Some updates in competitive games tend to get much more recognition than others. Generally, a seasonal game update gets a lot more attention than some bug-fixation updates. Because in those seasonal updates, the game developer puts a lot more content for us gamers to consume. That is why they get talked about a lot more while other updates get past down the drain without anyone noticing them.
Some updates get stuck in players’ minds because these updates introduce new and mind-boggling things to our favorite games That is why they get stuck in people’s minds. In this blog, we are doing something similar because unlike talking about an upcoming seasonal update here we are going to do a recap for a season. We will talk about Overwatch 2’s season 8, what that season brought to the game, and why it was one of the biggest updates to Overwatch 2 ever.
Season 8 was released in last year’s December and we got the most overpowered tank in it also in that season Blizzard buffed more than a dozen heroes and was hoping for a meta change. The addition of Mauga was a great step because that increased the concurrent player count from 27000 to 38000.
While this might seem a tiny number keep in mind that these players are only from the Steam platform. As we know overwatch 2 is a multi-platform game. So the real concurrent player count is much higher than this. We will be recapping all of the content that was present in season 8 in detail.
Mauga:
For sure the biggest thing in season 8 was the addition of Mauga because in season 7 blizzard didn’t add one and reworked on an existing hero to make up for it. Since then mauga has been considered to be the most overpowered tank in the game. The reason is that being a tank he has a huge amount of hp while also carrying a machine gun which pushes out too much damage.
Killing him was also a nightmare until or unless the whole team focused on him and bait each other till he ran out of ammo or till he eventually got killed. As of now, mauga is not as powerful as it was on release because Blizzard had nerfed him a couple of times but he is still a nightmare to counter and players are saying that these nerfs are too little and not enough to counter such an overpowered hero.
Apart from being an overpowering tank mauga also brought fresh air into the game by being a unique and stand-out character. His character model also has similarities to the infamous animated hero Maui.
The Battle of Beasts:
There was also a brand new PvPvE mode (player versus player versus Enemy). In this mode, you had to play with a team of your friends and fight against a beast. But the twist here was that your team also has a beast that you have to protect while killing the enemy team’s beast. This thing made the mode so much more intensive for casual players.
To make things more interesting blizzard makes the new tank mauga free for this mode exclusively and to top it all off blizzard also puts cosmetics, game cards, and battle pass Xp on the line to make the mode even more lucrative to play.
Winter Wonderland:
As we now know season 8 was released in December hence blizzard had to push a Christmas event. So the players could enjoy it while being on vacation and that’s what exactly Blizzard did they pushed an event called Winter Wonder Land which was themed on snowy winters. To make things interesting for the players blizzard added challenges that upon completion would give you formally styled skins.
But the winter wonderland event didn’t start upon the release of the season. It was later released on the Christmas week. The event had skins for every default unlocked hero. Whether it’s Cassidy or Mei or whether it’s Illari or Baptiste one had a skin in this event.
The Notorious Buffs and nerfs:
As I’ve stated at the start of this blog we also got quite a few buffs for our heroes. Some of them are more significant than others. I will put down each of them one by one from the biggest ones to the slight ones.
Mauga (Nerf & buffs):
As we have talked about how bad the Mauga situation got blizzard responded quickly by nerfing some of its abilities and buffing him a little to smooth him out.
Nerfs:
- Base health was reduced from 500 to 350.Â
- Damage reduction increased from 30 to 50 percent.
- Head hit volume reduced by 15 percent
- The fire rate multiplier for firing both guns was reduced from 25 percent to 0 percent.
Buffs:
- His Base armor has increased from 0 to 150.
- The spread of spraying down both guns has also reduced by 15%.
- They have also increased the damage per shot from 4.5 to 5 subtle but a change nonetheless.
They also have tweaked with his other abilities but I am not going to cover them as they are pretty negligible.
JUNKER QUEEN (buff):
Carnage
- Junker Queen’s impact damage has been increased from 90 to 105.
REINHARDT (Buff):
Earthshatter
- Knockdown duration increased from 2.75 to 3 seconds.Â
- The shockwave range increased from 20 to 25 meters.
SIGMA (Buff):
Experimental Barrier
- The movement speed has increased by over 20% from 16.5 meters per second to 20 meters per second.
WRECKING BALL (buffs):
Blizzard has made quite a few changes to the wrecking ball’s kit. Starting from her
Grappling claw:
- Has now a one-second cool down.
- By holding the jump the grappling claw will retract if it is attached to any kind of terrain.
- The timer will no longer trigger until the wrecking ball reaches its full speed.
Adaptive shield:
- Can now Revitalise to redistribute up to 300 over health to nearby teammates.
- The detection radius is increased from 10 to 13 meters.
Minefield
- The health of it is increased from 50 to 60.
Sombra Buff:
Virus
- The Damage from decreased has been increased from 90 to 100.
TRACER (buff & nerf):
Recall:
- The cooldown has increased for a mere 1 second.
Pulse Bomb:
- The total projectile size is not 0.25 meters.
MOIRA (buff & nerf):
Biotic Grasp:
- Damage per second decreased from 65 to 60.
Coalescence
- Self-heal per second increased from 50 to 55.
Prop Hunt & Hard Light Weapon Skins:
The last thing that we need to cover in this blog is the prop hunt game mode Hard Light Weapon Skins. As season 8 came at the start of the lunar year blizzard announced that due to the feedback of the overwatch players, they will add the fan-favorite mischief and magic prop hunt game mode in the Lijian night market map. The mode was added to the game for a shorter amount of time.
Hard light weapon skins were a big deal because not only did these skins have custom visuals according to the player but they also came with new sound effects. The heroes who got the skins were Rein, Reaper, and Mercy. the skins were a huge deal because they were customizable as per the taste of the player.