The Overwatch Summer Games have officially returned and a new patch has dropped along with it. Just like previous events, the Summer Games brings back a seasonal event and a ton of skins for purchase. Along with a plethora of new skins, users are also able to purchase old Summer Games skins for a drastically reduced rate. If you missed some last year then this is your chance to nab them.
The main balance changes made with this patch revolve around the various support heroes. Almost every single one has been tweaked in some capacity. Our personal favorite is Ana’s Nano Boost now instantly restores 300 health to the inflicted target. This gives your DPS or tank a better chance at engaging enemies, especially with her range increase.
Moira’s passive regeneration has slightly increased and Lucio’s Sound Barrier now gives more shields to his allies. Sadly, Mercy’s healing has been nerfed despite going through numerous changes over the year.
Here are the complete Overwatch 1.27 Patch Notes for August 9:
GENERAL
- Changed the name of Junkrat’s Buccaneer skin to Bilgerat
- Added under attack voice lines for Zenyatta, Lúcio, and Moria
- All Overwatch League skins now include the name of the team’s city or state
LOOKING FOR GROUP
- Settings will be saved after changing filters on the Looking for Group browse screen
HERO GALLERY
- Added a What’s New option that displays new unlockable content
HERO UPDATES
Developer Comments: These changes remove the need to immediately reload after certain long duration ultimates.GENERAL
- Some ultimate abilities now restore ammunition after completion for some heroes
- Abilities affected: Genji’s Dragonblade, Junkrat’s RIP-Tire, Pharah’s Barrage, Roadhog’s Whole Hog, and Zenyatta’s Transcendence, Winston’s Primal Rage
ANA
Developer Comments These changes help Ana’s Nano Boost be usable in more situations. Previously it was almost entirely used to combo with other allies’ ultimates, just before they use them. With this change Nano Boost can now alternatively be used to save an ally from near death in the middle of a big fight.NANO BOOST
- Now also instantly heals the target for 300 health
- Range increased from 30 to 40 meters
BRIGITTE
Developer Comments Brigitte’s Shield Bash is one of her strongest abilities, and its short cooldown can make it difficult to play against. Slightly increasing its cooldown will give her opponents more opportunity to play around it. We’ve also added an option to control Brigitte’s Repair Pack targeting sensitivity which will allow players to reduce the width of the search angle for the ability. This is useful for trying to target specific allies in the middle of a fight at the cost of making it a bit harder to target allies in general.SHIELD BASH
- Cooldown increased from 6 to 7 seconds
REPAIR PACK
- An option to control Brigitte’s Repair Pack targeting sensitivity has been added under Options > Controls > Brigitte
DOOMFIST
Developer Comments These changes are just quality of life improvements for how Doomfist interacts with Symmetra’s placed objects.ROCKET PUNCH
- No longer impacts Symmetra’s teleporter
- Now destroys Symmetra’s sentry turrets without stopping his movement
HANZO
Developer Comments Hanzo’s Lunge ability allows him to be a bit too evasive, so we’re increasing the cooldown to make him easier to catch.LUNGE
- Cooldown increased from 4 to 5 seconds
LÚCIO
Developer Comments Increasing the amount of shield health gained from Lúcio’s Sound Barrier should make it more effective against incoming burst damage. As part of his last rework, Crossfade’s radius was heavily reduced, but its potency was increased to compensate. While the change was better for him overall, the radius was small enough that it was often difficult to keep his allies in range during a fight, even if they felt reasonably close together. The increased radius should help in these situations.CROSSFADE
- Aura radius increase from 10 to 12 meters
SOUND BARRIER
- Temporary shields granted increased from 500 to 750
MERCY
Developer Comments Mercy’s previous healing output made her nearly irreplaceable in any team composition. Even after this change she will still be able to deliver more healing over the course of a match than any other support hero, but it should allow for other healers to be more viable.CADUCEUS STAFF
- Healing beam reduced from 60 healing per second to 50 healing per second
MOIRA
Developer Comments This change should help Moira in situations where there are no enemies within reach but your team still requires a lot of healing. She will still need to drain enemies to be fully effective, but this just helps her a bit in the rare cases where there is an extended long-range fight that she can’t reasonably take part in.BIOTIC GRASP
- Passive energy regeneration rate increased from 2 per second to 2.4 per second
REINHARDT
Developer Comments By smoothing out Reinhardt’s Barrier Field, he now will be able to consistently block enemy abilities and projectiles that could sometimes unintentionally sneak through (e.g. Junkrat’s grenades).BARRIER FIELD
- Decorative insignia no longer protrudes from the shield’s surface
SOMBRA
Developer Comments The head changes are mostly a bug fix, as her head hit volume was abnormally large, especially from behind. Previously if you fired at her from behind near her upper spine, you could land a head shot. Now her head volume is much more accurate.GENERAL
- Reduced the size of Sombra’s head hit volume
SYMMETRA
Developer Comments Symmetra’s primary fire has huge damage potential but it is too difficult to charge because of its low range and slow charge rate. We’re increasing the range to see how it plays out, giving her more opportunities to use it, especially against enemy barriers.PHOTON PROJECTOR
- Primary fire range increased from 10 to 12
WIDOWMAKER
Developer Comments The increased cooldown of Widowmaker’s Grappling Hook will slightly reduce the frequency that she can reposition herself. This allows her to be threatened more easily by agile enemy heroes such as Winston and Genji.GRAPPLING HOOK
- Cooldown increased from 8 seconds to 10 seconds
ZARYA
Developer Comments The smaller radius on Graviton Surge makes it more reasonable for her enemies to try countering it by staying spread out, as well as putting more focus on Zarya to position the ultimate correctly to impact the most players possible. However, the intent of these changes isn’t to lessen Zarya’s overall power significantly so we’re reducing her energy drain rate, which should keep her energy higher on average resulting in more damage and quicker ultimate charge times. Overall, this takes some power out of her ultimate and distributes it else ware to add more counter play against her.ENERGY
- Drain rate reduced from 2 energy per second to 1.6 energy per second
GRAVITON SURGE
- Radius reduced from 8 to 6 meters
GAME BROWSER AND CUSTOM GAMES
HEROES
- Brigitte’s Repair Pack now has a minimum cooldown time of 1.5 seconds regardless of custom game settings
BUG FIXES
- Fixed a bug that displayed an inaccurate AFK countdown timer before removing players from a match if they were flagged as AFK more than once
- Fixed a bug that caused the player camera to display an odd location before switching to the first-person view of the selected hero after Assemble Your Team phase ends
- Fixed a bug that caused Torbjörn bot to fire his gun endlessly if his turret is teleported by a Symmetra player
- Fixed a bug that could cause players to lose an endorsement level if they exited before a match completes, but after the return timer for a leaving player has expired
The Overwatch 2018 Summer Games have officially begun and will end on August 30 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.