What you need to know
- In Overwatch 2's new April Fools' Day mode, each of the game's heroes have gotten some silly and overpowered buffs.
- Ashe, though, is particularly busted due to a bug with her buff that makes her Dynamite burn deal four times the damage it's supposed to.
- This, on top of the buff's intended effect of making the burn spread between enemy players, made Ashe absurdly overpowered.
- The developers at Blizzard have quietly disabled Ashe in the mode as a result, and it's not clear if they're planning on fixing the bug before the April Fools's event ends.
Every Overwatch 2 hero is supposed to be a bit overpowered in the game's new lighthearted April Fools' Day Arcade mode, as it enhances one or several of their abilities with some bizarre new capabilities. Reinhardt, for example, can fly while using his Charge, and Bastion can shoot unlimited A-36 Tactical Grenades while in Configuration: Assault. Ashe, though, proved to be particularly busted due to a bug with the buff that she got in the mode.
Normally, Ashe's throwable Dynamite explosives deal a moderate amount of burning damage-over-time to anyone in its blast radius. In the April Fools' patch, though, players affected by the Dynamite spread the fire to nearby teammates, making the ability comically effective at setting entire enemy teams on fire. This alone isn't that strong, but there's a bug that makes the burning damage stack four times on every target affected by it. This means that on top of rapidly spreading to players, the ability dealt a whopping 400 damage (it does 100 normally) over the course of five seconds.
This obviously made Ashe absurdly powerful, as every Dynamite throw was essentially a guaranteed multikill against teams that didn't have support Ultimates like Transcendence or Sound Barrier available. Any non-tank Overwatch 2 heroes couldn't survive without concentrated healing, but by going near your support to get some, you'd end up spreading the flames to them and sealing their fate. Put simply, it was ridiculous, and the developers at Blizzard have responded by quietly disabling Ashe in the April Fools' mode entirely.
Blizzard hasn't publicly commented on the issue at the time of writing, so it's unclear if the developers are planning to fix the bug before the Overwatch 2 April Fools' Day mode is taken down. Since it's only expected to last for a few days, though, we wouldn't be surprised if they aren't. Note that Ashe is still fully usable in Quick Play, Competitive, and other modes, as this bug hasn't affected her normal kit in any way.
Interestingly, this isn't the first time that characters have been disabled because of nasty glitches or exploits. In fact, both Bastion and Torbjorn were disabled after the game's October 2022 launch due to bugs that allowed these characters to extend the duration of their Configuration: Artillery and Overload abilities, respectively. Until Blizzard put a stop to the chaos, endless artillery barrages and permanently Overloaded Torbjorns were a frighteningly common sight in matchmaking.
It's a bummer that Ashe isn't available in the mode anymore, but if you ask me, disabling her was definitely the right call. Regardless of whether Blizzard plans on patching the bug or not, her ridiculously overpowered Dynamite was ruining the April Fools' fun for many.
Overwatch 2 Season 3 is here, and the game as a whole is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. It's arguably one of the best Xbox shooters available, and since it's free-to-play, it doesn't cost anything to check it out. Alternatively, there's the Overwatch 2: Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle that includes the Premium Battle Pass, 20 Battle Pass levels, 2,000 Overwatch Coins, and the Beekeeper Sigma skin for $30.
