The newest support hero, Baptiste, is now on the PTR. Baptiste is very fun to play, and if friendly players are in trouble, and there is line of sight, you can quickly jump to high ground, or above buildings in Temple of Anubis to shoot a few healing lobes.
Recently, I was contacted by Insight Editions to inform that the Overwatch: The Official Cookbook by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel is now available for pre-order. The book is slated to ship on October 1, 2019.
The book is still undergoing internal editing, but Insight Editions was able to provide a few samples. These are not final. The official cover will be revealed at a later time.
I’ll have the opportunity to interview the author at some point, so feel free to leave questions in the comments below or direct message me @blizzplanetcom via Twitter to submit your question.
Overwatch Patch 1.33.0.1 introduced the new map: Paris to the live servers along with multiple bug fixes.
The latest Overwatch PTR 1.33.0.0.54618 (1.4GB) introduced a new Assault map set in Paris.
Blizzard Entertainment has announced the Overwatch: Ana’s Bastet Challenge running through January 8-21 to unlock the new Bastet skin, and other in-game rewards.
Lead writer Michael Chu wrote the newest short story Overwatch: Bastet. The story picks up where the “Old Soldiers” digital comics ended. In the previous story, Reaper wounded Soldier: 76, but couldn’t finish him. Ana wrestled Reaper onto the ground, and he retreated turning into shadowy-mists.
Happy New Year! Within 2 hours after the end of Season 13, Blizzard Entertainment launched Season 14. You can now queue in Competitive Mode to start your 10 Placement Matches to work your way up the ranks.
The Game Awards 2018 declared Overwatch as winner of the Best eSports Game award: “For the game that has delivered the best overall eSports experience to players (inclusive of tournaments, community support and content updates), irrespective of genre or platform.”
Overwatch was alongside: CSGO, DOTA 2, Fortnite, and League of Legends. Fornite was the biggest winner tonight sweeping several awards, but Overwatch dominated as the Best eSport game. The award was announced at 52:06 in the video.
Congrats to the Overwatch team.
Some time ago, Overwatch was chosen Best Game of the Year; and as in tradition, Jeff Kaplan stepped in onstage to give the Best Game of the Year Award to the developers of God of War (at 03:38:28).
The Overwatch team revealed Hero 29 Ashe, leader of the Deadlock Gang, her abilities, the ultimate: B.O.B., their concept art and skins.
Among the Overwatch panelists were:
In the Overwatch PTR 1.30, the Rout 66 map has a peculiar change that resembles the change made to Numbani a few months before Orisa and Doomfist were announced.
In Numbani, the Payload used to have the Doomfist gauntlet encased in a crystal tube. Later, the payload had a broken crystal with no gauntlet.
In Route 66, the payload used to have a strange egg-shaped capsule since the map was launched up until Patch 1.29.
In PTR 1.30, that capsule is missing its front, and the capsule is wide open. Whatever was inside has been stolen.
SPECULATION
Numbani has two heroes: Orisa and Doomfist. Thus, it’s logical to consider that besides McCree, there will be a new hero hailing from Route 66 as well. The fact that this payload item has been stolen, might indicate that a new Hero will be announced at BlizzCon. That, and the fact the PTR patch went up recently and so close to BlizzCon.
MCCREE
In order to understand what is going on, let’s take a look back at the Overwatch Visual Source Book:
“McCree has already made a name for himself as a member of the notorious Deadlock Gang, which trafficked in illicit weapons and military hardware throughout the American Southwest, when he and his associates were busted in an Overwatch sting operation. With his expert marksmanship and resourcefulness, he was given the choice between rotting in a maximum-security lockup or joining Blackwatch, Overwatch’s covert ops division. He chose the latter.”
McCree is from Santa Fe, New Mexico (according to the book). The new hero might be local as well. Possibly, a member of the Deadlock Gang. McCree had the opportunity to evade being in prison possibly for life by serving Blackwatch, but other members of the Deadlock Gang might not have been as lucky. Maybe one of them has a bone to pick with the traitor, with some extra push from Reaper.
As for the Payload item, if you take a close look at the blueprints on the table, at the Panorama Diner, you will notice that the Payload is a military-grade prototype.
There are blueprints of the train rail as well, which suggests that the Deadlock Gang studied the vulnerabilities of the bridge, and detonated a bomb that destroyed the bridge, and caused the military train to derail and crash near the Panorama Diner.
We can’t discard the possibility that the new Hero isn’t a human, but an Omnic or other type of artificial intelligence.
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Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch team added a Mike Morhaime homage to the Blizzard World map in the PTR 1.30.0. The Heroes of the Storm building now has a room with a portrait of Mike Morhaime (artwork style), the walls have a chart of all the 20 years of service and each year shows icons of the games that Mike Morhaime worked on.
Blizzard Entertainment deployed Overwatch Patch 1.29.1 introducing the new Halloween Season, Torbjorn & Pharah rework, some balance changes and bug fixes.
Blizzard Entertainment deployed the Overwatch PTR 1.29 to introduce testing of Torbjorn’s ability rework. This patch also includes a few balance adjustments to McCree, Pharah, Brigitte, Mei, Orisa, and Soldier: 76; as well as some bug fixes.
The most drastic change is that Torb will no longer craft Shield Packs and collecting Scrap is gone too. His Molten Core now creates pools of molten slag that damages enemies. Deals additional damage to armor.
Instead of crafting Shield Packs for teammates, this ability has been replaced with Overload — which makes Torbjorn to gain additional armor, improved attack, movement and reload speed. My video below shows these changes in a solo map.
GAMEPLAY
Overwatch PTR Patch Notes – September 21, 2018
A new Overwatch patch is currently in development and now available for testing. To share your feedback or report and issue, please post in the PTR Feedback or PTR Bug Report forums.
Please note that the below patch notes only include changes currently available for testing on the PTR. While many of these changes will also be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in a future patch, the PTR is PC-only and therefore will only reflect changes coming specifically to that platform.
PATCH HIGHLIGHTS
Colorblind Options Updates
Customize how team colors are displayed in your UI (e.g. nameplates, HUD, health bars) and hero outlines with a set of nine different colorblind-friendly colors to choose from. You choose to colorize enemy and friendly UI separately as well. These options can be found under Options > Video > Color Blind Options. All changes made will be saved and ready for you to see in the next match you play!
HERO UPDATES
General
Brigitte
Barrier Shield
Developer Comments: The health of Brigitte’s barrier was extremely difficult for most heroes to deal with even as she was able to close the distance with her targets. This change still provides Brigitte with substantial survivability but should also be more rewarding for opponents who pressure her.
McCree
Combat Roll
Developer Comments: Previously, the cooldown of McCree’s Combat Roll felt too restrictive, which sometimes prohibited players from using it. The new, faster cooldown should allow for more flexibility when choosing between using it for mobility or an instant reload.
Pharah
Concussive Blast
Rocket Launcher
Developer Comments: We wanted to increase how responsive Pharah’s Rocket Launcher felt. Having almost a full second of recovery between shots made it feel sluggish. To balance out the improved recovery time, we shifted some of the 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 they made it very difficult to aim at Pharah while rockets came 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
General
Orisa
Fusion Driver
Developer Comments: Orisa spends a significant amount of time firing her Fusion Driver from a relatively stationary location and the weapon’s spread value caused it to feel too random when leading targets at a distance, taking into account 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 to try to hit targets at longer ranges.
Soldier: 76
Heavy Pulse Rifle
Developer Comments: Soldier: 76’s damage output was a bit low but not too far off from where we feel it should be. Making it take a few more shots to reach max spread smooths out the weapon spread curve and should help his damage be more consistent.
Torbjörn
General
Rivet Gun
Primary Fire
Alternate Fire
Forge Hammer
Deploy Turret
New Ability: Overload
New Ultimate: Molten Core
Developer Comments: Torbjörn 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 through their feast or famine nature. In order to make the hero 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.
Learn more here.
MAP UPDATES
General
BUG FIXES
Heroes
Bastion
D.Va
Hanzo
Mei
Reinhardt
Sombra
Symmetra
Torbjörn
Zarya
Maps
Busan
Volskaya Industries
Game Browser and Custom Games
Deathmatch
VS AI
During the BlizzCon 2018 All-Access Kickoff Livestream Show, Michael Chu revealed the new Legendary Skin for those who pre-order the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket. The massive tease of something Diablo being announced at BlizzCon continues to flow in the air. This time Sombra is getting a Diablo III Demon Hunter skin. You can obtain this skin today.
For the first time ever at New York Comic Con, there will be a NYCC 2018 Blizzard Entertainment booth (#522) through October 4-7 (as seen in this NYCC page). I do have to point out that the map shows booth 522 is taken by Direct TV. The Mobile App also shows the same result. There is definitely a mistake. Last time the Mobile App was updated was April 2018. I reached out to Blizzard Entertainment to learn more. Follow on Twitter @Blizzplanetcom for updates.
