The newest patch for Overwatch has been released to the live servers. Once again, Overwatch celebrates the Lunar New Year. This year with the Year of the Pig. Among the new cosmetics, the legendary skins are based around historical Asian figures. As with previous Lunar New Years, Capture the Flag and its competitive variant are open to play.

The biggest news for this patch is within the hero balance changes. Armor changes, Brigitte and D.Va nerfs -- plus a Reaper buff -- highlight Blizzard's response to the recent meta.

As always, the patch notes have been transcribed below.

Overwatch Retail Patch Notes – January 24, 2019 A new patch is now live on Windows PC. Read below to learn more about the latest changes.

To share your feedback, please post in the General Discussion forum

For a list of known issues, visit our Bug Report forum.

For troubleshooting assistance, visit our Technical Support forum.

New Seasonal Event: Lunar New Year 2019

Get ready to ring in the Year of the Pig!

We’re celebrating the 2019 Lunar New Year with a festive Capture the Flag version of the Busan map, Season 2 of Competitive Capture the Flag, and a load of loot! Unlock new seasonal items, including legendary skins for Huang Zhong Hanzo, Lü Bu Reaper, Guan Yu Reinhardt, Zhang Fei Torbjörn, Hong Gildong Tracer, and Zhuge Liang Zenyatta.

To learn more about Overwatch Lunar New Year, click here.

HERO UPDATES

General

• Armor
  • Damage reduction from armor reduced from -5 to -3

Developer Comments: Before this change, armor reduced all incoming damage by up to 5, maxing at half of the normal amount. This change reduces the damage reduction to 3, while still capping at half. This change will be most noticeable for heroes who fire quickly or in bursts, such as shotguns, and do more than 6 damage per shot. For example, Soldier: 76’s Heavy Pulse Rifle will now do 16 damage per shot to armored opponents, up from 14 (an increase close to 15%).

Armor was a bit too strong overall, especially when heroes were being healed quickly and often. This change will help more heroes fight against higher-armored enemies.

Brigitte

• Rally
  • Now has a maximum duration of 30 seconds

Developer Comments: Sometimes Rally could cause a snowballing effect, making it too difficult to deal with the increased health of Brigitte’s allies before she built up another one. This change limits how long Rally’s effect lasts after its initial cast, to make it a bit more manageable in those situations.

D.Va

• Defense Matrix
  • Cooldown increased from 1 second to 2 seconds

Developer Comments: This change allows D.Va’s enemies to play around her Defense Matrix by increasing its downtime between uses.

Reaper

• The Reaping
  • Life steal increased from 30% to 50% of damage dealt

Developer Comments: Reaper’s passive enables him to play aggressively when near enemies. This change allows him to keep the pressure up while he’s dishing damage to his enemies. The added life steal is particularly effective against tanks, as they tend to do less damage than other heroes, and also take more damage from his Hellfire Shotguns due to their larger hit volumes.

BUG FIXES

Heroes

Tracer

• Fixed a bug that caused Tracer’s Pulse Bomb to detonate on the wrong side of Orisa’s Protective Barrier when it was placed on the front

Wrecking Ball

• Fixed a bug that prevented Wrecking Ball’s proximity mines from being disabled by Sombra’s EMP

Competitive Play

• Fixed a bug in Competitive Play that prevented the team color on the payload progress bar from switching after a round transition

Maps

• Nepal
  • Fixed a bug that allowed players to capture or contest the point from its exterior on Nepal’s Shrine stage