On this page, you will find all there is to know about the various updates for Overwatch 2 on Nintendo Switch (originally released on October 4th 2022 in North America and Europe, and October 5th 2022 in Japan)!

This page list all updates released between launch and December 2023. For the most recent updates, make sure to check out this page instead!

Click here for more Software updates!

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Mauga

 

Incendiary and Volatile Chainguns

• Chaingun damage reduced from 5 to 4.
• The number of shots with the Incendiary Chaingun to ignite enemies increased from 10 to 15.

 

Cage Fight

• Ultimate duration reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

NEW HERO: MAUGA

Introducing Mauga, a long-awaited tank hero who comes with a rapid-fire personality, massive stature, and brawl-centric abilities

 

Mauga

• Mauga has been added to the lineup.

 

Incendiary Chaingun (Primary Fire)

• Automatic weapon that ignites enemies on repeated impacts.

 

Volatile Chaingun (Secondary Fire)

• Automatic weapon that deals critical damage to burning enemies.

 

Overrun (Ability 1)

• Charge forward and stomp to launch enemies. You are unstoppable while charging.

 

Cardiac Overdrive (Ability 2)

• Nearby allies take reduced damage and heal by dealing damage.

 

Cage Fight (Ultimate)

• Deploy a barrier that traps yourself and enemies. Gain unlimited ammo while inside.

 

Berserker (Passive)

• Gain temporary health when dealing critical damage.

BATTLE OF THE BEASTS

Fight in a powerful brawl with epic and powerful Grand Beasts in a fun 4v4 PvPvE game mode: The Battle of the Beasts. In a clash of Grand Beasts, protect yours while coordinating with your team to defeat the enemy beast. You’ll be able to play Mauga for free as the only tank to play in this mode, or try your hand as one of many other hunter-themed heroes and tear through the Grand Beast’s health while trying to avoid powerful abilities. May the best hunters win.

 

WINTER WONDERLAND 2023

Ring in the holidays with the Winter Wonderland event! Check out our heroes celebrating in style with all-new Holiday skins. Beat challenges and unlock one free legendary skin of your choice – choose from the stylish Formalwear skins for Cassidy or Baptiste, or the cozy Winter Jammies Illari skin. Dive into the action with returning fan-favorite event modes like Mei’s Snowball Offensive and Yeti Hunt, with new challenges and rewards. Winter Wonderland launches on Tuesday, December 19.

 

INTRODUCING WEAPON SKINS

Introducing Weapon Skins – a new way to customize your heroes. We’re kicking things off with the Hard Light theme for Rein, Reaper, and Mercy. These sleek designs with custom visual and sound effects can be equipped with any of these heroes’ skins. Look out for other Weapon Skins coming in future seasons. We’re excited about weapon customization, and this is just the first step. As we create more Weapon Skins, we want to hear about what you love about the skins. Your feedback is key as we evolve Weapon Skins and introduce new looks and more ways to customize your heroes.

 

GENERAL UPDATES

 

Endorsements

• Endorsement Score required to reach level 5 reduced.
• Endorsement Score decay at level 4 reduced slightly.
• Endorsement Score decay at level 5 reduced.

Hero Mastery

Next wave of Hero Mastery courses will launch starting on January 2, 2024, in a five-week event featuring a new course each week with new challenges and cosmetic rewards to earn.

• A new set of five Hero Mastery courses for Lucio, Mei, D.va, Echo and Genji have been added.
• Lucio’s courses will unlock on January 2nd, and a new course for a new hero will be available every week for the next four weeks.

An exciting new way to view Hero Mastery replays is now available, Replay Bookmarks!

• Replay Bookmarks can be enabled from the Replay Viewer at any time. Once enabled, players can instantly skip to important moments during a run.
• A list of bookmarks, course runs and records is shown on the left side of the screen. Players can quickly choose bookmarks from here, or by tapping the indicators on the replay skimmer.
• A new leaderboard for Hero Mastery courses released in Season 6 has been added. The previous leaderboard will return in a future patch for players to view any time.

Reticle Changes

Extra reticle settings have been added for specific Heroes with multiple Weapon Modes. Players can now customize the modes separately or keep them in sync. The following Heroes have access to the new options:

• Ana
• Ashe
• Bastion
• Lifeweaver
• Mercy
• Ramattra
• Widowmaker

A new option for the Reticle’s Outline Color has been added, and the Outline Opacity has been separated from the main Opacity. Players who have previously hidden their Dot by setting its Opacity to zero will now need to set the Dot’s Size to zero instead.

Competitive Play Updates

• MMR Decay now only occurs for Competitive Play at the start of a new season.
• MMR Decay is not applied to roles that qualify for a rank.
• Example: A player that won five games and got a Competitive Update will not decay at the end of a season.
• If a player does not have a rank already who won three games and did not get a Competitive Update, that player will decay at the end of that season.
• If the player does have a rank, they only need to play one match in the season to keep their rank for the next season.

 

HERO UPDATES

• Maximum ultimate charge preserved on hero swap reduced from 25 to 15%.
• Added Hero-Specific Options to every character to adjust the rumble strength of each of their abilities.

Developer Comments: Swapping heroes is fundamental to the gameplay of Overwatch, and this ultimate charge refund mechanic has done a great job of decreasing friction there. It has helped matches feel less one-sided as it functions as a soft comeback mechanic.

However, it also helped reinforce the perception that it’s most always an advantage to counter-swap upon dying, which ideally isn’t always true and requires some consideration due to how powerful ultimate abilities can be.

 

TANK

Doomfist

Developer Comments: One of the most effective uses for an ultimate ability like Meteor Strike is to save it as an escape in order to grab a health pack instead of using it against his foes. Doomfist will now recover health during the targeting phase so that it can be used more offensively.

 

Meteor Strike

• Now regenerates 75 health per second while in the air.
• Ultimate cost increased 16%.

Junker Queen

Developer Comments: Tightening the spread on Junker Queen’s Scattergun will make it more effective at range against small targets and give her slightly more team fight presence before fully committing to getting in close to the enemy team.

 

Scattergun

• Spread reduced 8%.

Mauga

Developer Comments: We got a lot of constructive feedback from players when Mauga was available to try during his free preview weekend, so we’ve adjusted his kit for his official launch to give him the ability to last longer in a fight.

• Base health reduced from 500 to 350.
• Base armor increased from 0 to 150.
• Head hit volume reduced 15%.

 

Incendiary and Volatile Chainguns

• Spread for firing both guns reduced 15%.
• Fire rate multiplier for firing both guns reduced from 25% to 0%.
• Damage per shot increased from 4.5 to 5.
• Damage falloff range increased from 25 to 30 meters.
• Max ammo increased from 300 to 350.
• Movement speed penalty reduced from 20% to 15% per gun.

 

Overrun

• Can no longer be interrupted by Hack.
• Damage reduction increased from 30 to 50%.

 

Cardiac Overdrive

• Lifesteal increased from 60 to 70%.

 

Berserker

• Overhealth conversion rate increased from 40% to 50%.

Ramattra

Developer Comments: Ramattra is quite powerful during his Nemesis Form though his base Omnic Form may be too easy to ignore for a tank hero. We’re adding some power there to even out the tradeoffs between the two forms, with the Omnic Form having even better ranged damage while Nemesis Form’s Pummel can pierce enemy defenses.

• Base health reduced from 300 to 200.
• Base armor increased from 0 to 100.

 

Void Accelerator

• Projectile size increased from 0.075 to 0.1 meters.
• Damage increased from 4.5 to 5.

Sigma

Developer Comments: Sigma has very effective defensive options between his Experimental Barrier and Kinetic Grasp. The barrier regeneration rate is being reduced in order to create more opportunity to attack Sigma directly.

 

Experimental Barrier

• Regeneration rate reduced from 100 to 85 health per second.

Winston

 

Tesla Cannon

• Now ignores armor damage reduction.

DAMAGE

 

Mei

Developer Comments: We’re reducing the maximum ammo to limit how long Mei is able to continuously slow an enemy target now that the primary fire deals more damage.

 

Endothermic Blaster

• Maximum ammo reduced from 150 to 120.

Soldier: 76

 

Biotic Field

• Cooldown increased from 15 to 18 seconds.

Sombra

Developer Comments: The 1.5 second lockout duration didn’t feel impactful enough for an ultimate ability but generally EMP is more interesting and effective when it’s focused on the disabling aspect rather than the damage.

 

EMP

• Ability lockout duration increased from 1.5 to 3 seconds.
• Damage reduced from 30 to 25% of current health.

Torbjörn

Developer Comments: The health decrease on Overload severely impacted Torbjorn’s overall effectiveness so we’re reverting that change.

 

Overload

• Overhealth increased from 75 to 100.

Tracer

Developer Comments: This damage value has been changed a few times over the course of Overwatch 2 and is now back to Tracer’s original damage. It was previously adjusted due to a couple of bugs with the Pulse Pistol falloff range and spread being much better than they should have.

 

Pulse Pistols

• Damage increased from 5.5 to 6.

SUPPORT

Baptiste

Developer Comments: Baptiste has a high amount of sustained damage in addition to his various survival tools. We would prefer to keep his long cooldown abilities feeling impactful so we’re going to be pulling back on some of his damage potential here.

 

Biotic Launcher

• Primary fire ammo reduced from 45 to 36.

Brigitte

Developer Comments: Brigitte ended up being the best performing support hero in the game by a fair margin since the last patch. It’s likely a result of more than just the damage breakpoint change that she received but it was a significant increase to her offense so we’re reverting it and will continue to evaluate further.

 

Whip Shot

• Damage reduced from 80 to 70.

Kiriko

Developer Comments: Reducing the Protection Suzu invulnerability time further will help it feel less frustrating to play against but still enable it to have big play making moments although with a stricter timing requirement. To counterbalance that power loss we’re making Kiriko’s healing more reliable.

 

Healing Ofuda

• Projectile speed increased from 14 to 18 meters per second.

 

Protection Suzu

• Invulnerability duration reduced from 0.85 to 0.65 seconds.
• Healing explosion increased from 40 to 80 health.

Mercy

Developer Comments: This is just a small quality-of-life improvement to help keep Mercy healing or powering up her allies without penalty for activating her ultimate.

 

Valkyrie

• Activating Valkyrie no longer disconnects Caduceus Staff from its target.

MAP UPDATES

 

New Holiday Variations

New Holiday decorations have been added to the following maps!

• Paraíso
• New Queen Street
• Watchpoint: Gibraltar

New Lighting Scenarios

• Antarctica Peninsula – Morning

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

Hero Mastery

• Fixed a case where Tracer would be unable to pick up ultimate canisters while blinking.
• Fixed a bug that could result in the Agent course remaining locked despite obtaining 3 stars in the Recruit course.

Story Missions

• Fixed a bug in the Rio Mission that could result in the Charger failing to charge valid targets.

Other Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused Rumble to be activated by other heroes in the match using their abilities.
• Fixed a bug with Rumble activating for other players’ actions when viewing Kill Cam.
• Fixed a bug in the Hero Gallery that could result in Heroes being incorrectly posed after interacting with the Random From Favorites system.
• Fixed a general issue where heroes could jitter when Frozen.

MAPS

Busan

• Fixed an area of the map that allowed some characters to escape the playable space.
• Fixed areas of the map where players could become stuck.

Horizon Lunar Colony

• Fixed an area of the floor that could prevent players from moving.

Nepal

• Fixed a drum that could cause players to become stuck on it.

Samoa

• Fixed some areas of the map where heroes could become stuck.

HEROES

Cassidy

• Fixed a bug that could cause the ‘Hindered’ text to remain on screen after having it cleansed.

Echo

• Fixed an interaction with Zarya and Echo’s Duplicate which could result in Zarya not being able to apply their own Particle Barrier for a few moments after being Duplicated.

Hanzo

• Resolved a bug that made it appear as though Sonic Arrow was not fully charged even if it was.

Illari

• Fixed a bug with Healing Pylon’s sound effects persisting after being destroyed.

Lifeweaver

• Fixed an interaction with Tree of Life applying overhealth to Mei in Cryo-Freeze.

Mauga

• Fixed a bug with burn DoT not being applied and still resetting progress.
• Fixed a bug with movement speed reduction not being applied when firing a single gun.

Orisa

• Fixed an interaction with Terra Surge and Bastion in Assault mode that resulted in Bastion not being pulled inwards during the ultimate.
• Fixed a bug with the Tip of the Spear achievement not activating correctly.

Roadhog

• Fixed a bug with Pig Pen where it would fail to damage some deployable items from others heroes (ex. Ice Wall, Tree of Life, Winston’s Barrier Projector, etc).
• Resolved a bug that allowed Pig Pen to be placed on basketballs.

Sombra

• Fixed an issue with Virus not being correctly Amplified by Baptiste’s Amplification Matrix.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Stealth overlay to cause the screen to be darker than intended.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Roadhog

Developer Comments: We’re adjusting a few things with the new Take a Breather, as our initial landing spot was slightly conservative. These tweaks should offer Roadhog more healing throughput and damage resistance from moment to moment. While we are shortening the maximum duration, this gives Roadhog faster healing and should alleviate some of the feelings players had around being locked into using Take a Breather for a large chunk of their gameplay.

 

Take a Breather

• Total healing increased from 450 to 500
• Damage reduction increased from 30 to 40%
• Maximum duration reduced from 3 to 2.5 seconds
• Recharge time reduced from 12 to 10 seconds

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Roadhog

Developer Comments: The broad goal of the Roadhog rework was to improve his frontline presence on the battlefield as a tank hero and reduce the frustration enemy players had with how consistently deadly his hook combo has been in the past.

Roadhog’s previous Scrap Gun primary and secondary fire have been reworked into one primary fire shot that is still most effective at close range but also deals more reliable damage from further away now.

His Take a Breather has been changed to a resource-based ability and has been moved to Secondary Fire for a more convenient control scheme. It can be used more frequently but will need to recharge its resources over time, increasing its flexibility as a tanking tool and making it not as easy to counter.

He now has a new ability called Pig Pen, which is a deployable trap that activates when enemies are nearby, dealing damage and slowing them. This enables Roadhog to have control over a wider area and, with a little bit of pre-planning, can be used to either help protect his allies or further enhance the effectiveness of his hook combo.

 

Scrap Gun

• Previous secondary fire functionality has been removed.
• Total damage per shot increased from 150 to 160.
• Shotgun pellet count reduced from 25 to 16.
• Shotgun pellet damage increased from 6 to 6.25.
• Now fires a shrapnel volley of 4 large projectiles in the center of the shot.
• Each shrapnel projectile deals 15 damage.
• Critical damage multiplier reduced from 2x to 1.5x.

 

 

• Now activated by holding Secondary Fire.
• Cooldown for each use decreased from 8 seconds to 1 second.
• A new resource meter has been added. This meter will deplete while Take a
• Breather is active and then recharge when it’s not in use.
• Take a Breather requires 12 seconds to reach full charge from empty.
• At a full charge, Take a Breather can heal up to 450 health over 3 seconds.
• Take a Breather will now remain active as long as its assigned hotkey is held.
• An option to “Toggle Take a Breather” has been added under Options > Controls > Roadhog.
• Damage reduction decreased from 50% to 30%.
• No longer amplifies healing received upon ending.

 

Pig Pen

• This is a new ability assigned to Ability 2 by default.
• Launch a trap that slows and damages nearby enemies.
• Deals 60 damage when triggered and 30 damage per second in an area.
• 3-second duration once activated.
• 40% movement speed slow.
• Cooldown is 12 seconds.

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

• Fixed in a previous update – Resolved loading issues that were occurring in the Shop.
• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed an issue with Rumble on some abilities activating for all players in the match.

HEROES

Lifeweaver

• Fixed a bug that caused Life Grip to cleanse the Orb of Discord.
• Fixed a bug where players who hop off of Petal Platform before it is fully raised would become immune to EMP.

Sombra

• Fixed an interaction that could result in Sombra being pinned by a charging Reinhardt instead of teleporting to the thrown translocator.
• Fixed a bug where Hack didn’t work properly when enabled as a Toggle.
• Fixed a bug that resulted in Invisibility failing to recast after exiting combat.
• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed Sombra’s Ultimate cost missing the 10% decrease.
• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed an issue where Discord Cooldown UI was displaying on an invisible Sombra in some cases.

Zarya

• Fixed an issue that could result in Zarya’s projected barrier failing to deploy.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

LE SSERAFIM x OVERWATCH 2 LIMITED TIME EVENT

Overwatch 2 is teaming up with K-pop sensation, LE SSERAFIM in an in-game music collaboration. Play Concert Clash, a 3v3 capture-the-flag mode set in a K-pop themed Busan. Play as D.Va, Kiriko, Tracer, Brigitte and Sombra—decked out in LE SSERAFIM-inspired skins—and compete over tickets and capture objectives to turn them in and score points. This limited-time event begins on Wednesday, November 1, at 11:00 AM PDT.

 

GENERAL UPDATES

ENDORSEMENTS

Endorsement level decay has been reworked to be more forgiving in some circumstances. The endorsement level always decays slightly whenever you finish a match, but that decay is now reduced by the percentage of players who could not have endorsed you. If none of the players in the match could have endorsed you, your Endorsement level would not decay. The following reasons prevent other players from endorsing you:

• The player is your friend.
• The player endorsed you within the past 24 hours.

Endorsement level decay also no longer occurs when a server shuts down. The most common reason for this is a competitive match shutting down when players leave the match early.

CHALLENGES

Added Legendary, Mythic, and Ultimate Player Title challenges to each hero’s progression challenges.

PROGRESSION

• Victory Pose now shows your Progression Level instead of the Hero Level.

Developer Comments: The hero you end the match on isn’t necessarily representative of you as a player. This change is intended to better show off your overall progression.

SOCIAL FEATURES

• The default option for match text chat is now set to OFF (previously set to ON) for new players. This can be changed in the Social Options.
• The default option for team voice chat is now set to ON (previously set to AUTO-JOIN) for new players. This can be changed in the Social Options.
• Current text or voice chat settings for existing players are not changed.

Developer Comments: We will be changing the defaults for both text and voice chat to encourage effective communication through the ping system while reducing the chance of encountering disruptive chat in the game.

HERO UPDATES

Developer comments: This balance patch is largely focused on widening the window of time players have during combat between some impactful cooldowns, such as Bastion’s reconfigure, Cassidy’s grenade, and many of the support utilities.

 

TANK

D.Va

Developer comments: The added projectile speed to Micro Missiles helps improve their consistency at medium range while the decreased movement speed penalty on Fusion Cannons enable D.Va to stick closer to mobile targets, making her more of a threat when diving into the enemy team.

 

Fusion Cannons

• Movement speed penalty reduced from 40 to 30%.

 

Micro Missiles

• Projectile speed increased from 40 to 50.

Doomfist

Developer comments: This change will give the stunned player more opportunities to react to Doomfist following a wall stun.

 

Rocket Punch

• Minimum wall stun duration decreased from 0.25 to 0.15 seconds.
• Maximum wall stun duration decreased from 0.75 to 0.6 seconds.

Winston

Developer comments: Increasing the range of the alternate fire will give Winston some more flexibility in positioning while dealing damage from range.

 

Tesla Cannon

• Secondary fire range increased from 30 to 40 meters.

DAMAGE

Bastion

 

Configuration: Assault

• Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
• Weapon spread increased 10%.

Cassidy

 

Magnetic Grenade

• Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

Mei

Developer comments: With some of the recent changes, Mei is now slightly overperforming. Her improved primary fire damage output is good for her role, so rather than adjust that further, we’re instead targeting the more commonly frustrating crowd control aspect of its slowing effect.

 

Endothermic Blaster

• Slow effect decreased from 40 to 30%.

Sombra

 

EMP

• Ultimate cost decreased 10%.

Symmetra

Developer comments: With Symmetra recently gaining more lethality in her long-ranged secondary fire, she’s no longer as reliant on playing at close range, so we’re reverting her total health back to 200.

• Base shield health reduced from 125 to 100 (total 200 HP).

Widowmaker

Developer comments: Recon Visor is taking a long time to charge on average relative to other ultimate abilities so we’re reducing the cost. Widowmaker is also at a more severe disadvantage against Sombra with the recent rework and these changes will add more counterplay.

 

Widow’s Kiss

• Unscoped shots to reach maximum spread increased from 3 to 7.

 

Infra-Sight

• Ultimate cost reduced 10%.

SUPPORT

Ana

 

Biotic Grenade

• Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

Baptiste

 

Immortality Field

• Health decreased from 150 to 125.
• Cooldown increased from 23 to 25 seconds.

Illari

Developer comments: Illari’s overall damage output throughout a match is too high so we’re reducing how consistent her Solar Rifle damage is to apply. Her weapon has some other disadvantages such as needing to charge up and a reduced critical damage multiplier, but we’ll be evaluating how much of an effect this change has in combination with the reduced Healing Pylon uptime.

 

Solar Rifle

• Primary fire projectile size reduced from 0.1 to 0.05 meters.

 

Healing Pylon

• Base health reduced from 75 to 50 (total 100 HP).
• Cooldown when destroyed increased from 12 to 15 seconds.

Kiriko

 

Protection Suzu

• Cooldown increased from 14 to 15 seconds.

Lifeweaver

Dev Comment: Lifeweaver’s total healing over a match is significantly higher than any other hero so to help bring it more in line we’re making some adjustments to his primary Healing Blossom.

 

Healing Blossom

• Ammo reduced from 20 to 16.
• Max heal reduced from 75 to 70.

 

Life Grip

• Cooldown increased from 16 to 19 seconds.

Zenyatta

Developer comments: The goal of these changes is to add more counterplay against Discord Orb and encourage Zenyatta players to think more about who to place it on. Now, if the effect ends for any reason, the target is temporarily unable to be targeted again by Discord Orb. A new soft-targeting reticle appears when aiming toward an enemy player that cannot be affected by Discord Orb to display the remaining duration before it can be reapplied. This is a significant change both to how the ability feels to use and how clear it is to understand, so we will be keeping a close eye on player feedback.

Base health increased from 50 to 75 (total 225 HP).

 

Harmony Orb

• Time to wear off when not in line-of-sight increased from 3 to 5 seconds.

 

Orb of Discord

• Can no longer be reapplied to the same target for 7 seconds after the effect has been removed.
• Range increased from 30 to 40 meters.

HERO CUSTOM CONTROL UPDATES

In addition to the hero balance adjustments in this update, we are implementing additional quality-of-life settings and additional input options for several hero abilities to give you the ability to custom-tailor your experience of playing your favorite heroes.

• Sorted many Hero-Specific Options into Advanced Hero Options category.

 

TANK

Doomfist

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Power Block – 100% by default.
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Power Block – 100% by default (Only available on gyro-supported platforms).

Sigma

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

• Rise During Gravitic Flux With Ability 3 – Off by default.

DAMAGE

Echo

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Crouch Activates Glide – Off by default.
• Rise During Flight With Ability 1 – Off by default.
• Flight Cancel Input – Ability 1 by default.
• Automatically Toggle Glide After Flight – Off by default.

Torbjörn

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

• Interact Cancels Deploy Turret – On by default.

SUPPORT

Illari

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

• Rise During Captive Sun With Ability 3 – Off by default.

Lúcio

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Automatically Wall Ride – Off by default, Only available on Console Platforms.
• Wall Ride Cares About Movement – Off by default.

Mercy

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Crouch Activates Glide – On by default.
• Automatically Toggle Angelic Decent After Guardian Angel – Off by default.
• Rise During Valkyrie With Ability 3 – Off by default.

Rumble Updates

We’ve gone through and adjusted the Rumble and Trigger Feedback on several abilities for controllers. We looked to make the rumble more dynamic and responsive while also highlighting the unique feel of many abilities.

 

TANK

D. Va

• Reworked Rumble on Primary Fire.
• Added rumble on activation of Defense Matrix.
• Adjusted trigger feedback on Defense Matrix to account for damage of destroyed projectile.
• Added rumble on projectile destruction for Defense Matrix.
• Added rumble on Self-Destruct activation.
• Added trigger feedback on Boosters.
• Added rumble on Call Mech start.
• Adjusted rumble on Call Mech.
• Added rumble on Call Mech hit.
• Added rumble on entering the Mech after Call Mech.

Doomfist

• Added rumble on start of Power Block.
• Added rumble on Fist Empowerment.

Orisa

• Fusion Driver rumble now scales slightly with Heat.
• Added rumble on Overheat.
• Added rumble on Javelin Spin start.
• Added rumble on Javelin Spin duration.
• Added rumble on Javelin Spin damaging an enemy.
• Added rumble on Javelin Spin end.
• Added rumble on Terra Surge start.
• Added rumble on Terra Surge charge
• Added rumble on Terra Surge activation.

Ramattra

• Increase rumble strength and duration on Pummel.
• Added rumble on Block activation.

Reinhardt

• Added rumble on Barrier activation.

Roadhog

• Added rumble on Chain Hook activation.
• Added trigger feedback on Chain Hook activation.
• Added trigger feedback on Chain Hook impact.
• Added trigger feedback on Chain Hook retraction.

Sigma

• Added rumble on Accreation fire.
• Added rumble on Kinetic Grasp duration.
• Added rumble on Kinetic Grasp absorb.
• Added rumble on Kinetic Grasp Overhealth gain.
• Added rumble on Gravitic Flux intro.
• Added rumble on Gravitic Flux searching for targets.
• Added rumble on Gravitic Flux found targets.
• Added rumble on Gravitic Flux holding targets.
• Adjusted rumble on Gravitic Flux slam.

Winston

• Added rumble on Jump Pack activation.
• Added rumble on Secondary Fire release.
• Added rumble on Barrier Projector Activation.
• Reworked rumble on Winston’s Primal Rage punch.
• Added trigger feedback on Winston’s Primal Rage punch hit.
• Wrecking Ball
• Added rumble on Roll exit.
• Adjusted the rumble on Piledriver impact.

Zarya

• Added rumble on Particle Barrier.
• Added rumble on Barrier Deploy.
• Added rumble on Particle Barrier end.
• Increased the rumble strength on Particle Beam while targeting an enemy.

DAMAGE

Ashe

• Added rumble on Dynamite.
• Added rumble on B.O.B. call.
• Added rumble on B.O.B. landing.

Cassidy

• Added rumble on Magnetic Grenade.
• Added rumble on Deadeye start.

Genji

• Added rumble during Dash.
• Added rumble on Dash dealing damage.
• Added rumble on Deflect start.
• Added rumble on Deflect deflection.
• Reworked rumble on Dragonblade swing.
• Added Trigger Feedback on Dragonblade swing hit.
• Added rumble on Wall Climb.
• Added rumble on Ledge Climb.
• Added rumble on Double Jump.

Hanzo

• Added trigger feedback on Bow charge.
• Reduced rumble duration on charging arrow to match charge time.
• Reduced rumble on holding arrow.
• Reduced rumble on arrow fire during Storm Arrows.
• Added rumble on Lunge.
• Added rumble on Dragonstrike fire.
• Added rumble on Wall Climb.
• Added rumble on Ledge Climb.
• Added rumble on Sonic Arrow Equip.

Junkrat

• Adjusted RIP-tire rumble.
• Reduced rumble on Concussive Mine when not hitting self.
• Increased rumble on Concussive Mine when hitting self.
• Added rumble on Concussive Mine fire.
• Added rumble on Steel Trap fire.

Mei

• Added rumble on Blizzard fire.
• Added rumble on Ice Wall start.
• Added rumble on Ice Wall destroy.

Pharah

• Increased Rumble on Primary Fire.
• Added rumble on hitting yourself with Concussive Blast.

Reaper

• Swapped the Left and Right Primary Fire rumble.
• Increased the rumble on the Left Primary Fire.
• Added rumble on Wraith Form activation.
• Added rumble on Wraith form ending.
• Adjusted Shadowstep’s trigger feedback for player’s input settings.
• Added rumble on Shadowstep start.

Sojourn

• Increased rumble on Primary Fire.
• Adjusted rumble on Secondary Fire.
• Added unique rumble on Secondary Fire shots charged above 90.
• Added rumble on Power Slide jump.

Soldier: 76

• Adjusted rumble on Helix Rockets.
• Added rumble on Sprint start.
• Added rumble on Spring duration.
• Added rumble on Tactical Visor start.

Symmetra

• Added rumble on all three levels of Primary Fire on miss.
• Added rumble on moving from level 3 to level 2.
• Added rumble on moving from level 2 to level 1.
• Added rumble on Teleporter start.
• Added rumble on Teleporter destroy.
• Added rumble on Photon Barrier start.
• Lengthened rumble on Photon Barrier fire.
• Added rumble on using the teleporter (as any character).

Torbjörn

• Added rumble on Turret Deploy.
• Added rumble on Turret Destroy.

Widowmaker

• Added rumble on Infra-sights.

SUPPORT

Baptiste

• Reworked Exo-boots hold rumble.
• Shortened Exo-boots charging-up rumble.
• Added rumble on Amplification Matrix Start.

Brigitte

• Reworked Brigitte’s Primary Fire rumble.
• Added rumble on Shield Barrier activation.

Illari

• Added rumble on Healing Pylon destroy.

Kiriko

• Reworked Healing Ofuda rumble.
• Adjusted Healing Ofuda rumble to respond to acquiring targets.
• Added rumble on Wall Climb.
• Added rumble on Ledge Climb.

Lifeweaver

• Reworked Rumble on Rejuvenating Dash to be directional.
• Added rumble on Tree of Life start.
• Added rumble on Tree of Life destroy.

Lúcio

• Added rumble on Amp It Up.
• Added rumble on Crossfade.
• Added rumble on Wall Ride start.
• Added rumble on Wall Ride ride.
• Added rumble on Wall Ride jump.
• Added rumble on Sound Barrier start.
• Added rumble on Sound Barrier.
• Reworked rumble on Sound Barrier Fire.

Mercy

• Added trigger feedback on Caduceus Staff Secondary Fire.
• Added trigger feedback on Caduceus Blaster.
• Added rumble on Valkyrie intro.

Moira

• Reduced rumble on Secondary Fire.

Zenyatta

• Added rumble on Healing Orb.
• Added rumble on Discord Orb.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

Audio

• Fixed an issue in the Training Grounds where the Heavy Training Bot’s Shield was playing the incorrect impact effect.
• Adjusted the areas in the training grounds in which the default Training Bot’s weapon fire can be heard. This should provide content creators some additional quiet areas for capturing their media.

Hero Mastery

• Fixed a bug that could result in a perpetual black screen if you died to enemy damage after a course restart.
• Resolved an issue that resulted in no Hero icon being shown in the Results screen during a Replay.
• Resolved a bug that could result in ‘New Personal Best’ being displayed for any score.
• Fixed a bug that could occur on some platforms that caused the Kill Feed and HUD to vanish if Try Again was selected.
• Resolved an issue for Mercy that resulted in Healing not being displayed in the Scoring Details.

Other Fixes

• Fixed a bug that would disband your group if you selected ‘Leave as Group’ in a Competitive match.
• Fixed a bug in the Hero Gallery that would cause the UI to highlight another cosmetic after equipping one.
• Fixed an issue that caused the achievement ‘The Friend Zone’ to not unlock on some platforms despite requirements being met.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in enemy team Roles being revealed via the scoreboard in Mystery Heroes.
• Fixed a bug that prevented some Player Icons from being equipped.
• Fixed a bug that prevented ‘Random From Favorites’ from working during Hero Select.
• Fixed a bug with AI bots picking heroes excluded in the Custom Game Settings which would result in empty slots in the match.

MAPS

Antarctic Peninsula

• Fixed some areas of the map that could get players stuck.

New Junk City

• Moved some environment assets from floating in one of the spawn rooms.

Route 66

• Fixed an area of the map that allowed players to stand outside the intended playable space.

Samoa

• Fixed some areas that had gaps that caused unintended sight lines.
• Fixed some areas that allowed players to stand in unintended locations.
• Fixed some areas of the map that allowed turrets to be placed outside the playable space but still attack enemies.
• Fixed some areas of that map that could get players stuck.
• Fixed lighting in some areas of the map.

HEROES

Illari

• Fixed a bug that resulted in the ‘Daybreak’ skin displaying twice in the Skin Selection while in pre-game Hero Select.
• Resolved an issue with Healing Pylon that could result in players launching out of it.

Lifeweaver

• Fixed a bug that prevented Petal Platform from falling when Hacked.

Lúcio

• Fixed a bug with the Hermes skin that caused the sounds played during Wallride to be louder than intended.

Mercy

• Fixed an interaction with Sombra that prevented Mercy’s beams not properly fading out when applied to a Stealth Sombra.

Moira

• Fixed a bug with the ‘Be Beautiful’ Highlight Intro not displaying the window behind Moira on all platforms.

Sombra

• Fixed in a previous update – Resolved an issue that caused Sombra to appear untextured after interacting with Random from Favorites.

Zenyatta

• Fixed an issue where sometimes Orbs of Discord and Harmony would not stay attached to the target.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug in the Practice Range that allowed players to spawn extra training bots.
• Fixed a bug with Random From Favorites, sometimes causing a crash.
• Fixed a bug with the timer for Daily Challenges not showing a consistent time remaining.
• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a bug with some Challenges not tracking correctly.

MAPS

Samoa

• Fixed an area of the map that allowed players to escape the playable space.

HEROES

Hanzo

• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a bug with Hanzo’s Storm Bow.

Sombra

• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a bug with Sombra not teleporting if she is stunned after throwing the translocator.
• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a bug with Sombra not being able to properly escort the TS-1 Push Robot on Push Maps.

Brigitte

• Fixed an issue with Brigitte’s Barrier Shield from blocking certain abilities.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

HALLOWEEN TERROR 2023

Get ready for the spookiest event of the year as Overwatch 2 transforms into a haunted battleground. Halloween Terror is back with your favorite game modes—Junkenstein’s Revenge, Wrath of the Bride, and Trials of Sanctuary, a new Blizzard crossover game mode. Team up with the heroes of Sanctuary, power up their abilities, and defeat powerful bosses, including Butcher Roadhog, Azmodan Wrecking Ball, and Lilith Moira.

 

NEW MAP – SAMOA

Samoa is a new Control map where you’ll fight on a tropical beach, a gleaming city, and inside a volcano! Watch out for deadly pitfalls, or you might just be swimming in lava! Samoa will be available to play right away in a dedicated Arcade card and will appear in Quick Play and other unranked modes starting on October 10 with it appearing in Competitive Play later in the season.

 

HERO REWORK – SOMBRA

We approached the Sombra Rework by identifying key goals to guide decisions throughout the design iteration process: make Sombra more committal when engaging, increase the active feel in her ability kit, and uphold the current Hacker fantasy. With these goals, there were multiple angles to tackle around her existing kit. Naturally, many ideas were also meant to address frustrations playing against the character, ensuring there is proper counterplay for enemies.

 

Sombra

 

Machine Pistol

• Damage increased from 7.5 to 8.
• Minimum Spread reduced from 0.5 to 0.
• Number of shots until max spread has been increased from 3 to 6 shots.
• Reload time reduced from 1.4 seconds to 1.2 seconds.

 

Hack

• Cast time reduced from 0.75 seconds to 0.65 seconds.
• Now cancels Stealth when hacking an enemy hero.
• Cooldown increased from 4 to 6 seconds.
• Hack has a reduced cooldown of 3 seconds if Hack is interrupted or if a non-hero enemy is hacked.
• The “Hacked” warning text will now only appear while you are silenced and not for the remainder duration of the hack debuff.

 

Opportunist

• Removed.

 

Stealth

• Ability reworked to be a passive. Sombra automatically becomes invisible after 3.5 seconds while not shooting, using a damaging ability, or receiving damage.
• Stealth movement speed bonus reduced from 60% to 45%.
• Fade Out duration into Stealth reduced from 0.375 seconds to 0.25 seconds.
• Fade In duration from Stealth reduced from 0.5 seconds to 0.375 seconds.
• Updated the UI messaging to the Sombra player when hacking Health Packs to “Revealed” instead of “Detected”. Now the message “Detected” is only used when an enemy player is in the detection radius.

 

Translocator

• Can no longer can be manually activated. Translocator will now automatically teleport Sombra after 0.25 seconds from being thrown or when impacting the environment.
• Reduces the Stealth passive cooldown after teleporting.
• Projectile speed increased from 25 to 72.
• Cooldown reduced from 6 seconds to 5 seconds. Cooldown now begins after
• Sombra teleports to the location of the Transponder.
• Projectile launch initial vertical offset removed.

 

EMP

• Ultimate charge cost increased by 15%.
• Health percent damage decreased from 40% to 30%.

 

Virus

• This is a new ability assigned to Ability 1 by default.
• Fire a projectile that damages an enemy over time. Damage is dealt faster on Hacked enemies.
• Impact Damage: 10 (20 on hacked target).
• Damage over time: 100 over 4 seconds (100 over 2 seconds on hacked target).

GENERAL UPDATES

 

GROUP RESPAWN

• Heroes who die within 5 seconds of each other will respawn together, resulting in some players having either a slightly longer or shorter queue than the standard 10 seconds.
• Heroes who die more than 5 seconds from another player eliminated will still respawn in 10 seconds on their own.
• These changes do not apply to Competitive Play mode.

Developer Comments: We think that team fights are some of the most enjoyable moments in our game, but we’ve all been in matches where team cohesion–or lack thereof–makes these moments a rarity. These matches often turn into stomps for the team that can’t group up, and preventing stomps is a high priority for us. As such, this season, we’re modifying how heroes respawn for Quick Play. Heroes that die within 5 seconds of each other will be respawned in a wave together. This means that respawn times will sometimes change in order for heroes to respawn together. If a hero dies further apart than 5 seconds from another death on their team, they’ll still respawn in 10 seconds as they would have in the past.

We’ll be listening closely to feedback on this new system, and depending on the response and making any changes, we will consider adding these adjustments to Competitive Play in a later season.

UNRANKED LEAVER PENALTIES

• 75% XP penalty removed.
• The penalty thresholds have not changed, but the mechanics have also never been completely explained. The last 20 games played a player participated in are recorded. Leaving four of these 20 games activates the first penalty threshold. Leaving six of these 20 games activates the second penalty threshold.
• Queuing for most game modes is now suspended when a player leaves a match inside a penalty threshold.
• Players that reach the first penalty threshold will be suspended for 10 minutes.
• Players that reach the second penalty threshold will be suspended for 30 minutes.
• The queue suspension will reapply each time a player leaves a game when they are above the first penalty threshold but not when they complete their games.
• Consecutive Match XP bonus has been renamed to Endurance Bonus.
• Endurance Bonus is XP granted when finishing matches without leaving the previous match.

Developer Comments: Previously, if players left too many games, we would apply a 75% penalty to their Battle Pass XP that is gained. We found this had very little impact on those who leave deliberately and severely impacted those who don’t have much time to play but want to earn the rewards in our season Battle Pass. We’re changing this to make it more difficult for players who leave games to be disruptive while not applying too much impact to those who don’t intend on ruining the experience for others.

STORY MISSIONS

• You can now spectate any Story Mission that your friends are playing if you own the campaign pack for that mission.

HERO MASTERY

Scoring Update

• Bonus score granted from time remaining in the gold bonus tier is now accurate to one-hundredth of a second. (Previously completed games in the Top 500 leaderboards are not adjusted.)
• The user interface has been updated to display this new time accuracy everywhere that we display time and score.

Replays

• Hero Mastery now supports replays.
• Replays are saved for any completed course that results in a new scoring record.
• The user interface for Hero Mastery replays has been customized to display score, time, and other information.

PLAYER PROGRESSION

• Lowered show priority for Time Played and Wins sub-badges in the Showcase.
• Added Virus Kills to Sombra’s sub-badge set.

Developer comments: All heroes share the Time Played and Wins sub-badges. This change is intended to highlight each hero’s unique sub-badges to better reflect individual playstyle.

CHALLENGES

• Reduced the number of wins required to unlock Sojourn, Junker Queen and Kiriko through Hero challenges.
• Illari is now unlockable through Hero challenges.

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Orisa

Developer Comments: We are further readjusting Orisa’s survivability, which was originally increased due to the armor-damage reduction stacking change we made several patches ago. This particular change is relatively light as we still want her to be an effective pick against teams that lean on crowd control.

 

Fortify

• Damage reduction decreased from 50% to 45%.

Ramattra

Developer Comments: This change lets Ramattra project his influence more frequently with Nemesis Form, which translates into increased survivability and damage. The flexibility also makes it less punishing if he swaps back to Omnic Form early to use the Void Barrier.

 

Nemesis Form

• Cooldown decreased from 8 to 7 seconds.

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comments: This change lets Wrecking Ball finish off enemies a bit more reliably when he’s outside of point-blank range and makes him less reliant on his Piledriver combos.

 

Quad Cannons

• Number of shots to reach max spread increased from 20 to 30.

Zarya

Developer Comments: Zarya is using the barrier on her allies more often to peel or initiate combination plays, which makes the ability more team-oriented and less self-serving. This change preserves that interesting choice by keeping the cooldown reduced when used on an ally while targeting her energy sustain instead, which has increased significantly with the bonuses to the barrier health and size.

 

Projected Barrier

• Size decreased 15% now matching back to the size of Particle Barrier.
• Health decreased from 225 to 200 matching back to the health of Particle Barrier.

DAMAGE

 

Cassidy

 

Combat Roll

• Damage reduction increased from 50% to 75%.

Mei

Developer Comment: We liked the one-two combo that Deep Chill provided, as it added an interesting layer for hero mastery. However, in practice, it increased the amount of crowd control suffered by enemy players while also reducing Mei’s effectiveness. Rather than further increasing the slow or increasing cumulative combo damage, both of which would lead to a more frustrating experience for the opposing player, we are reverting Mei back to her balance prior to adding the Deep Chill passive.

 

Deep Chill

• Removed.

 

Endothermic Blaster

• Damage per second increased from 70 to 100.
• Now immediately slows enemies by 40% instead of building up over time.

Torbjörn

Developer Comments: Torbjorn’s Rivet Gun can feel overwhelming with how quickly it shoots. This change reduces the firing cadence and makes it more manageable on the receiving end. Overload provides too much defensive value, so we are lowering the overhealth bonus.

 

Rivet Gun

• Primary fire recovery increased from .48 to .51 seconds.

 

Overload

• Overhealth bonus decreased from 100 to 75.

SUPPORT

 

Brigitte

Developer Comment: This change increases her proficiency at protecting her allies by rewarding accuracy with her most aim-focused ability.

 

Whip Shot

• Damage increased from 70 to 80.

Illari

Developer Comments: Illari’s burst healing output is still a little too high, so we are lowering the effectiveness of the Solar Rifle secondary fire to bring her more in line with other support heroes.

 

Solar Rifle

• Secondary fire healing per second decreased from 120 to 105.

MAP UPDATES

 

ROUTE 66 DESIGN CHANGES

There are now additional places for the attacking team to take cover around their initial spawn. The doors on the first checkpoint will now only close one of the two doors after the payload passes by giving attackers more options to work through the difficult choke points. There will also be fewer places to take cover in the later parts of the map.

Before and After

 

Before and After

 

Before and After

 

Before and After

 

Before and After

 

Before and After

LIGHTING FOR SEASON 7

Push

• New Queen Street – Morning
• Colosseo – Evening
• Esperança – Morning

Hybrid

• Blizzard World – Night
• Eichenwalde – Morning
• Hollywood – Morning
• King’s Row – Night
• Midtown – Night (New)
• Numbani – Morning
• Paraíso – Evening

Escort

• Dorado – Evening
• Havana – Morning
• Watchpoint: Gibraltar – Morning
• Junkertown – Morning
• Circuit royal – Morning
• Rialto – Evening
• Route 66 – Overcast (New)
• Shambali Monastery – Night

Control

• Antarctic Peninsula – Night
• Busan – Morning
• Ilios – Evening
• Lijiang Tower – Dawn
• Nepal – Morning
• Oasis – Morning
• Samoa — Morning (New Map)

Flashpoint

• New Junk City – Morning
• Suravasa – Morning

 

HERO OPTION AND INPUT UPDATES

In addition to the hero balance adjustments in this update, we are implementing additional quality-of-life settings and additional input options for several hero abilities to give you the ability to custom-tailor your experience of playing your favorite heroes.

 

TANK

 

D.Va

Added the hero-specific options:

• Light Gun Input — Primary Fire by default.
• Relative Light Gun Aim Sensitivity – 100% by default.
• Relative Light Gun Gyro Aim Sensitivity – 100% by default (only available on gyro-supported platforms).

 

Doomfist

Added the hero-specific option:

• Swap Meteor Strike Confirm and Zoom Out Inputs – Off by default.

 

Junker Queen

Added the hero-specific options:

• Hide Commanding Shout Timer – Off by default.
• Hold to use Jagged Blade – Off by default.

 

Orisa

Added the hero-specific option:

• Hold to use Terra Surge – Off by default.

 

Ramattra

Added the hero-specific options:

• Void Barrier Confirmation Input – Secondary Fire Release by default.
• Void Barrier UI – On by default.

 

Reinhardt

Added the hero-specific option:

• Charge Cancel Input – Ability 1 by default, with Primary Fire, Secondary Fire, or All as additional options available.

 

Roadhog

Whole Hog

• Whole Hog can now be fired with Secondary Fire.

Added the hero-specific options:

• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Whole Hog – 100% by default.
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Whole Hog – 100% by default (Only available on gyro-supported platforms).

 

Sigma

Added the hero-specific options:

• Experimental Barrier UI – On by default.
• Hide Gravitic Flux Timer – Off by default.
• Gravitic Flux Confirmation Input – Primary Fire by default.

 

Winston

Primal Rage

• Primal Rage melee attacks can now be fired with Secondary Fire and Quick Melee along with Primary Fire.

Added the hero-specific options:

• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Primal Rage – 100% by default.
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Primal Rage – 100% by default (Only available on gyro-supported platforms).

 

Wrecking Ball

Added the hero-specific options:

• Hide Adaptive Shields Timer – Off by default.
• Adaptive Shields UI – On by default.
• Piledriver UI – On by default.

 

DAMAGE

 

Echo

Added the hero-specific options:

• Toggle Glide – Off by default.
• Secondary Fire Activates Glide on Gamepad – On by default.

 

Genji

Dragonblade:

• Dragonblade melee attacks can now be fired with Secondary Fire and Quick Melee along with Primary Fire.

Added the hero-specific options:

• Hide Dragonblade Timer – Off by default.
• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Dragonblade – 100% by default.
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Dragonblade – 100% by default (Only available on gyro-supported platforms).

 

Hanzo

Added the hero-specific option:

• Toggle Primary Fire – Off by default.

 

Mei

Added the hero-specific option:

• Cryo-freeze Cancel Input – All by default.

 

Pharah

Added the hero-specific options:

• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Rocket Barrage – 100% by default.
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Rocket Barrage – 100% by default (only available on gyro-supported platforms).

 

Reaper

Added the hero-specific option:

• Wraith Form Cancel Input – All by default.

 

Soldier: 76

• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Tactical Visor – 100% by default.
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Tactical Visor – 100% by default (Only available on gyro-supported platforms).

 

Torbjörn

Molten Core:

• Molten Core can now be fired with Secondary Fire along with Primary Fire.

Added the hero-specific options:

• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Molten Core – 100% by default.
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Molten Core – 100% by default (Only available on gyro-supported platforms).

 

SUPPORT

 

Lifeweaver

Added the hero-specific options:

• Tree of Life Cancel Input – Ability 3 by default.

 

Lúcio

Added the hero-specific option:

• Toggle Wall Ride – Off by default.

 

Mercy

Added the hero-specific options:

• Toggle Angelic Descent – Off by default.
• Secondary Fire Activates Angelic Descent on Gamepad – On by default.

 

Moira

Added the hero-specific options:

• Swap Biotic Orb Heal and Damage inputs – Off by default.
• Hide Coalescence Timer – Off by default.
• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Coalescence – 100% by default.
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Coalescence – 100% by default (Only available on gyro-supported platforms).

 

Zenyatta

Added the hero-specific option:

• Toggle Secondary Fire – Off by default.

 

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug where some players were unable to capture Plays of the Game using the in-game capture system.
• Fixed an issue with the ‘Random’ option for Victory Poses and Highlight Intros not saving.
• Fixed a bug that could result in Support Heroes losing the ability to see allied health bars in Control matches.
• Fixed an issue with the camera breaking during Plays of the Game if the player used a Souvenir during the play.

MAPS

Watchpoint: Gibraltar

• Fixed an issue with the end-of-game line-up camera clipping into the environment.

Junkertown

• Fixed an area of the map that allowed turrets to be placed inside the environment.

New Junk City

• Fixed some areas of the map that caused players to get stuck.
• Fixed lighting in some areas around the map.
• Fixed areas of the map that had gaps in its collision.

Rialto

• Fixed an area near the boat docks that could result in players becoming stuck.

Suravasa

• Fixed lighting in several areas on the map.
• Fixed some collision on the map that could cause some odd interactions with certain ultimate abilities.

STORY MISSIONS

Toronto Mission

• Fixed a few areas on the map that could trap Tracer.

HEROES

Cassidy

• Fixed a bug that caused Magnetic Grenade to not detach from eliminated targets.

Illari

• Fixed an issue that prevented the Perfect Placement achievement from completing in some cases.
• Fixed an interaction with Healing Pylon and Lifeweaver’s Tree of Life, the pylon should now pass through the tree’s canopy.
• Fixed an issue with Captive Sun that resulted in the normal primary fire being used if fired at the end of the ultimate duration.
• Fixed a bug with Illari’s secondary fire that could cause performance issues.

Kiriko

• Fixed an interaction that prevented the ‘Debuffs Cleansed’ emblem from counting Captive Sun effects cleansed with Kiriko’s Protection Suzu.
• Fixed an issue that allowed Kiriko to teleport outside of the playable space.

Lifeweaver

• Fixed an issue where Lifeweaver would call out an enemy Petal Platform as his own when pinging.

Mei

• Fixed a bug that prevented damage from Mei’s alternate fire from being counted toward the progress of the ‘Weapon Damage’ emblem.

Sigma

• Fixed an issue with Kinetic Grasp that prevented the following abilities from being converted into overhealth: Ramattra’s Ravenous Vortex, Mei’s Blizzard, Sojourn’s Disruptor Shot.

Symmetra

• Fixed Symmetra’s footsteps failing to play while crouched.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

GENERAL UPDATES

 

HERO MASTERY MODE

• Completing a hero mastery course in the gold bonus tier will now grant bonus score based on how fast you completed the course. This bonus score is granted based on the time differential down to the nearest tenth of a second between your time and gold bonus tier. This new bonus time can be viewed in the finish line bonus tooltip on the course summary screen. This change affects all Hero Mastery courses played going forward and should allow the global leaderboards for each course to be more competitive.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed in a previous update – Resolved an issue that caused jump pads to stop functioning after a round transition.
• Fixed a bug that resulted in Sombra’s EMP failing to apply to some targets.
• Fixed a bug in Suravasa that prevented players from contesting the Ruins objective point (E) when standing in certain locations.
• Made general bug fixes and improvements.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

SUMMER GAMES 2023

It’s time for some fun in the sun with the Summer Games seasonal event! Log in and play Lúcioball, Lúcioball Remix, and the all-new Winston’s Beach Volleyball, plus score big with new cosmetic rewards, including a new Epic skin for Doomfist!

 

GENERAL UPDATES

 

On Fire Adjustments

• Fixed a bug that caused players to gain On Fire at the start of a new round in Competitive Play when playing any game mode or in Quick Play when playing Control.
• On Fire and Blazing are more difficult to attain early in a round.
• On Fire’s cooldown reduced to 3 seconds. This should prevent most of the cases where a hero gained On Fire with a delay after a positive contribution.
• On Fire score decays slightly more quickly when a hero is not On Fire.
• Maintaining On Fire for long periods of time is more difficult.

New Event Hub

A new centralized location for Event information is now available from the main menu, where all Event Challenges, Rewards, and Modes are listed here.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

 

Team Queue

Team Queue is an all-new Competitive mode for Overwatch 2, requiring everyone to play in a full group of five players. Team Queue has no ranking restrictions and will be available through the end of Season 5. Other important rules for the mode are:

• Players can group up regardless of how far apart they are in rank.
• Grandmaster players can play, even with up to four other Grandmaster players.
• Team Queue is limited to 1 Tank, 2 Damage, and 2 Support.
• Players do not queue for specific roles, instead choosing their roles within each match.
• Platform pool restrictions remain, meaning players on console must still only group up with other players on console, not those on PC.

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Orisa

Developer Comments: We are increasing the effectiveness of Fortify to make Orisa a stronger counter against team compositions that lean on crowd control.

 

 

Fortify

• Damage reduction increased from 40 to 50%.

Ramattra

Developer Comments: Sometimes, the Ravenous Vortex projectile hits an enemy and bounces off unpredictably, delaying its activation. This quality-of-life change improves the ability’s consistency and makes it easier to use against groups of enemies without fear of accidental collisions.

 

Ravenous Vortex

• The projectile now passes through enemy heroes but is still blocked by barriers.

Reinhardt

Developer Comments: We are increasing Reinhardt’s barrier uptime to help him better protect his allies. We’ll be keeping an eye on this, as we want to avoid situations where players feel like they are always shooting at barriers.

 

Barrier Field

• Maximum health increased from 1200 to 1400.

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comments: Wrecking Ball rarely reloads his Quad Cannons manually due to the automatic reload that triggers while transformed into a Ball. This change makes reloading without changing forms a more viable option.

 

Quad Cannons

• Manual reload time reduced from 2 to 1.6 seconds. This does not affect the automatic reload while transformed into a ball, which is still 2 seconds.

DAMAGE

 

Sojourn

Developer Comments: We are decreasing the overall spread on the Railgun primary fire to help Sojourn build energy more consistently. The increased shots before reaching maximum spread will give players more direct control over aiming the projectiles when firing in short bursts.

 

Railgun

• Number of shots to reach maximum spread increased from 8 to 12.
• Spread reduced by 12%.

Soldier: 76

Developer Comments: One of Soldier: 76’s strengths is his reliable damage output, but it hasn’t quite been effective enough after his last round of changes. We’d like to avoid going all the way back up to 20 damage on his primary fire since it has proven too powerful in the past. So instead, we’re adjusting both primary and secondary fire damage slightly. He will also be able to stay in the fight longer and support his team more effectively with extra healing from the Biotic Field.

 

Heavy Pulse Rifle

• Damage increased from 18 to 19.

 

Helix Rockets

• Explosion damage increased from 80 to 90.

 

Biotic Field

• Healing per second increased from 35 to 40.

Symmetra

Developer Comments: Symmetra is exceptionally map dependent, to the point where she is oppressive in certain situations yet ineffectual in others. The following changes increase her weapon effectiveness while lessening some of the frustrations caused by her turrets. The Photon Projector primary fire is now an even more pointed counter against certain heroes due to its conditional shield health regeneration, and the secondary fire now takes one less fully charged projectile to eliminate most heroes. Symmetra’s turrets are especially powerful when focusing on the same target due to their combined total damage output coupled with their slowing effect. We are lowering their raw damage and angling them towards utility to make spreading them out a more viable option.

 

Photon Projector

• Secondary Fire maximum impact damage increased from 45 to 50.
• Secondary Fire maximum explosion damage increased from 45 to 50.
• Regenerate up to 30 shield health per second when primary fire deals damage to barriers or enemies with shield health.

 

Sentry Turret

• Damage per second reduced from 40 to 25.
• Turrets now reveal enemy heroes to allies while dealing damage and for 1 additional second afterwards.

Torbjörn

Developer Comment: Torbjörn’s Turret has a bit too much impact for little investment, so we are shifting some of its power to the rest of his kit to reward more accurate gunplay. Overload now partially reloads ammo, which guarantees that there is no downtime between activating the ability and shooting projectiles.

 

Rivet Gun

 

• Secondary Fire spread reduced from 5 to 4.5 degrees.

 

Deploy Turret

• Damage reduced from 14 to 11.
• Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

 

Overload

• Now reloads 6 ammo on use.

SUPPORT

 

Kiriko

Developer Comments: Originally, we increased the Ofuda recovery time to promote more Kunai usage between healing bursts. Despite that benefit, we are partially reverting that change so the primary fire feels more responsive in situations where Kiriko is pressured to focus entirely on healing.

 

Healing Ofuda

• Recovery reduced from 1 to 0.9 seconds.

Zenyatta

Developer Comments: The combination of these changes will make it riskier for Zenyatta to apply Discord and increase counterplay for the affected target.

 

Orb of Discord

• Maximum range reduced from 40 to 30 meters.
• Time to wear off the target when not in line-of-sight reduced from 2 to 1.5 seconds.

BUG FIXES

 

General

Ping System

• Fixed pinging opponent’s owned objects through walls as Sombra. This includes objects like Torbjörn’s Turret, Soldier 76’s Biotic Field, and Sombra’s Translocator, etc.
• Fixed cases where Junker Queen’s knife would remain pingable if she died while the knife was not in her hand.
• Fixed Lifeweaver Petal Platform pings using ping stems when the platform is mid-air.
• Fixed cases where ping stems would be used incorrectly on midair Last Seen pings or not used on grounded Last Seen pings.
• Fixed training bots blocking the ability to share your ultimate status.
• Fixed D.Va incorrectly giving her ultimate status for Call Mech instead of Self-Destruct when she was inside her mech and targeting an ally by pressing the Ultimate Status button.

Other Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused some players to see the Unranked map loading screen instead of the Competitive Play team lineup and map loading screen.
• Fixed a bug that prevented players from selecting the ‘No Title’ option.
• Fixed an issue with the Questwatch background being incorrectly placed if you entered a match during a conversation.
• Fixed a bug with the Role Mastery Challenge not appearing during the end-of-round flow in some cases.
• Fixed an issue where Hero Icons were missing from Highlights when viewed on a 21:9 ratio.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in the Career Profiles of friends sometimes appearing blank or missing items.
• Fixed Mystery Hero Game reports lacking information.
• Fixed a bug in the Options menu where values such as ‘100.0%’ were cut off for some languages.
• Resolved several localization issues.
• Fixed several crashes.

MAPS

Blizzard World

• Fixed lighting in multiple locations around the map.

Circuit Royale

• Fixed lighting in multiple locations around the map.

Watchpoint Gibraltar

• Fixed gaps in the map that could affect gameplay elements.

Illios

• Fixed lighting in multiple locations around the map.

Numbani

• Fixed areas on the map that allowed some heroes to escape the playable area.

Oasis

• Fixed gaps in the map that could affect gameplay elements.

HEROES

Ashe

• Fixed an issue with the aim-down sight animation not matching the firing of the gun when used after a melee.

Baptiste

• Fixed a bug with Immortality Field not protecting Mei for a small window of time after she leaves Cryo-Freeze.

Cassidy

• Fix a bug where Cassidy’s Magnetic Grenade did not disable the following: Baptiste’s Exo Boost and Flight for both Sigma’s Gravitic Flux and Mercy’s Valkyrie.

Echo

• Fixed a condition where Echo would fail to play any voice lines after Duplicating a hero.

Junkrat

• Fixed an interaction with Lifeweaver’s Petal platform that assisted Junkrat in leaving the playable space.

Kiriko

• Fixed the melee animation not playing if used right after Protection Suzu.

Lifeweaver

• Fixed a bug with Lifeweaver’s Hero Icon challenges not correctly progressing.
• Fixed an issue with Petal Platform that prevented the jump boost from being applied when jumping from some areas of the platform.
• Fixed a bug that gave Lifeweaver high damage mitigation numbers for environmental kills.
• Fixed a condition that allowed Life Gripped teammates to die to the boundary of a pitfall.

Orisa

• Fixed an issue with overheating effects not playing correctly on some skins.

Ramattra

• Fixed a bug where stunning Ramattra and interrupting Ravenous Vortex allowed the ability to be cast again immediately.

Reaper

• Fixed an interaction with Petal Platform that allowed players to escape the playable space.

Reinhardt

• Fixed an issue with Reinhardt’s beard appearing distorted for select skins in Hero Select.
• Fixed an interaction with the Hold to Charge option breaking animations when used on a controller.

Soldier: 76

• Fixed a bug with the animation of the Heavy Pulse Rifle that could occur when Tactical Visor was used while under the effect of Kitsune Rush.

Sombra

• Fixed the lighting on several skins being too bright.
• Fixed a bug with Primary Fire not having priority over a pending Hack if the Toggle Hack option is enabled.

Symmetra

• Fixed an interaction with Petal Platform and Teleporter, allowing players to escape the playable space.

Tracer

• Fixed an interaction with Lifeweaver’s Petal Platform that allowed Tracer to contest the objective from outside the playable space on some maps.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Hero Select sound effects of the Mythic Tracer skin to keep playing after switching heroes.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed a bug where first-person screen shaking was being applied in error when striking an enemy or healing an ally

Heroes

Doomfist

• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed an issue with Doomfist’s Power Block not correctly blocking beam type weapons

Ramattra

• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed an issue with Ramattra’s Block not correctly blocking beam type weapons

Sigma

• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a bug with Sigma’s Gravitic Flux that allowed him to fly indefinitely

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

EVENT UPDATES

New Event – Starwatch: Galactic Rescue

• Battle for the fate of the galaxy in this new four-point Assault mode. Side with the Watcher rebels alongside the mighty Bonebreaker to rescue 3CH-0 from the Infinite Galactrius starship. Or serve the Infinite Empire and use the starship’s security systems to defend against the intruders. Your choice will decide the fate of the galaxy, for whichever side wins more battles by the end of the event will reign supreme!
• Complete event challenges to unlock limited-time cosmetics, like the Asteroid Wrecking Ball epic skin, as well as up to 50,000 Battlepass experience.

Battle for Olympus Returns

• To celebrate Zeus Junker Queen’s victory from Season 2’s Battle for Olympus event, we are bringing back the game mode for a limited-time, including a new Team Deathmatch version! To further commemorate the victors of Season 2, a statue of the god herself has been erected in Ilios.

GENERAL UPDATES

Ping System

• “Group Up” can now be used while dead.
• Added a new setting to Controls → Communication → Ping – Options → Enable Contextual Comms Wheel. When Enabled, this setting changes “Group Up” and “Need Healing” to use alternate comms when aiming at allies. This setting is “Off” by default.
• Junker Queen can now ping targets through surfaces that her knife is stuck in, in the same way that Zenyatta can ping targets his Discord is attached to.

Push Game Mode Update

• The respawn time for players is increased by 2 seconds from 10s to 12s while their team’s forward spawn location is activated.

Developer Comments: Forward spawn locations were proving to be too advantageous for the team with the lead, making it a bit too difficult for the disadvantaged team to mount a comeback.

Matchmaking

• MMR decay system has received multiple improvements aimed at more quickly and accurately re-calibrating players when they return from a long period of inactivity.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Competitive Deathmatch

• The 2023 Competitive Deathmatch season begins on May 16!

HERO UPDATES

TANK

Junker Queen

Scattergun

• Maximum ammo increased from 6 to 8

Jagged Blade

• Projectile size increased from 0.15 to 0.20 meters

Rampage

• Now deals 40 impact damage
• Wound damage decreased from 100 to 60

Adrenaline Rush

• Adrenaline passive healing multiplier increased from 1.25 to 2x damage dealt by wounds

Developer Comments: These changes increase Junker Queen’s front-line presence by increasing her self-healing and offensive sustainability. We’ve also increased Jagged Blade’s projectile size so it’s more consistent to land.

Orisa

Augmented Fusion Driver

• Damage increased from 12 to 13

Developer Comments: Orisa often gets a lot of value with her abilities but she is underperforming compared to other tanks. Increasing her weapon damage will make her a more of an immediate threat after closing the distance with the enemy team.

Winston

Jet Pack

• Damage radius before falloff begins increased from 1 to 1.3 meters

Developer Comments: It’s difficult to deal full damage with Winston’s leap due to needing to land almost directly on the enemy hero. Increasing this range will improve its consistency.

Wrecking Ball

Adaptive Shield

• Effect duration decreased from 9 to 7 seconds

Developer Comments: Adaptive Shields gives Wrecking Ball a lot of leeway in a fight due to its duration. This change to Adaptive Shields limits his survivability during prolonged engagements.

DAMAGE

Echo

Duplicate

• Ultimate cost reduced 25%
• Ultimate generation decreased from 5.5x to 4x while Duplicate is active

Developer Comments: The following changes increase the flexibility of Echo’s Duplicate ultimate and shift some of its focus away from the allure of building multiple copied ultimates in a single use. This puts more of an emphasis on choosing a Duplicate target based on the hero’s overall utility for a given situation, with the benefit of increased survivability due to transforming. Echo will get her ultimate more frequently but it will be more difficult to generate the copied hero’s ultimate.

Junkrat

Concussion Mine

• Maximum damage increased from 100 to 110

Developer Comments: The previous adjustment to Concussion Mine’s maximum damage lowered the effectiveness of Junkrat’s grenade and mine combos too much so we are increasing the damage amount slightly.

SUPPORT

Ana

Biotic Grenade

• Explosion healing decreased from 100 to 60

Developer Comments: Ana’s survivability has improved significantly ever since the addition of the support passive. We are reducing the amount of healing provided by the Biotic Grenade explosion as she doesn’t need to rely on it for self-healing as much as before.

Baptiste

Immortality Field

• Cooldown decreased from 25 to 23 seconds

Developer Comments: Immortality Field provides powerful utility, but its long cooldown means that Baptiste often has to wait for the perfect opportunity to use it. We’re decreasing its cooldown slightly to promote more flexibility in usage, though it will still be uncommon to see it in more than once per engagement.

Kiriko

• Kunai reloads after 65% percent of the animation has completed (formerly 75%)
• New Hero option: “Healing Ofuda Cancels Reload”

Dev Comment: Kiriko sometimes accidentally interrupts her Kunai reload with Ofuda. Kunai now reloads slightly sooner during the animation to mitigate this. In addition, there is now a hero option, “Healing Ofuda Cancels Reload,” which can be turned off to bypass this issue entirely.

Lifeweaver

Life Grip

Reinhardt is no longer a valid target for Life Grip during Earthshatter and using Earthshatter will cancel Life Grip.

Developer Comment: Earthshatter is an ultimate where positioning is critical to effectively use, so we are adjusting it so that Reinhardt doesn’t have their ultimate be effectively canceled when Lifeweaver uses Life Grip.

HERO OPTION UPDATES

In addition to the hero balance adjustments in this update, we are implementing multiple quality-of-life settings for several heroes to give you the ability to custom-tailor your experience of playing your favorite heroes.

TANK

D.Va

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Hide Boosters Cancel Text – Off by default
• Hide Boosters Timer – Off by default

Doomfist

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

Hand Cannon UI – On by default

• Hold To Use Power Block – Off by default
• Hide Power Block Cancel Text – Off by default
• Hide Rocket Punch Meter – Off by default
• Hide Rocket Punch Cancel Text – Off by default

Orisa

Terra Surge can now be activated by pressing the Ultimate button again

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Hide Fortify Timer – Off By default
• Hold To Use Javelin Spin – Off By default
• Hide Javelin Spin Cancel Text – Off By default

Ramattra

Block now respects holding the input through being stunned.

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Toggle Block – Off by default
• Hide Nemesis Form Cancel Text – Off by default
• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Nemesis Form – 100% by default
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Nemesis Form – 100% by default (only available on gyro-supported platforms)
• Annihilation Cancel Input – Ability 1 by default

Reinhardt

Added the Hero-Specific Options

• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Barrier Field – 100% by default
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Barrier Field – 100% by default (only available on gyro-supported platforms)
• Hold To Use Charge – Off by default
• Hide Charge Cancel Text – Off by default

Roadhog

Added the Hero-Specific Option

• Hide Whole Hog Timer – Off by default

Sigma

Gravitic Flux now automatically casts when the timer runs out

Winston

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

• Toggle Secondary Fire – Off by default

Wrecking Ball

Pressing the Quick Melee button now cancels Roll

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

Toggle Quick Melee During Roll

DAMAGE

Bastion

Configuration: Artillery now automatically casts when the timer runs out

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Reconfigure – 100% by default
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Reconfigure – 100% by default (only available on gyro-supported platforms)

Cassidy

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Hide Deadeye Timer – Off by default
• Hide Deadeye Cancel Text – Off by default

Echo

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Hold To Use Focusing Beam – Off by default
• Hide Flight Cancel Text – Off by default
• Hide Flight Timer – Off by default

Genji

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Hold To Use Deflect – Off by default
• Hide Deflect Cancel Text – Off by default

Mei

Cyro-Freeze can now be canceled by pressing the ability’s button again

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Hold To Use Cryo-Freeze – Off by default
• Hide Cyro-Freeze Cancel Text – Off by default
• Hide Cryo-Freeze Timer – Off by default
• Default Ice Wall Rotation – Horizontal by default
• Ice Wall Confirmation Input – Primary Fire by default

Pharah

Added the Hero-Specific Option

• Toggle Hover Jets – Off by default

Reaper

Added the Hero-Specific Options

• Hold To Use Wraith Form – Off by Default
• Hide Wraith Form Cancel Text – Off by Default
• Shadow Step Confirmation Input – Primary Fire by default

Sombra

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

Toggle Hack – Off by default

Symmetra

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Toggle Secondary Fire – Off by default
• Hold To Deploy Sentry Turret – Off by default
• Teleporter and Photon Barrier Confirmation Input – Primary Fire by default
• Default Photon Barrier Rotation – Horizontal by default
• Hide Photon Barrier Timer – Off by default

Torbjörn

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

• Hide Overload Timer – Off by default

Tracer

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

• Blink UI – On by default

SUPPORT

Baptiste

Automatic Reload setting now reloads when both Primary and Secondary Fire are out of ammo if setting is set to Off

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Default Amplification Matrix Rotation – Horizontal by default
• Amplification Matrix Confirmation Input – Primary Fire by default

Brigitte

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Relative Aim Sensitivity During Barrier Shield – 100% by default
• Relative Gyro Aim Sensitivity During Barrier Shield – 100% by default (only available on gyro-supported platforms)
• Repair Pack UI – On by default

Kiriko

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Healing Ofuda Cancels Reload – On by default

Lifeweaver

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Relative Thorn Volley Aim Sensitivity – 100% by default
• Relative Thorn Volley Gyro Aim Sensitivity – 100% by default (Only available on gyro-supported platforms)
• Tree of Life Confirmation Input – Primary Fire by default

Lúcio

Allow Backwards Wall Ride option now On by default

Hold To Crossfade options changed from Off/On to Off/Hold For Speed/Hold For Heal.

Mercy

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Caduceus Blaster Input – Primary Fire by default
• Relative Caduceus Blaster Aim Sensitivity – 100% by default
• Relative Caduceus Blaster Gyro Aim Sensitivity – 100% by default (Only available on gyro-supported platforms)

Zenyatta

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Harmony and Discord Orb Cancel Reload – On by default
• Hide Transcendence Timer – Off by default

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

• Resolved an issue that awarded the incorrect competitive Season 3 titles for some players
• Fixed a bug in the Options menu that resulted in Communication Option changes to not save
• Console – Fixed an issue that prevented you from navigating the competitive menu while in queue
• Console – Fixed a bug on some consoles that prevented saving highlights
• Console – Fixed a bug that prevented players on console from renaming Custom Game presets
• Fixed a bug with Payload and Hybrid game modes displaying a debug string when the payload is pushed the end of the map
• Resolved a bug where you were unable to view some Heroes weapons and/or equipment in the Hero Gallery
• Fixed a bug with the camera sometimes becoming askew when the player’s movement was interrupted by negative statuses
• Fixed an issue where some Maps were missing images on the Competitive Progress screen
• Fixed a bug where a sound prompt was missing when you ranked down in Competitive modes

MAPS

Antarctic Peninsula

• Removed a large misplaced shadow near the capture point in the Labs area

Busan

• Fixed a bug with the drum in the Sanctuary area allowing player objects to be thrown/placed inside of it

Circuit Royale

• Fixed some areas that allowed players to stand in unintended locations

Esperança

• Starting Room: Replaced the indestructible vase to a regular ceramic vase that can shatter. Please break them at your own will.

Hollywood

• Removed a planter near the first choke

Lijang Tower

• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a bug that allowed players to stand in unintended locations

Shambali Monastery

• Fixed some areas on the map that would eat projectiles

HEROES

Ana

• Fixed a bug where Biotic Grenade was only tracking self-hits

Ashe

• Fixed a bug where Ashe’s accuracy became inconsistent during a jump and other movements

Bastion

• Fixed a bug with the Assault Configuration playing an old reload animation if used as soon as you spawn

Brigitte

• Fixed a bug which caused Brigitte’s extra armor during ‘Rally’ to not apply it’s 30% damage reduction correctly

Doomfist

• Fixed a bug with Powerblock not correctly reducing area of effect damage
• Fixed a bug with the Empowered buff from Meteor Strike not counting toward the Empowered Rocket Punch stat

D.Va

• Fixed a bug with D.Va’s ‘Selfie’ highlight intro not removing the mech after the explosion when some skins were equipped

Genji

• Fixed a bug where deflecting Kiriko or Lifeweaver’s healing projectiles did not heal your allies

Kiriko

• Fixed a bug with Swift Step sometimes getting players stuck in the map

Lifeweaver

• Fixed the issue with Lifeweaver’s Custom Game controls being broken after the controls update
• Fixed an issue with the Petal Platform geometry not matching its projectile collision
• Fixed a bug where your Life Grip target would bounce back if you activate the ability while you’re on an enemy Petal Platform and they are on a friendly Petal Platform
• Fixed an issue with Life Grip failing and going on cooldown in some cases if used at the same time as your target activated an ability
• Fixed a bug where Lifeweaver would auto-swap to Healing Blossom if Tree of Life was placed while Thorn Volley was active
• Fixed the placement of Lifeweaver in the Hero Gallery and Hero Select

Mei

• Fixed a bug with Ice Wall becoming unusable until cancelled after targeting an invalid location

Pharah

• Fixed a bug with Concussive Blast only tracking self-hits

Ramattra

• Fixed a bug with Nemesis form failing to go on cooldown if you die during the transformation
• Fixed a bug with Nemesis form not activating and enabling its cooldown if you were knocked down while Annihilation mode is active and then attempted to activate Nemesis Form

Reaper

• Fixed a bug with the Ambush Play of the Game not having a sniper reticle and some sounds when certain skins were equipped

Sojourn

• Resolved an issue where the Disruptor could be attached to the Push bot

Sombra

• Fixed a stat tracking issue where Health Pack healing was only counting self-healing

Widowmaker

• Fixed a bug where Widowmaker could become stuck in the grappling animation if Grappling Hook was used on a moving platform

WORKSHOP

• Fixed multiple issues related to Custom Projectiles

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

HERO UPDATES

SUPPORT

LIFEWEAVER

Lifeweaver’s Controls & Options have been changed, with a new default control scheme added:

• Rejuvenating Dash has been moved from Ability 1 to Jump while in the air
• Petal Platform has been moved from Secondary Fire to Ability 1
• Petal Platform can now be manually destroyed with the Ability 1 input
• Secondary Fire will now automatically swap to the Thorn Volley weapon and fire it, and while Thorn Volley is equipped, Primary Fire will weapon swap back to Healing Blossom and begin charging
• Added a new Hero Option: “Use Manual Weapon Swap Control Scheme” which reenables the original control scheme for swapping weapons and changes the Rejuvenating Dash and Petal Platform ability assignments
• Added a new Hero Option: “Interact Cancels Petal Platform” which reenables using the Interact input to destroy the Petal Platform and disables the Ability 1 input from destroying it
• Diverged the Healing Blossom and Life Grip targeting sensitivity options so that they can be adjusted separately

General

• Automatic reload time for the inactive weapon increased from 1.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds

Healing Blossom

• Ammo count increased to 20 from 12
• Slow now steadily applies after 1 second of max charge being held

Thorn Volley

• Projectile Size reduced from .125 to .1
• Spread pattern adjusted, with random spread reduced. 1 of the 2 projectiles per shot now fires closer to the crosshair.

Projectile Size reduced from .125 to .1Tree of Life

• Health increased from 1000 to 1200
• Healing pulse increased from 50 to 75

Parting Gift (Passive)

• Parting gift has been removed

Developer Comment: We’ve received feedback that Lifeweaver’s control settings leave much to be desired, especially on controllers. We agree and have updated the default control scheme along with adding a new hero option for those who prefer the previous layout. Additionally, we added the ability to cancel Petal Platform by pressing the button again, similar to how Tree of Life already works, in order to help simplify the controls and reduce the amount of ability buttons displayed. We hope these changes will make playing Lifeweaver approachable for more players

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue where Tracer was missing in the Overwatch League themed lobby when low settings were enabled.
• Fixed an issue where players’ season three ranks would be modified when first logging into season four. Note that this patch will not immediately resolve for players who had already logged in to season four. We will be repairing these players in the coming days.

MAPS

Esperança

• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed locations on the map that allowed players to escape the playable space.

HEROES

Lifeweaver

• Fixed an issue that caused Lifeweaver’s Camera height to be set too low.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in Petal Platform hit volumes to misalign in some instances.
• Petal Platform’s Icon will now correctly display status and remaining duration.
• Addressed an issue where Life Grip could pull allies to the wrong location if cast from the enemy Petal Platform.
• Life Grip now correctly pull targets unless specific conditions are met, such as using certain ultimates or the teleporter.
• Improved Life Grip safety checks for various situations and locations.
• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a crash that could occur involving Junk Rat projectiles and dormant Petal Platforms.

Fixed an issue that caused Tree of Life to not properly attach when placed on ledges.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

OVERWATCH 2 SEASON FOUR

Fight for a better future in Season Four! Our newest Support hero Lifeweaver, who hails from Thailand and wields biolight, enters the fray. Take combat to the cosmos with the new Battle Pass featuring Mythic Space Conqueror Sigma, and earn free rewards in events happening throughout the season.

INTRODUCING LIFEWEAVER

Scientist, artist, and activist: Overwatch 2’s latest hero entwines the beauty of nature with the practicality of science. He dreams of healing the world.

Lifeweaver

Lifeweaver has been added to the line-up.

Healing Blossom

• Hold to charge a healing burst. Release to heal a targeted ally.

Thorn Volley

• Rapidly fire a spread of projectiles.

Petal Platform

• Throw a platform that springs upwards when stepped on.

Rejuvenating Dash

• Dash toward your traveling direction and lightly heal yourself.

Life Grip

• Pull an ally to your location, protecting them as they travel.

Tree of Life

• Place a tree that instantly heals allies upon sprouting and continues healing periodically as it lives.

Parting Gift (Passive)

• On death, drop a gift that heals the first enemy or ally to pick it up.

GENERAL UPDATES

This patch is a rebase and will require a large download for all platforms. Check out our forums for more information.

Accessibility

Added a setting to select custom colors for health, armor, shields, and overhealth in health bars. Improved preview feature for custom color settings with different preview backgrounds.

Stranded Spawn System

Regrouping with your team after getting stranded in a spawn room has never been easier! Spawn rooms that shut down due to capturing or losing an objective will now remain partially active for 7 seconds. While you still can’t change heroes in these spawn rooms, other new features have been activated. In these “stranded spawns,” the doors remain locked to the opposing team, the healing field remains active, and you can now use the Interact key to instantly teleport to the new active spawn room.

Matchmaking

Backfilling players in Unranked modes will now prioritize finding players closer to the skill level of the other players in the match. Minor optimizations for large groups improving matchmaking quality.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Top 500 Leaderboard Eligibility

Players will now be required to win 25 Competitive matches before being eligible to enter the Top 500 leaderboard for a specific role, queue, or region.

Developer comments: Previously, we only required 25 games to be completed regardless of winning prior to becoming eligible for the Top 500 leaderboards; however, this change should help make sure that players are consistently pushing toward winning matches, which should help ensure the leaderboards have the best players in each region.

Competitive Leaver Penalty Changes

Matches left in different Competitive queues are still considered separate for purposes of determining the lengths of suspensions or receiving a seasonal ban from Competitive Play.

The start of a new Competitive season also no longer fully resets the severity of these suspensions and bans. This should hopefully prevent players from leaving Competitive games at the end of a season without facing meaningful consequences at the start of the next.

Matches left in Competitive Play will also have a more negative effect on a player’s Skill Tier and Division after a 5-win Competitive Update.

Competitive Point Reward Changes

The number of Competitive Points (CP) rewarded for a win in Competitive Play has been changed from 15 to 25.

The number of Competitive Points earned from seasonal challenges based on your final seasonal rank has also been updated. Games played after your last Competitive Update during a season will still count towards your final seasonal rank. You must still compete in the season’s Competitive Play Qualification challenge to receive bonus Competitive Points.

• Ending in Bronze will now earn 300 Competitive Points (previously 65)
• Ending in Silver will now earn 450 Competitive Points (previously 125)
• Ending in Gold will now earn 600 Competitive Points (previously 250)
• Ending in Platinum will now earn 800 Competitive Points (previously 500)
• Ending in Diamond will now earn 1000 Competitive Points (previously 750)
• Ending in Masters will now earn 1200 Competitive Points (previously 1250)
• Ending in Grand Masters will now earn 1500 Competitive Points (previously 1750)

Competitive Challenge Titles

Seasonal Competitive titles earned from challenges now distinguish between whether they are earned in Open Queue or Role Queue. For example:

• Ending in Diamond rank in Open Queue will earn the “Diamond Open Challenger” Title
• Ending in Diamond rank in Role Queue will earn the “Diamond Role Challenger” Title

Developer Comments: The goal of these changes is to prevent confusion about a player’s rank from the previous season if they participate in multiple Competitive queues.

Competitive Match Rank

The initial loading screen that shows all the participants of Competitive matches will now show an icon at the top of the screen representing the average Skill Tier and Division of all players in that match. This should provide players with a better comparison of their own rank to other players in the match.

Seasonal Rank Decay Removed

Starting with Season Four, a player’s Competitive Play rank will no longer be reduced at the beginning of a season. Furthermore, the effects of this reduction of rank from previous seasons will also be removed. Depending on how many games they played during the previous season, most players will see their skill tier and division increase. A player’s skill tier and division at the beginning of Season 4 will now closely match the matchmaker’s estimate of your current skill.

Developer Comments: The previous seasonal rank decay was causing considerable confusion for players, who would see players in their Competitive games who did not appear to be of a similar rank. Often these players were actually of similar skill, but they had not played enough games during the season to compensate for the initial decay.

Competitive Skill Update and Progression

Both the Competitive progress and Competitive update screens will now include information about a player’s losses and ties as well as their wins.

The Competitive Update screen will also now provide players with an indication of their current percentage progress within a skill division. This will hopefully make it more clear how the results of games played during the update affect a player’s Skill Tier and Division.

It is possible for players to have a positive win/loss record, but not go up a skill division because the progress occurs entirely within a single division. This new message will allow players to see that they did in fact make positive progress, just not enough to reach a new skill tier or division.

There is also a similar message with Competitive Updates for players who are Grandmaster 1, but not yet on the Top 500 leaderboard. This should provide those players with feedback about their progress towards earning a spot on the Top 500 leaderboard.

HERO UPDATES

TANK

Reinhardt

• Armor health reduced from 300 to 250
• Base health increased from 175 to 200

Developer Comment: Reinhardt has been overperforming after the recent increases to his offensive capabilities. Those changes have been playing well, so to adjust his overall power, we’re reducing his overall health through this armor reduction.

Sigma

Accretion

• Impact damage reduced from 60 to 40 (80 damage total with explosion)
• Knockdown duration increased from 0.8 to 1.1 seconds

Developer Comment: Like Roadhog’s Chain Hook, Sigma’s Accretion and primary fire combo can be highly lethal and can feel like a guaranteed kill against 200 health targets. We’re reducing the damage slightly to require an additional volley of primary fire but are also increasing the stun duration to provide allies with more opportunity to follow up on successful impacts.

DAMAGE

Cassidy

• Base health reduced from 225 to 200

Magnetic Grenade

• Damage reduced from 131 to 120

Developer Comment: Magnetic Grenade only requiring one additional primary fire shot after sticking to a target was too reliable to execute on, even though it only works at close range. We’re reducing the total damage on Magnetic Grenade, evenly split between the direct target damage and explosion. The reduced falloff-damage buff his primary fire received recently enables Cassidy to play from safer engagement ranges now, so we’re reducing his health back to 200.

Sombra

• EMP can now disable Blizzard

Developer Comment: We are expanding what Sombra’s EMP turns off to keep it consistent with how it affects other device-controlled ultimates.

SUPPORT

Ana

Sleep Dart

• Maximum duration on Tank heroes reduced 30%, from 5 to 3.5 seconds

Developer Comments: We’ve been watching how effective Sleep Dart has been in 5v5 gameplay. It hasn’t been overly disruptive as a whole, but since it is significantly more reliable to land against Tank heroes due to their large hit boxes and even more valuable to do so with only one tank on the field, we’re reducing its maximum duration against those targets.

Brigitte

Rally

• Brigitte now gains 100 restorable armor health pool for the duration of Rally
• Brigitte no longer gradually builds temporary health like her nearby allies
• Rally now upgrades her Barrier Shield, increasing both its size and health
• Barrier health increased from 300 to 750 during the ultimate
• During Rally, Shield Bash now impacts multiple enemies and briefly stuns them
• Bonus movement speed reduced from 30 to 15%

Repair Pack

• Range reduced from 30 to 25 meters

Developer Comments: Rally lost some of its power with the change from granting allies additional armor to temporary health, and overall took a relatively long time to build up its defensive benefits. This rework is intended to keep it as a defensive ultimate ability but with a more immediate impact due to gaining an increased armor health pool upfront and the enhanced barrier, which can be utilized to block for teammates while their temporary health builds or interrupt enemies with the stun.

Mercy

Caduceus Staff

• Healing-per-second increased from 45 to 55
• Healing is no longer increased for allies under half health

Guardian Angel

• Cooldown reduced from 2.5 to 1.5 seconds
• Jump and Crouch cancel active ability state duration increased from 1.0 to 1.5 seconds
• The Jump and Crouch cancel active ability state can no longer be manually interrupted to begin the cooldown early

Valkyrie

• Support role passive healing is now active for the duration of Valkyrie

Developer Comment: The recent increase to Guardian Angel’s jump-cancel mobility still needs to be kept in check in some way, but while the last iteration was simple, it also had some unintended effects, such as not being ready to use GA again after flying in and using Resurrect. This revision provides more flexibility, and allows Mercy to opt into an additional 1.5 second cooldown when using the increased mobility from the jump/crouch cancel options or otherwise waiting for the base cooldown time.

The increased healing multiplier condition on Caduceus Staff was intended to help Mercy players feel more agency in trying to save critical-health allies and to add depth to the healing mechanic without changing the total time to heal to full health. However, the overall rebalance of the healing values received significant negative feedback, both from those playing as Mercy and those playing against it. There wasn’t a satisfying middle ground where we could reduce the potency of this effect while still having it feel impactful, so we’re reverting it.

Moira

Fade

• Can now be activated during Coalescence

Coalescence

• Bonus movement speed reduced from 50 to 40%

Biotic Grasp

• Lingering heal duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds

Developer Comments: Being able to use Fade during her Coalescence ultimate gives Moira more playmaking ability by being able to reposition even more quickly and avoid potential threats with quick reactions. Due to the more spread-out playstyle of 5v5, we’re increasing the lingering heal duration from her primary fire, meaning it will heal more in total.

MAP UPDATES

General Updates

Map Pools have been disabled, all maps are now in rotation

New Arcade Map: Talantis

You designed it, we built it: an underwater Talon base with jump pads, pit traps, giant fish, and waterfalls.

Talantis will be playable for a limited time from April 25th through May 1st.

Season 4 Map Lighting

Push

• New Queen Street – Dawn (New)
• Colosseo – Morning
• Esperança – Morning

Hybrid

• Blizzard World – Morning
• Eichenwalde – Morning
• Hollywood – Night (New)
• King’s Row – Evening
• Midtown – Morning
• Numbani – Morning
• Paraíso – Morning

Escort

• Dorado – Night
• Havana – Night
• Watchpoint: Gibraltar – Evening
• Junkertown – Morning
• Circuit royal – Morning
• Rialto – Morning
• Route 66 – Morning
• Shambali Monastery – Night

Control

• Antarctic Peninsula – Night
• Busan – Morning
• Ilios – Morning
• Lijiang Tower – Night
• Nepal – Morning
• Oasis – Evening

WORKSHOP UPDATES

Introducing Workshop Projectiles

There are three new Workshop actions allowing you to create either a fully functioning projectile or a cosmetic projectile effect:

• Create Projectile
• Create Homing Projectile
• Create Projectile Effect

Additionally, there is a corresponding workshop extension that enables 19 projectile visual effects.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug in Competitive Modes that resulted in the rank-up animation playing when a player was actually ranking down
• Fixed a bug where Relative Aim Sensitivity was unable to be set to a value of 0%
• Fixed a bug where Hero Options could become unresponsive if modified during the respawn period
• Fixed an issue where some map preview images were missing from Game Reports and Replays
• Fixed Streamer Mode failing to obfuscate BattleTags in some cases
• Fixed an issue with Custom Game Browser sorting by decreasing ping by default
• Fixed an issue where the round transition screen in Competitive could break when played on 21:9
• Fixed a bug with the Round Transition screen being significantly darker if you had colorblind options enabled
• Fixed a bug that could cause the camera to become displaced if you used a Souvenir as you loaded into the map
• Fixed a bug that prevented you from navigating the Endorsement UI while on the Challenge Progress Screen
• Fixed a controller/gamepad issue that prevented players from accessing the While you Wait menu unless the middle card on screen was highlighted first

MAPS

Circuit Royale

• Fixed multiple lighting issues in Circuit Royale

Hanamura

• Fixed multiple cases of lighting and geometry

Ilios

• Fixed areas in Ilios where players could become stuck

New Queen Street

• Fixed multiple cases of lighting an geometry in Toronto

Oasis

• Fixed areas in Oasis that blocked players and gameplay

Shambali Monastery

• Fixed areas in Shambali Monastery that allowed players to stand in unintended locations

HEROES

Ashe

• The Raijin skin has been adjusted so that Ashe’s Viper no longer takes up a large amount of screen space when scoped in
• Fixed a bug that allowed Ashe to gain Ultimate while B.O.B was active

Bastion

• Fixed a bug where some abilities were able to interact with Artillery’s targeting reticle
• Fixed a bug where Bastion’s attack animations could appear sped up (though they actually weren’t) after the effects of Kitsune Rush expired

Cassidy

• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a bug with Cassidy’s Deadeye not taking armor mitigation into account which resulted in a Killing Blow before the enemy was marked with a skull
• Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a bug where the damage from Deadeye could be multiplied by reacquiring the same target before Deadeye completed

Doomfist

• Fixed an issue with Seismic Slam not always registering when used on uneven surfaces

Echo

• Fixed an issue with Echo’s Duplicate sometimes failing when duplicating a D.Va as she casts Self-Destruct

Genji

• Fixed an issue where some abilities did not function correctly after being Deflected by Genji

Kiriko

• Fixed an issue where in some cases Swift Step would fail to teleport the player
• Fixed an issue with Kitsune Rush appearing orange to enemies if Kiriko had ‘Terrible Tornado’ equipped
• Fixed invisible entities within Kiriko’s ultimate Kitsune Rush being pingable for a brief duration

Mercy

• Fixed a bug that allowed Mercy, when using Valkyrie to clip for extended periods into the environment and prevent critical shots
• Fixed an issue where Mercy could negate the effects of Rocket Punch in some cases
• Fixed an issue with Mercy’s footsteps being extra quiet while crouched

Moira

• Fixed an issue with Moira’s hand animations breaking during gameplay

Orisa

• Fixed a bug with the art on Orisa’s Forest Spirit Spear

Pharah

• Fixed an issue with the Barrage play of the game not using custom rockets from the selected skin

Roadhog

• Fixed an interaction with Whole Hog and Hook where the hook would clip into the camera of the hook’s target

Sigma

• Fixed a bug with Gravitic Flux picking up reviving heroes just before the Revive completes
• Fixed a typo in Kinetic Grasp’s tooltip. It now correctly states it grants ‘extra health’

Sombra

• Fixed a bug with Sombra’s footsteps remaining silent to players who had detected her

Torbjorn

• Fixed a bug where Molten Core projectiles could become stuck in the air if deflected with Orisa’s spear

Tracer

• Fixed a bug where in some cases Tracer would not get all her Blink charges back upon respawn

Widowmaker

• Fixed a bug where Venom Mine would be missing a team color if Widowmaker was wearing an Away OWL Skin

Zarya

• Fixed an issue where Zarya would not receive charge from Brigitte’s Shield Bash

Zenyatta

• Fixed an issue where Zenyatta’s ability prompts on target characters being reversed when using a gamepad/controller
• Fixed an issue where Orb of Discord could appear team-colored Blue when applied to an enemy

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

DEVELOPER NOTE – TEST PATCH

These changes are only being applied to Arcade Mode for the moment, because Aaron Keller claims he can convene with Pachimari, and they told him to make this patch. He only plays the new arcade modes, so he shouldn’t notice otherwise.

HERO UPDATES

General

Dev Comment: Veteran players have an advantage over newer ones when it comes to voice line recognition. In order to level the playing field, we’ve written and recorded new Ultimate voice lines for every hero.

To help players learn these new callouts, we’ve also increased the amount of Ultimate charge retained when swapping heroes.

• All heroes have new Ultimate Voice Lines.
• Keep 50% of Ultimate Charge when swapping heroes.

Role Passives

Damage:

Dev Comment: It’s frustrating when you dive the backline by yourself and get no healing, especially when your team’s support heroes are busy respawning. This change should help keep you alive, at least.

Heal 50 health on elimination.

Tank:

Dev Comment: Tank heroes are the raid bosses of teams. You should be fairly rewarded for defeating them, right?

• Gain Ultimate charge 10% faster.
• The hero that gets the final blow on a tank gains a significant amount of ultimate charge.

Support:

Dev Comment: It’s tough to stay alive when flankers are about. This change should even out the odds a bit when you get ambushed. Please don’t use this offensively.

Gain 30% increased movement speed for 4 seconds when reaching low health.

Tank

Doomfist

Dev Comment: The empowered Fist can also level a skyscraper or open a glass jar in a single attempt.

• Seismic Slam
  • Can be empowered by Power Block.
  • Damage increased from 50 to 75 when empowered.
  • Enemies hit by the shockwave are launched into the air.

D.Va

Dev Comment: It turns out the beams used to destroy projectiles also really hurt when used on people.

• Defense Matrix
  • After deflecting a projectile, Defense Matrix deals 30 damage to enemies within its area of effect over 1 second.
  • Defense Matrix killing blows grant an additional 5% Ult Charge.

Junker Queen

Dev Comment: Junker Queen yells so loud she damages the eardrums of her foes. Don’t worry though, it’s still a “friendly shout of encouragement” for her allies.

• Commanding Shout
  • Applies a bleed to enemies in range when activated.

Orisa

Dev Comment: It is believed that the threat of Orisa’s aerial body slam is the biggest crime deterrent in Numbani.

• Javelin Spin
  • While in the air, Javelin Spin pulls Orisa forward in her facing direction.
• Fortify
  • Increases falling speed and deals damage in an area when Orisa lands on the ground.

Ramattra

Dev Comment: Ramattra is a lot more effective when he’s in Nemesis Form, so he’ll stay like that until everyone has suffered as much as he has.

• Omnic Form
  • Disabled.
• Nemesis Form
  • Ramattra is now always in Nemesis Form.
  • Bonus armor decreased from 225 to 125.
• Void Barrier
  • Moved to Ability 1.
• Block
  • Now has a 1 second cooldown when disengaged.

Reinhardt

Reinhardt Comment: I COULDN’T CHARGE THE ENEMIES THAT WERE IN THE AIR SO I ASKED TORBJORN TO HELP ME OUT. NOW I AM THE ULTIMATE CRUSHING MACHINE, EVEN IN THE SKY!!!

• Charge
  • Now grants flight. Hold Jump to float up and Crouch to go down.
  • Steering increased by 33%.

Roadhog

Dev Comment: In order to further align Roadhog as a tank who punishes bad positioning, we’ve increased the range of Hook to make all positioning bad positioning.

• Hook
  • Range increased by 50%.

Sigma

Dev Comment: Gravitic energy is quite potent. If it’s strong enough to lift a giant rock, it can lift anyone.

• Accretion
  • Enemies hit by the impact are knocked back and experience low gravity for 4 seconds.
  • Cooldown decreased from 10 to 8 seconds.

Winston

Dev Comment: Winston!

• Winston?
  • Winston!

Wrecking Ball

Dev Comment: Wrecking Ball unleashes his signature moves that made him the Champion of the Scrapyard battle arena.

• Grappling Claw
  • Maximum speed is temporarily increased when bouncing off walls.
• Minefield
  • Mines slowly move toward nearby enemies.

Zarya

Dev Comment: Gravity gravitates. That’s just science!

• Graviton Surge
  • Moves towards Zarya after deploying.
• Particle Cannon
  • Self-knockback on secondary fire scales with Energy level.

Damage

Ashe

Dev Comment: In order to be more accurate to the fantasy, Dynamite fire now spreads between players.

• Dynamite
  • Fire spreads to nearby enemies up to 4 times.

Bastion

Dev Comment: Bastion downloaded a software update, upgrading “Configuration: Assault” and allowing it to simulate his old “Configuration: Tank” .

• Configuration: Assault
  • While active, Tactical Grenade has a 0.5 second cooldown.

Cassidy

Dev Comment: Cassidy can dodge anything using his cat-like reflexes. It’s a bit rough on his spine, though.

• Combat Roll
  • Now costs regenerating stamina instead of having a cooldown.
  • Dodge all damage when Combat Roll is active.
  • Ammo reloaded decreased from 6 to 2.

Echo

Dev Comment: Echo now uses more of her fingers when shooting enemies.

• Tri Shot
  • Now fires 2 additional projectiles.
• Damage per projectile decreased from 17 to 12.

Genji

Dev Comment: Spamming a voice line for healing finally does something after everyone else has tuned you out!

• Sometimes Genji heals himself when requesting healing.

Hanzo

Dev Comment: Hanzo spent many years mastering the bow and geometry to pull off this feat. It DEFINITELY has nothing to do with magic.

• Storm Arrow
  • Storm arrows ricochet toward the Sonic Arrow.

Junkrat

Dev Comment: Junkrat was a bit careless when packing his grenades so now they spill out of his pockets whenever he knocks himself back.

• Total Mayhem
  • Drop grenades when launching yourself with Concussion Mine

Mei

Dev Comment: We noticed a decrease in Mei players helping their team “group up” in spawn with Ice Wall. This is core to Mei’s gameplay, so we added additional ice pillars to help facilitate it.

• Ice Wall
  • Spawns more pillars and has slightly different configurations.

Pharah

Dev Comment: Rocket Jump? Sounds dangerous. But it is a viable means of travel when you can’t afford enough fuel.

• Rocket Launcher
  • Rockets deal no self-damage and have increased knockback.
• Barrage
  • Pharah can be knocked back while Barrage is active.
  • Barrage rockets now have self-knockback.
• Hover Jets
  • Fuel decreased by 33%.

Reaper

Dev Comment: After getting shot one too many times, Reaper no longer poses in place before teleporting despite it looking very cool.

• Shadow Step
  • Movement is no longer locked after confirming a teleport location.

Soldier: 76

Dev Comment: Why leave it on the ground when you can keep it in your pocket instead?

• Biotic Field
  • Now attached to Soldier: 76 when activated.

Sojourn

Dev Comment: Sojourn hasn’t been performing quite up to our expectations after reducing her one– shot potential. To remedy this, we’ve added a very fair stun to her kit .

• Power Slide
  • Now impacts enemies dealing 75 damage, launching them upward, and knocking them down for 1.5 seconds.

Sombra

Dev Comment: As a safety measure, the Translocator will forcibly separate solid objects that have been teleported into each other. Unfortunately, this process is also quite painful.

• Translocator
  • Now deals 120 damage in an area at the teleport destination.
  • Projectile speed increased from 25 to 40.
  • Cooldown decreased from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.

Symmetra

Dev Comment: It turns out there was a setting on Sentry Turrets that let’s them immediately target enemies when thrown! Symmetra estimates this change increases their efficiency by 32.33%…repeating, of course.!

• Sentry Turret
  • Turrets can now target enemies while in-flight.
  • Turrets have 60% damage resistance before sticking to terrain.

Torbjörn

Dev Comment: We noticed that Torbjorn relies a little too heavily on his turret to deal consistent damage, so you won’t believe this one simple balance change that fixes that and makes him 1000% overpowered!

• Overload
  • Now also causes Rivet Gun and Forge Hammer to ignite enemies, dealing 30 additional damage over time.

Tracer

Dev Comment: Tracer now leaves a vacuum when she Recalls into the past. We are pretty sure this is how time travel works and will be taking no questions.

• Recall
  • Pulls in nearby enemies when activated.
• Pulse Bomb
  • Arming time increased from 1 second to 2 seconds.

Widowmaker

Dev Comment: Poisonous bullets don’t work as quickly as normal ones do but at least there’s more room for counterplay.

• Widow’s Kiss
  • Critical hits deal their damage over 3 seconds as poison.
  • Widowmaker can see poisoned enemies through walls.

Support

Ana

Dev Comment: Turns out whatever is in those syringes hurts a lot more when applied to the forehead.

• Biotic Rifle
  • Can now headshot enemies.

Baptiste

Dev Comment: Rumor has it that Baptiste is the record holder for both high and long jump.

• Exo Boots
  • Jumping with Exo Boots has more horizontal distance, scaling with the charge amount.
  • Hold Jump after using Exo Boots to keep bouncing.

Brigitte

D ev Comment: Whip Shot now whips YOU! Works better if you say, “wheeeeee” while flailing about.

• Whip Shot
  • Brigitte is pulled towards the flail head.

Kiriko

Dev Comment: Kanezaka is a big town and Kiriko has lots of protecting to do. This change should help her get to where she needs to go in a timely fashion, especially during rush hour.

• Swift Step
  • Range increased from 35 to 350m.
  • Cooldown now scales with distance traveled.

Lucio

Dev Comment: We were alerted that Soundwave was able to knock back entire heroes but couldn’t do anything to projectiles. We’ve corrected this logical inconsistency

• Soundwave
  • Now deflects projectiles.
  • Cooldown decreased from 4 to 3 seconds.

Mercy

Dev Comment: Our stats show that the “Battle Mercy” playstyle isn’t as common as we hoped. Here’s a small change that should nudge her damage potential in the right direction.

• Caduceus Blaster
  • Ammo increased from 25 to 125.
  • Projectile speed increased from 50 to 125.

Moira

Dev Comment: You know that random Orb that killed you from across the map? That was 100% intentional. Biotics Orbs follow Moira’s every command, though they only understand “Stop” and “Go.”

• Biotic Orb
  • Pressing the ability input while Biotic Orbs are active causes them to stop or start moving.

Zenyatta

Dev Comment: Zenyatta calls this technique the “Flying Kick,” but since he’s always floating should it just be called “Kick”?

• Snap Kick
  • Launches Zenyatta in his facing direction when used in the air.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

NEW COLLABORATION: OVERWATCH 2 X ONE-PUNCH MAN

One punch is all you need in this limited-time Overwatch 2 x One-Punch Man collaboration! Complete challenges through April 6 and earn free themed rewards, including the Legendary Mumen Rider – Soldier: 76 skin. Complete your hero collection with additional Legendary bundles featuring Saitama – Doomfist, Terrible Tornado – Kiriko, and Genos – Genji from the in-game shop.

OVERWATCH LEAGUE 2023 SEASON

New Overwatch League Team Skins

New Overwatch League Team Skins are now in-game! Celebrate your favorite teams, including the Seoul Infernal and Vegas Eternal, by equipping their team skins for your favorite heroes.

Team Bundles Now Available

Team Bundles are now on sale! Trios of hero skins will land in the Overwatch League shop throughout the season, available for all teams. These bundles will include free team-branded Weapon Charms!

GENERAL UPDATES

Adjusted Distance Attenuation on Enemy Footsteps

We missed a change in our Season 3 patch notes about some adjustments made to the distance in which you can hear enemy footsteps. We’ve continued to refine this change and have found a nice middle ground between where it was in Season 2 and where it was prior to today’s patch.

Challenges

Weekly Challenges

• Removed “To the Victors… – Win 15 games in Unranked or Competitive.”
• Added a new challenge, “Casual Dedication – Win 15 games in any Unranked mode.”
• Added a new challenge, “Competitive Advantage – Win 10 games in any Competitive mode.”
• Total number of challenges needed to earn all Overwatch Coins is still 11.
• Removed “Coin Line – Win 5 games in Arcade.”
• Added a new challenge, “Change of Pace – Win 5 games in Mystery Heroes, Free-for-All Deathmatch, or any Arcade mode.”
• Changed “Role Mastery” to “Win 5 games each as 2 different roles in Quick Play or Competitive Play.”

Daily Challenges

• “Support Weapon Mastery” reduced from 12,500 to 10,000
• “Support Ability Mastery” reduced from 10,000 to 8,000

Challenge Progress during End of Round

• Challenges the player has made progress on during the match will be shown with a visual representation of remaining progress needed

End of Match Scoreboard Update

• We are taking a snapshot of each player’s final stats during the match and persisting it on the tab scoreboard during post-match. Previously a player’s stats and name would disappear as soon as they left the match

Matchmaking

• We fixed a bug causing large parties to wait longer in queue than intended
• The matchmaker will now prioritize putting parties together which have a similar delta between the highest and lowest rated player
• We made improvements that should help reduce Unranked queue times and increase Competitive match quality

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Competitive Mystery Heroes

• Competitive Mystery Heroes added to Competitive Play
• Season 1 begins on March 14!

Competitive Screen Layout Update

We have added buttons to the Competitive Play menu that will allow players to easily access the tier legend, leaderboard, and competitive progress screens.

Top 500 Leaderboard Update

Players in the Top 500 will now see an animated update of their current position on the leaderboard after each match.

HERO UPDATES

TANK

Orisa

Terra Surge

• Terra Surge can now be interrupted by Hack

Dev Comment: Terra Surge is a channeled ultimate which cannot be interrupted by most abilities, as it gains the same effects as Fortify. While this makes sense for stuns, Sombra’s Hack interrupt shouldn’t be negated and now correctly cancels Terra Surge.

Ramattra

Annihilation

• Using Annihilation while in Nemesis Form refreshes your bonus armor

Dev Comment: Players found that shifting out of Nemesis Form before activating the Annihilation ultimate would fully reset Nemesis Form’s bonus armor. To smooth out the gameplay, it now resets the armor health automatically as part of the ultimate activation.

Roadhog

Chain Hook

• Chain Hook cooldown now starts when the ability ends instead of at the start
• Chain Hook cooldown reduced from 8 to 6 seconds

Dev Comment: The Chain Hook cooldown beginning when the ability started, instead of at the end, caused some confusion when discussing the cooldown since once you can see the timer, it appeared a second shorter (7 seconds) than the actual maximum cooldown. After fixing that, we’re reducing the cooldown overall by an additional second to increase the frequency of Roadhog’s team utility now that being pulled in by Chain Hook is less deadly.

Wrecking Ball

General

• Added the hero-specific option “Relative aim sensitivity while rolling”
• Added the hero-specific option “Relative gyro sensitivity while rolling” (Nintendo Switch™ Platform Only)

Grappling Claw

• Added a timeout indicator for Grappling Claw located above the ability icon

Minefield

• Minefield arming time increased from 1 to 1.25 seconds

Dev Comment: There is now a hero control option for Wrecking Ball to set a separate aim sensitivity while transformed into a ball as players may want to aim his weapons in first-person and move the camera in third-person significantly differently. In addition, a visual indicator for Grappling Claw has been added to indicate its maximum duration before automatically detaching.

Zarya

General

• The shared cooldown for Particle Barrier and Projected Barrier reduced from 11 to 10 seconds

Dev Comment: A previous change decreased both barrier duration and increased the cooldown at the same time, lowering Zarya’s effectiveness more than anticipated. This is a partial reversion to help level it out.

DAMAGE

Ashe

B.O.B.

• B.O.B. now prefers to shoot at enemy targets that Ashe damages with her rifle

Dev Comment: We want to enable Ashe and B.O.B. to easily assist one another more. B.O.B. now prioritizes targets damaged by Ashe’s rifle, which may allow for more flexible Ultimate placement.

Hanzo

Lunge

• Lunge cooldown decreased from 5 to 4 seconds

Dev Comment: Hanzo has high burst damage potential with Storm Bow and Storm Arrows and strong utility with Sonic Arrow but still underperforms compared to other heroes in the same role. This change increases his survivability without directly improving his strengths.

Mei

Blizzard

• Blizzard ultimate cast time reduced from 0.5 to 0.4 seconds

Dev Comment: Mei’s Blizzard ultimate cast time sometimes led to situations where the animation appeared to have been completed, but there was still additional time that it could get interrupted. This change will help mitigate that feeling without significantly reducing counterplay.

Pharah

Jump Jet

• Jump Jet movement is now influenced by directional inputs

Dev Comment: In addition to rapidly launching her upwards, Jump Jet used to always move Pharah forward a small amount which made the ability feel less responsive when trying to move to the side or backwards. This change now enables a small amount of horizontal momentum in any direction.

Sojourn

General

• Torso hit volume width increased by 20%

Dev Comment: Due to the angle of Sojourn’s torso in her default animation stance, her torso hit volume was more difficult to hit compared to similarly sized heroes.

SUPPORT

Baptiste

Immortality Field

• Immortality Field minimum health threshold increased from 10 to 25%

Dev Comment: Baptiste is capable of potent damage and healing output but often slightly underperforms across many skill levels. This change to the Immortality Field’s minimum health threshold will strengthen his utility and enable him to more reliably assist his allies after its effect ends.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue where the option to report Inappropriate player names were missing
• Fixed a bug with Game Reports showing incomplete data
• Fixed a bug where players on PlayStation 5 were unable to save Highlights
• Fixed an issue where player presence was shown as ‘Practice Range’ when in Custom Game
• The Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle should now show as ‘Owned’ for players that purchased it (this was just a visual issue, purchases of this item were successful)
• Fixed a bug where some players who own all name cards could get stuck loading when using the Filter’s tab in the Name Cards menu
• Fixed a bug on Nintendo Switch where all friends on the Social screen had the same player icons
• Resolved an issue where heroes performing an emote appeared as t-posed for players loading into the game

MAPS

Antarctic Peninsula

• Fixed areas where some heroes could become stuck
• Fixed several gaps in the environment
• Made changes to the lighting in some parts of the map
• Fixed a bug where Penguins were missing a noise when being hit with projectiles
• General improvements

Busan

• Fixed a bug with the physics of the Cow

Circuit Royale

• Resolved a collision issue that could cause some heroes to be stuck

Colosseo

• Fixed a bug with the camera placement for some Plays of the Game

Esperanca

• Fixed an issue with a tree that could cause D.Va to get stuck when entering her mech

Lijiang Tower

• Fixed areas of the map that allowed players to escape

Midtown

• Fixed an area where players were able to unintentionally stand
• Fixed a bug on Midtown with railing collision not being correctly removed after being destroyed in some cases
• Midtown can now be selected as an option for Skirmish in Custom Games

HEROES

Ashe

• Fixed a bug with the Raijin skin clipping into the camera when aiming and firing down the sights

Echo

• Fixed an issue where cloning a Sombra with a Charm equipped could cause Echo to lose all textures while Cloaked
• Fixed missing sound effects for the Sticky Bombs ability

Hanzo

• Fixed a bug where shooting someone with an arrow from a Golden bow could turn their gun gold

Reinhardt

• Fixed an issue where in some cases players were able to walk out of being pinned by a Reinhardt
• Fixed a bug with Fire Strike VFX remaining after being eaten by a D.Va’s Defense Matrix

Lúcio

• Fixed a bug where Lúcio’s Amp it Up animation would continue to play after being stunned

Orisa

• Resolved a bug with Terra Form that resulted in the VFX ring not drawing for parts of the environment higher than Orisa when used

Symmetra

• Fixed a bug where you could be sent to the wrong location if taking Symmetra’s Teleporter as it is destroyed

Torbjörn

• Fixed a bug where your turret would target the same targets as other allied Torbjörn players

WORKSHOP

• Resolved an issue where the ‘Is Firing Secondary’ condition would not be triggered by certain heroes
• Resolved an issue where the ‘Is Firing Primary’ condition was not being triggered by certain heroes
• Fixed a crash that could occur when creating a large number of rules
• Fixed an issue where it was hard to tell where the UI focus was when using a controller

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

OVERWATCH 2, SEASON 3

Drop into season three to explore the depths of the coolest new control map, Antarctic Peninsula. Compete in limited-time in-game events, such as Ultimate Valentine. Customize your heroes with new skins and cosmetics from the Battle Pass and weekly Shop drops. Now earn Credits in the Battle Pass that can be redeemed for over 250 cosmetics from the original Overwatch , and go premium to get exclusive rewards, such as Mythic Amaterasu Kiriko.

NEW MAP: ANTARCTIC PENINSULA

Journey across the frozen Antarctic Peninsula. Discover the abandoned station where the Overwatch Ecopoint team once searched for the source of a dangerous anomaly threatening the world and explore the wreckage of the icebreaker ship that failed to rescue Mei-Ling Zhou and her friends.

NEW FEATURE: STREAMER PROTECT

Players can now activate Streamer Protect options in-game settings. These options will provide players with ways to hide identifying information when livestreaming matches.

GENERAL UPDATES

Accessibility Improvements

• Improved Subtitles Options: text scalability, character portrait icons, speaker name, text color, background color, and subtitle preview in the options menu
• Added mouse cursor size setting for PC
• Added setting to select custom colors for Group and Alert colors in the UI. Preview feature added to preview custom colors in the accessibility options

Challenges

• Added challenges to unlock “Silhouette” player icons for all heroes
• Added tracking for each of the roles for the Weekly “Role Mastery” challenge
• Added Ramattra unlock challenges
• Partial progress through the season three Battle Pass is now carried over to the “Wins for Ramattra” challenge

Endorsements

• Players can now endorse the opposing team
• All players can now be endorsed in Free-For-All game modes

Game Report

• Players can view scoreboards from previous matches within the View Game Reports menu found in the History tab of the Career Profile

Mystery Heroes Changes

• Mystery heroes now limits each team to a maximum of three of each role.
  Example: You are Reinhardt in Mystery Heroes. Your team also includes Mercy, Ana, and Lucio. When you die, you cannot respawn as a Support hero because there are already three Support heroes on your team. You will either be respawned as a Damage or a Tank hero
• This new maximum role limit can be changed in Custom Games under Settings > Modes > All > Random Hero Role Limit Per Team,
  This setting only functions when the Respawn as Random Hero setting is enabled

Overwatch Credits are back

• Overwatch Credits, which were previously labeled “Legacy Credits” and were not earnable in Overwatch 2, can now once again be earned through progressing in the Season 3 Battle Pass
• All players can earn up to 1500 credits as free rewards, and another 500 credits are available as premium rewards in the Season 3 Battle Pass
• Credits can be spent in the Hero Gallery, which now contains nearly all seasonal Epic and Legendary-tier skins released prior to the launch of Overwatch 2. This includes many skins that were previously only available for purchase with Coins in the “Just for You” section of our Shop

Ping System Update

• Pressing Ability 1 or Ability 2 when the ping wheel is open and when these abilities are on cooldown now prints these cooldowns in chat
  Example: If Baptiste’s Immortality Field is on cooldown and you press the key/button to activate the ability while the Ping Wheel is open, the cooldown for the ability will be printed in chat

COMPETITIVE PLAY

Season 3 competitive play begins now! Here are some of the latest updates aimed at improving the competitive experience in Overwatch 2:

• Skill tiers and divisions will adjust after every 5 wins or 15 losses and ties (formally 7 wins or 20 losses and ties)
• Players can select the “View Competitive Progress” button from the Competitive menu to view their progress toward receiving a rank update

WORKSHOP UPDATES

• Workshop Editor is back!

Workshop Moderation Tools

We added new menu options when reporting a player. Our goal is to give players more ways to report inappropriate behavior so that we can take action in a timely manner. As a result, you can select the category and sub-category that best explain why you are reporting the player or their custom content. The major categories include:

• Inappropriate Communication
• Inappropriate Name
• Cheating
• Gameplay Sabotage
• Inappropriate Custom Content

HERO UPDATES

ALL HEROES

• Maximum ultimate charge retained when swapping heroes reduced from 30 to 25%

Developer Comment: As part of this patch, there was a tuning pass for how often ultimate abilities are being generated, so expect to see several ultimate cost adjustments across multiple heroes.

TANK ROLE PASSIVE

• The health totals for all tank heroes will be lower when playing any game mode that does not have a role queue. Health totals will remain the same for tanks when playing any Role Queue enabled game.

Developer Comment: This change to the tank HP pools helps to address the relative power of those heroes in game modes where there can be multiple of them on the same team.

TANK

D.Va

• Mech base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 350
• Mech base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 350 to 200

Doomfist

• Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 450
• Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 450 to 300

Junkerqueen

• Base health in Role Queue modes increased to 450
• Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 425 to 300

Developer Comment: The overall base health for Junkerqueen is increased by 25 HP.

Orisa

• Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 275
• Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 275 to 125

Augmented Fusion Driver

• Damage falloff range reduced from 25 to 15 meters

Ramattra

• Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 450
• Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 450 to 300

Annihilation

• Damaging enemies with the ultimate now slows the duration timer down instead of pausing it entirely. Lasts up to 20 seconds
• Ultimate cost increased 12%

Developer Comment: The idea of an ultimate ability potentially lasting forever is an exciting concept, but the reality is that if it’s too easy to do it causes a lot of frustrations and with Ramattra’s ultimate in particular, an excessive amount of visual noise. We’re limiting the maximum duration to 20 seconds, which is still highly impactful for most team fights, but it guarantees it’ll end in a reasonable amount of time.

Reinhardt

• Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 325
• Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 325 to 175

Charge

• Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 seconds

Fire Strike

• Damage increased from 90 to 100

Earthshatter

• Direct hit damage reduced from 250 to 170
• Knockdown duration increased from 2.5 to 2.75 seconds
• Ultimate cost increased 7%

Rocket Hammer

• Knockback impulse reduced from 10 to 6

Developer Comment: In similar fashion to Roadhog’s Chain Hook combo changes last season, we’d generally like to avoid heroes in the Tank role from killing enemies in one shot. Earthshatter direct hit damage is being reduced with that goal in mind. In most cases, targets on the receiving end would die anyway during the knockdown stun, but it does open up some potential for their allies to intervene.

For now, we’re fine with Charge pin staying lethal to many characters due to the difficulty and risk involved. The Fire Strike damage increase does mean it could once again one-shot when combined with Baptiste’s Amplification Matrix, but that requires an ultimate combo with another hero. We’ll see how it plays out and adjust if necessary.

The Rocket Hammer knockback reduction sounds like a loss of power though it is actually aiming to reduce the number of times Reinhardt accidentally knocks enemies out of his melee range.

Roadhog

• Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 700
• Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 700 to 550

Whole Hog

• Maximum duration increased from 6 to 8 seconds
• Ultimate cost increased 8%

Developer Comment: Allowing Roadhog to use abilities during his ultimate made it much more reliable in a solo tank environment, though doing so was often much like just canceling the ultimate as it ran out of time. We’re adding a couple seconds to the maximum duration to increase the flexibility of player choices during the Whole Hog ultimate, but we’ll keep an eye on if it’s simply too much damage or knockback overall.

Sigma

• Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 350
• Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 350 to 200

Gravitic Flux

• Ultimate cost increased 7%

Winston

• Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 350
• Base health in none non-Role Queue modes reduced from 350 to 200

Barrier Projector

• Health reduced from 700 to 650

Wrecking Ball

• Base health in Role Queue modes reduced from 600 to 450
• Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 600 to 300
• Shield health increased from 0 to 150

Pile Driver

• Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds

Minefield

• Ultimate cost increased 9%
• Arming time reduced from 1.5 to 1 second

Developer Comments: Wrecking Ball received some of the fewest changes in the transition to 5v5 as he proved to be one of the most effective solo tanks in early testing. His extreme mobility and massive health pool enable him to choose when to fight much more freely than other heroes. These changes are aimed at reducing his downtime so he can press that advantage even further. The regenerating shield health pool often leads to not needing to search for as many health packs before getting back in position.

Zarya

• Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 250
• Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 250 to 100

Graviton Surge

Ultimate cost increased 8%

DAMAGE

Cassidy

Combat Roll

• Movement is no longer blocked by enemy player collision

Peacekeeper

• Primary fire falloff range increased from 20 to 25 meters

Developer Comment: Combat Roll not being blocked by players is mostly a small quality-of-life change to make the ability feel smoother, particularly when rolling in a direction that you’re not facing.

Junkrat

Concussion Mine

• Maximum damage reduced from 120 to 100

Developer Comment: As the Concussion Mine already has damage falloff the further from the explosion the enemy player is, lowering the maximum damage will require Junkrat to be slightly more accurate to achieve the same lethality with some of his combos.

Mei

Blizzard

• Ultimate cost reduced 5%

Pharah

Barrage

• Ultimate cost reduced 5%

Reaper

Death Blossom

• Ultimate cost reduced 8%

Soldier:76

Heavy Pulse Rifle

• Number of shots to reach maximum recoil increased from 4 to 6
• Recoil reduced 12%

Developer Comment: This is more an adjustment for the gun feels rather than strictly trying to add power, but it does have an effect on both. It makes the weapon handle more similar to the original version in that you can burst fire more accurately before the recoil kicks in.

Sombra

Machine Pistol

• Damage per projectile increased from 7 to 7.5

Hack

• Health pack hacked duration increased from 30 to 45 seconds

Developer Comments: Sombra is underperforming after her last round of changes. While we make progress on a small rework for her abilities, this damage increase will help strengthen Sombra even against targets that aren’t affected by her Hack effect. It’s a small increase per projectile, but it adds up quickly due to her fast fire rate. The health pack duration increase is a minor buff to avoid needing to re-hack them quite so often.

Symmetra

Photon Barrier

• Ultimate cost increased 10%

Torbjorn

Deploy Turret

• Turret base health reduced from 250 to 225

Developer Comment: With the move to 5v5 and one less player to shoot at it, Torbjorn’s turret tends to survive longer than ever. We’re reducing its health slightly to help it feel less like a sixth player and be easier to deal with once someone turns their attention to it.

Widowmaker

• Base health reduced from 200 to 175

Developer Comment: We experimented with Widowmaker at 200 health for a while due to concerns that the increased power of tanks made her too vulnerable to them. Ultimately she gains more advantages from 5v5 than she loses so we’re returning her back to 175 HP to better enable more heroes to contest her lethal ranged capabilities.

SUPPORT

Ana

Biotic Grenade

• Effect duration reduced from 4 to 3.5 seconds

Brigitte

Repair Pack

• Healing over time reduced from 55 to 50 per second
• Applying a Repair Pack now instantly heals for 25 health on impact

Rally

• Ultimate cost reduced 10%

Developer Comment: Repair Pack having a small amount of instant healing will help Brigitte have more agency in saving an injured ally and generally makes the ability feel more responsive and impactful.

Lucio

Sound Barrier

• Ultimate cost reduced 7%

Mercy

Guardian Angel

• Cooldown increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds
• Holding the backwards directional input and canceling the ability with Jump now moves 20% slower

Caduceus Staff

• Healing-per-second reduced from 55 to 45
• Healing is increased by 50% for allies under half health

Regeneration Passive

• Regeneration Passive removed

New Passive: “Sympathetic Recovery”

• Mercy heals herself for 25% of healing done with the Caduceus Staff

Developer Comment: Replacing Mercy’s Regeneration passive with a more interesting interaction was something we wanted to do after all support heroes gained a similar version of it through their Role Passive.

For the Caduceus Staff change, this will empower Mercy even more as a triage healer and enable her to more often save low health allies. The overall time it takes to fully heal a 200-health hero from 1 hp is about the same as before.

For Guardian Angel, the cooldown increase is necessary to reduce the greatly increased mobility resulting from the recent rework to the jump cancel. It enabled Mercy to quickly launch herself long distances in any direction and be overly evasive for such a short downtime.

Moira

Coalescence

• Ultimate cost reduced 5%

Zenyatta

Orb of Destruction

• Ammo increased from 20 to 25

Developer Comment: We’ve been discussing options to potentially increase Zenyatta’s survivability. We’ve seen previously in the beta that Zenyatta is on somewhat of a knife’s edge for balance. Even just 25 more shield health pushed him into overpowered-must-pick territory at the pro level. To balance his powerful damage output, the lack of mobility is an intentional disadvantage by design, so we’d prefer not to change that too much. Instead, we’re adding more ammo to lengthen the times between when Zenyatta is most vulnerable, which is when he is reloading.

SEASON 3 MAP POOLS

Push

• New Queen Street – Morning
• Colosseo – Morning (NEW)
• Esperança – Morning

Hybrid

• Blizzard World – Morning
• King’s Row – Evening
• Midtown – Morning
• Numbani – Morning
• Paraíso – Morning

Escort

• Dorado – Night
• Havana – Night (NEW)
• Junkertown – Morning
• Circuit royal – Morning (NEW)
• Rialto – Morning
• Shambali Monastery – Night

Control

• Antarctic Peninsula – Night (NEW MAP)
• Ilios – Morning
• Lijiang Tower – Night
• Nepal – Evening
• Oasis – Evening

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

Ping System

• Unified the range for most targeted ally pings to 35 meters
• Fixed D.Va hearing the “Behind You” VO in unintended circumstances when enemies are pinged
• Fixed a bug where pings could be fired by the Communication Wheel if the Ping Wheel had been canceled (by not moving the mouse or with a manual cancel)
• Fixed free camera spectators hearing “Need Healing/Need Help” sound effects (not voice-over) if the hero requesting healing was injured and within 30 meters of the spectator’s free cam
• Fixed Mercy’s Soul Pings not displaying her Resurrect cooldown time remaining in some circumstances
• Made all pings available to be placed in the Communication Wheel
• Fixed the issue where OW1 players with pings in the Communication Wheel couldn’t change their options in the Communications menu
• Fixed self-pings being able to fire Hero-specific pings (Example: Group Up could cause Mercy to say she’d like to Resurrect a teammate)

Other Fixes

• Fixed an issue where some players were unable to receive or send invites
• Fixed an issue with Junkerqueen’s Mythic skin ‘Zeus’ not having glowing hair on console
• Resolved a bug where all maps were toggled off by default when starting a new Custom Game
• Fixed a bug where sometimes Health Packs were displaying the cooldown circle while the health pack was available
• Fixed a bug where the Social Screen would not display friends correctly on some consoles
• Improved the performance when viewing the friend’s section of the Competitive leaderboard
• Fixed an issue with Cyber Genji displaying broken animations when using emotes or souvenirs
• Healing VFX on players being healed should no longer clip through the environment
• Resolved an issue with the level of bloom on several maps

MAPS

Blizzard World

• Fixed lighting in several areas around the map

Busan

• Meka Base: Fixed areas near forklifts that players could become stuck on

Dorado

• Fixed lighting in some areas of the map

Esperança

• Fixed some areas that should have been slippery for players but were not
• Fixed some areas where players could become stuck
• Added a missing flag to the loading screen of Esperança

Oasis

• City Center: Fixed several reflection issues
• Gardens: Fixed multiple lighting issues

Colosseo

• Fixed ambient lighting across the map

Shambali Monastery

• Fixed areas of the map that should have been slippery but were not
• Fixed areas of the map that allowed players to leave the playable space
• Fixed areas players could become stuck
• General bug fixes across the map

HEROES

Ana

• Fixed a bug with Ana’s OWL skins missing their eyepatch

Doomfist

• Fixed an issue where Doomfist would spawn with an empowered punch if killed by the environment while blocking
• Fixed a bug where Environmental eliminations from Rocket Punch were not credited if the target slammed into a wall before dying
• Fixed a bug where Seismic Slam would sometimes fail to break breakables
• Resolved an issue with Seismic Slam not animating correctly when used to cancel Rocket Punch
• Fixed an instance where Doomfist could use Primary Fire during the Meteor Strike outro animation

Genji

• Fixed a bug to make Genji’s attack animations smoother

Junkerqueen

• (Fixed in a previous update) Fixed an issue where Carnage could activate the cooldown reduction on non-player objects

Junkrat

• Fixed an issue with Steel Trap sometimes failing to place

Kiriko

• Fixed an issue where using Swift Step would sometimes cause Kiriko to fall through the map
• Fixed an issue where Swift Step was missing effects when arriving at the target
• Hero Melee animations should animate more consistently when under the effect of Kitsune Rush

Mercy

• Fixed a bug where Mercy’s heal target would heal to full if the Mercy player disconnects from the game if they were actively healing

Moira

• Fixed an issue where Coalescence was not benefiting from Kitsune Rush

Ramattra

• Fixed a bug with Ravenous Vortex not spawning if it gets stuck between the Push bot and the barrier it pushes
• Fixed a bug where damage from some abilities was not counting toward the ‘Incomparable Pain’ achievement
• Fixed an issue with the Heroic Highlight Intro being blurry in the Hero Gallery

Sigma

• Fixed an issue where Sigma’s Hyperspheres were sometimes missing

Sombra

• Fixed a bug with Sombra’s Passive tooltip displaying the incorrect value

Symmetra

• Symmetra can no longer fire her Photon Projector while casting Photon Barrier

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

NEW SEASONAL MODE: BATTLE FOR OLYMPUS FFA

In this free-for-all Deathmatch mode, battle for the throne of Olympus as seven powerful gods and monsters from Greek Mythology, each with a unique Divine Power that kicks in when they use their ultimate ability. The most valiant contenders in the Battle for Olympus will have the chance to earn limited-time voice lines and player titles, to brag about their accomplishments for all eternity.

At the end of the event, the hero whose powers were used to secure the most eliminations across all matches will be crowned the new ruler of Olympus!

 

COMPETITIVE PLAY

• The 2023 season of Competitive Capture the Flag begins on January 10 and can be found in the Competitive Play menu
• The Competitive Play loading screen has been updated

 

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Junker Queen

 

Adrenaline Rush

• Now heals for the remaining wound damage when an enemy dies with wounds on them

 

Carnage

• Cooldown is now reduced by 2 seconds for each enemy it impacts

 

Jagged Blade

• Thrown impact damage reduced from 80 to 50
• Thrown direct impacts now add a 30 damage wound to the stuck target. Stacks with wounds caused by Quick Melee or returning Jagged Blade hits.

Zarya

 

 

Energy

• Energy degeneration reduced from 2.2 to 2 per second
• Delay before energy degeneration begins after gaining energy increased from 1 to 2 seconds

SUPPORT

 

Brigitte

 

Barrier Shield

• Health increased from 250 to 300

Moira

 

Biotic Orb

• Dealing damage with Biotic Orb now restores a small amount of Biotic Energy

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug with Souvenirs being incorrectly placed on Ramattra
• Fixed an issue with Kiriko’s Ofuda displaying black textures during her Whirlwind emote
• Fixed an issue with Reaper’s animations when ending his ‘Take a knee’ emote
• Resolved an issue with placeable abilities (turrets, mines) floating after the destructible environment they were placed on was destroyed
• Fixed an issue that resulted in some users seeing a black screen as their Main Menu background
• Fixed a bug that caused “Group Up” to say “I’m on my way” in unintended circumstances.
• Fixed an issue on some consoles that resulted in blurry graphics
• Fixed an issue where some players were not able to invite across certain consoles
• Fixed some performance issues in the Hero Gallery on Console platforms
• Resolved an issue where Daily Challenges were not rolling over for some users
• Fixed an issue where the end-of-game ‘DRAW’ text would not appear for players if a colorblind setting was active
• Resolved an issue with ‘Invite to Custom Game’ not appearing as an option in the Social Menu

MAPS

Watchpoint Gibraltar

• Fixed some areas that allowed players to escape the map boundaries

Shambali Monastery

• Fixed some areas where players could become stuck
• Fixed some areas where some abilities could be ‘eaten’ by the environment
• Fixed lighting and geometry in several areas across the map

HEROES

Bastion

• Fixed an issue where Bastion’s sound effects could loop at the location of death
• Fixed an issue where Bastion’s whole screen would turn yellow when healed by a Brigitte Repair Pack

Kiriko

• Fixed a bug with Swift Step in Capture the Flag that would send the Flag to the destination instead of dropping it where the ability was activated

Mercy

• Fixed Mercy’s Guardian Angel sometimes allowing her to escape Ramattra’s Ravenous Vortex

Ramattra

• Fixed an issue with missing assets on Ramattra’s Hero Information page
• Fixed an issue with Ramattra’s Primary Fire effects not displaying the correct amount of projectiles for other players
• Ramattra should now play rumble effects on gamepads/controllers
• Ramattra can no longer have more than one barrier active at a time. Note: This could not happen in standard modes, only Custom Game or modes with low cooldowns

Tracer

• Fixed an issue where Pulse Bomb would not damage Tracer if it was ‘Stuck’ to an enemy

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

BUG FIXES

Maps

Shambali

• Resolved an issue with geometry on Shambali

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

OVERWATCH 2, SEASON 2

Ramattra storms the Season 2 Battle Pass, unlocking for free at Level 45 or immediately for the premium Battle Pass. As Overwatch’s first “tempo tank,” Ramattra can change between two forms moment to moment based on what his teammates need. With the tactical training of a lethal soldier and the discipline of a devout monk, Ramattra can be your greatest asset or your worst enemy.

Embark on a pilgrimage to our latest escort map, Shambali Monastery, where you can explore ancient temple grounds and traverse winding village streets. Follow in the footsteps of countless omnics–some who may be familiar to you–on the uphill trek to the Sanctum.

Advance through the Battle Pass and earn rewards inspired by Ancient Greece and get ready for three limited-time events: Winter Wonderland, Battle for Olympus, and Lunar New Year!

 

GENERAL UPDATES

 

Control Game Mode

We fixed a bug regarding overtime on control maps, however, that fix led to other bugs we had to resolve. Ultimately, this led to some anticlimactic game play results that we weren’t happy with. After hearing player feedback, we’ve made the following change:

Whenever a point is captured on Control, the team losing control of the point counts as having contested the point for the purposes of Overtime even if they were not present.

• For example, if Team A has 99% and Team B has current control of the point, but then Team A take back control of the point, Overtime will automatically trigger and start to burn down unless Team B can touch again.
• At lower capture percentages this change will have no impact on the game mode, as this new rule is only applied for the purposes of Overtime

Hero Updates and Challenges

• We’ve added Challenges for unlocking Junker Queen, Sojourn, and Kiriko
• 70+ player icon rewards have been added to challenges with the release of Season 2

Shop Update

• We’ve added a Hero purchase tab in the Shop

COMPETITIVE PLAY

Season 2 competitive play begins now! Here are some updates we’re introducing to competitive:

• There are new, temporary Competitive title rewards for name cards based on your end of season rank
• You can only earn these titles at the end of the current Competitive season and can only use them in the season following
• Heroes that aren’t eligible for competitive play will have a lock icon in the Hero Gallery
• Implemented a group of matchmaking enhancements to improve match quality
• Minor polish improvements to the competitive play UI flow
• New hero, Ramattra, won’t be available in competitive for 2 weeks

 

HERO UPDATES

Damage Role Passive

• No longer provides a movement speed bonus
• Reload speed bonus increased from 25 to 35%

Developer comments: We’ve decided to remove increased movement speed from the Damage role passive and, in turn, make the reload speed more significant. While the additional movement speed was a helpful indicator that the passive was active, we saw change in speed negatively affecting the ability to aim precisely.

 

TANK

 

Ramattra

• Ramattra has been added to the line-up

 

Void Accelerator (Omnic Form)

• Primary: Fire a stream of projectiles in a fixed pattern
• Secondary: Create a barrier at the targeted location

 

Nemesis Form

• Transform into Nemesis Form, changing your attacks and gaining bonus armor

 

Pummel (Nemesis Form)

• Primary: Punch forward, creating a wave of piercing energy with every swing
• Secondary: Significantly reduces damage taken from the front and reduces movement speed

 

Ravenous Vortex

• Fire a nano ball, which explodes when it hits the ground, spreading a damaging field. Affected enemies are slowed and pulled downward

 

Annihilation

• Enter Nemesis Form and create an energy swarm surrounding yourself. This swarm will lash out towards nearby enemies, dealing damage and pausing the duration when damage is dealt.

Doomfist

Developer comments: There are several changes here for Doomfist with the intent to increase his presence as a disruptive brawler-style tank. The buff to his passive ability will help him stay in the fight longer, especially when he’s hitting multiple enemies with his abilities.

The changes to Power Block and Meteor Strike are intended to increase the availability of Empowered Rocket Punch, which enables him to more easily disrupt enemies and impact multiple targets. Due to gaining Empowered Rocket Punch more consistently, the stun duration and size are slightly decreased to reduce some of the frustration in playing against it.

For Rocket Punch we’re shifting some of its damage away from requiring wall impacts so that it’s broadly more useful regardless of where fights are taken.

 

Rocket Punch

• Impact damage range (minimum-maximum) increased from 15-30 to 25-50 damage
• Wall slam damage range (minimum-maximum) reduced from 20-40 to 10-30 damage
• Empowered Rocket Punch wall slam stun duration range reduced from 0.5-1 to 0.25-0.75 seconds
• Non-Empowered Rocket Punch now stuns for the minimum 0.25 second duration on wall slam
• Empowered Rocket Punch knockback radius reduced from 4 to 3 meters
• Minimum time before cancel option becomes available reduced from 0.25 to 0.12 seconds
• Cooldown reduced from 4 to 3 seconds
• This has been in since his rework but was not mentioned

 

Power Block

• Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 seconds
• Duration increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds
• Minimum damage mitigated required to empower Rocket Punch reduced from 90 to 80 damage

 

Meteor Strike

• Now empowers Rocket Punch on landing
• Enemy slow duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds

 

The Best Defense…

• Maximum temporary health increased from 150 to 200 health
• Temporary health gained per target hit with abilities increased from 30 to 40 health

Junker Queen

Developer comments: Commanding Shout is Junker Queen’s primary tanking ability and utility, but the additional survivability it granted her team proved to be too powerful and needed to be tuned back significantly in a previous patch. We’re looking to shift more of that survivability into Junker Queen herself by increasing the amount her passive ability heals through dealing damage with wounds.

• Torso and head hit volume size increased 12%

 

Rampage

• Wound duration reduced from 5 to 4.5 seconds
• Ultimate cost reduced by 10%

 

Commanding Shout

• Cooldown reduced from 15 to 14 seconds

 

Adrenaline Rush

• Adrenaline passive healing multiplier increased from 1 to 1.25x damage dealt by wounds

DAMAGE

 

Bastion

Developer comments: The intent for Bastion’s ultimate is that enemy players can survive it if they are quick to react to the damaging impact areas, however, it ended up being too easy to avoid the damage areas entirely. We’re reducing both the amount of warning time and explosion damage so that it’s more reliable in dealing damage, but it won’t be as lethal the closer the target gets to the edge of the explosion range.

 

Configuration Artillery

• Delay before projectile drops reduced from 1 to 0.6 seconds
• Explosion damage reduced from 300 to 250
• No longer deals explosion damage to self
• Minimum delay between placing shots reduced by 20%

 

Reconfigure

• Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds

Sojourn

Developer comments: Sojourn is performing well at the highest tiers of competitive play but poorly below those tiers. Much of the perception that she is too powerful seems to be driven by the reaction to dying to long range, charged headshots from her Railgun secondary fire. These changes are aimed at reducing frustrations there, with the biggest change being the reduced critical multiplier for headshots. A fully charged headshot no longer kills a full health 200 hp hero. To help account for this loss of power we’re increasing the damage of her primary fire and how quickly her energy charges during her ultimate.

 

Railgun

• Energy delay before draining reduced from 8 to 5 seconds
• Secondary fire damage falloff starting range reduced from 70 to 40 meters
• Secondary fire critical damage multiplier reduced from 2 to 1.5
• Secondary fire damage now scales linearly with energy from 30 to 130 damage (1 energy converts to 1 damage added)
• Primary fire damage per projectile increased from 9 to 10
• Overclock energy charge rate increased by 20%

Symmetra

Developer comments: The changes to Symmetra’s primary fire will make her gameplay faster by enabling her to charge the beam up to dangerous levels more quickly. However, it will also drain to less lethal levels at an increased rate when not damaging a target. We’re reverting the adjustments to her ammo management because, while it helped with matchups where there were no barriers, it lost something interesting to its interactions.

 

Proton Projector

• Beam charge rate and decay rate increased by 20%
• Primary fire ammo consumption rate increased from 7 to 10 per second
• Primary fire gains ammo from damaging barriers again

Tracer

Developer comments: We balanced Tracer’s damage in a previous patch due to an undiscovered bug regarding her Pulse Pistol’s falloff damage. The bug is resolved, so we are reverting the damage.

 

Pulse Pistols

• Damage increased from 5 to 6

SUPPORT

 

Ana

Developer comments: Sleep Dart is still one of the most powerful crowd control abilities in 5v5, though with the addition of cleanse mechanics to offer a potential counter to this effect we’re more comfortable with reducing the cooldown here to improve Ana’s personal survivability.

 

Sleep Dart

• Cooldown reduced from 15 to 14 seconds

Kiriko

Developer comments: The hit volume adjustment is to help address her arms sometimes blocking headshots in some of her animations. Kiriko feels balanced overall, but her ultimate could feel too frenetic at times. We’re reducing both the movement speed and cooldown rate boost it grants so that it’s easier to aim during its effect for both allies and enemies, as well as there being fewer abilities being thrown about. The rest of the changes are primarily for quality-of-life improvements to make the abilities feel better to use.

• Arm hit volumes width reduced 15%
• Added an auto-wall climb hero option

 

Kitsune Rush

• Ultimate cost increased by 10%
• Movement speed bonus reduced from 50 to 30%
• Cooldown rate reduced from 3 to 2 times faster

 

Protection Suzu

• Cast time reduced from 0.15 to 0.1 second

 

Kunai

• Ammo increased from 12 to 15

 

Swift Step

• Ability input can now be held to activate

Mercy

Developer comments: This is a change that will enable Mercy to better defend herself or even go on the offensive at times. In 5v5 these situations occur much more often.

• Weapon swap time reduced from 0.5 to 0.35 seconds

 

Caduceus Blaster

• Ammo increased from 20 to 25

SEASON 2 MAP POOLS

 

Push

• New Queen Street – Morning
• Colosseo – Evening
• Esperança – Morning

Hybrid

• Blizzard World – Overcast (NEW)
• Eichenwalde – Evening
• King’s Row – Evening
• Midtown – Morning
• Paraíso – Morning

ESCORT

• Dorado – Evening
• Junkertown – Morning
• Circuit royal – Night
• Rialto – Morning
• Route 66 – Night
• Shambali Monastery – Night (NEW MAP)

Control

• Busan – Night
• Ilios – Evening
• Lijiang Tower – Dawn
• Nepal – Evening (NEW)
• Oasis – Morning (NEW)

BUG FIXES

 

General

• Fixed a bug that was causing Roadhog’s breaths to not be audible when viewing some animations in the Hero Gallery
• Fixed a bug that caused some players to lose competitive challenge progress
• Resolved an issue where several products couldn’t be unlocked from the Hero Gallery
• Fixed an issue with the Lifesaver Challenge not counting Mercy’s Resurrect as a ‘Save’
• Resolved an issue with purchases not immediately showing up after purchase
• Fixed a bug with Torbjörn and Symmetra’s turrets displaying hostile red overlays in Deathmatch for the player that placed them

Maps

Busan

• Fixed an area of the map where players could get stuck

Colosseo

• Fixed geometry that allowed some heroes to contest undetected

Esperança

• Fixed some areas that could be used to escape the playable space
• Fixed geometry that allowed some heroes to contest undetected

Gibraltar

• Fixed lighting issues across the map
• Fixed some areas where Torbjörn could place his turret in unreachable spots

Nepal

• Replaced some missing pillars on Sanctum

Rio

• Fixed a bug that allowed some heroes to get inside of the payload

Route 66

• Fixed lighting issues across the map

New Queen Street

• Fixed some issues with shadows across the map
• Fixed an area of the map where players could get stuck

Heroes

• Heroes no longer take damage from their own abilities if they’re on the other side of a friendly barrier
• Fixed an issue with the Damage Passive where sometimes a double reload animation could occur when the buff was active

Cassidy

• Resolved an issue with some skins using the wrong props in the ‘Flashbang’ victory pose

Doomfist

• Fixed an issue where Doomfist’s Power Block reduced the damage from some area of effect abilities
• Meteor Strike – You can no longer detect Sombra if the targeting reticle gets near her

D.Va

• Fixed a bug that allowed players to use Self-Destruct during their Mech’s destruction while Hacked

Junker Queen

• Jagged Blade can no longer be recalled while slept, stunned, hacked or frozen
• Fixed an issue with Jagged Blade being consumed by friendly abilities like Deflect, Defense Matrix, etc.
• Jagged Blade now takes a curved trajectory on return

Mercy

• Guardian Angel now correctly resets its cooldown if Valkyrie is used
• Guardian Angel ‘cancel boost’ is now disabled when Mercy is stunned

Moira

• Junkrat’s Trap no longer displays at chest height in first person when using Fade

Pharah

• Fixed a bug that reduced the ult cost of Rocket Barrage

Soldier 76

• Fixed an issue where Soldier 76 was unable to critical hit max range enemies during Tactical Visor

Symmetra

• Fixed a bug that resulted in all VO being cut out when taking the Teleporter

Tracer

• Fixed a big causing her Pulse Pistol damage falloff to not start until max range

Winston

• Resolved an issue with the Werewolf skin and the ‘Excuse me’ highlight intro turning Winston red in the Hero Gallery

Zenyatta

• Fixed an issue with melee not correctly animating if used to cancel alternate fire

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment