The OverThinker: The Barrier-Killing PTR Patch

A great someone once said, "Too much of anything is a bad thing", and that's a saying we can apply to all aspects of our lives. As Overwatch players, especially, we understand this statement far too well. Too much sustain leads to a Goats Meta, too many barriers lead to a Double Barrier Meta, and so on and so forth. All things considered though, it is very tricky to balance games. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of factors to consider when you make even the slightest tweak to even a single hero's abilities, and even when you make the necessary changes, things may not always turn out as you expect. Because of this risk factor, developers first upload seemingly-positive balance changes and feature updates to the Public Test Region, also known as the PTR, where players can try these upcoming changes out and share their feedback. I'm one of these patch-testing players, and I love trying out new balance changes and trying to predict what the meta will be like if and when they get to the live servers.

That said, welcome to the third section of my blog, called 'The OverThinker', in which I will discuss game balance, PTR patches, and also try to predict the effects of such patches.

This time, as most of you may know, the PTR has got a monster of a patch, which was evidently designed to destroy the Double Barrier Meta. I'm not going to spend time describing the changes on this new patch unless I absolutely have to, but you can check the post announcing them out on the Blizzard forums. Life is hectic, and everyone's got stuff to do, so I really don't think you guys need me to repeat everything you basically already have access to, so let's jump straight to the sweet stuff and talk about the implications of this new patch.

1. Armour

This patch reverted the damage reduction value of armour back from 3 to 5. Essentially, for every unit of damage applied to armour (let's call that value D), the final damage recorded will be the greater between (D/2) and (D-5). Therefore, if D is greater than 10, its value is reduced by 5, and if it is lesser than or equal to 10, its value is halved.

With that math lesson out of the way, I can safely say that this is a massive buff to armour, considering that we have a 2-2-2 lock in place. When Goats was dominant, the devs had nerfed armour's damage reduction value from 5 to 3, but with that comp completely killed, it was necessary to make the existing tanks a little more bullet-spongey. As a result, characters like Tracer and Reaper, whose damage is applied in the form of multiple units of low-damage bullets, will find it much harder to burst down armoured targets. This is definitely a good change, since armour should feel like a powerful damage-deterrent, which it just hasn't for the past few patches. The characters that are mainly affected by this change are the 4 main tanks as well as D.Va, Torb and Brig, so if you're being bothered by pellet or tick-based damage, you should consider swapping to them.

2. Orisa

Blizzard's moves to destroy Double Barrier have been quite interesting, and they've ended up buffing Orisa by herself to a considerable extent. Sure, she has a noticeably weaker barrier now, but her individual offensive as well as defensive capabilities have been increased. She slows down less while shooting and can pop Fortify more often, meaning she's better at disengaging from fights. Even if her barrier goes down, she can protect her bunker by using Fortify and body-block damage while she gets a new barrier to deploy. That does leave lesser protection for her team, but it makes her more impactful as an individual hero rather than one part of a structured team comp. Where does that leave her in the meta then? Currently, she's already a monster, since she's an easy-to-play, high value hero. With the PTR changes, surprisingly, I think her pickrate is going to go up. I don't know about her winrate and that's not an aspect I want to comment on, but more main tank players will be inclined to pick Orisa if they want to frag out on their own or trust their own mechanics to win team fights. Over the course of her time in the game, Orisa has been paired with 3 off-tanks: Roadhog, D.Va and Sigma. I will comment on D.Va and Sigma later, since they've got their own set of changes in this patch, but when it comes to Orisa-Hog, I think they will still be a solid pair if you're going for a pick-based or barrier break comp. Considering how much weaker barriers are in this patch, Roadhog's Scrap Gun combined with Orisa's constant primary fire will be able to melt any blue, translucent projection they see on the battlefield. Also, Halt-Hook is still mega strong if executed correctly, so don't undersell that synergy just yet.

3. Sigma

The second critical contributor to the Double Barrier Meta, Sigma, has had his Experimental Barrier nerfed to a significant extent. Simultaneously though, they buffed his Kinetic Grasp, which is his disengagement tool, so that he can bail himself out of sticky situations a little more often and escape with a little more HP than before. I think this is more of a mini-rework than a nerf, which many people are deeming it to be. With Sigma's barrier nerfed, sure, Double Barrier will be weaker, but I think this reinforces the fact that Sigma is an off-tank and not a main tank more than anything else. I can't tell you how many occasions I've had on ladder where people have seen Sigma being picked and gone "Alright, so we have a main tank. How about we pick Zarya to go with him?", not recognising that the Experimental Barrier's value comes from blocking major cooldowns, quite similar to Defence Matrix, rather than from creating space, which it doesn't do very well. The live version of Sigma feels very powerful to play, and is undoubtedly impactful, but only mechanically-talented and polished players are able to make use of his kit to its full potential. With the PTR patch, I think his skill floor will increase, but his core gameplay style will remain the same. I actually think it's a slight buff, but only to players who fully understand barrier management and cooldown usage to a high level. If you're someone who deploys Sigma's barrier in one place and lets it get destroyed, you're not going to be happy, but hopefully, you'll learn to play the gravity-manipulating off-tank better and climb the ladder with him. Coming to the Orisa-Sigma tank duo, I do think Blizzard's done a good job nerfing their synergy. Double Barrier isn't completely dead, but its viability has been reduced by a massive amount. I think you'd still want to play this comp against teams with low barrier-break, or maybe Double Sniper setups, but other than that, I don't see much reason to.

4. D.Va

After a long time, I'm really happy with some D.Va patch notes. As someone with over 150 hours on the hero, I've been disappointed that she's been terrible ever since Double Barrier became a thing. With the PTR buffing her Defence Matrix cooldown by half a second, I'm sure she will see more use alongside either Winston, Orisa or Wrecking Ball. I tried out this change on the test servers, and I have to say, there was a noticeable improvement in my gameplay flow as a D.Va player. I think playing her alongside Orisa is going to be much more rewarding than it is now, especially against spam comps, since D.Va can throw out her Matrix every time Orisa's barrier is destroyed. If the DM runs out, Orisa can Fortify herself, and by the time this runs out as well, a new barrier can be up and running. It's needless to say that cooldown management will be much more valuable and trickier, so it's going to be way harder to play ranked if you're one of those players who hates joining voice chat. Unfortunate, but what can you do? Overwatch is a team game after all.

When it comes to Dive Comps i.e. Winston-D.Va or Hammond-D.Va, I do believe they will be slightly stronger as well. Winston will be able to stay in the enemy backline for longer due to his armour buff, and D.Va will find it easier to bail him out with her more-frequently-available Defence Matrix. It'll be a similar case for Hammond. However, remember that the armour buffs also mean that Winston and Hammond will be dealing way less damage, since they don't have many burst-damage options on hand. No matter what happens though, I know I'll be playing more D.Va, and I'm sure you will too if you were a D.Va enthusiast before Double Barrier became meta.

5. Reinhardt

From a ladder perspective, I think Rein is relatively well-balanced right now. Many tank players simply pick him because he's easy to get value out of, and he never seems over-oppressive. In fact, if you get to the higher levels, he seems really weak compared to Orisa, and is played way less often. With this information in mind, it's scary to think about how much stronger the PTR patch makes him, since despite having his barrier health nerfed, he's much more immune to CC, and can now walk much faster with his barrier up. This enables Reinhardt players to get to hard cover more easily when they know their barrier is about to break, and it goes without saying that engaging/disengaging will feel easier for them with his barrier walking speed buff. Also, let's not forget that he basically has a mini-Fortify on him at all times, which means the likes of Doomfist, Pharah and Lucio will be able to displace him even less than they currently do. I do believe Rein is going to reclaim his place as the top main tank pick on maps like King's Row, and Lijiang Control Centre, which are the kind of close-quarters maps he's always been great on. He will also probably see a surge in popularity on other maps with a lot of cover but not much high ground, like Anubis B or Busan Sanctuary. We all know how powerful Reinhardt is when played alongside a Zarya, so let's take a look at the Russian off-tank's changes before we see how this patch affects their synergy, if at all.

6. Zarya

In this patch, Zarya's alternate fire has been given a bigger splash radius and now consumes less ammo. With a full magazine, you will now be able to get an additional shot off with your right click compared to before, and will find it easier to deal damage with it. This is an indirect DPS buff to Zarya, and I think it's quite a good one. At high energy levels, especially, one extra shot can be the difference between finishing off a target and letting them escape, and let's not forget the extra beam time Zarya will get even after landing a hit with that projectile. So yeah, it's not an OP buff by any means, but Zarya will have more combat uptime when these changes go through.

Coming to her synergy with Reinhardt, I don't think it's going to improve all that much. Rein-Zarya works wonders because of Zarya's bubbles, and those aren't getting buffed in any manner. The PTR patch has buffed both these heroes in their own way, but doesn't improve what makes them click, and I think that's fine. The Deathball tank duo is already very powerful when run with communication, and although it may not be the go-to compositional core, players are going to feel better while running it. Probably the only improvement I see in its synergy is their ability to engage/disengage better because of Reinhardt's barrier movement speed buff, but that's about it.

7. Moira

When it comes to her healing output, Moira has always been top-notch, especially in the Double Barrier Meta. After realising how easy it was to gain value from her, the developers decided to nerf her raw healing output; so, she does less instant healing on the PTR patch. Note that the healing nerf doesn't affect the 65HP of healing-over-time that is triggered once Biotic Grasp has been used. Coincidentally, her instant healing amount has been brought down from 80HP/s to 65HP/s as well, so don't get confused between the two. Anyway, I did test Moira out on the PTR, and frankly, it doesn't feel like she does a lot less healing, which is probably because her Healing Orb is still really strong (and heals the same amount has her primary fire). I don't think the nerf will visibly affect her, but will rather sneak its way into micro-interactions, where the 80HP healing would've worked out, but the 65HP healing doesn't. Moira mains, don't worry, your hero will still be powerful against D.Va-less comps like Double Barrier, but you should probably start expanding your reach to other supports like Ana and Baptiste, who will undoubtedly see more playtime when the new patch hits the live servers.

8. Widowmaker

I'm not a very good Widow player, but I still tested her out on the PTR. 2 additional seconds on the Grappling Hook cooldown seem like a lot, but I don't believe they're going to affect our beloved French sniper in a major way. The only time I see her having trouble with this ability, or rather, the downtime of it, is when she's playing against Dive compositions, in which case she would need to reposition quite often, especially if there's not enough peel for her from her team. So yeah, Widow will still be viable when her nerf goes through.

9. Genji

6 additional Shurikens. Genji mains, what do you think of this change, because I am absolutely the wrong person to comment on its possible implications. I am not kidding guys, I am one of the worst Genjis in the world, so I cannot tell, despite playing the character on the PTR, if this change will really be impactful. If I just go by the numbers and what the dev comments say about Genji finding it harder to finish off targets, sure, I can see the reasoning behind expanding his ammo capacity. Plus, it'll make the hero more fluid to play, and considering the shabby amount of success he has had in the Double Barrier Meta, I reckon buffing him is a move worth trying out. If you are a Genji main and have any thoughts to share, I welcome them. Feel free to use the comments section down below.

10. Torbjörn

Ah, now here's a hero I can talk about. Without a doubt, Torb is one of my best DPS heroes (alongside Hanzo and Pharah), and I think I have just over 100 hours on him. On the current PTR patch, his Overload cooldown has been reduced by 2 seconds, and I'm very certain this change is not going to do a thing. Currently, a very small percentage of the player base knows how to really get value out of his kit, which is why he's barely picked at all. Granting him Overload a tad bit more often, saying that Torb doesn't do very well in extended fights, is an error in perception according to me. Considering how the developers have essentially nerfed team fight durations by nerfing barriers, it doesn't make sense to buff an already-niche character to prepare him for even more niche scenarios. That said, he is still a good hero to play alongside Orisa, and even Reinhardt at times, so don't be afraid to try him out, but just make sure you're doing your job and not just feeding.


Alright, so those were my thoughts on the Barrier-Killing PTR Patch. I can't say for sure what the meta will be like when these changes are implemented on the live servers, but it's certain that Double Barrier will be much less useful than it is now, and I'm open to seeing a new kind of Overwatch being played in the near future. I just hope that the barrier nerfs aren't too strong, and that having a barrier tank still means something in the live game when these changes go through.
That's enough from me, but what about you? What have you observed from your time on the PTR? Do you agree with me, or think I'm going wrong in some of my judgments? Do let me know in the comments below, subscribe to this blog to get notified about future posts, and share this one around with other Overwatch players to loop them in. I thank you for the read, and hope to see you return for my next post.

Ciao!