Overwatch 2 Season 1 begins as soon as the FPS game launches, allowing players a chance to check out the new battle pass and its unlockable hero, Kiriko. Accompanying it are a slew of changes to loads of characters, but Junker Queen is the one under the nerf hammer.
In their September 21 blog post discussing hero balancing, Blizzard confirms that heroes will undergo major changes at the start of each new season in an attempt to create an ever-changing meta.
Writing “this means new seasons will feel more distinct and special with balance changing significantly when we move to the next season,” Blizzard says hero adjustments have already begun for Season 1, with the now-notorious Junker Queen taking a hefty bonk from the ban hammer – again.
As a result of beta feedback and pro-play data, Junker Queen’s Commanding Shout ability has been deemed a little too powerful. To temper it, Blizzard have made the following changes:
- Commanding Shout
- Allied health bonus reduced from 100 to 50 HP
- Allied duration reduced from five to three seconds
- Temporary health no longer decays over its duration
- Cooldown increased from 11 to 15 seconds
There are some clear nerfs here, but the plus is that temporary health in general now generates 50% reduced ultimate charge as opposed to zero, allowing high-damage players to fill the ultimate gauge faster by doing their jobs. You’ll also retain 30% ult charge for switching heroes across all roles – pretty neat, huh?
The DPS passive has also been changed, granting players increased 25% increased reload and movement speed if they eliminate an enemy player. While this doesn’t stack, it resets per kill.
Also on the tank side of things, Orisa has been given a buff post-nerf. Noting that she remains “a challenging hero to balance,” they state that she has “one of the lowest win-rates in the game.” In an attempt to combat this, the devs have changed her base health and armour to 275 instead of 200, and decreased the cooldown on her Energy Javelin from eight seconds to six.
Other heroes like Sombra, Brigitte, Baptiste, D.Va, and Sojourn have also received more minor changes, which you can check out here. How this will change up the Overwatch 2 tier list remains to be seen, but as we draw ever closer to launch it’s worth checking out our list of all Overwatch 2 heroes anyway to get ahead of the curve.