Highlights
- In Overwatch 2 Season 9, Tank and Damage heroes will receive a self-healing passive ability, potentially changing the game's meta.
- The goal is to make non-Support players less reliant on teammates for healing and reduce the pressure on Support players.
- This change may shift the gameplay towards a more individually focused approach, while still valuing the healing abilities of Support heroes.
Overwatch 2 announced that in Season 9 all Tank and Damage heroes will receive a self-healing passive ability. This will likely cause a significant shift in Overwatch 2's meta. Its development team further explained this new change.
Historically, Overwatch 2 has emphasized the teamplay aspect of its combat, with players needing to synergize the strengths of Tank, Damage, and Support heroes to create successful pushes or defenses. While team fighting has usually been a core aspect of Overwatch 2, its development team has proved that it's not scared of trying out drastic changes, like Blizzard's new limited-time Quickplay mode that went live on January 12. As its latest experiment, Blizzard is implementing a major change that might make the game more individually focused.
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In Overwatch 2's Season 9, Tank and Damage heroes will have a nerfed version of the Support class' self-healing passive ability. Blizzard explained that this change is intended to make non-Support players less reliant on teammates when it comes to healing, while also taking the pressure off of Support players to tend to every team member. Blizzard acknowledged that this change will likely alter the gameplay of Overwatch 2 and that it plans to constantly evaluate this new mechanic following its release. The game developer also explained that it might further shift Overwatch 2 towards the power of individual heroes in the future. Season 9 is expected to launch on February 20, but this hasn't been confirmed yet.
Changes Coming to Tank and Damage Heroes in Season 9
- All Tank and Damage heroes will be given a self-healing passive ability
In addition to this rework, Overwatch 2's Season 9 will bring more changes including a significant update to the game's ranked system. This overhaul will add instant rank progression updates, Emerald Weapons, the new Ultimate division, and placement matches.
Season 9's new self-healing ability might allow Overwatch 2's Support and Tank duos to focus on each other more, while Damage heroes are given slightly more freedom. The healing abilities of Support heroes will still be a powerful tool to quickly replenish teammates' health, but Damage heroes in particular likely won't be as reliant on them.
It's still unclear how drastically this will affect Overwatch 2's gameplay, but it's possible that the game will become increasingly focused on individual play over the coming months and years, based on Blizzard's latest announcements. Most popular FPS games like Call of Duty or Counter-Strike allow a single player to make a huge difference if they make the right decisions. While this is certainly already possible in Overwatch 2, the game might be aiming to emphasize this aspect in the future to maintain its popularity.
Overwatch 2
Overwatch 2 is Blizzard's free-to-play team-based first-person shooter. The title features some new heroes like Junker Queen and Sojourn, as well as returning favorites.
