A new Overwatch developer update outlines a heap of new changes coming to the game. The most prominent change on the way is a rework to Torbjörn, changing how his turret works, removing his armor packs, giving him a new ability, and revamping his Ultimate.
Torbjörn's first ability, Deploy Turret, is now a thrown projectile that automatically deploys wherever it lands. Turret levels have been removed, and the new turret has the same power level as the old "level two" turret. Additionally, the turret will now prioritize targets that have been tagged by Torbjörn's Rivet Gun, allowing the player to have some control over the AI targeting. To counteract these buffs, the turret now goes on cooldown when it is destroyed, so players will get some satisfaction out of taking down an enemy turret.
Torbjörn's second ability has been changed completely. Armor Pack is gone, as is Torb's scrap system. His new ability, Overload, functions similarly to the self-buff as his old Ultimate Molten Core. When activated, Torbjörn gains temporary armor along with improved movement, attack, and reload speed. Here's everything it does:
- Adds 150 temporary armor
- 30 percent increased movement speed
- 30 percent increased Rivet Gun and reload and attack speed
- 30 percent increased Hammer attack speed
- 5 second duration
- 12 second cooldown
Finally, Torbjörn's Ultimate has changed as well. It's still called Molten Core, but it now lets him launch up to 10 molten projectiles that spawn a damaging pool where they land. The damaging pools deal 130 damage, increased up to 190 against enemies who have armor. The ability lasts for six seconds or until 10 lava blobs have been fired.
Torb's Rivet gun has been tweaked a bit. On its primary fire, projectile speed has increased from 60 to 70 while reload time reduced from 2.2 to 2 seconds. The alternate fire also has lower recovery and reload time, reduced spread, but lower total damage per shot. Functionality remains largely the same, but should be more consistent and overall do slightly more damage.
In addition to the Torbjörn rework, Kaplan said that minor changes would be coming to Orisa, Soldier: 76, Pharah, and McCree, though he was sparse on the details. We'll have more info once the PTR patch notes are released. He also mentioned that more robust colorblind options are on the way.
Finally, Kaplan said that while Seasonal Events (like the upcoming Halloween Terror event) would continue to feature awesome cosmetic items, their event-specific game modes (like Junkenstein's Revenge) will largely remain unchanged for the forseeable future. Instead of developing new game modes, Kaplan said the Overwatch team is focused on hero balance changes and quality-of-life fixes, like the Torb rework and the colorblind mode outlined here.
