Buffs to Reaper and Mei in Overwatch will be heading to the PTR soon according to a post on the game's official forums from Principal Designer Geoff Goodman.
The Overwatch PTR has been the testing grounds for some buffs to heroes in the last few weeks. Doomfist, Mei, & Sombra all had some buffs applied to them not too long ago (with Sombra's being reined in a bit in a later patch to the live servers). Changes have been discussed for Torbjõrn, Hanzo, and Symmetra as well, but these three characters are all in various stages of planning. We've now learned that Mei and Reaper will be getting buffs in an upcoming PTR patch.
In a thread centered around questions about Brigitte, Geoff Goodman responded to someone inquiring about which characters the developers are reluctant to touch. In his response, he stated that the Overwatch team is "always trying to get ahead of the meta" and that they think the introduction of Brigitte means that a tank-heavy meta could be in the cards. The potential for this meta is further enhanced with the release of Moira, a healer that synergizes quite well with triple tank or quad tank compositions. The buffs to Mei and Reaper should be heading to an upcoming PTR patch "hopefully this week".
Aside from the aforementioned heroes, Ana may be getting some changes at some point in the near future, too:
We’ve talked about a number of things we could do for Ana but don’t have any firm plans just yet. I don’t think she is super far off, and she does bring a number of tools that no other healer has access to. Currently she is more a victim of the dive meta than anything else, as she doesn’t fit well in that environment.At the moment, Ana, Hanzo, Mei, Reaper, Symmetra, & Torbjõrn have all been explicitly mentioned as heroes that are going to see some fine-tuning in the coming weeks and months. If you're interested in reading through all of Mr. Goodman's responses, you can check out the entire thread on the Overwatch forums. You can also swing by this /r/Overwatch thread by /u/phatskat that compiles all of the answered questions in one handy place.
Update: Another post by Geoff Goodman hints that a possible buff for Mei may be the ability to freeze multiple people. (Currently, Mei can only freeze one target at a time save for when she makes use of her Ultimate.)
What do you think the buffs to Reaper & Mei will be like on the Overwatch PTR? Which character do you feel sorely needs some improvement to stay competitive in the meta? Let us know in the comments below!
