Overwatch 2 Game Director Regrets Revealing Self-Heal Skills Without Context

Blizzard Entertainment’s recent announcement that it will be adding passive healing skills for tank and DPS heroes in Overwatch 2 hasn’t gone over well with the hero shooter’s community. Game director Aaron Keller now admits that it was a “mistake” to reveal the change without the context of the other changes coming in Season 9.

According to the original dev blog, the new self-healing skills will be part of an extensive list of gameplay changes and balance adjustments aimed at reducing damage spikes and taking the pressure off healers and support heroes by giving other roles more options to sustain themselves during combat.

“Clarifying a few things with the self-heal,” Keller tweeted. “It’s one part of a much larger set of changes coming to the game in Season 9. Internally we’re talking about, and targeting some of these changes at damage spikiness in game, the role of DPS in securing kills, and the strength of healing.”

“It was a mistake to talk about this lone change out of context, since it is a part of a much bigger set coming to Season 9,” he added. “Sorry for that, and I look forward to more discussion around Season 9 balance changes when we drop more details.”

We’ll get to see how the said passive healing plays out in practice when Season 9 begins on February 20. The team also promises to dive into the rest of the upcoming changes in a separate blog post.

Clarifying a few things with the self-heal. It's one part of a much larger set of changes coming to the game in S9. Internally we're talking about, and targeting some of these changes at damage spikiness in game, the role of DPS in securing kills, and the strength of healing. https://t.co/Ay68KOZAFD

— Aaron Keller (@aaronkellerOW) January 13, 2024