A new update just hit the Overwatch PTR today and it comes with interesting new tweaks namely the Symmetra rework, and the Genji and Zarya nerfs. Today, we're going to be discussing all of the patch update that just hit PTR and hopefully gives you a heads-up of what's coming next in live Overwatch.
Overwatch PTR Update Symmetra Rework
The highlights of the new update is the Symmetra Rework or rather, a new "upgrade" that Blizzard has incorporated on the hero for the simple fact that Symmetra is deemed to be very situational in most cases. The new buffs hope to make the hero more viable in competitive games and indeed, it is now rocking the Overwatch PTR.
First off, Symmetra now has a new move called Photon Barrier. This ability works similarly to Winston and Reinhardt's shields but in her case, it's an elliptical projectile and moves along a trajectory. Next one is the newly added 'second' ultimate which can be opted out freely by the player. What this does is Symmetra creates a shield generator that provides 75 shield for all of its teammates across a wide radius. It appears so far that Sombra can't hack the generator and that the generator has a 6-second grace period after leaving the maximum radius of the generator.
Overwatch PTR Update Genji and Zarya Nerf
Blizzard finally "nerf" or technically speaking, fixed Genji's most used basic ability and that is the Edge Boost trick. For those of you that don't know, Edge Boost is when you propel yourself forward using the hero's Swift Strike ability and use the W + space right on the edge of a structure. It's important to note that Blizzard didn't include this on PTR highlights but it's already confirmed by many players that Genji is no longer capable of the said trick.
Zarya also gets a "nerf" which is actually a hotfix on one of her abilities specifically Projected Barrier. The patch notes says: "Attacks that deal damage to both a barrier and the target of a barrier (such as Reinhardt's Fire Strike, Hanzo's Dragonstrike, etc.), no longer deal damage to the barrier twice." So basically what this does is that if Genji's Dragon Blade Slash deals 120 damage, it now only gives 24 energy as opposed to the 40 energy you will get before. And consequently, Genji now needs to do roughly 3-4 slashes to kill a shielded enemy since the hotfix also interacts with the hero doing double-damage on shields before.
That's it for all the Overwatch PTR highlights today! What do you think of the new Symmetra ultimate ability? Do you think Genji's Edge Boost trick deserves to be fixed? Share your thoughts in the comments down below!
