Recently Blizzard announced that they would be utilising the Overwatch PTR on PC as a place to test some significant changes to Heroes separate to the regular patch process. As to what these changes would be was anyone's guess, but with the first of them rolling out over the weekend we can see that they weren't kidding. And we're a little baffled by some of the choices.

Namely because I currently main Lucio in Competitive Play and nerfing Amp It Up feels a little off. What with its long cool-down.

Anyway, here's the changes so far. And it should be clear that these are in no way final, with Blizzard actively monitoring player feedback.

Hero Balance Changes

General

• Dealing damage to non-players (like like Torbjorn's turrets or Symmetra's teleporter), no longer charges ultimate abilities
  
• Ultimate costs have been increased by 25% for all heroes

D. Va

• Mech health increased to 200 (formerly 100). Armor remains at 400
  
• Movement speed while firing has been increased by 25%
  
• Call Mech - Ultimate cost has been decreased by 20%
  
  Developer Comments: This reduces the cost back down to what it was before the global ultimate cost change.

Soldier: 76

• Pulse Rifle - Bullet damage increased from 17 to 20
  
• Pulse Rifle - Maximum bullet spread Increased from 2.2 to 2.4

Ana

• Nano Boost - No longer increases move speed

Mei

• Blizzard - Ultimate cost has been increased by 15%

Lúcio

• Amp It Up - Healing-per-second has been decreased by 10%

Zarya

• Particle Barrier - Power gained from barriers decreased by 20%
  
• Projected Barrier - Power gained from barriers decreased by 20%

Torbjörn

• Scrap is now automatically generated over time
  
• The amount of scrap collected from a fallen enemy has been decreased by 40%
  
• Forge Hammer - Swing speed increased by 25%
  
• Forge Hammer - Damage decreased by 27%

Widowmaker

• Venom Mine - Explosion no longer damages the player who placed the mine
  
• Widow’s Kiss - Charge rate increased by 20%

Pharah

• Rocket Launcher - Minimum explosion damage has been increased to 25% of rocket’s total damage (formerly 12%)
  
• Rocket Launcher - Minimum explosion knockback has been decreased to 0% of rocket’s total knockback (formerly 75%)

Mercy

• Passive health regeneration now kicks in when Mercy avoids taking damage for 1 second (formerly 3 seconds)

And there you have it. No doubt some of these changes will affect how the game plays, especially the increase in all Ultimate costs. A change that probably came about due to Ultimate abilities becoming the focal point for just about all substantial attack pushes.