A brand new season of Overwatch League is almost upon us, with about three weeks or so until it all begins anew with matches happening every weekend, around the world. THere’s always the concern, or at least question, of what meta’s could be seen in the official Overwatch League, and we’re no a little closer to a decided answer to that. Jon Spector, Overwatch Leagues Senior Product Director has taken to Reddit to affirm that Overwatch League season 3 will begin on patch 1.44; the patch that is currently in the public test realm, colloquially known as PTR.
The patch brings a bit of easement in regards to more oppressive characters such as Baptiste. The newest support character has been decidedly meta due to the staggering healing numbers he can dish out to his teammates regardless of range, and his invulnerability bubble has been a sore spot of contention among many players.
The recent patch sees his Immortality Field ability nerfed doubly, with the duration of the immortality shrunk from eight seconds to five seconds, and the cooldown increased from twenty seconds to twenty-five seconds.
For all you collectors out there 🔎
These @FLMayhem, @LAValiant, & @SFShock skins will officially be retired from the in-game store on January 15th!
To those uniforms, we say farewell you have served us well 👋 pic.twitter.com/jRFe9Rvj5y
— Overwatch Esports (@OW_Esports) January 10, 2020
Arguably, he’s still one of the strongest support players in the game (and is a key figure in the Power Creep argument), but the Immortality Field being nerfed will at least encourage more strategic usage of the ability that stops everyone from dying.
His ultimate cost has also been raised by an additional 20% after the recent video on Reddit showing that his ultimate could be recycled every ten seconds during fights, encouraging every heavier use.
Other notable changes are D.Va’ boosters cooldown being decreased from five seconds to three, letting the mech traverse the battle field far quicker, and a slight nerf to Mei slowing effect that has beleaguered supports. Orisa has also experienced another nerf, this time to her Fortify ability decreasing damage reduction from 50% to 40%. This is the yet another patch in an attempt to bring Orisa more inline with the other tank heroes.
All in all, the patch notes appear promising despite Blizzards claim that Power Creep doesn’t exist. It successfully mitigates what many players find to be two of the most oppressive characters in the game in Orisa and Baptiste, and along with the ‘Breakable Barriers’ patch shows that Blizzard may be wrangling their team-based shooter into something a bit more manageable for both professionals and casual players.
The active patch meta still currently consists of putting as many shields between your team and the enemy as possible, and amusingly has become even more prevalent now that barriers and shields are far more flimsy. Hopefully, we’ll experience a diverse professional meta come February 8th when New York Excelsior host the first season 3 matches.
