Overwatch’s next update will remind you to fear the Reaper

It’s been roughly a year since Overwatch launched and I swear Gavin has somehow managed to break the space and time continuum by playing a decade’s worth of the game since then. Man loves him some Overwatch. Anyhoo! A year later and Overwatch is stronger than ever. Blizzard’s team-based shooter where NOBODY ESCORTS THE DAMN PAYLOAD ON MY SIDE has been a platform for cha-cha-changes. If one character gets a tweak, another gets a nerf and on it goes

The next update for Overwatch happens to have McCree, Roadhog and Reaper locked in for a well-deserved update. Reaper is getting the best tweak ever on the PC exclusive PTR to his offense-heavy style of play, as he’ll be cycling in a bit of healing with his Reaping ability that allows him to turn 20 percent of his damage done to other heroes back into health points as the mechanic now ditches health orbs entirely.

“Reaper’s old healing passive was useful if you could kill a bunch of enemies in a row,” Blizzard Entertainment’s patch notes read.

But since enemies needed to be dead for it to work, it wasn’t very helpful unless the situation was already in your favour. His new passive lets him get immediate benefit from it, especially when fighting Tank heroes, which tend to be larger targets that deal lower damage.

Considering how Reaper and his infinite supply of shotguns happen to be one of my favourite characters in Overwatch, that’s news of the most delightful variety. It’ll hopefully give the pesky phantasm the edge he needs when the changes cycle onto console and PC properly. Also on the tweak block is McCree’s Deadeye skill is now that little bit quicker, locking on after 0.2 seconds instead of 0.8 seconds and quadrupling the damage done in that first second.

“McCree’s ultimate can deal a lot of damage if it has a lot of time to build up, but it was often too difficult to get even a small amount of damage out before being stopped or killed. These changes make it more flexible and powerful,” Blizzard explained. Last on the list is Roadhog, who will now be that little bit more difficult to land headshots on as his hitbox has been redeuced by 20% around the noggin.

Roadhog’s Scrap Gun gets a nerf and two tweaks in exchange for this. His weapon will do 33% less damage, but the fire rate has been increased by 30% and he gets an extra round in his clip. “Roadhog’s head was abnormally large compared to similarly-sized characters, so we’re reducing its size to increase his survivability,” Blizzard said.

The Scrap Gun changes reduce the power of his hook combo and alternate fire burst damage potential while still keeping his DPS roughly the same.

You should see these changes soon enough on console and regular PC. Changes that’ll have me rocking some Reaper action again. I’VE GOT YOU IN MY SIGHTS.

Last Updated: June 1, 2017