Overwatch Patch 1.44 brings with it the Chinese New Year event (Year of the Rat) but also balance changes for several heroes — with the idea to weaken again the Double Shield composition.
Overwatch Retail Patch Notes — January 16, 2020
Lunar New Year 2020
Get ready to celebrate the Year of the Rat!
This year, we’re celebrating Lunar New Year with new seasonal items including legendary skins like Face Changer Sombra, Mask Dancer Moira, Samul Nori Lúcio, and Opera Brigitte. Experience the third competitive season of our Capture the Flag mode, in addition to a brand new game mode called Blitz CTF.
Feature Update: Party Flex for Role Queue
Unsure of which role you want to play? Now, party members who queue for any game mode with Role Queue enabled can select multiple roles, indicating what they're willing to play in the next game.
Your other party members' role choices and Competitive Play skill ratings may affect which roles you are eligible to choose, or which role you can play. For example, if you selected all three roles (Tank, Damage, Healing) to indicate your willingness to play any of them, and then two other party members choose Support, you will not get to play Support in the next game.
Hero Updates
• Boosters cooldown decreased from 5 to 3 seconds.
Developer Comment: The lower cooldown on her mobility will enable D.Va to more readily swap between playing offensively and defensively.
• Immortality Field maximum duration reduced from 8 to 5 seconds.
• Immortality Field Cooldown increased from 20 to 25 seconds.
• Amplification Matrix Ultimate cost increased by 20%.
Developer Comment: Immortality Field ended up being too powerful when placed in locations that were safe from enemy fire, such as around corners. Reducing its uptime will help address this case while remaining strong at saving teammates out in the open.
• Endothermic Blaster slowing effect now reduces enemy movement speed from 20-70%, down from 30-90%.
• Slowing effect duration reduced from 1.5 to 1.0 second.
Developer Comment: The slowing effect of Mei's primary fire can sometimes feel too difficult to escape. Lowering the amount it slows by and the duration it lasts for will make it easier to react to. The time required to completely freeze a target remains the same.
• Fortify damage reduction reduced from 50% to 40%.
Developer Comment: Orisa has been a little too difficult to deal with while Fortify is active, so we're reducing the amount of damage reduction to give enemies more effective damage during this time.
• Storm Bow (Primary Fire) maximum projectile speed reduced from 125 to 110.
Developer Comment: The increased projectile speed Hanzo received in his rework ended up making his arrows too good at longer ranges. Decreasing the speed will reduce his sniping capability while still keeping him strong at mid-range.
• Rising Uppercut recovery time increased from 0.2 to 0.35 seconds.
Developer Comment: Rising Uppercut followed immediately by his primary fire is a little too effective of a combo on its own, so we're increasing the time enemies have to react to it.
Custom Game Options
The Lobby section of Custom Game Settings has a new option “Data Center Preference”. This option provides the game creator with more control over where the game will be hosted. The default “Best Available” choice automatically provides the creator with the best quality connection available to them. We only suggest choosing a specific datacenter if no single datacenter can simultaneously provide the best connection to all players. This is usually only the case when the players participating in the custom game are located in different geographic regions of the world.
Spectate and Replay Updates
- Added a new hotkey, "Spectate toggle 3P camera side", which changes the shoulder you're looking over for the player you're spectating while using the simple third-person spectator camera option.
- Added a new hotkey, "Toggle normal / simple 3P spectator camera", which toggles between the two third-person camera modes while spectating.
- Updated the death camera to quickly shift from where you were looking to where your killer is, to make it easier to see if you were killed by someone behind you or to your side.
- Updated the simple third-person spectator camera position for several heroes to have them cover less of the screen.
- Fixed an issue that caused zooming in and out while in the simple third-person camera to appear choppy.
- Transitioning into or out of first person no longer causes the camera to clip inside the hero's head.
- Fixed several camera smoothness and popping issues.
With an earlier start than usual, Overwatch kicks off the Chinese New Year festivities! Read all about the Year of the Rat event taking place from January 16 to February 5 in this article.
