Many veteran fans of Overwatch 2 have responded with disappointment after learning that Genji will be receiving several nerfs to his damage potential with the release of the upcoming hero balance patch. While the Overwatch 2 community has been calling for the developers to introduce nerfs to several characters that have been dominating the game's current meta, everyone's favorite cyborg ninja is not a hero that fans want to see changed.Updates that bring changes to hero balancing typically create discord within the Overwatch fanbase, and Blizzard is notorious for introducing hero changes that go down badly with many players. Of course nobody likes to see their favorite hero nerfed, but heroes such as Zarya, Sombra, and Sojourn have been causing problems for the general player base in all skill tiers since the launch of Overwatch 2 at the beginning of the month.The news regarding the hero changes came in a Twitter Spaces conversation from the official Overwatch Twitter account. The conversation consisted of a 24-minute-long talk between Lead Hero Designer Alec Dawson and Overwatch League caster Matt Morello, and detailed the hero changes that the development team plan to roll out in an upcoming balance patch that is set to release on November 15. Alongside the widely-requested nerfs to Sombra's hack ability and Zarya's barrier duration, it was also revealed that Genji will be receiving nerfs to his shurikens' capabilities, reducing his ammo capacity from 30 to 24 and reducing each shuriken's damage from 29 to 27.
Although the announced changes actually were leaked in advance, the widespread circulation of rumors regarding hero changes left many fans suspicious as to the credibility of these leaks. While the changes to Genji's primary weapon may seem negligible, many expert Genji players insist that the effects will have massive consequences for the hero's overall damage output, with some fans on Twitter going as far as to claim that these changes may make Genji unviable in the competitive scene.
Alongside the balance changes for the aforementioned heroes, the developers went on to confirm that they will also introduce nerfs for D.Va and, to a lesser extent, Kiriko. The announcement has been particularly infuriating for fans as Blizzard made no mention of bringing changes to Sojourn, a hero that many players believe is particularly overpowered in the current meta. Despite the upset for many high-ranking players, the changes to be made to Genji may be to the advantage of the newer players to Overwatch 2 who are more likely to have problems countering Genji.
While Blizzard intends only to improve the player experience for everyone, it's clear that a significant portion of the community is unhappy with the plans to nerf Genji in particular. With the planned changes still being a few weeks away, many in the community hope that Blizzard will consider the player feedback in response to the announcement.
Overwatch 2 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
