From the scrapes of Project Titan to the glory of Overwatch, Blizzard’s development Team 4 have continued to be one of the most creative and open minded teams in games today. This past few

weeks has been nothing short of absolute insanity when it comes to Overwatch’s Player Test Realm (PTR), with new content being added seemingly every other week. Let’s take a look at 15 quick thoughts and questions leading into a new patch and the beginning of Season 6 of Overwatch’s competitive play.

— Finally, one-half of the Junkers’ duo is seeing some love. With Junkrat’s recent extra charge of Concussion Mine will he influence the metagame too much? The 120 damage ability has been hotly contested as one of the changes many pro-players and pundits have been skeptical about. He may be able to create too much space, both metaphorically and physically, for close knit death-ball compositions to defend against any and all dive attempts.

— Here is a quick trivia fact for you: oddly enough on the new map Chateau Guillard (FFA only), Junkrat can kill his own Steel Traps with Concussion Mine. So, when you are playing Deathmatch, keep that in mind so you don’t sabotage your own plans. (credit to @MoiraiOW for the detective work)

— Another worry that I’ve seen pop up quite frequently is the burst potential versus low-health assassins’ like Tracer and Genji. Any form of residual damage on these 200 hp targets and they could easily get cleaned up fairly quickly. If this was to be the case, would this bring us back to a tank focused metagame?

— With the added movement speed to Junkrat’s ultimate, Rip Tire, could we see him potentially outside of Assault defense and Hybrid defense? Seeing how when he did see some play, that was the role he succeeded at, I would say it is unlikely, but anything is possible if the metagame changes completely. The sky's the limit!

“Listen old buddy, our changes are going to be - explosive”

— The second, larger, of the two Junker duos, got his own big changes as well. Roadhog now can use his self-healing ability, Take a Breather, while moving and will take 50% reduced damage while the ability channels. While he will feed a bit more ultimate charge to a majority of the DPS cast, he now can go wherever Roadhog pleases. Something a friend mentioned to me was that he felt the new Roadhog changes we’re very “Olaf-like”. Olaf, for those who are not familiar with League of Legends, is a barbarian whose ultimate ability allows him to quickly roam around unstoppable. With this change paired together with the constant Roadhog changes from the past, can his alternate fire (right click) become something that brings players back to him? The skill ceiling is a little strange, but the damage potential is there. We just need someone to master the all powerful right click.

— Another controversial hero that has been slightly tweaked his Doomfist. In the most recent PTR update, his hit box on Rocket Punch has been tightened up. This should be a sleek and needed change. His ability to dive into a team and plow through its defenses is incredibly strong. With the new changes, you are still rewarded for great accuracy with Rocket Punch but are a bit more responsible if you miss your mark.

— One thing that has me worried about Doomfist as a character is Roadhog, oddly enough. Both started their in-game careers’ with incredible strong kits, and both have seen polarizing community feedback. I’d hope that we won’t see Doomfist end up like Roadhog has, having multiple iterations that change some of his core mechanics and slowly has mutated him in an odd way. Will he drift into the “Roadhog territory” where he no change is ever enough? Was Doomfist’s design too powerful to begin with?

— The more things are changed in a perceived better fashion while also being good changes, helps to push heroes into the limelight. When we think something is better—when it actually is— people tend to think on it more favorably. This is the same mindset Blizzard is taking with Orisa. In the most recent patch, she has received 20% increase projectile speed on her Fusion Driver while also gaining an increase in size (20%) and a change in shape to her Protective Barrier.

— With these changes along with Doomfist being incredibly popular at the moment, she could see some creative uses. While under her Fortify ability, Orisa takes 50% less damage and cannot be displaced by Doomfist’s Rocket Punch. Imagine Orissa becoming a figurative “line-woman” and literally using her body to protect against an incoming Rocket Punch. All pipe dreams aside, I would, however, love to see Orisa get the same treatment Mercy has on the PTR. Some significant changes are in order for her to really see much use. I hope I am wrong.

— Speaking of Mercy, she is undergoing a complete overall on the PTR at the moment. I will dodge specifics as things are not completely done in terms of tweaking, but these are big changes. Her Resurrection is now a base ability (E) and now only resurrects one target. That being said, her new ultimate, Valkyrie, remedy this by reducing the cooldown on Resurrection while also boosting her flight speed during Guardian Angel. This also affects her passive regeneration allowing her to self-regenerate incredibly fast, but again, things are subject to change.  Also, she can fly.

— Another change I would love to see follows the same logic around Mercy’s changes, but with Widowmaker. According to Winston’s Lab, Widowmaker has the most efficient ultimate, across all of Overwatch. Could we see her current ultimate baked into her Venom Mine, allowing her team to see everyone affected by the damage over-time effect and just give her a new ultimate? Perhaps giving her an ultimate that gave her a faster charge time while using her scope or maybe just giving her an ultimate that allows her to climb and cling to walls like a spider? Who knows really, just an interesting idea.

— Next on our list is D.Va. She recently has seen some tweaking as well with Defense Matrix being heavily reduced in duration. To compensate, Blizzard has added a new ability to her kit similar to Pharah’s Rocket Barrage, but on a smaller scale. This gives her another ability that gives her a surprising amount of burst damage potential. This also comes with the fact that D.Va now can shoot while using her Boosters. With having more damage uptime, overall with her Fusion Cannons and her new Micro Missles, we cannot forget that she’ll now have more ultimates on average. Will this be healthy for game modes like Assault where stalling is the name of the game? Time will certainly tell.

— While D.Va did receive new toys and tweaks, she did receive some significant changes to her Defense Matrix. Currently on the PTR, and again things are subject to change, D.Va’s Defense Matrix depletes its resources twice as fast. Gone are the days that D.Va can blanket her team and the enemy team with her Defense Matrix. She will be able to still block and defend against many ultimates and abilities, but just with less time and resources to do so. This is something that has been debated for a long time now and it’s nice that Blizzard has heard and answered many peoples' calls for change.

— Widowmaker has also received some changes this go around. Her Venom Mine now grants vision through walls, but only to Widowmaker and Grappling Hook has come down from a 12-second cooldown to 8. This changes could see her be used much more heavily on maps like King’s Row, Lunar Colony, and Hanamura. In particular, this also adds more pressure to Temple of Anubis where Widowmaker has seen a large amount of play time. Her added mobility allows her to traverse and better defend herself against dive, while the Venom Mine changes give her sight lines an added bonus along with more information.

— Overall, Blizzard has finally found their balance on the tightrope of gameplay changes when it comes to Overwatch. Could we see characters like Torbjorn or Mei be next on this rework list? Giving Molten Core a passive and marginal ‘armor’ aura akin to Devotion Aura in Warcraft 3 could be very interesting. As with Mei, I’m still not too sure how you could give her more tools without making her completely overpowered. The Ice Wall is very touchy, so maybe reallocating some power from that ability and adding it else where could be an interesting start. All in all, things are looking up across the board for competitive Overwatch as well as Overwatch esports.

Joseph “Volamel” Franco has followed esports since the MLG’s of 2006. He started out primarily following Starcraft 2, Halo 3, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. He has transitioned from viewer to journalist and writes freelance primarily about Overwatch and League of Legends. If you would like to know more or follow his thoughts on esports you can follow him at @Volamel.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.