Overwatch's New Character Gets Her First Nerf

"Your safety is my primary concern."

By Wesley Copeland

Overwatch’s next hero, Orisa, has been nerfed for the first time ahead of a full release.

Orisa’s Fusion Driver weapon has had its magazine size lowered from 200 to 150, and her Supercharger ultimate ability – which deploys a device to increase the team’s damage output – has had its cost increased by 15 percent.

Of course, this kind of change is precisely why new Overwatch features are added to the Public Test Realm servers before release, as it gives Blizzard a much broader pool of results to work with. It's entirely possible that Orisa will return to her original state, or an entirely new one, when she hits the main game on all platforms.

Orisa isn’t the only hero getting a nerf in the next phase of public testing. Ana’s Biotic Rifle has had its damage reduced from 80 to 60, and, likewise, her Biotic Grenade has seen its impact damage reduced from 80 to 60, as well as its impact healing reduced from 100 to 50.

If those nerfs are getting you down, don’t worry, there are also some game-changing buffs on the way.

Junkrat will no longer be hurt by his own explosions. Winston’s Barrier Projector now starts its cooldown the moment its placed. The radius of the sound effect and voice-over when Sombra enters stealth has been decreased to 15 meters, and her Translocator ability cooldown is reduced from six seconds to four seconds.

Last but not least, Zenyatta’s Orb of Destruction has had its alternate fire recovery reduced from one second to 0.6, and, more importantly, his Orb of Discord can now target enemies through barriers(!).

There’s no mention of Bastion on the latest Public Test Realm update, or when he’ll be nerfed into oblivion, but Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan did recently state the following:

"We know Bastion is a big focus for everyone right now," wrote Kaplan. "[...] we'll make some changes to Bastion and put them up on the PTR this morning. We'd love to hear your feedback about those changes when they go up. I don't have details right now because we're still making the changes!"

Wesley Copeland is a freelance news writer who writes excellent bios. For more obvious statements and video game chat, you should probably follow him on Twitter.

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