After the overwhelmingly positive reception to SVB's inaugural creator PUGs, SVB and Elo Hell Workshops have teamed up to tackle one of the most ambitious Workshop projects to date: a community-made Overwatch 2 patch! This project was created with the help of notable community figures, such as EeveeA and Bogur, working alongside over eight Workshop developers.

SVB's Creator PUGs v2 was made possible by the Elo Hell Workshops Discord. Join today at workshop.codes/discord.

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Overwatch SVB Patch Notes – June 10, 2021

The purpose of these changes are twofold. Firstly, we’re implementing all the changes that are known to us as coming in OW2 - such as role passives, tank changes and 5v5. On top of this, though, we’ve added a host of changes to as many heroes as we can since just changing tanks is not enough - the whole game will need to be rebalanced so to get a proper flavour of what OW2 will play like, we wanted to try our best to adapt the roster accordingly.

Secondly, a lot of the new abilities/changes were added with the purpose of being fun and wacky, the way OW’s core philosophy always wanted, while trying to keep them balanced. Bear in mind that this is our first round of testing so some things may well be wildly broken but that is the exact reason we’re testing them so that we can adjust accordingly and, hopefully, have some ideas that we can present to the devs to help them too.

- SVB

General

• All respawn timers have been reduced to 80%. In most scenarios this will mean it has been reduced from 10 seconds to 8 seconds. Overtime respawn timers are also affected.

Tanks

Role Passive: 30% knockback reduction and 25% less ult charge granted for damage by enemies

Reinhardt

The details we know about Rein so far suggest the devs have given his changes the most thought. He may need more help as a solo tank but we wanted to see him tested first in these PUGs before buffing him.

Charge

• Cancel charge by pressing the button again
• Allows for better steering while charging
• Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds

Fire Strike

• Fire Strike can now store up to 2 charges. Each charge takes 6 seconds to generate.

Barrier Field

• 1200HP Shield

Steadfast Passive

• Steadfast removed (as to not stack with the 30% knockback reduction given by the tank role passive)

Roadhog

Roadhog could easily take over in a 5v5 situation with less shields around (we even saw this in the OW2 stream), so these changes seek to shift the power of Breather towards being more of a team-utility ability. At the moment, it allows Roadhog to go for some crazy plays and get out without punishment but now Hog will have to think harder before taking that risk.

We're also reducing the displacement power of Whole Hog, as well as increasing its cost, to avoid making tanking too frustrating.

Take a Breather

• Take a Breather now creates a gas cloud which grants allies 10% damage reduction and heals allies for 20 health per second while they stand in it.
• Roadhog now slows down significantly while using Take a Breather.
• Gas cloud lingers for 2.5 seconds after Take a Breather ends.

Whole Hog

• Ulimate cost increased by 25%
• Knockback reduced by 20%

Zarya

In early playtests, Zarya has been a bit of a monster who can keep charge very easily. Still, we want to keep her bubbles coming relatively quickly so that she has some form of protection so to balance, we have reduced her damage, since we cannot reduce how much 'charge' she gains per bubble, which would have been the better way.

Note: At the moment, the Workshop does not allow Zarya to use two ally bubbles at the same time - you have to wait for the first one to disappear before you can apply a second barrier.

Particle Cannon - Primary Fire

• Damage dealt decreased from [75 - 170] to [66 - 150]

Particle Barrier / Projected Barrier

• Bubble has 2 charges that can be used on yourself or allies
• Reduced cooldown from 10/8 to 7 seconds

Winston

Bogur humbly requested an extra 50HP and that was more than fair. We want to see how sniper Monke plays and then decide if he needs more help.

General

• Base health increased from 350 to 400 (overall health increased from 500 to 550)

Secondary Fire: New Alternate Fire

• Winston can now hold down secondary fire to charge up a longer-range attack capable of hitting enemies up to 500 meters away.
• This attack takes 1 second to charge up to 50 damage, and may be held for an additional 1 second after reaching maximum charge.
• Firing this attack costs 25 ammo.

D.Va

This brings D.Va's defense matrix back to the full strength it was when it was eating up entire Soldier ults. Let’s see if this alone is enough to make her feel competent as a solo tank, though I suspect not.

Defense Matrix

• Defense Matrix maximum duration increased from 2 to 4 seconds

Sigma

Sig probably needs changes but, again, I think he might be pretty strong in a 5v5 setting. In the interest of reducing shields in OW2, I wanted to take his barrier away and give him a ‘deflect’ instead but it’s a bit tricky to do in the Workshop. The summary would simply be: one hand succ, one hand chuck.

Orisa

Orisa is already a lot more ‘brawly’ than she ever was but this is an attempt to take her all the way. Gallop should be both fun and a little silly, the way OW abilities are meant to be.

Note: I wanted it to take one ally along potentially as well, but that was proving tricky in the Workshop.

Fusion Driver

• Increased projectile speed from 120m/s to 150m/s
• Reduced movement penalty when firing from 30% to 10%

Protective Barrier

• Removed
• Replaced by new ability: Gallop. Charge up & release for a burst distance travel (similar to Doomfist punch). Will push enemies out of path. Deals 75 damage

Supercharger

• Supercharger drops with a 600hp shield in front of it

Wrecking Ball

Wrecking Ball is the first tank you think of as an obvious beneficiary of a more DPS/Deathmatch-y style Overwatch so perhaps that alone will be enough to make him fit right again in the OW tank roster.

Piledriver

• Knock-up height scales with distance to epicentre

Damage

Role Passive: 15% movement speed increase for all heroes

Ashe

Ashe could end up being too strong but I don’t wanna play around with numbers just yet. I’ve started with a nerf to B.O.B. ult charge and also reducing her knockback to help a little with closing distance on her.

Coach Gun

• Knockback reduced (maximum 7m)

B.O.B.

• No longer gains ult charge when B.O.B is active

Bastion

Who really knows how to fix this guy without making him an entirely different hero?

Doomfist

Doom is weak but when Doom is strong, no one has fun. Mostly, I think the one-shot burst damage is what feels the worst. So punch is now non-lethal to most characters and instead can be used more for mobility. To compensate, his primary fire does more now and his ult is more lethal.

Hand Cannon

• Primary fire total damage increased from [19.8 - 66] to [27 - 80]

Rocket Punch

• Rocket Punch can now carry Doomfist upwards. Note this does not allow Doomfist to punch downwards.
• Initial damage reduced from [50 - 100] to [10 - 50]
• Damage from impacting a wall reduced from [50 - 150] to [50 - 100]

Meteor Strike

• Outer ring damage falloff now starts at 250 damage (up from 200 damage)
• Outer ring damage falloff now ends at 20 damage (up from 15 damage)

Echo

Echo is strong, so just a few minor tweaks to maybe bring her more in line with other DPS.

Sticky Bombs

• Now fires 5 instead of 6 bombs

Flight

• Cooldown increased from 6 to 7 seconds

Genji

Our boy Genji could use some love so this brings him back to his brief ‘Genji meta’ state without the obnoxiousness of the nanoblade that was building every 60 seconds. This should make him not a blade-bot.

Note: I wanted to reduce his recovery rate of fire a bit more but that’s not possible in the Workshop.

General

• Reduced ultimate generation by 5%
• Increased movement speed passive removed to match speed of all other DPS heroes

Shuriken

• Damage increased from 28 to 30

Dragonblade

• Dragonblade no longer receives damage amp from Nanoboost
• Kills during Dragonblade also resets Deflect cooldown

Hanzo

Reverse falloff damage will make it so that Hanzo can’t be effective at every range. He’ll find more damage with one less tank around and this should make him a bit more specialised.

Storm Bow

• Reverse falloff damage (doing 50% of damage at point blank range, and 100% at 20m)
• Increased projectile speed by 15%

Storm Arrows

• Ammo reduced from 5 to 4

Junkrat

I don’t know Junkrat well enough to make too many changes to him. This was one that was suggested.

Steel Trap

• Reduced cooldown from 10 to 7 seconds

McCree

Fan The Hammer is ridiculous right now and the 25 extra HP has everyone mad. I think these changes should allow McCree to still be strong in good hands but remove some of the more frustrating elements of going up against him (i.e. flash into fan).

General

• Health reduced from 225 to 200

Fan The Hammer

• Fan the Hammer damage per bullet reduced from [25 - 50] to [15 - 35]

Flashbang

• Flashbang replaced by Lasso. Holds target in position for 1 second instead of stunning (works like Junkrat Trap)

Mei

The dev PVP stream removed the primary fire freeze, but the slow is an equally obnoxious part of Mei’s kit and needs to go. Instead, these changes should push her into the direction of utility and some fun ice-related wackiness. I had a lot of fun just with the brief play around with this.

This rework is inspired by Heroes of the Storm, giving her many similar abilities, but while still keeping her in the Damage role.

Endothermic Blaster - Primary Fire

• Removed
• Replaced with "Icing". Icing creates a straight, 20-meter-long path of ice that Mei and her teammates can jump on to quickly move forward
• Cryo-Freeze can be used in conjunction with Icing

Blizzard

• Removed
• Replaced with "Avalanche". Avalanche turns Mei in to a giant rolling Snowball that picks up enemies she rolls over. After 3 seconds (or when reaching a wall) Avalanche explodes, knocking back and damaging (50) everyone caught in Avalanche. Avalanche also damages enemies caught in inside over time while rolling for 30 damage per second

Pharah

No idea what changes Pharah might need.

Reaper

The Shadowstep into backline, then wraith if in trouble is a little too strong and allows Reaper to just make stupid plays and then rinse-repeat. This should make him just that little bit more careful about his backline adventures.

Wraith Form

• Duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds

Soldier: 76

This was a nice QoL change from the April Fool’s patch. Does he need more? I don’t think so tbh.

Sprint

• Now slowly reloads ammo while sprinting (4 ammo per second)

Sombra

A big change, so may be controversial, but: Hack cannot stay as it is. OW2 is moving away from CCs and things that stop people from playing their hero. So, I’ve tried to make Hack less of a “hack ‘em and they’re useless now” and more of a targeted silence, which works well in MOBAs. The 2 seconds can still be plenty if you’re targeting someone down specifically and now that it can be executed more consistently, Sombra can use it tactically to interrupt things.

Hack

• Hack is now a guaranteed-hit seeking single-target projectile
• Hack duration reduced 5 to 2 seconds
• Hack cooldown increased 8 to 10 seconds

Symmetra

Sym feels clunky at the moment and barriers need to go so this is an attempt to make her feel more cool and unique. TP can be more dynamic this way & the light clone is wacky fun imo.

Note: Due to Workshop limitations, this means the teleporter can’t be manually broken. We also wanted to do something with turrets but they are a nightmare to work with in the Workshop, apparently.

Teleporter

• Cooldown now starts when teleporter is placed
• Teleporter now lasts 8 seconds
• Can no longer be manually destroyed

Photon Barrier

• Removed
• Replaced with "Light Clone". Light Clone creates a duplicate Symmetra who moves inversely to the real Symmetra and deals full damage.

Torbjörn

What do we do with Torb? We wanted to give him a grapple specifically to his turret but he has the max number of abilities already.

Tracer

Just a slight tweak back.

General

• Increased movement speed passive removed to match speed of all other DPS heroes

Widowmaker

Widow is definitely the one to keep an eye on the most in 5v5. These nerfs might be too much, but they should really limit her ability to dictate the entire feel of a match.

Widow's Kiss

• Is now a bolt-action rifle. Can only shoot one shot before needing to unscope. 1 second cooldown before she can scope again

Supports

Role Passive: Regenerates health at 10 HP/S after 2 seconds of not taking damage

Ana

Ana will probably thrive anyway without as many barriers around to block her so may well not need any buff.

Baptiste

The devs clearly are adamant about immortality staying as an ability that gives immortality. They’ve obviously considered all the damage reduction ideas… well how about a cast time? It still has the power of ‘immortality’ but now requires foresight and gamesense to get value out of.

Regenerative Burst

• Regenerative burst self-healing nerfed: 15 per second (self), 75 overall

Immortatility Field

• Immortality has cast time of 1.5 seconds. Bap is immobile while casting

Brigitte

Idk what to do about Brig. One thing the devs mentioned is that all ‘overhealth’ in OW2 works the same, which automatically means Rally is now weaker since it just acts like normal health for allies. I wanted to give her shield bash a new effect: Rather than stunning, it sends a ‘fire path’ down a straight line, sort of like a condensed version of Earthshatter, except it only does damage and triggers her Inspire. But, it was too much work to fit in in time for this.

Lúcio

This is a dynamic little change that’s aimed at encouraging your average Lúcio players to wallride more and master the skill. It also gives a bit of scalability to Lúcio - the good ones can now get more output out of him where sometimes he feels a bit weak when not being part of a Rush comp (which will be much weaker in OW2).

New Passive: Music Meter

• Continuously wall riding charges Music Meter, which buffs some of Lúcio's other abilities
• Music Meter reaches maximum charge after 4 seconds of wallriding, and must have at least 1 second of charge to affect other abilities
• Music Meter drains at a rate of 10% per second while not wallriding

Amp It Up

• Benefits from "Music Meter". Increases effectiveness by at least 5%, up to 20% at full meter

Sound Barrier

• Benefits from "Music Meter". Increases effectiveness by at least 10%, up to 25% at full meter

Mercy

Shoutout to EeveeA for the Angelic Blessing change. I wanted to incorporate more ideas she’s suggested on Mercy but they were not possible to do in the Workshop. The change we’ve added on top is beam degeneration which aims at disincentivizing hard pocket Mercy playstyles, which is what most people dislike about playing against her.

Caduceus Staff

• Mercy now has ‘beam degeneration’. The more she heals a single target, the more her healing per second on that target drops.
• Max healing is 55 health per second, which drops to a minimum of 40 health per second over the course of 4 seconds of continuous healing. When the healing target is switched, this number starts to regenerate on the previous target

Resurrect

• Removed
• Replaced by "Angelic Blessing": You can select an ally and send a soul to them. That soul then grants them the ability to, over the next 6 seconds have 1 single GA use. After 6 seconds the soul will fade away. 20 Second cooldown

Moira

We had ideas on messing around with Fade to make Moira feel more dynamic but that didn’t work out due to Workshop limitations.

Zenyatta

Will he able to frag more or will he be even more squishy? Need to try him and see. We have given him a 50HP ‘mini-shield’ which appears in front of him when he is charging his right-click. It might give him a tiny bit more of an edge when fighting flankers.

Orb Of Destruction: Secondary Fire

• While charging Secondary Fire a small 50hp shield will appear in front of Zenyatta.