Blizzard just made it easier for every role to be more self-sufficient in Season 9
With Season 9 launching on February 20th, major changes are being added to the popular multiplayer hero-shooter game. And notably the most important change that’s coming to the season is the ability for Tanks and DPS to heal over time.
Self-Healing Passive:
Have you ever played as a healer, and your Genji started spamming ‘I need healing’? We’ve all been there and the following update will hopefully change the circumstances. That being said, the rate of healing will be considerably lower than the amount that support characters currently have in the game (15 HP per second). The healing rate for Tanks and DPS are currently unknown, but estimates would say around 7-8 HP per second.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment
This is a great initiative to change the balance, as this means a lot less pressure will fall on the shoulders of support players, who arguably have the most tantamount role of keeping their whole team alive and kicking. DPS players can be more aggressive and fall back accordingly to heal by themselves instead of relying entirely on their Kiriko or Pocket Mercy to get them back in the fight, and support characters won’t have to hyperfocus all their healing resources on the single tank in the team.
“One of the biggest values of the team is to improve Overwatch’s individual and team focused gameplay to meet the needs of our core audience.” Overwatch game director Aaron Keller explained in the Director’s Take. With the aforementioned changes, it should hopefully motivate players into changing their approach in fights and working like a team as whole.
Other changes coming to Season 9:
Source: Blizzard Entertainment
Of course, this isn’t the only change Blizzard plan on bringing to the table with the upcoming season. In fact, the new mode ‘Quick Play Hacked’ was essentially a test run for the game devs over at Blizzard to check how well new features do in the matches themselves. Director Aaron Keller mentioned the possible addition of ‘Party Frames’, which are on-screen health indicators on the top-left side of the screen, as shown in the image above. This would be a welcome addition, as it’ll become much more convenient for support players to take a quick glance at their screen to make themselves aware of the condition of their entire team.
Other changes include a complete overhaul on the ranking system for Overwatch’s competitive mode. In short, it will remove the requirement of winning 5 matches to rank up and to show rank updates. Not to mention, they’re also adding another rank above Grandmaster known as ‘Ultimate’ along with the addition of Emerald Weapons as a new form of competitive rewards.
This concludes the end of the article, and we’re hoping these changes will bring a positive impact in the upcoming season of Overwatch 2. More of these changes will be discussed in detail after the season rolls out so keep an eye out!