Zarya, Widowmaker, and more saw balance changes with the Summer Games

UPDATE: As of August 9th, with the Summer Games patch, these changes are now active on live servers.

The Overwatch PTR has been updated with some interesting hero changes and quality of life fixes. For one, Zenyatta, Lucio, and Moira all call out when they’re under attack, just like Mercy. That should help the selfish Genji on your team remember that you need a hand! The Hero Gallery is getting an option to check new unlockable content, and Looking For Group settings are getting a little stickier — they will now be saved after changing filters on the Looking For Group browse screen.

There’re also updates to RIP-Tire, Rocket Barrage, Whole Hog, Transcendence, Dragonblade, and Primal Rage. These long ultimates will now restore ammunition, meaning that you’re not locked out of your standard damage rotation after popping an ult. This is a small change that should lead to some neat offensive plays.

The recently announced changes to the support class are all included in this PTR patch, but there are some unexpected tweaks to heroes in other parts of the roster.

First up is a pretty big change to Zarya, who will now be able to ult more often, but with a smaller pull of gravity.

Zarya

Energy

Drain rate reduced from 2 per second to 1.6 per second

Graviton Surge

Radius reduced from 8 to 6 meters

Developer Comments: With the reduced Energy drain rate, Zarya should be at higher energy on average resulting in more overall damage and quicker ultimate charge times. We’ve also decreased the wide area of Graviton Surge, so players are more able to aid allies without being pulled in as well.

Zarya’s Graviton Surge has been integral to a lot of devastating compositions, and drawing the enemy team in makes heroes like Hanzo a lot stronger. It’ll be interesting to see how these changes affect Zarya’s ability to wombo combo with her allies.

Doomfist

Rocket Punch

No longer impacts Symmetra’s teleporter

Now destroys Symmetra’s sentry turrets without stopping his movement

Developer Comments: These changes are just quality of life improvements for how Doomfist interacts with Symmetra’s placeables.

Doomfist will be able to navigate around Symmetra’s various constructions a little easier. She won’t be able to dodge him around teleporters, and he can quickly clean up some low hanging turrets.

Reinhardt

Barrier Field

Decorative insignia no longer protrudes from the shield’s surface

Developer Comments: By smoothing out Reinhardt Barrier Field, he will be able to consistently block enemy abilities and projectiles (e.g. Junkrat’s grenades).

Reinhardt’s shield is also getting a small quality of life change, which should make it more consistent and easier to understand.

The snipers of the cast are getting some hits to their mobility. They’ll still be able to zip around, but catching them should be a little bit easier.

Widowmaker

Grappling Hook

Cooldown increased from 8 seconds to 10 seconds

Developer Comments: The increased cooldown will slightly reduce the frequency that Widowmaker can reposition herself.

Hanzo

Lunge

Cooldown increased from 4 to 5 seconds

Developer Comments: Hanzo’s Lunge ability allows him to be very evasive, the increased cooldown should make him slightly easier to catch.

Meanwhile, poor Sombra’s noggin has been catching a few too many hits, so they’re trimming the hitbox size down on it.

Sombra

General

Reduced the size of Sombra’s head hit volume

Developer Comments: This is mostly a bug fix, as her head hit volume was abnormally large, especially from behind. Previously if you fired at her from behind near her upper spine, you could land a head shot. Now her head volume is much more accurate.

All PTR patches are subject to change, but we may see these fixes going live with the July 24th patch, which will bring us Hero 28: Wrecking Ball.