Overwatch’s Halloween Terror Event Is Here, Torbjorn Rework Is Live
It’s the spookiest time of year and Overwatch’s annual Halloween Terror event is finally upon us. Players can now jump back into the fray of Junkenstein’s Revenge, the seasonal event’s PvE brawl, and will even have the help of two new heroes this year: Brigitte and Tracer.
In addition to slaughtering wave after wave of zombie omnics this Halloween season, Overwatch players can also unlock spooky items, including six new legendary skins for Doomfist, McCree, Moira, Pharah, Soldier: 76, Sombra and Wrecking Ball. There are also special sprays, emotes, and highlight intros available, as well as gear from previous years.
This year’s legendary skins will cost you 3,000 credits if you aren’t lucky enough to unlock them in a loot box. The event will run through the end of the month, providing lots of time to unlock these treats.
But there’s more to this update than meets the eye. The patch also brought Torbjorn’s rework to the live version of the game, as well as a major Pharah adjustment.
Here’s a look at the patch notes regarding hero updates.
General
- Updated visuals for all shields and barriers to increase readability
- Enemies’ health bars will now become visible to players if an entity they create deals damage to an enemy
Brigitte
- Shield health reduced from 600 to 500
Developer Comments: The health of Brigitte’s barrier was extremely difficult for most heroes to deal with, especially as she closes the distance to her targets. This change still provides Brigitte with substantial survivability but should also be more rewarding for opponents who pressure her.
Doomfist
- Damage falloff for Hand Cannon now starts at 15 meters
Developer Comments: Doomfist is all about getting up close and personal with his enemies, but his Hand Cannon’s spread was tight enough to do surprising amounts of damage at longer ranges, especially against bigger targets. This change brings his weapon in line with other shotgun-style weapons by making its damage falloff beyond 15 meters.
McCree
- Combat Roll cooldown reduced from eight to six seconds
Developer Comments: Previously McCree’s Combat Roll cooldown felt too restrictive, which sometimes prohibited players from using it. The new, faster cooldown allows for more flexibility when choosing between using it for mobility or an instant reload.
Pharah
Concussive Blast
- Cooldown reduced from 12 to nine seconds
Rocket Launcher
- Attack speed increased
- Lowered recovery time between shots from 0.9 to 0.75 seconds
- Damage redistributed between explosion and impact
- Explosion damage reduced from 80 to 65
- Impact damage increased from 40 to 55
- Explosion knock back reduced by 20 per cent
- Self-knockback amount increased by 25 per cent
Developer Comments: We wanted to increase how responsive Pharah’s Rocket Launcher felt, because a full second of recovery between shots made it feel sluggish. To balance out the improved recovery time, we shifted some 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 it made it very difficult to aim at Pharah with rockets coming 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
- Updated visual effects for all abilities
Orisa
- Maximum spread for Fusion Driver reduced by 20 per cent
Developer Comments: Orisa spends a significant amount of time firing her Fusion Driver from a relatively stationary location. The weapon’s spread value caused it to feel too random when leading targets at a distance, considering 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 when hitting targets at longer ranges.
Soldier: 76
- Number of shots until reaching maximum spread for Heavy Pulse Rifle increased from six to nine
Developer Comments: Soldier: 76’s damage output was a bit low, but not too far off from where we felt it should be. Making it take a few more shots to reach max spread smooths out the weapon spread curve and should make his damage more consistent.
Torbjorn
General
- Reduced the size of Torbjorn’s head hit volume by ten per cent
Rivet Gun
- Primary Fire
- Projectile speed increased from 60 to 70 per second
- Reload time reduced from 2.2 to 2 seconds
- Turret targets enemy hit by primary fire
- Alternate Fire
- Recovery lowered from 0.8 to 0.6 seconds
- Damage per shot lowered from 150 to 125
- Reload time reduced from 2.2 to 2 seconds
- Spread randomization readjusted
Forge Hammer
- Radius increased to align with Quick Melee
Deploy Turret
- Turret is now a thrown projectile
- Automatically builds over three seconds
- No longer has different levels
- Same damage output as previous level two turret
- Maximum health reduced from 300 to 250
- Now incurs a five 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
- Can now be destroyed using the Interact input
- Completes self-building once deployed, even if Torbjorn is eliminated
New Ability: Overload
- Replaces Armor Pack
- Lasts for five seconds
- Cooldown is 12 seconds
- Temporarily grants 150 armor
- Increases attack, movement, and reload speeds by 30 per cent
New Ultimate: Molten Core
- Switches weapon from Rivet Gun to his claw arm
- Lasts six seconds
- Fire up to 10 molten globules that create damage pools where they stand for 10 seconds
- Globules bounce off walls and ceilings until they hit the ground
- Base damage is 130
- Damage increases from 130 to 190 against enemies who have armor
- Heroes affected by armor: Bastion, Brigitte, D.Va, Orisa, Reinhardt, Torbjorn, Winston, Wrecking Ball
- Heroes who can grant armor to their allies: Brigitte
Developer Comments: Torbjorn was initially designed to be a specialized hero, intended to be a strong defensive option due to his armor-generating capabilities and ability to control areas with his turret. However, the scrap collecting and Armor Pack mechanics have proven to cause problematic gameplay issues because of their feast or famine nature. To make him more flexible in a wide variety of situations, we’ve removed the scrap system, made the turret much easier to deploy, replaced the Armor Pack ability with Overload—a powerful self-buff—and transformed Molten Core into a powerful new area denial ultimate ability.
The reworked version of Torbjorn will be unavailable in Competitive Play for two weeks.