Board 8 > Overwatch April Fools' experimental patch

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/news/patch-notes/experimental/

• Scatter Arrows are back.
• Junkrat can set up to three traps.
• Mei is now a tank.
• Orisa can gallop.
• Reaper, Sigma, and Zenyatta can fly.

And more crazy stuff. If it weren't for that ridiculous Tracer change this might actually be a ton of fun.

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This looks pretty fun. Have they done this in past years? I haven't played in ages.

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Ok this is kind of cool

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Okay, I have seen any Tracers, but what I have seen is Sigma-Mercy combos. Holy christ that's terrifying.

Soldier's new ult is crazy op though.

VintageGin posted...

This looks pretty fun. Have they done this in past years? I haven't played in ages.

I don't think so. But they googly eyes thing they did last year is back.

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Out of all the crazy changes why do you think Tracer's is too much? Getting blink charges back after recall could be a live change and it wouldn't be THAT crazy?

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skullbone posted...

Out of all the crazy changes why do you think Tracer's is too much? Getting blink charges back after recall could be a live change and it wouldn't be THAT crazy?

I hate fighting against Tracer. A good Tracer is basically unkillable as it is, and giving her a free set of Blink recharges is horrifyingly annoying.

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skullbone posted...

Out of all the crazy changes why do you think Tracer's is too much? Getting blink charges back after recall could be a live change and it wouldn't be THAT crazy?

Tracer is the 2nd best DPS in the game at the moment. Recall giving her back all her blinks would be insane if it ever went live. That is so much added mobility its crazy.

Okay, this Dva change is actually genuinely good. It's not even like it's super broken, it's just her ultimate has an additional powerful part to it.

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Random bump to announce the Archives Event is up. The skins don't look that great, but the 'Soldier 1776' one is legitimately awesome:
https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/events/archives/

Also, with the April Fool's patch finished, I'm gonna rate the character changes. It truly was one of the most fun metas Overwatch has ever had, and I'll miss it.

-Ana-
Pretty damn scary. You think you'd see a defenseless Ana all by herself and go in for the kill and then she'd turn red and go after you. And if the tank she nano'd noticed you too it's gg.

-Ashe-
Coach gun turning into a shotgun actually was really good at deleting enemies. I'd forget what the change was and use it instinctively to shove away enemies that would jump on me only to accidentally kill them and be like "...huh".

-Baptiste-
Didn't really notice a lot of change, aside from the fact that Immortality Field was ALWAYS there in every fight.

-Bastion-
Honestly didn't notice any major size change. Could be deadly if he chased you down in Recon mode though.

-Brigitte-
Absolutely terrible if you were playing Wrecking Ball.

-D.Va-
The BEST change. This needs to absolutely be in the game proper. Dropping a mech on people and squishing them like a pancake was so damn satisfying. It's not like it's super unbalanced either since you need to get so close in a such a fragile form anyway.

-Doomfist-
Doom was in literally every single game I played. Things are never good when Doom is meta.

-Echo-
I loved this change because I'm pretty bad at using Echo's Ult but am a great Tank player. Having an extra 15 seconds meant I was always able to get value out of it, and it's crazy how much of a difference it makes. I had multiple matches where my team was getting stomped, but I'd get my Ultimate and wipe out the entire enemy team.

-Genji-
Never noticed it at all.

-Hanzo-
No one misses Scatter Arrows. Got a lot of cheap kills with it, and died cheaply a few times from it too.

-Junkrat-
Yet another reason playing Ball was a nightmare in this mode. It really threw me off that even though he could place multiple traps he didn't actually get extra charges. This made it hard to go from 0 to 3 traps quickly. But once you had all three up it was basically a lockdown. You always had to watch your step around every single corner fighting against this.

-Lucio-
Unfortunately didn't get much use out of it. I use my Amp It Up often in the middle of fights, so using it specifically for extra boop distance never felt worth it.

-McCree-
Maybe I'm not that good of a McCree, but I never noticed the change.

-Mei-
Every single match had a Mei (and Sigma) in it, so if you were a defenseless backliner good luck, you weren't going to get any help. Nothing about these changes seemed to make her good in comparison to the crazy stuff other heroes got.

-Mercy-
Seeing a Mercy fly at rocket speed towards you with Valkyrie was one of the scariest things in the game.

-Moira-
Remember what I said about backliners being completely defenseless? Well top that off with Moira becoming one the easiest flanking assassins as well. What about healing? Who would ever heal your teammates?

-Orisa-
I don't care for Orisa, but at least this looked hilarious.

-Pharah-
Tons of teamwipes with the new Ult. The value of being able to move and bomb someone who thought they could find cover was amazing.

-Reaper-
Much like Lucio I never used Shadow Step for its new abilities because I generally found much more value in using it like I always did; as an escape, where flying didn't seem that helpful. It's not like Reaper needed help reaching high ground anyway. I did chase down a Baptiste who foolishly thought he could jump away from me though.

-Reinhardt-
The new Charge was way too hard for me to use. I was too used by muscle memory to the limitations of his turning. Every time I tried to use it I'd turn too much and slam into a nearby wall. I saw lots of crazy pins from other players though.

-Roadhog-
Man, if I was a good Roadhog this might have been useful.

-Sigma-
Jesus. Every single game had a Sigma in it, and he was exceptionally difficult to deal with. This also showed just how strong flanking Sigma is. If he had a Mercy pocket you'd enter a special kind of hell. Of course, when _I_ chose Sigma my healers would leave me high and dry...

-Soldier: 76-
Broken. Broken, broken, broken. Entire games would be decided by Soldier's Ult. Teamwipes galore. Truly the most frightening change in the patch.

-Sombra-
They never mentioned what the changes were, but Stealth was now instant (including decloaking), and being damaged would not unstealth you, it would only slow you down. In the long run this meant that Sombra would ALWAYS get the Hack off thanks to the instant unstealth. Considering how broken some abilities were in the patch, this was very useful.

-Symmetra-
Holy god giving Sym a little extra range made her into a nightmare. I was beaming Pharahs down out of the sky. No one would be able to escape. It doesn't help that enemy would pretty much always have a Mei so you could charge up off her walls...

-Torbjorn-
Whenever you see him glowing red you run. You just run. Hilarious, but terrifying.

-Tracer-
Still surprised I didn't see a lot of Tracers. She was basically unkillable however.

-Widowmaker-
Never noticed any difference, possibly because I never play her to begin with. Piercing shots just didn't seem effective when the meta in this patch was everyone spreading out doing their own thing.

-Winston-
Absolutely broken. One interesting quirk about him getting Ultimate from his shield being broken meant that no one wanted to shoot it, which made it absurdly more useful. But if you did break it he'd gain his ult in like 20 seconds and destroy your entire team. It was a lose-lose situation.

-Wrecking Ball-
Wrecking Ball was such a huge loser in this patch. Losing primary fire isn't great, but especially worse with so many flying heroes everywhere. Then you have Junkrats and Meis all over the place making things worse. His abilities having a shorter cooldown honestly wasn't that helpful for the most part, with the exception of Grapple, which was ALWAYS available. If you were lucky enough to get a match without Ball's counters then you were untouchable, unkillable, and would knock around the enemy team constantly without giving them a single break.

-Zarya-
Such a good change. In theory you could alternate from using the Barriers on yourself or your teammates as the situation arose, which was still strong, but generally speaking you gained a TON of value just using them on yourself. You could get max charge in seconds without having to rely on your teammates to initiate, and Zarya having max damage is alway more useful than anything else she provides. Not to mention there were multiple times when the enemy team would advance on me, ready to kill when my barrier dropped, but I'd simply pop another one and wipe them all out instead.

-Zenyatta-
Didn't care for the change that much, but there'd be plenty of times where I'd be assassinated from behind from an angle I never expected a Zen to be at.

I hope they bring this card back someday.

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https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/news/patch-notes/experimental/

THEY ACTUALLY KEPT THE CALL MECH BUFF. (250 damage instead of 600, but still enough to squish people real good).

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