Overwatch patch 1.10 is now live. It brings massive changes to Lucio, as well as the long-awaited fixes for ‘2CP’ assault maps that have proven so difficult for the competitive scene. There’s also the usual round of bug fixes and minor tweaks. See it all below.
For future Overwatch updates, check our complete list of planned features.
Overwatch Patch 1.10 Release Date
The 1.10 patch went live tonight along with the new Uprising event. Read all about the event at that link.
Overwatch Patch 1.10 Hero Balance Changes
Lúcio –changed
- Sonic Amplifier (Primary Weapon)
- Damage increased by 25%
- Projectile speed increased from 40 to 50
- Alternate fire now considers vertical orientation when knocking targets back
- Crossfade (Shift/Passive)
- Song’s area-of-effect radius decreased from 30 meters to 10 meters
- Heal Song (Passive)
- Healing-per-second has been increased by 30% (also applies to Lúcio’s Amp It Up ability)
- Self-healing has been reduced by 25%
- Wall Ride (Passive)
- Movement speed increased by 20% when wall riding
- Lúcio now receives a burst of speed when leaping off a wall
Developer comments:“Lucio has often felt like a must-pick due to his raw healing output and the versatility of providing a speed bonus to your entire team. The goal of these changes is to keep those elements feeling strong, but making them harder to apply to everyone on your team at all times.
“The end result is that he should feel stronger with teams that he can stay close to but not as strong when on teams with heroes that are often spread out (such as Pharah, Widow, Genji, etc). Much of Lucio’s character power was tied up in his large passive auras, which caused other elements of his kit to be weakened over time in an attempt to balance him. Now that his auras are more focused it will allow them to be much stronger and allow Lucio to be more active in his role.”
These are, overall, humongous buffs to the character. Gifs were quick to hit Reddit of players doing crazy things – reaching points in record time, bouncing around the training map and more – and it’s almost certain some part of this new kit will be brought down before release. That said, they’re exciting changes, and should make competitive Overwatch’s most-picked character more entertaining to watch.
Because of this Symmetra-sized rework, it looks like Lucio will be the only balance changes in patch 1.10.
Orisa – changed
- The size of Orisa’s head hitbox has been decreased by 15%
Overwatch Patch 1.10 Map Changes
- A new route has been added to Eichenwalde that connects the attacking team’s spawn area to the capture point.
This is a continued effort by Blizzard to balance out Eichenwalde for the attacking team, where it’s sorely lacking by stats.
Overwatch Patch 1.10 Assault Changes
- A tracking system has been added to Assault and Assault/Escort Maps that will allow us to break ties based on the progress that was made toward capturing the objective.
Developer comments:“To mitigate draws in Competitive Play, we’re implementing a system that tracks each team’s progress on the objective. This will work similarly to the system that’s already in place for Escort and Assault/Escort maps, which grants a win to the team that pushes the payload the furthest. Now, even if neither team successfully captures the objective, a winner can be determined based on which team captured the largest portion.”
Currently this is seen as causing some extremely weird rounds when flankers manage to stand on a point and grab a tiny percentage, enough to win a round. However, much like Lucio, things will likely be dialed back a bit.
Overwatch Patch 1.10 Custom Game Changes
- Custom Game settings can now be saved as a preset from the game’s details page
- Access by right-clicking on the map image from the Create Game page or right-clicking a game name from inside the Game Browser
- Players can now change weapon clip and magazine size or grant unlimited ammunition when creating a custom game
That first bulletpoint is a much-requested change to help custom games be easier to share. It’s unlikely to be the last advancement of the system, but iteration will be reasonably slow.
Overwatch Patch 1.10 Hero Lore
- Details about each hero’s unique backstory, along with information about some of their lore-inspired skins, have been added to the Hero Gallery.
Here’s what they look like:
Skin stories explain some part of a hero’s backstory, if that skin is relevant to it. Here’s Bastion’s Overgrown skin:
Some story content in-game has been promised for a long time by Michael Chu and other members of the Overwatch team. Presumably, this is a first step. A complete gallery is available here, with a couple of obvious bugs – no descriptions at all for Orisa or Mercy, and some skins seemingly having the wrong descriptors, most notably on Soldier: 76.
Overwatch Patch 1.10 Bug Fixes
- General
- Fixed a bug preventing achievements from being unlocked during off-season competitive matches
- Fixed an issue that prevented voice lines from being heard during the Play of the Game
- Fixed an issue that prevented voice lines from playing on Control maps
- Competitive Play
- Fixed an issue that was preventing Top 500 icons from appearing until after completing a competitive match
- Fixed a bug preventing achievements from being unlocked during off-season competitive matches
- Fixed a bug that forced Play of the Game highlights to be drawn from the last round of play
- Custom Games and Game Browser
- Fixed an issue that allowed empty player slots to be displayed even when disabled (e.g. in 6v1 games)
- Fixed a bug preventing the pause feature from working properly after the original host has left the match
- Fixed a bug that allowed extremely long team names
- Removed unnecessary customisation options (e.g. cooldown options for abilities with no cooldown)
- Heroes
- Ana no longer cocks her rifle after throwing a grenade
- The brightness on Bastion’s Golden gun has been toned down when the BlizzCon skin is equipped
- Fixed a bug causing Mei’s pinky to bend awkwardly in some poses with her Chang’e and Luna skins equipped
- Maps
- Fixed a bug on Eichenwalde that allowed enemy player outlines to be seen through a pile of dirt at the castle gate
- Fixed an issue on Eichenwalde that allowed players to become trapped in the broken castle doors
- Fixed a bug that allowed Sombra to reach unintended locations on King’s Row
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to reach unintended areas on the Capture the Flag version of Lijiang Tower
- Fixed a bug that allowed Symmetra to hide turrets in unintended locations on Oasis