Overwatch will be celebrating its very first birthday tomorrow, and in order to get everyone in on the festivities Blizzard has just unleashed the Anniversary Update. It brings with it three new arena (elimination) maps, a ton of awesome skins including one for Hanzo that makes him look like Genji, dance emotes for all heroes, numerous new voice lines, and the list goes on for quite a while.
If you would like to get a little bit of a sneak peek at some of these new skins you'll find the recently posted launch trailer right below. Oh, and make sure to stay until the end or you might just miss out on all of the hilarious dance emotes! Here's the video:
Besides all of the new cosmetics the Anniversary Update has also added a bunch of minor bug fixes and balance changes, as well as a ginormous buff to Hanzo! You can find the full patch notes over at the official website, but for now here are all of the hero changes:
Genji
• Removed the attack cooldown from Genji’s wall climbing ability, allowing him to engage with enemies immediately after completing a climb
Developer Comments: This is a quality of life change to make wall climbing feel better.
Hanzo
• Removed the attack cooldown from Hanzo’s wall climbing ability, allowing him to engage with enemies immediately after completing a climb
• Storm Bow
- Increased charge speed by 10%
- Charged arrows now maintain their charge after climbing a wall, provided the button is continuously held
Developer Comments: Decreasing Hanzo’s draw time gives him more overall DPS, while also letting him fully charge an arrow and more quickly return to full movement speed when needed. And, like the change to Genji’s wall climbing, this is a quality of life change that will make climbing feel better.
Orisa
• Fusion Driver
- Damage reduced by 9%
• Protective Barrier
- Cooldown reduced from 12 seconds to 8 seconds
Developer Comments: To help Orisa maintain the front line for her team, we’re reducing the cooldown of her Protective Barrier. This change also helps her reposition the barrier more easily when needed. To compensate for this new defensive strength, we're reducing her Fusion Driver's damage, as it felt too high.
Reaper
• Wraith Form
- Ammo is now entirely refilled when Wraith Form is used
Developer Comments: Wraith Form is typically used as an escape ability after firing. This change gives Reaper a fighting chance if an enemy chases him down as he uses it.
Reinhardt
• Earthshatter
- Effective height has been lowered from 3 meters to 2 meters
- The height threshold of objects that Earthshatter can "climb" has been lowered from 3 meters to 2 meters, making Earthshatter less likely to climb tall objects as it "crawls" along the ground.
Developer Comments: Earthshatter tended to climb unexpectedly high, frequently hitting targets that were significantly above the ground. These changes help the ability stay more grounded.
Soldier: 76
• Heavy Pulse Rifle
- Bullet damage decreased from 20 to 19
Developer Comments: Soldier:76 is in a much better place lately, but his damage output was making him a must pick, compared to similar roles.
As someone that plays both Hanzo and Genji this patch is beyond amazing. Not only has wall-climbing been made significantly less annoying to deal with, but Reinhardt's Earthshatter has finally been grounded so its no longer going to be as easy to stop Dragonblade with it. Add to that a minor Soldier 76 nerf and we might just have the most diverse metagame Overwatch has seen so far. Whether this is just fanciful thinking or something that will actually happen, only time will tell, but until then allow me to leave you with some quick screenshots of the remaining legendary skins:
