Every Overwatch 2 player has opinions about balance changes and reworks for their favorite heroes. Sometimes they’re impractical power fantasies to make their main more powerful, but other times, there are some real thoughtful ideas floating around forums and social media. Blizzard gave a handful of creators a chance to rework characters for a one-off arcade mode in its eleventh season, and some of the changes are so good fans want them implemented into the main Overwatch 2 balance patches.
The Community Crafted mode is available in the Arcade menu and allows you to play as retooled heroes with new kits designed by Overwatch 2 content creators. Emongg, Custa, TQQ, and Eskay all made design suggestions for every hero, with each focusing on specific roles. Emongg handled tanks, Custa and TQQ divided damage heroes by projectile and hitscan kits, and Eskay rounded things out for support heroes. The mode is available to play from June 20 to July 8, and while Blizzard describes it as “wacky” and “chaotic,” some of the changes are a net gain for their respective heroes.
Some of the changes, as laid out here on the Overwatch subreddit, are shifting numbers around like increasing or decreasing damage output, but a fair amount of them completely change the utility for characters. Orisa gets back her crowd control Halt ability from the original Overwatch, Mei gets some increased mobility when she sprays the ground with her cryo weapon like she’s skating on the ice, and Mercy’s revive now only brings an ally back for a limited time. Some of these are silly, but hidden between the excess are some pretty solid ideas.
One of the standouts is Eskay’s take on Brigitte which specifically affects her Inspire ability, a passive healing ability triggered when she does damage to an enemy. So if she’s swinging her flail or hitting a foe with her shield, she will heal her teammates if they’re within a certain range of her. However, Inspire has always been a pretty difficult ability to read on the field. A yellow pulse emits from Brigitte when Inspire is proc’d, but the actual effect extends much further than the visual indicator and lasts longer than when it appears. Some people don’t even realize Brig can heal this way because it’s so discreet. To help with this, Eskay had Blizzard add an icon that shows Brigitte’s portrait next to an ally’s health bar on their HUD similar to how Mercy’s does when she’s actively healing you with her staff. This way, Brig’s teammates can tell when they’re in range of healing and comfortably help her push through enemy forces. It’s such a good quality-of-life change that I’d be surprised if Blizzard doesn’t implement it in a future patch, and fans seem to agree.
“Eskay needs to be a dev on the balance team,” @mysticscouter said on TikTok. @Hogonetrick said on YouTube, “That Inspire life change should be in the [actual] game [rather] than a fun game mode.”
“Some are wild and wacky while others I think were genuine nudges in what they think would be good for the hero. Like Brig Inspire icon or LW weapon switch speed,” CosmiqCowboy said on Reddit. “I’d love for Blizzard to implement it as someone in lower ranks where people think Brig only heals with the packs […] I thought the same for like 2 or 4 hours of first playing her.”
Not every change was met with universal approval, such as Junkrat’s ultimate losing direct player control, but the original intent of the mode was to create something silly, so none of these needed to be popular. But I do applaud these folks for using this opportunity to make some light suggestions to help improve the game for fans to rally (no pun intended) behind.
Overwatch 2’s eleventh season began on June 20, and its big headlining additions include a new Push map, a Power Rangers-esque battle pass theme, and the return of the Pink Mercy skin to benefit breast cancer research.
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