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The only thing inevitable about Overwatch balance patches is that Roadhog/Sombra are always prime targets for nerfs/buffs. Look no further than Overwatch Season 2's first balance pass, which sees Blizzard fiddle with both characters' stats once again.
Overwatch's retail patch notes went live last night with sweeping changes that "aim to re-adjust heroes whose win rates have fallen further than intended since the start of Season 2," according to the developers.
Among the hero tweaks are a Roadhog buff that reduces the cooldown on his hook by one second and an even thinner Sombra buff (that actually only lightens a previous nerf), reducing how much she slows down after taking damage in invisibility.
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Relatively minor changes, right? Right. But players are peeved about the fact that Roadhog and Sombra are perpetually in a state of change, and their dials are seemingly adjusted, then readjusted, then sometimes ripped off more often than any other hero.
"Maining someone like Hog or Sombra must be exhausting," the most upvoted comment in a Reddit thread about the patch reads. "Just change after change every 2 minutes." The problem's only exacerbated by Sombra's dismal pick rates (hovering around 2%) since she's usually subject to hero bans and hasn't really been viable in higher ranks for months.
While I'm not personally a Sombra main and she can, admittedly, be very annoying to play against, the hero fantasy of a stealthy hacker should inherently be at least a little annoying to play against. Avoiding a superhuman Widowmaker who can one-shot you from across the map is annoying, too, but Overwatch is partly a game about fully embracing different playstyles and stepping into the shoes of very different people. Genetically engineered snipers and invisible cyber agents are just part of that package.
Game director Aaron Keller confirmed that both Roadhog and Sombra will be reworked later this year - not for the first time - so hopefully the devs can come up with a moveset that's viable, fun, fair for enemy players, and fits into both heroes' fantasies.
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Blizzard also says it's monitoring the "mobile heroes adjusted this season to help inform the mid‑season changes" and its focus "is on ensuring heroes feel viable and fun to play both as and against, while still meeting our goal of addressing mobility." For context, Overwatch Season 2 snipped the wings of several heroes reliant on mobility earlier this month with nerfs to Mercy's Guardian Angel (the move that makes her zip to allies) and Jetpack Cat's boost, among others.
One character that hasn't been touched in this latest patch is new DPS Sierra, a character that Overwatch players slammed as OP because of her explosive ultimate ability. She still got a few buffs in a hotfix earlier this month, though.
Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.
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