The Summer Games have returned for more fun in the sun! Summer loot boxes are back, with a whole host of new skins and other cosmetics to unlock! Blizzard has added a new button to the hero gallery where you can search directly through all newly-added content.
Skins
Tre Kronor
Éireannach
Mexicana
Cabana
Waveracer
Gridironheart
Lacrosse
Catcher
Fastball
Victory Poses
Highlight Intros
Emote
Lúcio’s legendary “Dance Party” emote from the Twitch All-Access pass has also been added to the in-game unlock system. Unlike all other emotes, this one costs 300 Overwatch League tokens to unlock.
Speaking of competitive, the “What’s New” button isn’t the only UI change to Overwatch. The tab dedicated to League skins has been completely redone, and all unlocked League skins will show the city when viewed in the Hero Gallery.
And of course, Lúcioball is back! The new map, Busan Stadium, is set in DVa’s homeland, South Korea, and features a new Korean-speaking announcer. The gameplay itself seems largely unchanged, though the jump pads are now green instead of yellow. I also noticed that you can endorse other players, even though Arcade modes usually don’t include endorsements. Since there are only two players on your team, solo-queueing into Lúcioball is probably the fastest way to gain a lot of endorsements now.
You can also earn competitive points in the newest Copa Lúcioball. Last year’s competitive event is back, with all the same competitive rankings and rewards.
But we’re not done yet! Blizzard also rolled out a large collection of buffs, nerfs, and tweaks to various heroes.
- Genji, Junkrat, Pharah, Roadhog, Zenyatta, and Winston are now automatically reloaded at the end of an Ultimate. This feels fair to me since it allows these heroes to worry less about their clip size when the right moment to Ult presents itself.
- Ana’s nanoboost now instantly heals the target for 300 health, and its range has been increased from 30 to 40 meters. I can always appreciate Ana buffs, and her Ultimate did always feel weird because it’s the only support Ult that didn’t heal or shield.
- Brigitte’s shield bash is now on a 7-second cooldown instead of 6, and she can adjust her repair pack’s sensitivity in the options menu. I am overjoyed at that second part, since my repair packs will finally go to my intended target. I swear–right now if there is a Roadhog anywhere on the map, my repair pack will find him regardless of who I was aiming for.
- Doomfist’s Rocket Punch no longer impacts Symmetra’s teleporter, and destroys her turrets without stopping his movement. Blizzard notes these are “quality of life” improvements, and that sounds fair to me.
- Hanzo’s lunge cooldown was increased from 4 to 5 seconds. Fair enough, any Hanzo nerf is a welcome one. Wish they’d looked at Storm arrows instead though.
- Lúcio’s aura radius was increased from 10 to 12 meters, and his Ultimate now grants 750 shields instead of 500. I’m definitely biased as a Lúcio main, but I love these changes. They make him feel a bit more like old Lúcio, and his Ultimate is now slightly more effective against Rip-Tires and DVa bombs.
- Mercy’s Caduceus Staff’s healing has been reduced from 60/second to 50/second. Considering she retains the most consistent healing rate of any support character, and remains the only character who can resurrect allies, I doubt this is going to affect her place in the meta.
- Moira’s passive energy regeneration rate has been slightly increased from 2/second to 2.4/second. I played a few Competitive matches as Moira today and couldn’t feel any difference, but I’m not against making it easier for her to heal.
- Symmetra’s primary fire had its range increased from 10 to 12. I’ll be interested to see how this pans out, as the range was previously Symmetra’s main downside.
- Widowmaker’s grappling hook had its cooldown increased from 8 to 10 seconds. Blizzard notes that this “allows her to be threatened more easily by agile enemy heroes such as Winston and Genji,” which might help cut down on the current “sniper vs. sniper” meta.
- Zarya’s energy now drains slower, 1.6 energy per second instead of 2 per second. Her Ultimate also had its radius reduced from 8 to 6 meters. Personally, I suspect this is because she and Hanzo have been comboing Ultimates to dominate the current meta, but I’ve always blamed Hanzo for that over Zarya.
- Reinhardt’s barrier had its hitbox smoothed out; some of the decorative insignias were allowing enemy projectiles to slip through.
- Sombra’s head’s hitbox was reduced, as it was treating her upper back and neck as headshots.
These last two sound more like bug fixes than hero adjustments, but Blizzard actually has a whole separate list of bugs they patched this update. The whole list can be found at the end of these patch notes. Notably, Competitive Mode will no longer subtract endorsement levels for leaving a game during the grace period after two minutes have passed since a player abandoning. Numerous Reddit threads have complained about that, and it was an unfair downside when the system was telling you it’s okay to leave.
And finally, the most important part of the entire update: The Practice Range training bots will now wave back when you say hi!
That’s quite a list of new content. So what are you waiting for? Go have fun in the sun with your favorite heroes!
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