It’s still early days for Overwatch 2, but the hero shooter has performed well and is receiving generally favorable reviews. It isn’t perfect, but the shift to five versus five and the crowd control reduction have made the experience more enjoyable. However, some heroes have drawn the attention of players for being too strong. Despite this, Blizzard has clarified that it has no current plans to introduce big balance changes to Overwatch 2.
The Overwatch 2 developer provided some insight into the state of its new game in a recent developer blog. Blizzard talks about map rotations, the bugs in Competitive mode, and the current state of hero balance. It’s in the hero balance section that Blizzard states that it feels Overwatch 2‘s balance is a good place.
Blizzard does acknowledge that some heroes are outperforming others but not to an overly significant degree. All heroes on the roster have a win rate between 45% and 55%, which is close to what Blizzard was aiming for. Due to this, it does not believe any immediate balance changes are required for Overwatch 2.
The only exception to this is Zarya in the Total Mayhem arcade game mode. Here, Zarya is almost impossible to kill, as the game mode’s shortened cooldowns give her access to constant Particle Barriers. Even if Total Mayhem isn’t supposed to be balanced in the first place, having an invincible hero is a bit much. Blizzard intends to roll out targeted changes to address this oversight in a patch on October 25.
There’s still hope
The consensus amongst players is that there are three standout heroes in Overwatch 2: D.Va, Sombra, and Zarya. D.Va’s long Defense Matrix and Sombra’s constant hacking can make them frustrating to play against. Meanwhile, Zarya is difficult to kill with her Particle Barriers being off cooldown more often than not.
For D.Va and Zarya Blizzard simply states that it is “keeping a close eye,” on them. However, it has acknowledged that Sombra’s hack is overly oppressive toward tank players. The Overwatch 2 developer will make changes to address this but not until Season Two.
Blizzard also confirmed both the Competitive and Quick Play map pool for Season One. (Source; Official Overwatch website)
Published: Oct 14, 2022 12:30 pm