Overwatch Hero Pools Will Temporarily Ban Heroes in Competitive Play
Blizzard is moving forward with a new feature for Overwatch's twenty-first competitive season called "Hero Pools." It's a feature that will lead to week-to-week bans for several heroes, removing them from available Overwatch heroes. Hero Pools will be limited to Competitive, likely to experiment with constantly changing metas. Blizzard also makes very clear that Hero Pools is currently only planned for Season 21 and will only be kept if it works out well.
Each week, the Blizzard design team will select a "few" Overwatch heroes to go into the pool. These heroes will be banned from competitive play for the duration of the pool. The pool will change every week, though it could be changed to be daily or even by match depending on what the design team decides. Players will be able to select any hero not in the pool, like regular.
Blizzard does provide a reason for the introduction of the Hero Pools feature to Overwatch's Competitive mode. It's explicitly stated that Blizzard's goal is to, "allow the meta to change ... and see more hero diversity in matches." Hero Pools will allow the Blizzard design team for Overwatch to figure out what feels the most fun for competitive Overwatch. The one thing it appears Blizzard has decided on for sure is that a full season of the same heroes and little meta shifting is too long.
Since this is a major change for Competitive mode, Blizzard plans to reveal more information about Hero Pools soon. Competitive players should keep an eye on the Overwatch blog for this update.
There are several other big changes that Blizzard plans to implement in the near future. Perhaps the biggest one is Blizzard's intention to release more frequent and "impactful" balance updates for Overwatch. These updates would intentionally shift the meta, rather than be wary of making waves. There will also be a new card added to the Play screen in Overwatch. This card will be for major experimental changes that likely won't come to standard play, but will serve as important tests for other ideas. Blizzard also plans to boost its anti-cheat efforts going forward.
This next major update for Overwatch is planned to release in early February. Expect more information about patch 1.45 soon.
Overwatch is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Reviewed by Unknown
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January 30, 2020
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