Overwatch Patch Notes - Jan 24. 2016

by on Jan 25, 2017

The Year of the Rooster event, plus some much needed changes to Ana and D.Va highlight the latest patch.

Freshly reviewed and edited by Blizzard, here are yesterday's patch notes for your parsing pleasure. You may also find them on the official forums.

PATCH HIGHLIGHTS:

New Seasonal Event: Year of the Rooster

Grab your friends, family, and loved ones and get ready to ring in the Year of the Rooster.

Overwatch's Lunar New Year celebrations have begun and, for the next three weeks, we hope this seasonal event brings you happiness, prosperity, and (most importantly) lots of fun! Collect more than 100 seasonal cosmetic items from our special Lunar Loot Boxes, enjoy a festive fireworks display on Lijiang Tower, and get ready to capture the flag in Overwatch's newest brawl.
To learn more, click here.
 
GENERAL UPDATES

General
The “Stay as Team” button now lights up when anyone on your team clicks it Players can now join Team Chat from the Hero Select screen (Push “RB” on the Xbox One controller and push “R1” on the PlayStation 4 controller) Crouch now has a very small cooldown between uses
Communication Wheel Players can now equip up to 4 emotes, sprays, and voice lines from within the hero gallery Voice line and emote submenus can be accessed from within the Communication wheel Players can now bind individual sprays, emotes, and voice lines to mouse buttons, unique keys, or controller buttons
Kill Feed Hero ability icons are now displayed in the Kill Feed Headshot eliminations are now indicated with a red icon

HERO BALANCE UPDATES

Ana

Biotic Grenade Effect duration has been reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds Healing boost on allies has been decreased by 50%
Developer Comments: The healing boost from Ana’s Biotic Grenade was providing too much healing, especially when used on targets with large health pools.

D.Va Health increased from 200 to 400 Armor decreased from 400 to 200 Fusion Cannons Bullet damage decreased from 3 to 2 Number of bullets per shot has been increased from 8 to 11
Developer Comments: D.Va’s armor often made her feel like she had no weaknesses, even against heroes that are typically effective against bigger targets (like Reaper). The changes to her primary fire will result in a small overall decrease in damage, but her Fusion Cannons should feel more consistent now.

Lúcio New Hero Option: Allow Backwards Wall Ride When enabled, allows Lucio to start wall riding while moving backwards.

Roadhog Chain Hook Targets are now pulled directly in front of Roadhog (rather than straight to him), except in cases where Roadhog drastically rotates Hooked targets are now released if they leave Roadhog’s line of sight before being pulled Line of sight checks (which determines if targets are hit by the hook) are now done from Roadhog’s position, rather than the hook’s position
Developer Comments: The hook should now feel more consistent for Roadhog players, but it should also feel more reasonable to his enemies, as they cannot be hooked or pulled around corners anymore.

Sombra Hack Cooldown has been reduced from 12 seconds to 8 seconds Time it takes to hack a target has been decreased from 1 second to 0.8 seconds


Developer Comments: Sombra often had difficulty hacking enemies, even when she surprised the target. This change should help her execute hacks more easily.

BUG FIXES

General

Fixed a bug allowing spectators to utilize the “Stay as Team” button during the end of a game Fixed a bug that caused the “Stay as Team” button to overlap with the Back button on the Social menu Fixed a bug preventing the Social menu from not correctly displaying World of Warcraft zones that have an apostrophe in the name Fixed a bug causing heroes to display a T-pose on the victory screen after a Mystery Heroes brawl Fixed a bug preventing Simple Checkout from being navigated by a controller on PC Fixed a bug preventing Alt+Tab from properly minimizing the game client while in fullscreen mode Fixed a bug preventing the Kill Feed from displaying the destruction of Teleporters, Shield Generators, and Turrets AI Fixed a bug that prevented the Roadhog bot from being able to hook players through Reinhardt’s shield Fixed a bug that allowed the Sombra bot to hack through barriers Fixed a bug that made the Torbjörn bot unresponsive after placing a turret

Competitive Play

Fixed a bug preventing players from receiving XP for playing offseason games Heroes Fixed a visual bug with Ana’s “Toast” victory pose, causing her cup to appear blurry on the right side of the screen Fixed a bug causing a graphics issue with McCree’s “Hat Trick” emote Fixed a bug preventing the countdown timer from appearing on Mei’s Cryo-Freeze ability Fixed a bug with the placement of Mercy’s wings on her Valkyrie and Sigrún skins Fixed a bug preventing Symmetra’s Photon Barrier from playing its destruction sound effect when it is destroyed Fixed a bug causing Tracer’s “You Got It” voice line to play an incorrect line Fixed a bug preventing Widowmaker’s Venom Mine from attaching to walls Fixed a bug preventing Zenyatta’s Nutcracker skin from receiving a golden glow while using his Transcendence ultimate ability Maps Fixed a bug preventing Pharah from being able to refuel while standing in some planters in Oasis Fixed a bug that caused Sombra to get stuck under the bridge in Eichenwalde Fixed a bug that caused Sombra to get stuck behind rocks in Route 66 Fixed a bug that allowed Symmetra to place her Shield Generator in unintended locations in Watchpoint: Gibraltar Fixed a bug that allowed Widowmaker to perch on an unintended location in Eichenwalde Fixed a bug that allowed Widowmaker to reach unintended locations in Ecopoint: Antarctica Fixed several visual artifacts on the Practice Range Fixed a bug preventing some projectiles from destroying the piñatas in Dorado Fixed a bug with the size of the capture point on the garden tier in Oasis Fixed an issue preventing the glass railings in Oasis from being easily broken by a melee attack

 

Last Updated: Jan 25, 2017