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A new update is now available on Overwatch's public test realm servers, bringing with it the promised Roadhog nerf and more.

As described by Blizzard recently, this update prevents Roadhog from pulling enemies around corners. Instead, Chain Hook pulls enemies "directly in front of Roadhog (rather than straight to him), except in cases where Roadhog drastically rotates," which should prevent players from being dumped off of cliffs. When a player is hooked, they'll be let go if they leave Roadhog's line of sight. Checks on his line of sight are now done based on Roadhog's position, rather than that of the hook itself.

According to Blizzard, "The hook should now feel more consistent for Roadhog players, but it should also feel more reasonable to his enemies, as they cannot be hooked or pulled around corners anymore."

Blizzard also nerfs D.Va to a small extent with this update. She loses 200 armor but gains 200 health, and her weapon now deals less damage. She fires more bullets per shot (11, up from 8), but each bullet does less damage (2, down from 3).

"D.Va's armor often made her feel like she had no weaknesses, even against heroes that are often effective against bigger targets (like Reaper)," the patch notes state. "The changes to her Fusion Cannons will result in a small overall decrease in damage, but they should feel more consistent now."

Two other characters also see balance tweaks. The healing boost from Ana's Biotic Grenade is now 50 percent less effective, and Sombra's Hack now takes only 0.8 seconds to complete (down from 1 second).



Another noteworthy component of the update is the addition of an emote wheel to the communication wheel. As Blizzard teased in December, this allows you to equip four emotes, sprays, and voice lines so that you're not locked into one of each per match. On PC, you'll also be able to bind specific sprays, emotes, and voice lines to keys or mouse buttons for quick and easy use.

The update also introduces some bug fixes and UI refinements, such as better calling out headshots and Ultimate abilities in the kill feed. You can see all of the changes in the patch notes at the bottom of this post.

If you own the PC version of Overwatch, you can check all of this out now on the PTR servers by selecting that version from the Region/Account drop-down menu in the Battle.net app. There's no word yet on a date for the full release on PC or consoles.

Overwatch PTR Update Patch Notes

General Updates

General

  • Emote Wheel
    • Players can now equip up to four emotes, sprays, and voice lines from within the hero gallery
    • Voice line and emote submenus can be accessed using the left and right mouse buttons from within the communication wheel
    • Players can now bind individual sprays, emotes, and voice lines to unique keys or mouse buttons
Hero Balance Updates

Ana

  • Biotic Grenade
    • Healing boost on allies has been decreased by 50 percent

Developer comments: The healing boost from Ana’s Biotic Grenade was providing too much healing, especially when used on targets with large health pools.

D.Va

  • Health increased from 200 to 400
  • Armor decreased from 400 to 200
  • Fusion Cannons
    • Bullet damage decreased from 3 to 2
    • Number of bullets per shot has been increased from 8 to 11

Developer comments: D.Va's armor often made her feel like she had no weaknesses, even against heroes that are often effective against bigger targets (like Reaper). The changes to her Fusion Cannons will result in a small overall decrease in damage, but they should feel more consistent now.

Roadhog

  • Chain Hook
    • Targets are now pulled directly in front of Roadhog (rather than straight to him), except in cases where Roadhog drastically rotates
    • Hooked targets are now released if they leave Roadhog’s line-of-sight before being pulled
    • Line-of-sight checks (which detect if targets should be initially hit by the hook) are now done from Roadhog’s position, rather than the hook’s position

Developer comments: The hook should now feel more consistent for Roadhog players, but it should also feel more reasonable to his enemies, as they cannot be hooked or pulled around corners anymore.

Sombra

  • Hack
    • The time it takes to hack a target has been decreased from 1 second to 0.8 seconds

Developer comments: Sombra often had difficulty hacking enemies, even when she surprised the target. This change should help her execute hacks more easily.

User Interface Updates

  • The "Stay as Team" button lights up when anyone on your team clicks it
Kill Feed

  • Hero ability icons are now displayed
  • Ultimate abilities are now indicated with an orange arrow
  • Headshot eliminations are now indicated with a red icon
Bug Fixes

General

  • Fixed a bug that allowed spectators to click the "Stay as Team" button after a game ended
  • Fixed a bug that caused the "Stay as Team" button to overlap with the "Back" button on the Social menu
  • Fixed a bug causing the "Mouse 4" button to execute the "Back" function during menu navigation, preventing it from being used for other features
  • Fixed a bug preventing the Social menu from correctly displaying World of Warcraft zones that have a single quotation mark in the name
  • Fixed a bug causing heroes to display a "T-pose" on the victory screen following a Mystery Heroes brawl
AI

  • Fixed a bug that prevented the Roadhog bot from grabbing enemies with his Chain Hook through a friendly Reinhardt's Barrier Field
  • Fixed a bug that allowed the Sombra bot to hack through barriers
  • Fixed a bug that made the Torbjorn bot unresponsive after placing his turret
Competitive Play

  • Fixed a bug preventing players from receiving experience points when playing offseason games
Heroes

  • Fixed a bug that would cause the cup in Ana's "Toast" victory pose to appear blurry on the right side of the screen
  • Fixed a bug causing a several visual effect issues on McCree's "Hat Trick" emote
  • Fixed a bug causing Mercy's wings to be improperly placed on her Valkyrie and Sigrún skins
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented Symmetra's Photon Barrier from playing a sound effect when destroyed
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented Widowmaker's Venom Mine from attaching to walls
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Zenyatta's Nutcracker skin from glowing when his Transcendence ultimate ability was activated
Maps

  • Fixed a bug that allowed Widowmaker to reach an unintended location on Eichenwalde
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Widowmaker to reach unintended locations on Ecopoint: Antarctica
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Sombra to reach unintended locations on Dorado
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Sombra to reach unintended locations on Watchpoint: Gibraltar
  • Fixed a bug on Oasis's garden tier where the border around the capture point inaccurately marked the bounds of the capture point
  • Fixed an issue causing texture fragmentation on the Practice Range
  • Fixed a bug preventing some projectiles from destroying the piñatas on Dorado
  • Fixed an issue preventing the glass railings on Oasis from being easily broken by a melee attack

Source: GameSpot