What Is the Difference Between Blue and Yellow Health in Overwatch

July 17, 2022 Post a Comment

Hit points (HP) represent how much damage a hero or object can take. The health bar shows the amount of HP, divided into bars each worth 25.

A hero's HP is "low" at 50% and "critical" at 25%. Their location will be shown to all friendly healers.

If a hero's HP becomes 35% or lower, a gasp sound effect is played and blood appears around the borders of the screen. The exception to this is 150 HP heroes who get it at 70 HP.

Priority Order [ ]

When being healed, the priority order is Health > Armor > Shields.

When taking damage, the priority order is Non-Recoverable HP (Shields > Armor) > Recoverable HP (Shields > Armor > Health). The only exception is EMP, which only damages shields and bypasses any temporary armor.

If there are shields above armor, and an instance of damage destroys the shields and damages the armor, armor will reduce that damage based on how much damage the armor would take. For example, suppose Wrecking Ball has 99 temporary shields from Adaptive Shield and he gets hit by Fire Strike (100 damage). The armor would take 1 damage, a number less than 10, so it reduces the damage by 0.5 instead of 5. Wrecking Ball takes 99.5 damage from the Fire Strike.

Recoverable HP [ ]

HP that can be healed. There are three types: health, armor, and shields.

Health [ ]

The most basic form of HP is health. Health is depleted when there is no armor or shields to protect it, and is the first to be replenished when being healed.

If a hero's health comes to 0, they will die.

Health is colored white.

Armor [ ]

Some heroes have a type of HP called armor. For every instance of damage, armor reduces the damage by 5, but it cannot reduce it by more than 50%. In other words, armor halves any damage that is lower than 10, instead of taking away 5.

Armor is extremely effective against attacks that consist of multiple instances of damage (e.g. shotguns) and is less effective against single instances of damage that are above 10. Even if the armor runs out, as long as there was a single point of armor before taking damage, the damage will be reduced.

Against beams and damage-over-time effects, armor works differently: armor reduces the damage of beams by 30% and does nothing against damage-over-time.

Armor is the very last damage modifier to be applied. For example, if a fortified Orisa would take 100 damage, Fortify reduces it to 60, then armor takes away another 5; the damage becomes 55. If she would take 10 damage, Fortify reduces it to 6, then because 6 is less than 10, armor halves it; the damage becomes 3.

Armor is colored yellow.

Beam-type damage (30% reduction)

Echo: Focusing Beam
Mei: Endothermic Blaster (primary fire)
Moira: Biotic Grasp (alternate fire), Coalescence
Symmetra: Photon Projector (primary fire), Sentry Turret
Winston: Tesla Cannon
Zarya: Particle Cannon (primary fire)

Damage-over-time effects (no reduction)

Ana: Biotic Rifle
Ashe: Dynamite
Hanzo: Dragonstrike
Mei: Blizzard
Moira: Biotic Orb
Torbjörn: Molten Core (also does additional damage to armor)
Widowmaker: Venom Mine
Zarya: Graviton Surge

Shields [ ]

Some heroes have a type of HP called shields. Symmetra's Teleporter also has some shields.

Shields automatically regenerate at a rate of 30 shields per second after avoiding damage for 3 seconds. This is treated as a form of healing, meaning Biotic Grenade can amplify or block it.

Shields are destroyed by Sombra's EMP.

Shields are colored cyan.

Barrier Health

Barrier health is a type of shield health.^[1] ^[2]

The main difference between barrier health and regular shields is their regeneration: Barrier health only regenerates while the barrier is inactive, meaning only recallable barriers can regenerate. Furthermore, the delay before regeneration is 2 seconds instead of 3, and the regeneration rate varies between barriers.

Non-Recoverable HP [ ]

HP that cannot be healed and are only temporary, generated by hero abilities.

There are three types of non-recoverable HP: health, armor and shields. Non-recoverable HP always goes on top of recoverable HP.

Temporary Health [ ]

Non-recoverable health takes damage with no special effects, like regular health.

Temporary health is colored pale teal.

Temporary health is currently unavailable outside of the Workshop, where it can be applied to a player with the Add Health Pool to Player action.

Temporary Armor [ ]

Non-recoverable armor reduces damage like regular armor.

Temporary armor is colored orange.

Abilities that grant Temporary Armor:

Brigitte:

Rally: Provides self and nearby allies up to 100 temporary armor at a rate of 15 armor per 0.5 seconds. Lasts 30 seconds

Torbjörn:

Overload: Provides self 100 temporary armor. Lasts 5 seconds

Temporary Shields [ ]

Non-recoverable shields, or temporary personal shields,^[3] ^[4] ^[5] ^[6] are susceptible to EMP like regular shields but do not regenerate and often decay by themselves.

Temporary shields are colored dark blue.

Abilities that grant Temporary Shields:

Doomfist:

The Best Defense...: Creates up to 150 temporary shields to self, 30 for each target hit with a normal ability and 75 for each target hit with Meteor Strike. Decays at 3 shields per second after 1 second

Lúcio:

Sound Barrier: Creates 750 temporary shields to self and all allies within range. Decays at 125 shields per second

Sigma:

Kinetic Grasp: Converts 60% of damage absorbed into temporary shields. Decays at 7 shields per second after 3 seconds

Wrecking Ball:

Adaptive Shield: Creates 100 temporary shields to self, plus 75 additional shields per enemy within range. Lasts 7 seconds. Does not give enemies ultimate charge if damaged

List of hero HP [ ]

Hero	Role	Health	Armor	Shields	Temporary Armor	Temporary Shields	Total / Max
D.Va	Tank	300	300				600 [Mech]
D.Va	Tank	150					150 [Pilot]
Orisa	Tank	200	250				450
Reinhardt	Tank	300	200				500
Roadhog	Tank	600					600
Sigma	Tank	300		100		400 [Kinetic Grasp]	400 / 800
Winston	Tank	350	150				500 / 1000
Winston	Tank	850 [Primal Rage]	150				500 / 1000
Wrecking Ball	Tank	500	100			550 [Adaptive Shield]	600 / 1150
Zarya	Tank	200		200			400
Ashe	Damage	200					200
Bastion	Damage	200	100				300
Cassidy	Damage	225					225
Doomfist	Damage	250				150 [The Best Defense...]	250 / 400
Echo	Damage	200					200
Genji	Damage	200					200
Hanzo	Damage	200					200
Junkrat	Damage	200					200
Mei	Damage	250					250
Pharah	Damage	200					200
Reaper	Damage	250					250
Soldier: 76	Damage	200					200
Sombra	Damage	200					200
Symmetra	Damage	100		125			225
Torbjörn	Damage	200	50		100 [Overload]		250 / 350
Tracer	Damage	150					150
Widowmaker	Damage	175					175
Ana	Support	200					200
Baptiste	Support	200					200
Brigitte	Support	150	50		100 [Rally]		200 / 300
Lúcio	Support	200				750 [Sound Barrier]	200 / 950
Mercy	Support	200					200
Moira	Support	200					200
Zenyatta	Support	50		150			200

List of non-hero HP [ ]

Hero	Ability	Health	Shields	Total	Notes
Ashe	B.O.B.	1200		1200	Can be healed Can receive temporary HP
Baptiste	Immortality Field	150		150
Brigitte	Barrier Shield		250	250	85/s shield regeneration
Junkrat	Concussion Mine	25		25
	Steel Trap	100		100
	RIP-Tire	100		100
Mei	Ice Wall	400		400	5 pillars
Orisa	Protective Barrier		600	600
Orisa	Supercharger	200		200
Reinhardt	Barrier Field		1600	1600	200/s shield regeneration
Sigma	Experimental Barrier		700	700	120/s shield regeneration
Sombra	Translocator	5		5
Symmetra	Sentry Turret	30		30	Up to 3 turrets
	Teleporter	50	250	300	2 pads Destruction destroys both 30/s shield regeneration
	Photon Barrier		4000	4000
Torbjörn	Deploy Turret	250		250	Can be repaired
Widowmaker	Venom Mine	1		1
Winston	Barrier Projector		700	700
Wrecking Ball	Minefield	50		50	15 mines
Zarya	Particle Barrier		200	200
Zarya	Projected Barrier		200	200

Trivia [ ]

If armor is hit, a metallic sound effect is played.
If a hero's base shields are destroyed, the screen becomes cracked.
The bleed effect originally occurred when a hero's HP became 75 or lower. Since this was highly inefficient for Tanks, it was replaced with a more relativistic system.
Armor originally treated the "ticks" of beams and damage-over-time effects as instances of damage. In general, beams and DoT tick once every 0.192 seconds (e.g. 50 DPS = 9.6 damage per 0.192 seconds). This means that most beams and DoT effects were reduced by ~26 DPS, and beams/DoT effects that did less than ~52 DPS were halved by armor.
- With the change to 30% reduction for beams, beams that did less than ~87 DPS were buffed against armor while beams that did more were nerfed.
- Ana's Biotic Rifle inflicts a short DoT effect for its 70 damage, but the damage is unevenly split (2.24 + 6.72 + 26.88 + 26.88 + 7.28). As a result, it used to do 51.88 damage against armor.
The priority order for damage was originally shields (non-recoverable, then recoverable), then armor (non-recoverable, then recoverable), and then health. This meant that the armor provided by Rally would go underneath the shields of heroes such as Zenyatta.
- The Patch Notes for Patch 1.33.0.1, which issued this change, mentions "non-recoverable health" when listing the new priority order.^[7] Currently, non-recoverable health is only accessible through workshop scripts, and is therefore inaccessible in standard play.
Symmetra originally had an ability called Photon Shield which allowed her to create 25 recoverable shields for her teammates. When Symmetra got her first rework, Photon Shield was removed and Shield Generator was added, which gave all surrounding teammates 75 recoverable shields. This too was removed upon Symmetra's second rework. Photon Shield and Shield Generator were the only ways heroes could have recoverable HP that were not found on their base HP.
B.O.B. is treated as an additional teammate, so he is affected by abilities that grant non-recoverable HP to allies, such as Sound Barrier and Rally. B.O.B. is the only non-hero that can have additional HP.
The term "shields" is often informally used to refer to barriers.
- Since barriers have shields for their HP, anything that exclusively damages shields also damages barriers. Currently, the only ability that does that is EMP; however, in the beta, Pharah's Concussive Blast used to be able to do 700 damage to shields and barriers.

References [ ]

↑ Overwatch Beta Patch Notes – March 1, 2016 — The health on Winston's barrier is specifically called "Shield health"
↑ OVERWATCH PTR PATCH NOTES – SEPTEMBER 21, 2018 — The health on Brigitte's barrier is specifically called "Shield health"
↑ Doomfist - Heroes - Overwatch
↑ Wrecking Ball - Heroes - Overwatch
↑ In-game description of Doomfist's The Best Defense...
↑ In-game description of Wrecking Ball's Adaptive Shield
↑ Overwatch Patch Notes – FEBRUARY 19, 2019

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