BlizzardOverwatch 2’s first midseason since the introduction of Hero Perks is finally here, but failed to address some of the strongest characters in the game.
Hero Perks have dramatically changed the way Overwatch 2 operates, unlocking new abilities for heroes throughout a match. As the first iteration of Hero Perks, it was understandable that many outliers exist with imperfect balance. With Perks, characters like Sojourn, Torbjorn, and Ana became incredibly strong and near must picks in every game.
Unfortunately, despite the midseason patch’s promise to address many underperforming Perks, the strengths of these heroes were not addressed in any meaningful way, and we’ll likely see a repeat of the meta that came before.
The strong remain strong
Overwatch 2’s mid-season 15 patch seemed to take the popularized approach of “if everyone is broken, no one is.” With hardly any nerfs coming the way of the strongest heroes, the balance team opted to buff up some of the weaker Perks instead.
Unfortunately, this means the top performing characters like Sojourn, Ana, and Tracer escaped with no nerfs at all, while other top tier heroes like Torbjorn escaped with a slap on the wrist. In fact, Tracer actually received a buff to one of her Perks.
Blizzard did choose to buff Sombra, Soldier: 76, and Genji (who was already a strong pick), but it’s unlikely that these buffs will do much to move the needle in the top tiers.
Related
BlizzardEarly reactions to the patch notes are mostly mixed. Some players appreciated the path of buffing weaker characters instead of nerfing OP ones, but many criticized Blizzard’s lack of action in actively bringing down stronger characters.
“No Ana perks nerf or [Sojourn] nerf is crazy,” said one player.
“No changes to Sojourn and they buffed one of Tracer’s instead of doing anything to how ridiculous the recall blink one is,” wrote another. “It’s joever.”
Players also criticized the lack of nerfs to Ana and Zarya, some of the strongest characters in their respective roles.
“Not nerfing double nano is uh…interesting,” said one user.
“So we are playing ZaryaWatch for the rest of the season,” wrote another player.
More major changes are likely expected during the next season, especially with Blizzard’s promise to introduce new Perks entirely. Still, as players were expecting more of a dramatic balance philosophy from Overwatch 2, this midseason patch is understandably disappointing from the balance side, at least from the perspective of most players.
That said, there’s a chance that Blizzard is cooking here. Perhaps the buffs to other heroes will offset these nerfs. We won’t know until players spend a bit more time with newly buffed heroes on this patch.