Overwatch Sigma Patch Soft Launches Role Lock, Role Queue Beta Live

Published: August 13, 2019 5:35 PM /

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overwatch sigma patch - rocks

The Overwatch Sigma Patch is now live! Aside from introducing the game's newest tank hero, the patch has soft-launched Role Lock on Quick Play and began the Role Queue Beta Season in Competitive Play. A new hero always mixes things up a bit, but the new team composition features are much more likely to have a major impact on the future of the game. These changes include a series of nerfs to Brigitte and a shift in how Mystery Heroes lets you keep surviving heroes.

If you haven't been keeping up with the game, a brand-new tank named Sigma is being added! Check out his Now Playable trailer to get a feel for his abilities and theme!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWEpjzgMqyU

Overwatch Sigma Patch — Sigma Abilities and Sigma Skins

Sigma is the newest Tank hero to join Overwatch. This astrophysicist spent just a wee bit too long staring into the abyss — and the abyss stared back. His mind was shattered and he gained some strange new powers, so Talon did the only responsible and sensible thing that they could: strap him into a power suit and weaponize his abilities.

You can read all about Sigma's abilities and his background on his hero page.

Sigma Abilities

Hyperspheres

Sigma's primary weapon are the Hyperspheres, a pair of floating balls. These can bounce off of walls and will either explode on contact with an enemy or after a short time.

Experimental Barrier

Sigma is a barrier tank and his shield is projected by him at will sort of like Symmetra's old Photo Barrier with a small ch ange — Sigma can stop the barrier in midair at will. You can also recall the barrier and redeploy it on the fly.

Kinetic Grasp

Sigma embraces his inner Neo and absorbs incoming projectiles, converting them into shield energy on his own healthbar.

Accretion

Sigma sucks up a bunch of rocks from the ground and yeets a big ball of earthy death at the enemy.

Gravitic Flux

Sigma floats up into the air, picks up any enemies that happen to be within a very large radius, and slams them down onto the ground.


Sigma Skins

[gallery link="file" columns="4" size="full" ids="312666,312659,312664,312657"]


Sigma Epic Skins

[gallery link="file" columns="2" size="full" ids="312665,312661"]


Sigma Legendary Skins

[gallery link="file" columns="4" size="full" ids="312663,312660,312656,312658"]


Role Lock and Role Queue Beta Competitive Season

After a few weeks of testing on the PTR, Role Lock and the Role Queue Beta Competitive Season are now live on Overwatch.

As a quick refresher, Role Queue separates the previous Competitive Play queue into three distinct categories. Your SR from the previous season will be preserved and will subsequently split into separate SRs for Tank, Healer, and DPS. Once you queue into a role, you are restricted to playing those characters for the duration of that game.

Quick Play, meanwhile, has not instituted a role queue just yet. Instead, they have activated a "Role Lock" feature. Once the players pick out their roles, you will be unable to change from within that role. It's an odd compromise between completely free-form picking and a Role Queue.

Some users on the Overwatch subreddit have expressed confusion about the Role Lock feature in Quick Play, but it seems that information about this was buried in earlier announcements in the game.

It should also be noted that "Quick Play Classic" (that is, with no Role Lock/Role Queue) is not yet on the Arcade. If you don't want to play with any kind of Role Lock or Role Queue right now, your only option right now is No Limits or Mystery Heroes on the Arcade.

Patch Notes and Other Changes

The Overwatch Sigma Patch has more changes besides a new hero, Role Lock, and Role Queue! A whole bunch of other changes and upgrades have gone through as well.

Endorsements

Endorsements are being added to several games modes in the Arcade.
  • Mystery Heroes
  • No Limits
  • Deathmatch
  • Total Mayhem
  • Low Grav
  • All PvE Event game modes (Uprising, Retribution, Storm Rising)

Mystery Heroes Changes

Mystery Heroes is having a single but significant change for one particular type of map. Control Maps will now have players changing their roles in-between rounds. If you're unfamiliar with this type of map, it's the ones like Ilios, Oasis, Busan, etc. where there are three smaller maps within one and you play a best of three game.

Changes to Ultimate Charge and Slowing

Ultimate charge has had a 12% increase in cost across the board. This means that it will take slightly longer for you to charge up your Ultimate, regardless of what hero you play.

Additionally, slowing effects will no longer stack. Instead, only the most powerful slowing ability will take effect on an enemy and the weaker ones will effectively be ignored.

Hero Changes

Ashe

  • Reload time reduced from 0.3 to 0.25 seconds per round.

Brigitte

  • Inspire (Passive)
    • Healing increased from 100 to 130.
    • Self-healing halved.
  • Repair Pack
    • Has 3 charges instead of 1.
    • Healing changed from 150 to 120.
    • Now heals over 2 seconds instead of instantly.
    • Multiple packs on the same person will add to the heal over time duration.
  • Whip Shot
    • Outgoing speed increased 30% (from 60 to 80).
    • Retracting time halved.
  • Barrier Shield
    • Health reduced from 500 to 200.
  • Shield Bash
    • Stun duration down to 0.75 seconds (previously 0.9 seconds).
  • Rally
    • Ultimate cost increased 10%. This is on top of the global 12% increase in cost discussed above.

D.Va

  • Call Mech cost reduced by 12% to counter the global increases so it won't take Babby D.Va longer to get into her mech.

Doomfist

  • Melee attack no longer pauses reload.

Hanzo

  • Storm Arrows reduced from 6 shots to 5 shots.

Orisa

  • Protective Barrier cooldown increased from 8 seconds to 9 seconds.

Reinhardt

  • New "Steadfast" passive ability reduced knockback effects by 30%.

Sombra

  • Hack duration on enemy players decreased from 6 seconds to 5 seconds.
  • EMP activation time increased from 0.2 seconds to 0.35 seconds.

Symmetra

  • Teleporter now sticks around forever until it is destroyed.
    • Players can destroy Teleporters with Ability 2 input.
    • Cooldown starts when the Teleporter is destroyed.
    • Maximum range increased from 25 meters to 30 meters.
    • Teleporter will be destroyed if the entrance is more than 40 meters from the exit. (This would happen if you put the exit or entrance on a moving platform, the payload, etc.)

Tracer

  • Pulse bomb damage increased from 300 to 350.

Wrecking Ball

  • Minefield projectile speed increased from 10 to 12; this should let mines spread out a bit more.
  • Activation time reduced from 0.25 seconds to 0.1 seconds.


And that's it for the highlights for this patch! Make sure to check out the full patch notes for all of the fine details on bug fixes and other changes that have come to the game. You can play as Sigma with the new Role Lock and Role Queue features in Overwatch right now!

What do you think of the Overwatch Sigma Patch? Do you think the introduction of Role Lock and the Role Queue Beta in Competitive Play are going to be healthy for the game? Let us know in the comments below!

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


A photograph of TechRaptor Senior Writer Robert N. Adams.
| Senior Writer

One of my earliest memories is playing Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I've had a controller in my hand since I was 4 and I… More about Robert N

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