Overwatch: Lucio changes, mitigating draws in Competitive Play – everything from the PTR patch notes

By Stephany Nunneley

The latest patch has been applied to Overwatch’s Public Test Realm, and along with the usual bug fixes and feature updates, Lucio has undergone some changes.

Arekkz gives you a look at Lucio’s changes in Overwatch above, but we’ve also posted the PTR patch notes for you below.

One of the more interesting additions noted in the patch is a change to the Eichenwalde map. Blizzard has added a new route which connects the attacking team’s spawn area to the capture point. This should please some folks.

In Competitive Play, a tracking system has been added to Assault and Assault/Escort Maps. This will allow the game to break ties based on progress made toward capturing the objective.

To mitigate draws in Competitive Play, which Blizzard touched upon yesterday, a system which tracks each team’s progress on the objective has been implemented. This works similar to the system already in place for Escort and Assault/Escort maps, which grants a win to the team that “pushes the payload the furthest.”

Even if neither team successfully captures the objective, a winner will no be determined based on which team captured the largest portion. For testing purposes, the Competitive Play map rotation will be limited to Eichenwalde and Hanamura.

Custom Game settings can now be saved as a preset from the game’s details page. This is done by right-clicking on the new map from the Create Game page or, alternatively, right-clicking a game name from inside the Game Browser.

Details about each hero’s backstory have also been added, including information on some of their “lore-inspired skins” which have been added to the Hero Gallery.

The rest of the patch notes, the changes to Lucio and bug fixes, are posted below.

Overwatch March 17 PTR Patch Notes

Lucio Nerfs, Buffs and Changes

Sonic Amplifier

• Projectile speed increased from 40 to 50
• Alternate fire now considers vertical orientation when knocking targets back

Crossfade

• Song’s area-of-effect radius decreased from 30 meters to 10 meters
• A temporary in-game visual has been added to illustrate this radius (it is only visible to Lúcio and his teammates)

Heal Song: Healing-per-second has been increased by 50% (also applies to Lúcio’s Amp It Up ability)

Sound Barrier: Radius decreased from 30 meters to 20 meters

Wall Ride

• Movement speed increased by 30% when wall riding
• Lúcio now receives a burst of speed when leaping off a wall

Developer Comments: Lucio has often felt like a must-pick due to his raw healing output and the versatility of providing a speed bonus to your entire team. The goal of these changes is to keep those elements feeling strong, but making them harder to apply to everyone on your team at all times. The end result is that he should feel stronger with teams that he can stay close to but not as strong when on teams with heroes that are often spread out (such as Pharah, Widow, Genji, etc).

Much of Lucio’s character power was tied up in his large passive auras, which caused other elements of his kit to be weakened over time in an attempt to balance him. Now that his auras are more focused it will allow them to be much stronger and allow Lucio to be more active in his role.

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed a bug preventing achievements from being unlocked during off-season competitive matches
• Fixed an issue that prevented voice lines from being heard during the Play of the Game
• Fixed an issue that prevented voice lines from playing on Control maps

Custom Games and Game Browser

• Fixed an issue that allowed empty player slots to be displayed even when disabled (e.g. in 6v1 games)
• Fixed a bug preventing the pause feature from working properly after the original host has left the match
• Fixed a bug that allowed extremely long team names

Heroes

• Ana no longer cocks her rifle after throwing a grenade
• The brightness on Bastion’s Golden gun has been toned down when the BlizzCon skin is equipped
• Fixed a bug causing Mei’s pinky to bend awkwardly in some poses with her Chang’e and Luna skins equipped

Maps

• Fixed a bug on Eichenwalde that allowed enemy player outlines to be seen through a pile of dirt at the castle gate
• Fixed an issue on Eichenwalde that allowed players to become trapped in the broken castle doors
• Fixed a bug that allowed Sombra to reach unintended locations on King’s Row
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to reach unintended areas on the Capture the Flag version of Lijiang Tower
• Fixed a bug that allowed Symmetra to hide turrets in unintended locations on Oasis