Fans: “BUFF ANA! NERF MCCREE (AGAIN)!” Blizzard: “OK.” McCree: “Does this mean it is no longer high noon?”
People asked, and Blizzard delivered. The latest Overwatch PC patch makes some slight alterations to Ana and McCree that will (hopefully) put them back in line with people’s expectations. Here are the relevant bits of the patch notes:
Ana
Biotic Rifle
-Rate of fire increased by 20%
-Magazine size increased from 8 to 10
Developer Comments: While Ana has been very well received, she was showing to be a little bit weaker overall. In addition to helping her feel better to play, these changes should also increase her healing and damage output.
McCree
Peacemaker
Primary Fire
-Damage falloff range decreased by 10 meters
-Damage falloff amount is unchanged
-As a result, even with this change, McCree’s effective range is still higher than it was at launch
Alternate Fire
-Rate of fire increased by 15%
Flashbang
-Recovery time (i.e. the amount of time before McCree can fire again) decreased from 0.5 seconds to 0.35 seconds
Developer Comments: McCree’s latest range increase helped him quite a bit, but it was a bit too much in the right hands. This change weakens his long range damage somewhat, but still keeps it stronger than it has been in the recent past. The other changes combine to allow him to land more alternate fire shots on targets that he has hit with Flashbang.
Also worth noting: you no longer instantly recover from Ana’s sleep darts after taking damage. There’s now a 0.5 second recovery time.
Taken at face value, these seem like smart, needed changes. Much as I love playing as Ana, she—unlike other healers—has to reload. Over time, this can cause a pretty steep drop-off in her healing compared to folks like Mercy and Lucio. McCree, meanwhile, found a new way to be (slightly) OP after the big patch that introduced Ana, but it seems like Blizzard’s yanked him back down to this mortal cowboy plane.
What do you think? Are there any other big balance changes you feel like Blizzard needs to be making?