Freja may have only just come to Overwatch 2 Stadium, but she's already proved to be incredibly overpowered. Her bola builds are making OW2 almost entirely unplayable for the opposite team, and that's exactly why Blizzard is completely removing one of her powers while it works on a fix.
If you've been playing Stadium over the last few days, you've likely come across a frustrating Freja opponent. If they've chosen her Lille Faelde power, they can repeatedly use an Updraft to ensure that their next Take Aim isn't explosive, but instead fires a Bola Shot. This does 60% less damage, but the trade off makes it worth it. Enemies hit with the bola pull nearby teammates towards them, while slowing them down at the same time. The ability to consistently do this, depending on the build, is making Overwatch 2 almost unplayable, so Blizzard is doing something about it.
OW2 game director Aaron Keller has announced that Blizzard has disabled Lille Faelde in the FPS game, while the team works on a solution. "Stadium update! We're disabling Freja's power, Lille Faelde, effective immediately. Bigger changes are coming next week, but we've heard your around her bola builds and wanted to take action before the weekend."
This was echoed by senior designer Dylan Snyder, who says Blizzard has "plans for a more comprehensive set of adjustments next week, but didn't want to hold off completely ahead of the long weekend!"
Blizzard hasn't just disabled Lille Faelde, either, as a hotfix from Friday May 23 also nerfs Freja's overall effectiveness. Her income from damage and healing has been reduced by 25%, lowering her status as one of the best Overwatch 2 Stadium DPS builds.
"Freja is a hero with a very high damage ceiling, which can feel especially powerful in Stadium when ahead," Blizzard writes. "We're lowering her economy gain from damage to reduce the consistency and speed at which Freja can snowball in Stadium. We'll be making a more targeted set of changes next week, including looking at the crowd control effectiveness and uptime of the Bola build and improving some of her weaker options."
So, if you've been on the receiving end of some incredibly overpowered Freja bola builds in the last few days, these changes are good news. I'm impressed by just how fast Blizzard has adjusted her in the face of this problem, as a cursory glance at the OW2 forums and subreddit shows that some players noticed Lille Faelde was disabled in between rounds. Granted, that's a nasty surprise, but it had to be done.
If you want to take on a different role on Blizzard's newest game mode, we've got all the Overwatch 2 Stadium tank builds you need to check out.
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