Overwatch Year of the Dog is Here!

Daks Rosales
The Critical Index
Published in
4 min readFeb 9, 2018

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A run-through of all the festive celebrations in store for the Overwatch community alongside interface and balance changes.

The event runs for 4 weeks, which includes the chance to get the Lunar New Year cosmetics and the first ever competitive CTF season. (Source: Play Overwatch)

The Lunar New Year event has returned to Overwatch, and with it comes a number of additions to the game. Over 50 new seasonal items and a chance to buy the previous year’s cosmetics are up for grabs. Beyond the cosmetics, there is a revamp of the Capture the Flag (CTF) mode. The release of a new permanent CTF map, Ayutthaya (based in Thailand) and a competitive CTF season for the duration of the event add on to these CTF changes. For map changes, the Lijiang Tower map is back to its festive variant once again. Finally, the long-awaited pre-game skin swap menu and balance changes to a few heroes have been released.

Cosmetics

A list of Lunar New Year skins available. (Source: Play Overwatch)

The Overwatch team released 6 new legendary skins for the event, and these went to the heroes Widowmaker, Zarya, Pharah, Genji, McCree, and Mercy. The latter 4 are based on the Chinese mythos of the 4 Guardians of the 4 Cardinal Directions. These new skins cost 3000 Overwatch coins each, as the standard of new seasonal items. The items from the Year of the Rooster also return, at the standard prices as normal loot box items.

A still from the new Highlight intro for McCree, “Spark.” (Full Video)

There are also a few items of note other than the skins. There is a new highlight intro for McCree, and two new emotes for Roadhog and Doomfist. There are also new voice lines for all the characters, and the seasonal sprays and player icons are also available. All the new cosmetics are available in the Lunar Loot Boxes or purchase through the Hero Gallery until the end of the event.

Capture the Flag

The loading screen for Ayutthaya. The full CTF changes can be seen here.

Taking in player feedback, the rule set for Capture the Flag has been heavily changed. The flag pickup is now instant, and when dropped it cannot be picked up for 5 seconds. Returning the flag is no longer canceled by damage, and takes 4 seconds. There are a number of abilities restricted when carrying the flag, and if used by the flag carrier, the flag is dropped. The flag carrier can be affected by the restricted abilities however when they are used by a teammate. Finally, draws have been removed as there is now a sudden death mode that moves the flags closer to the center to the map. Players can queue up for either Ayutthaya-only queues or the first competitive CTF season through the Arcade menu, and victories in either count for the 3 loot box weekly arcade bonus.

Pre-game Skin Swapping

During the “Assemble Your Team” phase, players can now pick and swap the skins that they are going to use for the duration of the map. This can be done to as many heroes as you want before the game starts. Mid game skin swapping is not allowed.

Balance Changes

Minor changes come to Doomfist and Reaper.

The official patch notes come with a few changes to the male heroes of Talon- Doomfist and Reaper. These are:

Doomfist

Hand Cannon (Primary Weapon)

  • Damage reduced from 11 to 6
  • Number of bullets fired increased from 6 to 11
  • Spread pattern made more consistent

Reaper

Death Blossom (Ultimate Ability)

  • Now fires at players behind barriers

There have also been reports of both Mei and Sombra receiving changes as well. The changes have been reported by Blizzard to be an accident and will be removed from the live patch and moved to the PTR in the immediate future. For now, these changes are:

Mei

Icicle (Secondary Weapon)

  • Ammo requirement reduced to 20 (from 25)

Sombra

Machine Pistol (Primary Weapon)

  • Weapon Spread decreased by 10%

Hack (Secondary Weapon)

  • Hacking speed increased to 0.65s (from 0.8s)
  • Hack disables abilities that require a button press, including Genji’s Double Jump & Wall Climb, Pharah’s Hover Jets, Hanzo’s Wall Climb, Lucio’s active Crossfade, and Mercy’s Angelic Descent

EMP (Ultimate Ability)

  • Ultimate charge in no longer gained from Hacked health packs

The Year of the Dog Lunar New Year event runs from February 8 to March 5, for 4 weeks. Log in to Overwatch during the duration of the event to receive a free Lunar Loot Box, and join in the festivities today!

The Year of the Dog Lunar New Year promotional video. (Credits: Play Overwatch)

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