Genji will finally be able to heal himself!
Starting in Overwatch 2 Season 9, every hero will get a self-healing passive. This means in addition to support heroes, both tank and damage characters will be able to heal themselves. Read on for details.
Overwatch 2 heroes get self-heal passive
In a post on Jan. 12, Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller stated that starting in Season 9, every hero will be able to heal themselves through a new passive. This means tank and damage heroes will have a modified and tuned-down version of the current support roster's self-healing passive.
According to Keller, this update would give tank and damage players better sustain while taking some pressure off of support players. Keller also noted that this will shift the balance between the power of a team and the power of an individual.
"We still want Overwatch to be defined by team strategy and mechanics, but we feel this can be pulled back a bit now and possibly more in the future," he wrote.
Overwatch 2 respawn times, party frames, and more
In his post, Keller went into features such as the Overwatch 2 ping system and adjusted respawn times. He stated that the latter system will get some tuning in Season 9. He then talked about the party frames feature, which will be on-screen player health indicators for player-versus-player (PvE) events.
Keller also hinted at other possible features such as scoreboard changes, Overwatch 2 backfill improvements, ways to mitigate spawn camping, plus the addition of a mini-map for players on the same team.
"Some of these systems are under discussion and some are in development," he wrote. "I don’t think a mini-map has a high likelihood of shipping, but I do think that [party frames] are likely."
The post continued with an explanation of the Quickplay: Hacked event. According to Keller, this event is part of the Overwatch 2 team's goal of improving the core gameplay experience.
"Based on the reception to these changes, the team might use the feedback toward improving the game," he stated. "That’s what these Quickplay: Hacked events are designed to do – quicken the feedback loop and allow for swifter implementation of improvements into the game."
Near the end of the blog, Keller teased that another Quickplay: Hacked event will arrive later in Overwatch 2 Season 8.
That's all for now. Stick around on esports.gg for more news and updates!