Hanzo’s recent rework has made him a much more viable hero, but the new and improved archer won’t be making it into the fourth stage of the Overwatch League. However, an unnerfed Brigitte will and this has essentially divided the game’s community.
New Hanzo is better in tons of ways: he is more mobile thanks to his new lunge jump ability, his arrows fire more quickly, and his Scatter Arrow ability has been replaced with Storm Arrow, which makes him a bigger threat in close combat. His rework has transformed Hanzo from a somewhat obnoxious sniper to a versatile duelist and useful asset for his team.
On the other hand is support/tank hybrid, Brigitte, who has been dominating the tank meta since her arrival to Overwatch. She comes off as a bit overpowered and can be extremely frustrating to counter.
The same patch that brought Hanzo’s rework also incorporated a reduced cone angle for Brigitte’s Shield Bash, along with some other nerfs, but those changes won’t be making it to the Overwatch League’s final stage.
The league is on its regularly-scheduled break between stages, which allows the league’s patches to catch up with the current version of the live game. According to Dallas Fuel’s Brandon “Seagull” Larned, the fourth stage will almost be completely brought up to speed, minus Hanzo’s much-needed rework and Brigitte’s nerfs.
Junkrat, Tracer and Genji have also been nerfed, while Lucio has received a Wall Ride buff, but none of these changes will make it to Stage Four either.
The Overwatch League community is divided on the issue, with some arguing that most large-scale tournaments delay patches for several weeks before porting them over to the tournament server.
Not sure why the Overwatch community doesn’t understand this, but most big devs wait several weeks for patches to go live in an esports environment
This prevents bugs and balance issues from ruining professional matches
There is no world where OWL uses the live patch instantly
— MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) May 9, 2018
But there’s a whole lot of fans that disagree with this and have even signed a petition on Change.org that aims to bring the most recent patch to OWL’s Stage Four. As of this writing, the petition has almost 8,500 signatures.
“As it stands right now, the entirety of stage four of the Overwatch League will be played on a patch that was live for just two days,” an Overwatch League fan wrote on the petition. “It’s going to be a huge disconnect for the viewers when they see a Hanzo Scatter Arrow four weeks after it’s been changed for an entirely new ability that they were excited to see in [a] tournament.”
Additionally, esports news site Inven reported that Overwatch League players and staff have been “arguing internally” with Blizzard for Brigitte’s Shield Bash nerf to be included in Stage Four. According to Inven, Blizzard asked players earlier in the week to provide feedback on Brigitte and her viability without the live nerfs.
Stage Four is scheduled to start on May 16. If Blizzard decides to run with the older patch, teams and fans will just have to deal with it until June 17. There is a big break between the Stage Four finals and the season one playoffs, which start July 11. Maybe this is when the League’s servers will be completely caught up to the live version of Overwatch, but by then there could be even more changes to the game.