Overwatch’s 1.29 patch has now been pushed to the live game. The big highlight is a pretty major rework to Torbjörn – everyone’s favourite Swedish engineer has a new area-denial ult, a self-armouring buff, and deploys his turret very differently. The scrap mechanic is entirely gone, which should hopefully make him more flexible. Pharah has also had a pretty major overhaul to her primary fire – check it out below.
Elsewhere there are some minor but still impactful tweaks to other heroes – Brigitte’s shield has had a slight nerf, while Soldier: 76 and Orisa’s primary fire have both had small buffs. In exciting accessibility news, a range of colourblind options have made available for you to customise your UI. Naturally, there’s the customary cavalcade of bug fixes.
Torbjörn’s new ult has already provided plenty of memeable moments, such as one occasion where a Genji deflect managed to turn all its lava against the Torbjörn’s own team, melting them all as they tried to advance a payload. Fun times. If you’d like to check in on the current PTR, here are our Overwatch 1.30 patch notes.
OVERWATCH PATCH 1.29 RELEASE DATE
Patch 1.29 is live now! Go enjoy Torbjörn’s fiery new ult.
Overwatch patch 1.29 colourblind options
You’ll now be able to customise how team colors display in your UI (e.g. nameplates, HUD, health bars) and hero outlines with a set of nine different colourblind-friendly colours. You can choose to colour enemy and friendly UI separately as well.
These options can be found under Options > Video > Color Blind Options. All changes made will be saved and ready for you to see in the next match you play.
OVERWATCH PATCH 1.29 hero updates
Some pretty major hero changes are being trialed this patch, most notably to Torbjörn and Pharah, though McCree, Soldier, and Orisa’s tweaks are not nothing. Many more heroes will also be affected by this general change, though:
- Updated visuals for all shields and barriers to increase readability
BRIGITTE
Barrier Shield
- Shield health decreased to 500 from 600 to 500
Developer Comments: The health of Brigitte’s barrier was extremely difficult for most heroes to deal with even as she was able to close the distance with her targets. This change still provides Brigitte with substantial survivability but should also be more rewarding for opponents who pressure her.
McCree
Combat Roll
- Cooldown decreased to 6 from 8 seconds
Developer Comments: Previously, the cooldown of McCree’s Combat Roll felt too restrictive, which sometimes prohibited players from using it. The new, faster cooldown should allow for more flexibility when choosing between using it for mobility or an instant reload.
Pharah
Concussive Blast
- Cooldown decreased to 9 from 12 seconds
Rocket Launcher
- Attack speed increased:
- Decreased recovery time between shots to 0.75 from 0.9
- Damage redistributed between explosion and impact:
- Explosion damage decreased to 65 from 80
- Impact damage increased to 55 from 40
- Explosion knockback decreased by 20%
- Self-knockback range increased by 25%
Developer Comments: We wanted to increase how responsive Pharah’s Rocket Launcher felt. Having almost a full second of recovery between shots made it feel sluggish. To balance out the improved recovery time, we shifted some of the damage from the rocket’s explosion to the direct impact damage. The overall damage potential is now increased when landing direct hits and decreased slightly when only dealing explosive damage. We reduced the amount of knockback each explosion causes, as they made it very difficult to aim at Pharah while rockets came in at a faster pace. The Concussive Blast cooldown reduction should allow the ability to sync up more closely with the Jump Jet cooldown when used for mobility.
Mei
General
- Updated visual effects for all abilities
Orisa
Fusion Driver
- Maximum spread decreased to 1.2 from 1.5
Developer Comments: Orisa spends a significant amount of time firing her Fusion Driver from a relatively stationary location, and the weapon’s spread value caused it to feel too random when leading targets at a distance, taking into account the projectiles’ travel time. We’ve tightened the spread slightly, which should leave her close- and mid-range damage potential largely unchanged, while making it feel better to try to hit targets at longer ranges.
Soldier: 76
Heavy Pulse Rifle
- Number of shots until max spread increased to 9 from 6
Developer Comments: Soldier: 76’s damage output was a bit low, but not too far off from where we feel it should be. Making it take a few more shots to reach max spread smooths out the weapon spread curve and should help his damage be more consistent.
Torbjörn
General
Reduced the size of Torbjörn’s head hit volume by 10%
Rivet Gun
- Primary Fire:
- Projectile speed increased to 70 from 60 per second
- Reload time decreased to 2 seconds from 2.2
- Turret will target enemies hit by primary fire
- Alternate Fire:
- Recovery decreased to 0.6 from 0.8 seconds
- Damage per shot decreased to 125 from 150
- Reload time decreased to 2 from 2.2 seconds
- Spread randomisation readjusted
Forge Hammer
- Radius increased to align with Quick Melee
Deploy Turret
- Is now a thrown projectile
- Automatically builds over three seconds
- No longer has different levels
- Same damage output as previous level 2 turret
- Maximum health decreased to 250 from 300
- Now incurs a 5-second cooldown when deployed
- Now incurs a 10-second cooldown when destroyed in combat
- No longer able to deploy a new turret if it’s in combat:
- While the turret is firing;
- If the turret has taken damage within three seconds
- Now able to destroy turret using the Interact input
- Now will complete self-building once deployed, even if Torbjörn is eliminated
New Ability: Overload
- Replaces Armor Pack
- Lasts for 5 seconds (12-second cooldown)
- Temporarily grants 150 armor
- Increases attack, movement, and reload speed by 30%
New Ultimate: Molten Core
- Switches weapon from Rivet Gun to claw arm
- Lasts 6 seconds
- Fire up to 10 molten globules that create damage pools where they land for 10 seconds. Globules bounce off walls and ceilings until coming into contact with the ground
- Base damage is 130
- Damage increases from 130 to 190 against enemies who have armour
- Heroes affected by armor: Bastion, Brigitte, D.Va, Orisa, Reinhardt, Torbjörn, Winston, Wrecking Ball
- Heroes who can grant armor to their allies: Brigitte
Developer Comments: Torbjörn was initially designed to be a specialised hero, intended as a strong defensive option due to his armor-generating capabilities and ability to control areas with his turret. However, the scrap collecting and Armour Pack mechanics have caused issues through their feast or famine nature. In order to make the hero more flexible in a wider variety of situations, we’ve removed the scrap system, made the turret much easier to deploy, replaced the Armour Pack ability with Overload – a powerful self-buff – and transformed Molten Core into a powerful new area denial ultimate ability.
Overwatch patch 1.29 MAP UPDATES
General
- Decreased the setup timer for Assault, Escort, and Assault/Escort maps to 45 seconds from 1 minute
Overwatch patch 1.29 competitive play updates
- Assemble Your Team timer increased to 25 from 10 seconds in the second round on Assault, Assault/Escort, and Escort maps
Overwatch patch 1.29 BUG FIXES
general
- Fixed an issue that caused the PTR client to crash when logging in
- Fixed a bug that allowed Overwatch League skin effects to display when colorblind colors were enabled
Bastion
- Fixed a bug that caused the roll bar on Bastion’s Dune Buggy skin to obscure its view when backing up or firing in Tank configuration
D.Va
- Fixed a bug that prevented some glow visual effects from appearing on D.Va’s Nano Cola skin
- Fixed a bug that prevented D.Va from fully appearing when viewing her MEKA Activated highlight intro in the Hero Gallery
Hanzo
- Fixed a bug that caused Hanzo’s Storm Bow reticle to be visible while emoting
Mei
- Fixed a bug that prevented Mei’s Blizzard from freezing enemies when cast in areas with low ceilings
Reinhardt
- Fixed a bug that caused the player’s reticle to pitch up after using Earthshatter
- Fixed a bug that caused Reinhardt’s Earthshatter animations to play if used while he was juggled in the air by knockback abilities
Sombra
- Fixed an issue that caused Sombra to change the direction she was facing when using her Translocator to teleport
Symmetra
- Fixed a bug that caused Symmetra to have a chance of playing inaccurate voice lines when placing turrets
Torbjörn
- Fixed a bug that prevented Torbjörn’s medal from appearing in his Medal victory pose
- Fixed a bug that prevented Torbjörn’s Molten Core visual effects from displaying
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to walk through an enemy Torbjörn’s turret
- Fixed a bug that allowed Torbjorn’s turret projectile to ricochet for a long time before planting itself in unintended places
Zarya
- Fixed a bug that caused Zarya’s Particle Cannon reticle to be visible while emoting
Busan
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to stand on some prohibited rooftops in Downtown
- Fixed a bug that prevented sprays from displaying on glass windows in MEKA Base
Volskaya Industries
- Fixed a bug that prevented players from receiving capture credit if they dropped onto the point from one of the moving platforms
Game Browser and Custom Games
Deathmatch
- Fixed a bug that prevented the ‘your team has lost’ or ‘your team has taken the lead’ voice lines from playing when the score swap happens due to self-inflicted deaths
VS AI
- Fixed a bug that prevented players from receiving an ‘unable to join’ error message if they attempted to spectate a Player vs AI match when all spectator slots were full