Overwatch 2’s community LTM has genius balance changes despite the silliness

Overwatch 2 released a new LTM in Season 11, Community Crafted, where professional content creators came together to make changes to all Heroes. It’s available to play in Arcade, and players are loving it so much they’re calling for some changes to be permanent.

When looking at the Hero changes that Emongg, Eskay, TQQ, and Custa added, a lot of the changes are making gameplay more fun and a lot smoother. You can check them all out in our explainer guide on the new mode.

Playing Community Crafted has been one of the best experiences I’ve had so far in Overwatch 2, and it’s largely because of the changes that balance out frustrating Heroes to play as or against.

For example, Reinhardt getting a significant damage reduction while he’s charging is a great choice because it takes away a lot of the risk of the ability. In a game where you only have one Tank, it means they can use the charge to make more meaningful plays as oppose to throwing it out and dying.

I wouldn’t suggest a whole 50% damage reduction, but the point remains that it’s a great take on how abilities can be slightly tweaked to make Heroes stronger without making them completely OP.

Another Hero that has truly shone thanks to the changes in Overwatch 2 Community Crafted is Lifeweaver.

Lifeweaver’s weapon swap speed was increased significantly, along with his damage. His cooldown on the Life Grip was also decreased, but the biggest change came in with his Petal Platform which now has two charges and boosts height by an extra 50%.

Lifeweaver’s always struggled a bit with surviving in difficult situations, and his pick rate against Support Heroes with better abilities to get away, like Kiriko, has suffered as a result. These changes makes him a little more viable in a variety of comps.

Another great example is the change to Zenyatta’s kick in the mode. Knocking himself back instead of knocking enemies means that you have more control over where you’re positioned, and it still forces enemy Heroes to readjust.

CC was largely cut out of Overwatch 2, but it still sneaks in with abilities like Orisa’s Javelin. These kinds of abilities have never really sat well with the general community, and making adjustments like Eskay’s may just be an answer to this problem.

It’s worth noting that not all the changes should be made permanent. For example, Scatter Arrow – an old ability from Overwatch 1 – replaced Storm Arrow, but it doesn’t work well.

Storm Arrow is much better for balancing Hanzo because it’s not as random as Scatter Arrow, you need to be more deliberate with where you are aiming instead of just shooting into a small room and hoping for the best.

But, for an Arcade mode that’s only going to be around for a little bit, it’s a great deal of fun to replace Storm Arrows with Hanzo’s iconic Scatter Arrow ability.

I can’t claim to understand the work that goes into crafting Heroes in a game like Overwatch, but taking tips from the community has already shown that it can go a long way. 

In the past, fans have been frustrated with Heroes getting changes to fit the meta in professional environments like the Overwatch League. So, it’s not to say that professional players or content creators have a better idea of how to balance the game, but rather that community input is very important.

In fact, many players have loved the changes to Heroes so far, which further proves this point. “I’ve played Lifeweaver since his release, and the Arcade mode is the best he has ever felt,” ‘ZzDangerZoneZz’ shared on Reddit.

As I said before, many of the changes that have come with Community Crafted are silly and wouldn’t really work in a normal setting, but they’re worth thinking about.

While a direct application of these changes in a future update may not work for Overwatch 2, it’s worth working around the overall idea and implementing them to make Heroes better to play with and against.