A new update to Overwatch's PTR server has introduced significant changes to a multitude of heroes from throughout the game's roster. Most notably, key heroes in the longstanding "double shield" meta have been nerfed in response to some players' complaints about the current barrier-dominant meta being unfun to play.
Orisa and Sigma are the two tank heroes whose shields form the basis of "double shield," and both are now nerfed on the PTR. A blanket nerf to Orisa reduces the damage to her primary fire, increases the cooldown of her Fortify ability, and reduces the duration of her Snare ability by almost half. Meanwhile, Sigma's rate of primary fire has been reduced as has the damage done by the explosion from his Accretion ability. Gravitic Flux, Sigma's ultimate, has also been changed so that it's interruptible and slows its targets for less time.
A few DPS heroes have also been altered in key ways. McCree, for example, has been buffed massively. His health pool has been increased from 200 to 250, and a change to Deadeye, his ultimate ability, no longer locks him into place while his targets are being selected. Now he can now aim freely while locking onto enemies and can ultimately hit targets in a wider area than just what's viewable through the player's field of vision. These changes come in addition to a small addition to the recovery time of his primary fire.
However, Reaper, who isn't necessarily played frequently in higher ranks but can terrorize mid-to-lower ranked games, has been nerfed. He now heals for 30% of all damage dealt instead of his previous rate of 40%, requiring Reaper players to position themselves at least a little more carefully.
Additionally Hanzo's storm arrow damage been reduced, and Baptiste's secondary healing fire has been nerfed with a decrease to their healing explosion and an increase to recovery time. As always, any and all PTR changes may not make it to the full game, but given the viability of a new, less barrier-dominant meta, some, if not all of these changes are likely to make it past the testing stage.
The full details of the changes currently live on the PTR can be found on the Blizzard forums.
Source: Dot Esports