After Blizzard announced that Overwatch 2 would be introducing a passive heal for both tank and DPS characters game director Aaron Keller has provided a follow-up statement, calling the reveal a “mistake” without the context of the wider changes coming in Season 9.
The upcoming Overwatch 2 heal change has proved an incredibly controversial one, as earlier in January Blizzard said that in Season 9 “both Tank and Damage heroes will get a modified, tuned-down version of the Support self-healing passive” in an effort to change up the multiplayer FPS game.
This colossal change-up was noted to be part of “a massive set of gameplay and balance changes” as well, but all of these details were said to be coming in another post. Keller has now addressed how the Tank and DPS self-heal reveal was framed, calling it a “mistake.”
“Clarifying a few things with the self-heal,” Keller says on X/Twitter. “It’s one part of a much larger set of changes coming to the game in Season 9. Internally we’re talking about, and targeting some of these changes at damage spikiness in game, the role of DPS in securing kills, and the strength of healing.”
“It was a mistake to talk about this lone change out of context, since it is a part of a much bigger set coming to Season 9. Sorry for that, and I look forward to more discussion around Season 9 balance changes when we drop more details,” Keller adds.
Reception to the Overwatch 2 healing overhaul has been mixed, to say the least, leaving many to wonder exactly how it will play out in balance, while others see it as a wholly negative addition to the game instead.
Blizzard says in the original post that the idea is to take pressure off of healers and let non-support players have more choices, but we still don’t know how this will play out in practice.
“This should give non-Support players more options in terms of sustaining themselves. It should also take some of the pressure off Support players to keep everyone alive since individual players now have more control of their own health pool.”
To find out exactly how all of this plays out we’ll have to wait for Season 9 to drop. In the meantime, we’ve got a complete breakdown of the best Overwatch 2 settings, and an evolving Overwatch 2 tier list as well.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.
