Following the Lunar New Year patch that brought nerfs to heroes like Mei, Orisa, and Hanzo, the Overwatch team continues to make more tweaks to heroes that are still problematic. Reaper did not get any nerfs on the previous patch, which is addressed in the upcoming patch. Orisa is still an issue because of her shields and damage output. Lastly, Baptiste continues to be picked because of his attack damage and healing.

Nerfs, Buffs, and Beyond

Without further ado, here are the next patch notes for Overwatch:

Hanzo
• Storm Arrows damage reduced from 70 to 60

McCree
• Peacekeeper primary fire recovery increased from 0.42 to 0.5 seconds
• Base health increased from 200 to 250
• Firing Deadeye no longer locks the player’s aim

Reaper
• "The Reaping" healing amount reduced from 40% to 30% of damage dealt

Orisa
• Fortify cooldown increased from 8 to 10 seconds
• Halt! snare duration reduced from 1 to 0.65 seconds
• Fusion Driver damage reduced from 11 to 9

Sigma
• Gravitic Flux can now be interrupted before targets begin falling
• Gravitic Flux impact slow duration reduced from 0.9 to 0.6 seconds
• Accretion explosion damage reduced from 60 to 40
• Hyperspheres range reduced from 22 to 20 meters

Baptiste
• Biotic Launcher primary fire recovery increased from 0.36 to 0.45 sec
• Biotic Launcher secondary fire heal explosion reduced from 60 to 50

Analysis on the Upcoming Patch

A slight nerf to Hanzo does not do anything significant. He is still playable as long as you can hit critical shots into your opponents. If you need to think about whether to play a hitscan or a sniper, Hanzo and Soldier: 76 should be in your pool hero.

Reaper's passive ability leaves a sizable dent for Mr. Reyes. Reaper mains who decide to aim at tanks to self-heal need to think twice before doing so in the upcoming patch. The direction for Reaper in future patches is to teleport into the opponent's backline to try to get pickoffs on DPS and support players. 

Orisa and Sigma continued to be a problem even after the Lunar New Year patch. This upcoming patch should mitigate those picks slightly. Sigma received nerfs to his abilities that helped initiate fights and his ultimate, which is one of the best in the game. These nerfs are what is needed not to make Sigma an overpowered hero. Even though Orisa received nerfs to three abilities, her shield did not and should continue to be picked alongside Reinhardt.

Baptiste is one hero that needed nerfs again. His Immortality Field is still an imbalanced ability, but what needed tuning was his primary and secondary fire. The damage output on his primary compared to a DPS hero. Healing on his secondary fire is imbalanced when you look at other supports, it healed a lot plus AOE. Players are still going to see Baptiste picked. The difference is now that he is heading towards being a situational pick.

A+ Patch

The Overwatch team did it again in this patch, where the game needs to be more balanced to mitigate any shield use. Currently, we are starting to see other heroes get played like Soldier: 76, Ana, and D.Va. The question is, what kind of meta are we going to see soon. We could see hitscan or another version of dive. Time will only tell what this game is going to be, but it is heading towards a good state.