Zenyatta,Overwatch 2’s squishiest support hero, has received a nerf to his Orb of Discord in the latest mid-season patch and fans have been voicing their disapproval. Launched last year,Overwatch 2breathed new life into the popular multiplayer hero shooter which had been stagnant for several years prior. Bringing new heroes, maps, a new Push mode, and more,Overwatch 2was initially considered a success, however, the recent cancelation of the promised story mode and hero missions has upset many fans.
Able to output a high amount of damage for a support hero, Zenyatta also has one of the lowest health pools in the game. This major compromise makes the Omnic monk a superb back line hero, able to poke, challenge, and even secure eliminations at long range. Staying back and keeping teammates in sight is essential for Zenyatta, as his main form of healing requires line-of-sight to his teammates to apply his Orb of Harmony, which slowly heals them over time.Zenyatta’s Orb of Discordis applied to opponents the same way and makes the target take more damage from Zen’s whole team.
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Zenyatta’s Orb of Discord is one of the most powerful abilities inOverwatch 2’s support class. However, a recent mid-season patch has significantly nerfed the ability, and Dexerto has pointed to several disgruntled fans who’ve been voicing their concerns over the change to one ofOverwatch’soriginal support heroes. The nerf decreased the range of Discord from 40 meters to 30, making Zenyatta need to move forward away from the safety of his back line to be able to apply the ability to more distant opponents. Additionally, the time it takes for Discord to leave the target after breaking line of sight from Zen has been reduced from 2 to 1.5 seconds.
In the wake of the patch, tank players have been expressing that the reduced range of Discord’s application will make it so tanks will constantly be hit with Zen’s discord, as tanks are typically on the frontline ahead of their team, closest to the opposing Zenyatta. Another player chimed in concerned about theRapid Discord achievement, which requires earning four kills or assists with the Orb of Discord in six seconds, being made even harder to obtain with this new nerf. There were also several fans who suggested alternative balance changes to Zen’s Discord, such as the ability going into cooldown after an elimination or having its damage amplification on a target start low and increase over time.
While this change to Zenyatta’s Discord orb garnered a mostly negative reaction from mains of the hero, one player mentioned that the reduced time to deactivation after losing line of sight from the target will help reduce the “wall hack” effect of the ability’s UI. WithOverwatch 2’s sixth season titled Invasionapproaching next month and looking to add a new support hero to the roster, perhaps Blizzard may reconsider its decision to nerf Zenyatta in this way.
Overwatch 2is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
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