Overwatch Update Lets PTR Users Play as Moira, Tweaks Hero Balance & More

A new Overwatch update is in progress, and is currently available to be tried out on the Public Test Region.

The new update brings a brand new hero, Moira. Moira is a support character, allowing her to heal allies or drain an enemy’s life.

In addition to a new hero, Blizzard have worked on balancing other heroes, including Ana and Mercy. As well as balancing tweaks, several bugs have been worked on, including flying objects.

For the full list of patch notes see below:

New Hero: Moira (Support)

Wielding both regenerative and degenerative technologies at her fingertips, Moira O’Deorain is Talon’s ambitious geneticist who seeks to rewrite the building blocks of humanity by any means necessary.

Moira’s cutting-edge capabilities make her a mobile healer and damage dealer capable of adapting to any situation. Her main attack is Biotic Grasp, which she can use to either heal allies or sap an enemy’s life force. Biotic Grasp’s primary fire sprays a cone of energy that heals all teammates within range, draining biotic energy while active, which will replenish slowly over time. Her alternate fire is a beam that tethers to the closest enemy, dealing damage and siphoning health. Draining her foes’ health regenerates Moira’s biotic energy even faster, allowing more healing for her allies.

Her Biotic Orb ability launches a sphere of energy that bounces around the battlefield, healing nearby allies or damaging enemies until it dissipates. Fade enables Moira to disappear out of sight and into the shadows, granting her a sprint and making her invulnerable for its duration. When Moira’s ultimate is ready to be unleashed, she can cast Coalescence—a powerful, long-range beam of chaotic energy that pierces through barriers to heal allies or damage enemies in its path.

HERO UPDATES

Ana

  • Biotic Rifle
    • Damage increased from 60 to 70

Developer Comment: Ana has been outshined by other support heroes lately. Boosting her damage will help her defend herself and make her more threatening to the enemy team.

Mercy

  • Resurrect
    • Cast time increased from 0 seconds to 1.75 seconds
    • Mercy’s movement speed is now reduced by 75% while casting
    • Can now be interrupted when Mercy is knocked back, stunned, or hacked
  • Valkyrie
    • When activated, Resurrection no longer has a cast time
    • While active, casting Resurrect does not reduce Mercy’s movement speed

Developer Comment: We feel that Mercy’s recent rework has been successful, but her Resurrect ability still feels too strong and frustrating to play against. Now that it has a cast time, there is more room for enemies to counter the ability. However, casting Resurrect happens instantly when Valkyrie is active. This should make her feel powerful when she transforms on the battlefield.

BUG FIXES

General

  • Fixed several issues that prevented the announcer voice lines from playing correctly in Competitive, Elimination, and Capture the Flag game modes
  • Fixed a bug that caused the announcer’s “player eliminated” voice line to play for the eliminated player
  • Fixed a bug that caused the announcer’s attack and defense voice lines to play for the incorrect team
  • Fixed a bug that prevented players from progressing past the Helix Rocket demonstration in the tutorial

A.I.

  • Fixed an issue that affected the Bastion Bot’s movement when defending Objective A on Eichenwalde
  • Fixed a bug that prevented bots from defending Objective A on certain maps

Heroes

  • Fixed an issue that prevented Junkrat’s RIP-Tire from casting properly while jumping
  • Fixed an issue causing Roadhog’s Chain Hook to latch on to enemy players for longer than intended
  • Fixed an issue that made Roadhog’s Chain Hook appear to come from off screen

Maps

  • Fixed a bug that caused some objects to uncharacteristically fly across the room when shot on Horizon Lunar Colony

Will you be testing out the new hero? Let us know below.

In other updates news, a new patch for WWE 2K18 is rolling out, a new Xbox One update is now available to Alpha Ring Insider members, and a Destiny 2 hotfix addresses the “hitching issues” caused by the previous update.

Source: Overwatch

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