EVERY TANK IS GIGA BUFFED - Overwatch 2 Season 11 Mid-Season Patch Breakdown 

“Weve been seeing a lot phara domination lately…nerf that fucking cowboy”-blizzard

Cass headshot does less damage than Pharah splash damage after 26 meter lol

Powercreep patch. My guess is given enough time dps and support will get buffed to compensate and then we'll just have the same issue again

Played a few games and things honestly didn’t feel that different tbh. Tank gaps between teams are a lot more pronounced, however. Mauga is now slightly easier to deal with as long as you LOS or block his damage during Cardiac. Tanks are easier to keep alive, but I’m not sure I have kore fun playing as or with them. Lifeweaver’s weapon swap still feels like playing with carpal tunnel. And Pharah is still a menace.

I have done like 15 games so far and it honestly is not as bad as people are saying, some may be overtuned like dva, zarya and ball and maybe Queen, but other than those it feels fine. Also orisa has definitely made a major comeback. Ram cooldown bugged and spear can headshot?

I for one welcome our new tank overlords.

People need to remember that the devs making balance changes ARE NOT the same devs making cosmetics. And those cosmetics devs also ARE NOT the ppl management positions that push for the monetization strategies in the game. Yes the shop is an issue but different people work on different parts of the game.

They cooked in the wrong kitchen and it still exploded

Thank you KarQ for being the ONLY CC to realize that Cardiac Overdrive is massively nerfed. Flats, ml7, and Emongg all overreacted like the lifesteal makes up for literally losing nearly half your mitigation uptime. Just shield or matrix for the duration and Mauga is screwed. Probably the only tank with a true counter (Winston, Doom and DVA literally shouldn't be tank fighting anyways)

Queen gets buffed just for S1 Zarya to return... Queen mains keep losing.

tbh i’m just happy to see that I should be able to carry on tank again instead of just creating space and hoping my teammates do something w it while i cower so i don’t get exploded

Community loves to complain but yall got it made with the constant updates and communication. You want true torture, look at the apex legends community.

April fools 2025 patch is HERE!!

Your thoughts at around the six minute mark sre something i really agree with. Theyve stirred the pot and gotten the tanks to be happy for now. But they need a wbole new angle. Something has to give. Id say within the constraints of 5v5, we'd probably need to net nerf all tanks and their abilities, take away the role passives(not the global heal passive), then give each tank a new ability or passive that specifically addresses their hardest counters/weaknesses. After that, you can look into nerfing back down the health changes, since tanks need to keep their relative health advantage. Then work on unkillable outliers like cassidy, sym, zen, and other "squishies" that have had their health powercrept up. Once that happens the projectile changes need to go back. Once those go back we need to address burst healing again. If burst healing is weaker, then individual burst damage and combos need nerfs. We'd also need to look at problematic support abilities at that point, like discord, rez, suzu, anti, immo field, pylon, etc. After all that, we should be closer to a place where squishies can make plays, but tanks are still the ones that dictate the approach to engagements. Tanks should get focused less since the other players can afford to worry about other threats. They should feel more capable since theyll have more expansive and well rounded kits. Dps will be able to do their thing and take duels with anyone in the lobby, including tanks in certain situations. Supports should have the ability to do more things, whether thats taking angles or just healing different targets dynamically. Supports shouldnt get bodied by easily accessible burst/spam (reward high skill burst like genji). But they shouldn't be better DPS and win every duel with a dps. In short, each role should interact with each other and their counterparts as fairly as possible, with tanks having the biggest individual impact by a small amount, followed by dps and lastly support. But supports should keep the identity of enabling much better than anyone else, followed by tanks and dps last. Overall tank stays the best role by a small amount(theres only one after all) but dps and supp have parity and arent completely overwhelmed by a tank gap. Between teams this means squishies need to worry about their enemy counterparts more than the enemy tank. This should make the tanks feel better since the whole lobby isnt looking at them. Especially combined with nerfing tank busting abilities and removing tank buster designs. Theyve already gone down the right path with armor changes in that regard. Now it's down to outliers like anti, storm arrow, and a few others.

They did those Zarya changes before and they were OP. I guarantee they'll be reverted first; she's going to be very very strong.

I imagine that there will be a GIGA hotfix after this, because some of these changes are a bit too overpowered and unnecessary.

Props for the author of the s/s. Must have taken a while to collect all this silly ow dmg data. That's ridiculous changes though. Heroes that are 10-20 are in a declining trend not the ones that are most heavily nerfed (for example a hero with 24 dmg has it worse than a hero with 16), you should check the minimum area on the 3rd chart and not the trend. The biggest nerfs are around the 20dmg mark. Heroes that do 17-25 dmg got the short end of the stick as shown in the third chart. Heroes like soldier and bastion got gutted. Sojourn crits on primary fire as well. These changes nerfed rest of dps pool that do more than 10 dmg (since the formula severely punishes heroes like tracer due to halving). Tracer still is gonna be meta not only due to her not focusing tanks as a whole but also due to the fact that every other dps got hard nerfed vs armor. Example: -A bastion bodyshot would have 20% dmg reduction bodyshot vs armor and now it has 40%. -A bastion crit that is 50 dmg without armor does 27.5dmg hs on tank with armor lol very close to his 25 base bodyshot damage on a non armored tank (bodyshot being only 15). I don't understand what sort of blizzard clown does the math, but is a bad practice to have armor use flat values instead of percentages. Obviously 5 dmg less is was less significant for a hero hitting 70 like cassidy vs a hero that does 19. This creates a balance chaos since armored tanks are heavily favored and dmg adjustments for dps to match armor changes cannot be implemented cause you know tank is not the only enemy. I think meta is gonna be either some tracer/ball dive with a dva counterpick being afk holding eternal matrix or a rush comp since all rush tanks got nice buffs. Zarya is like s1 zarya though and if it s1 all over again is gonna be super frustrating.

Zarya is disgustingly broken rn

The fact that this version of Cardiac Overdrive is more focused on Mauga is what I don´t actually like about it. When Ball got the change to his adaptive shields I welcomed it that you can share your shield with allies and Mauga had this going with his Overdrive (lifesteal and dmg reduction). But now the duration of the ability decreases that value you can get out of this ability especially if the enemy simply hides from you when you activate it and compared to for example Orisa´s Javelin Spin which also lasts only a few seconds the cooldown of Cardiac Overdrive is longer and for it being Mauga´s only tanking-ability I personally would prefer it if they would revert the change. If they want to give Mauga more survivability and not make Cardiac Overdrive too strong maybe they could decrease the lifesteal but also decrease how fast Mauga´s overhealth through his passive is reducing like they did with Doomfist in this patch.

Bob can be still melted if entire team looks at him

I don't think the patch is as bad as creators are making it out to be , just like some previous cases where a lot of drama was created with the patch notes but turned out to be fine but I do agree that this was no the correct way to address the tank issues, even if tanks are stronger it doesn't change how bad it feels to play them because of the hard counters they still have to deal with.

Rein hammer coming out on my birthday is crazy

Even a decent mauga can make overdrive work. All they have to do is hold down the shoot button and burst through DM and Rein's shield, not hard to do when he does bastion level damage and has 600 bullets, then pop it. The counterplay isn't as easy as you think. Maybe in the lower ranks but gold and up, nah that thing is still busted. The armor buffs just makes it easy for mauga to stay, good luck play hog, winston, Dva or zarya into him, lol.

The interaction between dps and healers are good. If you FFA just between dps and healers they both have almost have 50/50 chance to win or lose give or take. Now add tanks into that FFA. A tank can kill both dps and healer at the same time. If you nerf the tanks to a point that they can absorb damages but unable to return meaningful damage then the dps will have no reason to attack the tank but go after the supports.

I can't believe they put in this massive armor change at the same time as reducing the dps passive in half (just for tanks of course, because of course...) Along with giving them big damage buffs, AND more nerfs to things that deter tanks at all (like sleep dart). I predict this is going to be a miserable patch to play, AND it won't even make tank players happy, because players will have to double down on counter picking tanks immediately just to survive/have any chance of killing them.

Give Zen some love man holy shit xD

Mystary hero is now heck

I am 100% certain the Rein shield buff and the Defense Matrix buff go hand in hand with Mauga's Cardiac uptime nerf I am also 100% certain they told Cassidy to go f*** himself

overwatch players: pharah feels really bad to play against, especially when she has a mercy pocket blizzard devs: we hear you. we'll nerf genji

KarQ do u know if Wanted is okay? I’m worried cuz he hasn’t posted or streamed in so long….

You can’t fix the tank counter swap problem. Not unless all the tanks become generalists.

This patch is terrible. It is miserable playing dps and not seeing their hp go down and it is miserable as supp on not being able to do anything but heal bot tank to keep the space

Pharah is a Death Knight during WOTLK, we are going to complain but still play it 😂

Seems like a pretty mid patch tbh. I keep hearing “oh people were literally asking for this” but that’s far from the truth. A large part of the overwatch community has been very specific with their demands, and they still haven’t been met/answered. Meanwhile the cash shop grows like a tumor. I truly believe Overwatch and Blizzard as a whole have fallen from grace.

The angle tanks require to make them fun is complicated and expensive. They need core design changes, unfortunately. An ability rework here and there isn't enough. They need to accept that and start working, properly working like real devs

Most of you content creators keep saying that this is not the way to tackle the tank issue, but no one of you is actually saying what should be done. Devs definitely listen to you, so why don't openly suggest the changes that you think would better the game?

Evidently im in the minority on this one but i think they cooked here. Ive been around long enough to see the pattern that the patches people HATE with the most vigor are often the best ones long term. Basically all of the buffs are to increase the survivability and sustain of the tank so they dont blow up as fast. Isnt that what every streamer has been complaining about? I would imagine with the pharah change that theyve seen that that extra conc dmg results in too much burst but like where she is at overall.

can you confirm that bob is affected by the sleep dart nerf? I feel like the affect is attached to the sleep dart, not to the tanks role passive. Meaning bob isnt a tank, he just has the tank passive.

Rammatra transformers skin is ass. Compared to the Reinhardt skin he barely got any changes. I was about to get that bundle but then ram skin so bad

6v6 is the only answer. If tank players don’t want to be targeted the whole game there needs to be 2 of them and they should be balanced like the other 2 roles.

I always queue for all roles, which means I'm a tank main.(90-95 percent of games are tank with the rare support or maybe dps game.) I don't care what they do so long as i get closer to an even 1/3 chance of getting tank, dps or support. Since this patch i actually got 2 games of support and 1 of dps in one night. So clearly it's working from my perspective. ❤

Haven't played this patch yet but it looks like a fever dream. I'm just exicted to play dva and fly around mowing people over.

what’s the right direction for tanks?

Pharah gang, let’s go!

Sombra HS delas less damage than bodyshot...

Mauga changes are absolutely a buff Vs certain tanks Vs some tanks like Sig dva rein its a huge nerf So its just another horrible design choice that will make counter swapping more attractive a choice then it already is

I come from splatoon and overwatch has it so good balance is pretty good (like really on splatoon for like 3 years the meta did not change), the content is absolutely great and a lot of it, its cheap like comsmeticks are pretty cheap (splatoon is a paid game 60$ and you need to pay for nintendo online), the game is just great (idk what about overwatch 1 never played it)

Why the fuck do they keep nerfing Ana? She has no escape ability besides sleep.

They buff every tank just like someone had predicted for 5v5. Streamers even pro players hated this. Streamers who still play the game through out 3 years of abandonment by the Devs because they love the game. Bruh Devs wont even listen.

diamond to gold with malga and zaria pick

Cheater problem are much bigger issue than game balance imho

Nooooo my Ana DX At least give her her damage back

Devs listen to general players way too much.

Zarya buffs lol.

Ew that VIP in chat. That person has had so much drama with other people as mod in other channels and is toxic. 🤢

Zarya server admin. Pharah massively overturned. Worst patch ever.

Ya, after playing the patch I got no problem with it. First off the wait queue is still 3x longer for DPS. Those people still aren't playing tank or support so I don't feel sorry for them. I queued all classes, got support the first 2 times. I played Moira both times because the other support chose Mercy who I like to play. I killed Reinhart and Dva multiple times. Not solo but I got the kill. The third all hero's queue I got tank and chose Dva which is my main. I got my ass kicked because it was against another Dva and their team focused me. I always get stuck playing tank or support, so I got no problem with penalizing selfish DPS players.

I feel nothing has changed now as DPS and support. One drastic change is DPS queue is shorter than tank queue. The only concern is armor change, soldier, hog, orisa is not viable now.

the game is literally unplayable in this state.

where are the mercy/moira/lifeweaver buffs?!?!?!??????!!!11

Dev Team: this next balance patch will focus on buffing individual aspects of each tank to make them feel more effective instead of an overall buff *dev team does that* Community: how could they do this 😡

you frogger, flats, some Sarcastic from Jay3. The patch notes are kind of salty.

All they ask about in player surveys is your gender identity LMAOOOO

I've ended up uninstalling the game - it's no longer any fun.

Dive is gonna dominate. That's what this patch tells me honestly. Tanks are going to be unkillable if pocketed, the dev team is telling us to target the pockets.

They probably should have split this patch up and added some of this stuff already

This patch really feels awful ngl

Howdy

i got banned

Revert to S8 or 6v6. This is a horror show.

Thank god, I can finally play tank without getting absolutely blasted into nothingness.

But this is what everyone was asking for lmao it mustbe exhausting to be an ow dev. Everyone was bitching that the tank just get focused cause the team knows if they just focus the tank the team won’t be able to hold and so the tank has no fun. Now everyone has to kill everyone else before they can just shoot at the tank cause he won’t die and they won’t built ult charge… they literally gave people what they asked for. Tanks were already super strong and nobody should have been asking for buffs and the solution is NOT to add a second tank for Petes’ sakes. Tanks were too hard to balance in ow1 which is why everyone was crying for them to remove a tank and then after they removed the second tank and made the tanks stronger everyone was still complaining that they are not strong enough and so they buff them and now y’all crying that they bufffed them. Just accept nothing can make you happy. Most tank complains are literal skill issues and I say this as a tank main. I hate that they got buffed. Tanks were fine before.

Overwatch is Overcooked. I'm done with this game.

This is such a bad patch.

It's so (un)funny to me how so many tank mains are like "Blizzard made tanks 'tankier', we didn't ask for this" AND THEY ARE THE SAME PEOPLE THAT SAID TANKS ARE TOO SQUISHY AND DO NO DAMAGE. Sorry...I'm frustrated because as bad as Blizzard is, they gave you tank mains what you were throwing a tantrum on the floor for. Thanks for screwing literally ALL ROLES now.

No views or comments? KarQ fell off?

Yeah, seeing your takes on this pretty much confirm the shill in you. No way any of these buffs can seem just "pretty good" especially with the passive across the board.

Every tank got giggabuffed except ball, who was the worst before. How tf can they buff dva again after just buffing her spread give ball no dmg buff. Shameful patch