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Overwatch Game Director Aaron Keller took to YouTube last week for the ‘Overwatch 2 Spotlight’, an event that included several game-changing announcements, many of which will directly impact OWCS, the game’s main esports tournament.
Finn MacCarthy spoke to streamers, high-level players and community members across the UK to get their general impressions of these major changes, and what they think the effect will be on Overwatch 2 esports going forward.
Overwatch 2 Hero Perks
The biggest, most impactful and most contentious change in Overwatch 2’s history is arguably hero perks.
Each character has four brand new perks that you will unlock over the course of a match: two minor and two major. These range from buffing certain abilities, changing the way they work or, in some cases, granting you access to a completely new ability.
Prashant ‘CaptainPrash’ Gareja is a British-Indian support player formerly on Ex Oblivione, who recently made it to stage 2 of the OWCS Open Qualifiers. He is sceptical about the changes at a competitive level.
“My main concern with these perks is that they take away skill expression and simplifies the game down to who scales to the most op perk build first, or who is just good at hitting a key to activate a really strong cooldown,” CaptainPrash told Esports News UK.
“I don’t think that shows much skill expression. It may show a bit of theory and understanding of what perks are good, which still takes time to learn but in terms of raw output, it’s not hard to just press a button and get value.
“The way the game is currently, every cooldown matters. The way heroes and interactions occur can be a result of split-second decision making, execution and even just raw mechanical talent sometimes such as getting that clutch pick, or a team coordinated plan. The thing as a player that I always despise is when a hero is buffed or nerfed or even released with the sole intent of simplifying the game down to an easier level.”
“Heroes should be complex and difficult in their own right and reward those that are able to grasp the full extent of their kit. Nowadays heroes are slightly watered down mixtures of multiple heroes that can do all at once. I think that perks are going to contribute to that issue.”
CaptainPrash
It goes without saying, though, that one week is not long enough for a system as game-changing as this to be fully solved. While the eye test can be effective in measuring a perk or ability’s power, all of the players we spoke to agree that it’s almost impossible to truly tell how impactful each perk will be until the pros and coaches test them more at the top level.
For example, many players speculated that Sojourn’s ‘Overcharged’ perk would be a must-pick on an already strong character. It allows her to do up to 50% extra damage with her ultimate, which if piloted correctly could already win fights on its own. However, pro players in recent OWCS matches are instead almost unanimously opting for her other minor perk, “Extended Mag”. This perk simply increases her magazine size, which allows her to reload less frequently and have more uptime. This is deemed more valuable at the top level, as it allows Sojourn to exert more pressure every fight, rather than just those while she has her ultimate online. This is just one example of a perk selection that went the complete opposite way than expected at the top level.
We spoke to streamer Questron, who got the chance to try the perks early at Blizzard HQ, and he echoed these thoughts as well as adding some of his own.
“I think in terms of balance I’m entirely unsure of how it’s going to shake out, but the premise of perks and what they intend to accomplish are probably best showcased in Bastion of all heroes,” Questron said.
“Generally the way to counter him would be to pick a hero without a shield and get up close and personal. However, now with the added perk to swap out his main configuration mode from the gatling to the old tank ultimate, it means you wouldn’t have to swap necessarily.
“Inadvertently this directly tackles counter-picking in a really clever way, by offering inverse directions you can go in with the perk system based on the context you find yourself in. It as a direction is pretty cool. Gives more options, and opens up less “hard defined” predictable rock-paper-scissors style of hero picking to give way to a more broad palette of options without even needing to swap.”
“It’s going to be hectic and chaotic, but fun before it inevitably needs to get properly balanced.
Questron
I also think that because this patch was so massive, that it lends credibility to Overwatch’s future in that next year they’re going to again do massive overhauls, which is fun to look forward to.”
The tank player experience has been a major problem point even before the transition from Overwatch to Overwatch 2; the role has felt unrewarding and frustrating to play for some, but Questron thinks that the addition of perks has the opportunity to revitalise tank play.
“Perks directly tackle counterpicking in that way; Doomfist has a perk where he can ‘parry’ projectiles like sleep dart, but if he’s not against an Ana he could pick the alternative perk,” Questron said. “The options for perks directly handle the exact interactions that ‘hard counter’ characters in some way shape or form.
“There’s also the element of needing to ‘commit’ to a character choice because you’d be losing out on your perk or perk charge the moment you swap heroes, meaning you’re losing out on more than just ult charge. You could alternatively also opt to ‘tough it out’ till you get the perk that handles your counters. It’s in my opinion a really clever win/win scenario where the game improves in fun-factor, but also handles deep rooted issues pretty well, all the while setting up more knobs to adjust for balance going forward.
“They could test out potential rework ideas with the perks without anyone knowing and then just include that ‘perk’ in the base kit of a character and add on a new perk to replace it.”
There are more roadblocks than just balance, though. Izaac ‘Spectrion’ Bailey is a British Overwatch 2 caster, and highlighted a big issue with the new perk system that might have slid under the radar.
”When you’re casting and observing, you’re a spectator in-game, which means you don’t have access to the scoreboard,” Spectrion said. “The scoreboard is the easiest way to determine what perks your team and the other team has, but for the spectator most perks will be completely invisible unless you’re paying really close attention to specific heroes.
“In tournaments where you might only have one observer, it’s nearly impossible to see what perks have been chosen without missing any of the action. Not only does this make the caster’s job more difficult, but the viewers at home won’t be able to tell either. It’ll make the game more confusing, especially to new viewers.”
However, in Overwatch there are two types of spectators: team spectators (who can see the scoreboard) and all spectators (who can’t). So on some occasions, for example in large community events, there may be many observers, so in some small cases they may be able to see perks on the scoreboard.
However, there is one overarching positive of the perk system that most people, especially the wider playerbase, agree on: they’re fun. Your favourite hero has new, interesting abilities, you might have a new way to deal with an annoying counter, and you feel like you’re ‘levelling up’ both literally and figuratively throughout a match. Obviously there are kinks that need to be ironed out, and some perks that are far superior to others, but it seems like the dawn of an exciting new era for Overwatch.
Hero Bans and Map Picks in Overwatch 2 Competitive Play
Map picks, and especially hero bans are topics that have been speculated on for a number of years, but has come to the forefront of a lot of Overwatch discourse since the release of Marvel Rivals, which has a hero pick and ban system built-in to ranked play.
OWCS implemented a hero ban system for its 2025 season, and top-level Overwatch has always had a map pick system of some kind, but these are set to be implemented into ranked play. Hero bans will come first in season 16 in around two months’ time, with the promise of map picks “later this year”.
Many members of the competitive community have been pleading for this to be added, and its announcement has been a source of elation for them. Joshua ‘Jace’ Collishaw has been an Overwatch caster and esports journalist for several years (and we appreciate Jace’s great content here at Esports News UK! – editor’s note), and believes that hero bans will vastly improve the ranked experience.
”Everyone has those heroes that they absolutely hate to go against, and bans are almost an opportunity for those heroes to be removed from that player’s experience. It will make every game more fun. Same with map picks – I quite literally ragequit a season in Overwatch 1 because three of my first five games were 2CP,” Jace said. “The odds of a universally hated map being picked is going to go down dramatically, and that can only be good for the enjoyment of the game.”
To see the full list of changes for this season, as well as some more upcoming content that was announced during the Spotlight event, you can check out the update post on the Overwatch website here.
Finn is a final-year journalism student that has a long-time love for gaming and esports. He specialises in CS2, Overwatch and Smash Bros.
