Depending on who you ask, perfect balance is a goal that’s either near-impossible to achieve or an unrealistic aim that’s futile to pursue. I am, of course, referring to Blizzard’s continued commitment to making every single one of Overwatch‘s Heroes fit into the meta like a well-cut jigsaw piece, and it looks like Roadhog and Winston are next in line to receive some tweaks for that very reason. Don’t get too excited, though, these changes aren’t anywhere near the level of the drastic overhaul given to Bastion in the most recent PTR update, but they should help to remedy some issues players have been experiencing with both characters during play.
Outlining the changes coming to Roadhog over on a forum post (via VG247), principle designer Geoff Goodman says that the beer-bellied tank is to receive a, in my opinion, much-needed change to his Ultimate in the patch, reducing the spread of his Scrap Gun projectiles by 20%. To ensure players don’t abuse it as a guaranteed kill following a successful hook, targets are now pulled to a location 3.5 meters away from him, rather than 2. The cooldown on the Hook has also been increased from 6 to 8 seconds.
As for Winston, there’s really not much to write home about here. The armored ape is having his Critical hit volume reduced by 15% in the patch, a figure that, Goodman says, was “just abnormally big, making him take more damage than he otherwise should.” The change will hopefully bring him more in line with other Heroes.
Goodman doesn’t provide any exact dates on when to expect the patch, but considering how frequently Blizzard likes to roll out these things, expect it to hit Overwatch‘s PTR server at some point next week.