Blizzard has previewed some of the changes coming to Overwatch 2 at launch from its previous betas, with players dreading the prospect of a new passive ability that makes DPS heroes faster.
In Overwatch 2, each role (tank, support, and DPS) gets a passive ability. In beta builds, DPS players retained 30% of their max power when swapping heroes. That passive now applies to all heroes, so you’ll take a much smaller penalty for switching heroes, regardless of what role you play.
“Of course, that means the DPS role once again finds itself without a passive role,” Blizzard explains in its patch note post. (opens in a new tab). “So, along with this change, we’re introducing a new passive for DPS that increases your movement speed and reload speed by 25% for a short period after getting a kill. We think this change is the right balance to reward players who perform well in the Damage role without being overpowered. However, in future seasons, we may continue to experiment with what these passives do as we look to shake up the meta on a regular basis.”
While Blizzard indicates that this passive is open to change, players are already spooked by the possibility of speeding up DPS heroes.
“That new passive DPS doesn’t sound healthy,” Reddit user haydnc95 (opens in a new tab) He says. “Imagine an even faster Tracer or Genji in the baseline, no thanks. We don’t need faster DPS and they don’t need a universal passive.”
“What are you guys thinking about passive dps?” sgtcuddles (opens in a new tab) Question. “I can’t wait for them to pick a teammate and then reaper gets a free speed boost on my team.”
“The only thing I don’t like is the passive dps”, eGG__23 (opens in a new tab) He says. “As someone who plays soft supports with no mobility, having the enemy dps suddenly faster to kill me is one of the reasons I hated the first beta. I really hope they redo the passive. They seem to be open to it once Maybe the game starts. And who knows? Maybe dps doesn’t even need a passive.”
We’ll see what effect the new passive has on the game soon enough, and these changes should be available in Overwatch League competition on September 22, ahead of the game’s full release on October 4.
We recently learned that Lead Hero Designer Geoff Goodman has left the Overwatch team – had been in the game since some of its earliest iterations.
