Hanzo and Widowmaker nerfs are coming to Overwatch 2 season 5

Blizzard is planning some Hanzo and Widowmaker nerfs in Overwatch 2 season 5, with more changes in store for Lifeweaver as well. Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller outlined Blizzard’s plans for hero alterations in Overwatch 2 season 5 in a new blog post, including adding back in crowd control abilities that the team removed during the change from Overwatch to Overwatch 2.

On the nerf side, Blizzard is changing Widowmaker’s damage falloff range from 70-100 meters to 40-60, and the falloff scale is also increasing from 30-50 percent. Keller said Widowmaker can still one-shot an enemy hero with 200 health at 50 meters, but you won’t be able to one-shot people from across the map anymore.

Hanzo is getting a small damage nerf for similar reasons – to cut down on one-hit eliminations – and while Keller didn’t give exact numbers, he did say Hanzo won’t be able to defeat an enemy hero with 250 health with one well-aimed shot anymore. The opposing team will also be able to spot Hanzo’s sonic arrow more easily in a bid to cut down on surprise ambushes.

Junker Queen’s buffs in the middle of season 4 were a bit too effective, so Blizzard is cutting down how much health her passive restores again. She’s also getting a slight increase in how long it takes for her ultimate to pop.

Plans for Lifeweaver’s buffs are still going ahead, though Keller had nothing further to share about them.

Something else that’s in the works is the reinstatement of crowd control abilities in the multiplayer game. Keller said they won’t be exactly the same as in the original game, but with just one tank per team, players need more options to defend themselves when their tank is otherwise engaged.

“At times, the original game felt like you were in a pinball machine,” Keller said. “But we have a lot of high-mobility heroes in the roster, and a team can’t always rely on their tank to take of them. So we’re softening our approach here. We don’t want to return to the state the game was in previously, but we feel like there is room for more CC, especially soft CC, in our lineup.”

Two examples of those upcoming abilities are Mei’s endothermic blaster and Cassidy’s magnetic grenade (yes, the grenade is getting changed once again). While Mei won’t freeze opponents like in the first Overwatch, she will build up a slow debuff that significantly slows affected enemies for nearly two seconds. Cassidy’s grenade is getting nerfed again, but it’ll also inflict some kind of movement debuff on foes.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF