative Burst, Baptiste activates an intense surge that heals himself and nearby allies over time. When danger is near, Baptiste can toss out his Immortality Field to prevent allies from dying. Baptiste moves around the battlefield with Exo Boots, jumping over obstacles and clearing distances that would stop other heroes. Baptiste deploys his Amplification Matrix as his ultimate, which doubles the damage and healing effects of friendly projectiles.

PS GENERAL UPDATES

PS Armor

''Developer Comments: The damage taken by armor from damage over time effects, such as Widowmaker’s Venom Mine, and beam weapons, like Symmetra’s Photon Projector, varied greatly. Now it will be more consistent and predictable.''
 * Beam-type damage is now reduced by 20% when hitting armor
 * Mei: Primary Fire
 * Moira: Alternate Fire, Coalescence
 * Symmetra: Primary Fire, Sentry Turret
 * Winston: Primary Fire
 * Zarya: Primary Fire
 * Damage over time effects are no longer mitigated by armor
 * Ana: Primary Fire
 * Ashe: Dynamite
 * Hanzo: Dragonstrike
 * Mei: Blizzard
 * Moira: Biotic Orb
 * Widowmaker: Venom Mine
 * Zarya: Graviton Surge

PS Damage Boost

''Developer Comments: Previously, the effects of damage boosting were only accounted for if the damage-dealing hero was being boosted as they landed a hit. Now, damage is applied to the projectile as it is fired. This means the damage-dealing hero doesn’t need to be boosted when the projectile hits an enemy for the damage boost to be accounted for.''
 * Damage boost is now applied when a projectile is fired rather than when it hits a target

PS Knockback

''Developer Comments: Knockbacks are now less affected by how the enemy was moving when they were hit. Instead of having small or large knockbacks that depend on chance, knockbacks will feel similar regardless of the enemy’s movement leading up to the knockback. Allowing flying heroes, like Mercy when using her Valkyrie ability or D.Va using her Booster ability, to be properly knocked back makes for more fluid, realistic gameplay.''
 * Knockback distance is now more consistent
 * Heroes that are flying can now be knocked back and slowed

PS Sound

Developer Comments: With the addition of Baptiste, we wanted to be sure that you can tell when your hits were being buffed or nullified, regardless of what hero you’re playing.
 * A new sound plays when you land a hit while damage boosted
 * A new sound plays when you land a hit, but it doesn’t do any damage

PS HERO UPDATES PS Ana

''Developer Comments: Giving Nano Boost an instant heal effect enabled players to survive longer and made Ana’s ultimate valuable. However, it was a bit too strong when healing heroes with large health pools.''
 * Heal reduced from 300 to 250

PS Doomfist


 * Cooldown reduced from 7 to 6 seconds

Developer Comments: Reducing the downtime of Doomfist’s abilities will give him some power back and make his gameplay feel more fluid.
 * Cooldown reduced from 7 to 6 seconds

PS Hanzo

''Developer Comments: Because of how dense the environment is on some maps, the Sonic Arrow can feel ineffective in some areas. Increasing Sonic Arrow’s detection radius should make it more effective.''
 * Detection radius increased from 7 to 9 meters

PS Junkrat

''Developer Comments: Junkrat is one of the best barrier and tank busters in the game, and this change will help solidify this role. This doesn’t change the Frag Launcher’s explosive damage, which remains at 80. The total damage for direct impact is now 130, up from 120. Since we increased Frag Launcher’s damage output, Junkrat builds his ultimate too quickly. We’re increasing the cost of his ultimate to balance this change with his increased damage-dealing capabilities.''
 * Impact damage increased from 40 to 50
 * RIP-Tire
 * Cost increased by 10%

PS Lúcio


 * Speed Boost’s amplification reduced from 70% to 50%


 * Speed Boost’s effect reduced from 30% to 20%


 * Soundwave now counts towards Offensive Assists

''Developer Comments: The knockback on Lúcio's Soundwave is a great tool for pushing enemies into situations that get them killed, so they should be rewarded an offensive assist for doing so. Lúcio’s ability to increase his teammate’s speed was too strong, especially when used on high health/low range heroes. We’re decreasing the overall power of Lúcio's Speed Boost but increasing the speed bonus he gets from using Wall Ride so his mobility isn’t impacted too much.''
 * Speed buff increased from 20% to 40%

PS McCree


 * Damage reduced from 55 to 50

''Developer Comments: After reducing armor’s effectiveness for all heroes, Fan the Hammer doesn’t need to deal quite as much damage. Increasing Deadeye’s damage after being locked on for a bit makes it more effective when attacking high health, static targets (like barriers) and heroes with over 250 health. It will not impact how dangerous this is for heroes under 250 health.''
 * Damage per second increased from 275 to 550 after locking onto targets for 1.5 seconds

PS Mei


 * Primary fire damage increased from 2.25 to 2.75 (45 to 55 damage per second)

''Developer Comments: Increasing the damage of Mei’s primary fire should make her Freeze and Icicle move combination more potent. Making the pillars on Mei’s Ice Wall easier to destroy means less waiting for the wall to disappear on its own and more opportunities to counter it.''
 * Health reduced from 500 to 400

PS Moira

Developer Comments: These minor changes make Moira’s passive healing effect on Biotic Grasp slightly more effective when topping off an ally’s health.
 * Heal over time duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds
 * Total healing increased from 50 to 65

PS Orisa

''Developer Comments: As a defensive tank, Orisa can have trouble pushing forward with the team. Allowing Orisa to move faster while firing should make it easier to apply pressure on the enemy team and use her barrier in proactive ways.''
 * Movement speed penalty while firing reduced from 50% to 30%

PS Pharah

Developer Comments: This change sets the Rocket Launcher’s minimum damage to where it was before we rebalanced its direct impact and explosive damage in a recent patch.
 * Minimum explosion damage increased from 16.25 to 20

PS Reaper

Developer Comments: A recent change that increased Reaper’s healing while he dealt damage was a bit too strong, sometimes making opponents feel like Reaper was unstoppable.
 * Healing received from dealing damage reduced from 50% to 40%

PS Soldier: 76


 * Damage increased from 19 to 20


 * Delay before you can fire the weapon after using Sprint reduced from .5 to .3 seconds

''Developer Comments: This change should potentially allow Soldier: 76 to kill an enemy hero one shot sooner. Reducing the time between when you use Sprint and when you can fire should make the ability more fluid and responsive. Giving Tactical Visor the ability to target Junkrat’s RIP-Tire and Baptiste’s Immortality Field drone is a quality of life improvement, since these are both critical targets.''
 * Can target RIP-Tire and Immortality Field

PS Sombra

''Developer Comments: The cooldown on Hack often made it feel less effective to target health packs instead of players. This will make both health packs and players viable targets for hacking.''
 * Cooldown is reduced by half when hacking a health pack
 * Changed the visual appearance to more clearly indicate when something has been hacked

PS Symmetra

Developer Comments: This will allow Symmetra to more consistently reach peak damage output from her Photon Projector.
 * Primary Fire’s damage ramps up 20% faster

PS Torbjörn


 * Base health increased by 50 armor (250 maximum health)

Developer Comments: Torbjörn’s survivability was a bit low, so we’ve shifted some power from his Overload ability to his base health.
 * Armor gain reduced from 150 to 100

PS Widowmaker

''Developer Comments: Infra-Sight had no counter to its effect, so it now ends when Widowmaker dies. To balance out its higher risk of use, Infra-Sight now reveals enemy health bars to Widowmaker’s team.''
 * Reveals enemy health bars
 * Now canceled on death

PS Wrecking Ball

Developer Comments: This will make Adaptive Shield a more powerful survival tool, since being forced out of Roll mode left Wrecking Ball more susceptible to fire.
 * No longer cancels Roll mode

PS Zarya

''Developer Comments: Zarya’s damage greatly increases when at high energy, while also gaining increased beam size and a larger explosion radius. This often allowed Zarya to deal too much damage and made the explosions from the Alternate Fire on her Particle Cannon nearly impossible to avoid. This change will still allow Zarya to deal a lot of damage, but makes it more difficult to actually apply the damage.''
 * Alternative Fire’s explosion radius changed to 2 meters, regardless of energy level

PS Zenyatta


 * Damage increased from 46 to 48

''Developer Comments: Zenyatta’s Orb of Discord makes him a nearly irreplaceable support hero on your team. We’re reducing its impact for Zenyatta’s team, but increasing the potency of the Orb of Destruction to compensate for its lesser effect.''
 * Effect reduced from 30% to 25%

PS BUG FIXES PS Callouts

PS Camera
 * Fixed a bug where the “Need Healing” callout wouldn’t display in chat if the hero you targeted didn’t have healing abilities


 * Fixed a bug where, when playing certain heroes, the camera would clip into the hero when looking straight upwards
 * Career Stats Menu

PS General
 * Fixed a bug where the season labels for Competitive CTF and Competitive 6v6 Elimination didn’t display

PS Hero Gallery
 * Fixed a bug where damage boost stat tracking was incorrect in some circumstances

PS Heroes
 * Fixed a bug where, if switching between Junkrat Skins, one of the bombs on his vest would spin

PS Ana

PS Ashe
 * Fixed a bug where Ana’s clothes would clip into her hip pouch while doing the Yut Nori emote

PS Doomfist
 * Fixed a bug that prevented audio feedback from playing to indicate ammo was low on Ashe’s rifle if it had three or fewer bullets

PS D.Va
 * Fixed a bug where Seismic Slam didn’t pull in enemies as intended

PS Genji
 * Fixed a bug that made D.Va very difficult to knock back while she was firing her Fusion Cannons

PS Hanzo
 * Fixed a bug that caused Genji’s Dragonblade to end before the deflect duration was complete
 * Fixed a bug where Genji would be knocked back unusually far when using Swift Strike to hit Doomfist’s Rocket Punch

PS Mercy
 * Fixed a bug where Hanzo’s leg would visibly move while he was in his Meditate pose

PS Orisa
 * Fixed a bug where Mercy’s left knee would bend unnaturally when stunned by McCree’s Flashbang

PS Reaper
 * Fixed a bug that made Orisa very difficult to knock back while she was firing her Fusion Driver

PS Reinhardt
 * Fixed a bug where a button on the shoulder of Reaper’s Lu Bu skin appeared to be floating

PS Sombra
 * Fixed a bug where a piece on Reinhardt’s back displayed incorrectly while using the Guan Yu skin in the Hammer Down highlight intro
 * Fixed an issue that allowed Reinhardt’s Earthshatter to hit people further off the ground than intended in specific circumstances

PS Symmetra
 * Fixed a bug where Sombra’s stealth exiting sound effect wouldn’t play if an emote was used to exit stealth mode
 * Fixed a bug where Sombra couldn’t quick melee while using her Hack ability

PS Torbjörn
 * Fixed a bug where Symmetra would gain ultimate charge while casting Photon Barrier

PS Widowmaker
 * Fixed a bug that prevented Torbjörn from using Molten Core in custom games if Ability 2 was disabled

PS Maps
 * Fixed a bug that prevented Widowmaker’s Venom Mine from damaging a hero if they triggered it at the edge of its trigger radius

PS Hollywood PS Horizon Lunar Colony PS Paris
 * Fixed a bug where the winning team’s hero lineup wouldn’t display correctly
 * Fixed a bug that caused the hanging tires near the first point to rotate a Self Destructing D.Va mech
 * Fixed a bug where the sounds coming from the Nous vous surveillons apartment weren’t playing
 * Overwatch League Skins


 * Fixed issues with the colors of skins for new Overwatch League teams
 * A new patch is now live on Windows PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Read below to learn more about the latest changes.


 * To share your feedback, please post in the General Discussion forum
 * For a list of known issues, visit our Bug Report forum.
 * For troubleshooting assistance, visit our Technical Support forum.