Overwatch patch fixes Zarya, Winston and Mercy bugs

Overwatch was patched overnight on PC, PS4 and Xbox One to adjust Competitive Play Sudden Death timers downwards (times listed below) and also to fix a few hero bugs (on PC only).

Patch 1.0.5.1B sees to the damage-scaling issue with Zarya's right-click bomb shot. Her damage was getting stuck at high values despite her shield-gotten charge depleting.

There's a useful tweak for Mercy to stop beams disconnecting from an ally when switching quickly between heal and damage-buff, or when pressing two mouse buttons at once, or while turning away.

And there's a fix for Winston to tweak his melee attacks and their inconsistency hitting people during his Primal Rage ultimate.

There are a few tweaks to Competitive Play that revolve around leaving games and rejoining them, but they're only minor adjustments for now. The notable omission - which is apparently coming this week - is Blizzard doing something about people leaving games shortly before they lose and therefore unbalancing the teams six-versus-five, fudging the calculation and how many skill points are rewarded as a result.

Game director Jeff Kaplan put it nicely when, on the Overwatch forum, he wrote: "We definitely don't want people getting shrekt."

I wrote an article recently that covers most of what you need to know about Overwatch Competitive Play, which plays slightly differently to standard Quick Play games.

Oh and in case you missed it: Blizzard also overnight teased the ranged support weapon of the new Overwatch hero, who may well be Pharah's mother, Ana Amari, who may now go by the codename Sombra.

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General

Competitive Play

The duration of Sudden Death has been adjusted across all maps from 1m45s to the following values:

• Assault:
• Hanamura - 1m35s
• Temple of Anubis - 1m30s
• Volskaya Inudstries - 1m35s
• Escort:
• Dorado - 1m30s
• Route 66 - 1m35s
• Watchpoint: Gibraltar - 1m35s
• Hybrid:
• King's Row - 1m30s
• Numbani - 1m50s
• Note: Sudden Death duration is unchanged for Hollywood, which remains at 1m45s

Bug Fixes

General

• [PC Only] Fixed a bug that prevented Overtime music from playing on Escort and Assault/Escort maps, if they payload was nearing the final checkpoint
• [PC Only] Fixed a bug where display settings weren't always saved after restarting the client
• [PC Only] Fixed an issue that sometimes caused the in-game UI to display incorrectly at 4k resolutions
• [PC Only] Fixed a bug where sometimes the wrong player level would appear in the Social menu

Maps

• [PC Only] Fixed an issue with collision not blocking line of sight on certain areas of Nepal

Heroes

• [PC Only] Fixed a bug that caused Mercy's Caduceus Staff beam to disconnect from its target if the player a) quickly switched between healing and damage beams by holding down both mouse buttons and/or b) was facing away from the target at the time of the switch
• [PC Only] Fixed even more bugs that allowed Reaper to Shadow Step to unintended locations on certain maps
• [PC Only] Fixed a bug that caused Winston's melee attack during Primal Rage to inconsistently hit targets in range
• [PC Only] Fixed a bug that sometimes cause Zarya's alternate fire to scaled incorrectly with her damage boost modifier

Competitive Play

• [PC Only] Fixed a bug that caused the "Top 500" icon to incorrectly display for certain players in various places throughout the game UI
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused players' Skill Rating to display as "64" during placement matches
• Fixed an issue where if you left and rejoined an in-progress Competitive Play match, the game would still track the match as a loss in your placement match history and when determining the amount of Skill Rating you receive for completing a match even if your team won
• Note: You must be present for the conclusion of the match to be eligible for the win. If you leave a match and do not rejoin before it's over, it will count as a loss both in your placement match history and when calculating your Skill Rating adjustment.
• Fixed an issue where you would still receive a Competitive Play "leave" penalty even if you rejoined a match and completed it
• Note: If you leave a single Competitive Play match more than 3 times, you will receive a Competitive Play "leave" penalty even if you complete the match