Overwatch 2 (Switch): all the updates (latest: Hotfix)

30 April 2025 Lite_Agent Blizzard, Overwatch 2

On this page, you will find all there is to know about the various updates for Overwatch 2 on Nintendo Switch.

Archives: launch to December 2023

Click here for more games and consoles updates!

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: April 29th/30th 2025
Patch notes:

Hero Updates

Damage

Freja

Developer Comments: We originally posted this balance change in the previous patch but was not live in-game. This balance change is now applied.

Quick Dash – Ability 1

Cooldown reduced from 4.5 to 3.5 seconds.

Updraft – Ability 2

Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed an issue where armor no longer reduces damage per projectile in a shotgun burst.

Fixed an issue where Battle Pass XP from progression of the match was not showing to be earned during the end-of-match summary in Stadium.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 16 – Stadium)

Release date: April 22nd/23rd 2025
Patch notes:

Season 16 – Stadium

Enter the ultimate battleground with Stadium , an all-new way to play Overwatch 2 where customization takes the reigns in a fun, best of seven, round based fight. Then, celebrate the launch with the Stadium: Initiation seasonal event to unlock exclusive rewards. Plus, the relentless bounty hunter Freja arrives as the latest DPS Hero, bringing precision and mobility to every match. Meanwhile, the battlefield transforms with stunning skins, from the Dokiwatch team—led by Mythic Heart of Hope Juno—to Legendary Ashe, Genji, Brigitte, Lifeweaver, and Mauga in the Premium Battle Pass. Whether you’re outwitting opponents in Stadium, hunting your prey with Freja, or wielding magic with Dokiwatch, this season is packed with action, strategy, and a whole lot more.

Stadium: Initiation

Celebrate Stadium’s launch with the Stadium: Initiation, a special event where winning earns you more than just bragging rights. Make a name for yourself by conquering challenges, climbing the ranks, and unlocking seasonal cosmetics like the Stadium Rookie Soldier: 76 and Stadium All-Star Juno skins before they’re gone. Perfect your strategy, dominate your opponents, or just simply rake in some wins for the fun of it (and the prizes)—the Stadium: Initiation event is the here for you to flex your skills and reap the rewards all season long.

Take on event challenges to earn Stadium: Initiation exclusive rewards like the Soldier: 76 Stadium Rookie skin and additional rewards.

Reach All-Star rank in the new Stadium ranking system to earn the S16 exclusive Stadium All-Star Juno skin.

Complete multiple challenges for unique loot boxes.

Introducing Stadium

Step into Stadium, an all-new way to play Overwatch 2! This fast-paced, best-of-7, round-based experience you to strategically build your Hero’s loadout, customize on the fly, and outmaneuver your foes with tactical upgrades to rise through the Stadium ranking system. With the option to play in first or third person, bounties to speed up progress or make comebacks, and the freedom to play your Heroes in completely different ways, no two battles will ever be the same. Plus, Stadium will have 17 Heroes available at launch with regular updates bringing more Heroes, modes, Items, abilities, maps, and balances to keep things fresh. Rewrite the rules, conquer the ultimate battleground, and have some fun in Stadium. Learn more about how Stadium is played in our official blog.

Stadium is a new core game mode listed alongside the Unranked, Competitive Play, and Arcade cards in the main menu.

Two teams of five compete across multiple rounds and maps.

First to four round wins will win the match.

Available only in Role Queue.

Custom Game modes are not yet available for Stadium.

Players may group up with other players regardless of skill or Competitive rank in Stadium.

Stadium Maps

Nine new or modified maps on three different map types are added.

Control maps play one round only and capture progress is faster.

Clash maps play on three objective points only.

Push maps play with distance to the objective at approximately half the distance as full Push maps.

Heroes

Heroes selected are locked in for the entire match.

Tank Heroes: D.Va, Junker Queen, Orisa, Reinhardt, and Zarya.

Damage Heroes: Ashe, Cassidy, Genji, Mei, Reaper, and Soldier: 76.

Support Heroes: Ana, Juno, Kiriko, Lucio, Mercy, and Moira.

Perks are not enabled in Stadium.

Stadium Cash

Spend Stadium Cash to buy Items for your Hero and gain additional max health.

Earning Stadium Cash

Each player starts with 3,500 at the beginning of the match.

Players earn more Stadium Cash by dealing damage, providing healing, and getting eliminations or assists.

Players can earn bounties by eliminating or assisting with eliminating an opponent that has been performing well.

The player on each team with the most Stadium Cash earned for the round receives a 1,000 cash bonus.

A team that is significantly behind at the start of a round will have a bonus multiplier added to their earnings throughout that round.

Bounties

Every player starts with a value of 300 at the start of the match.

Every time a player gets an elimination or assist their bounty value increases by 75 and can have a maximum value of 2,000.

Every time a player with more than 300 is eliminated their bounty is reset to 300.

Every time a player with 300 or less is eliminated their bounty value drops by 100.

Any player with a bounty of 750 or more is displayed in the gameplay HUD.

Increase Max Health

For Damage and Support players every 500 total cash earned adds 1 additional max health at the end of the round and for the remainder of the match.

For Tank players every 750 total cash earned adds 1 additional max health for the remainder of the match.

Up to 300 additional health can be added on from Stadium Cash earnings.

The initial 3,500 cash at the start of the round does not provide additional max health.

Armory

At the start of each round, players will enter the Armory and have a limited time to browse.

Players can use Stadium Cash to buy Items that modifies their weapons, abilities, and more.

On round 1, 3, 5 and 7, players can equip Powers for transformative modifiers that enhances and changes that Hero’s playstyle.

Example Builds are available for every Hero. These are great places to start!

Items

Players can have up to six Items equipped at any time.

Players can sell previously obtained Items for equal value to the purchase price.

Items are organized into three categories, Weapon, Ability, and Survival.

Weapon Items typically modify the stats of weapons that have no cooldowns to use.

Ability Items typically modify the stats of abilities that are limited by a cooldown or ultimate charge.

Survival Items typically modify the stats of the Hero’s survival capabilities including max health, movement speed, and more.

Items are organized into Common, Rare, and Epic tiers. Common Items are the most affordable with Epic ones being the most exclusive.

Many Items are available to equip for all Heroes.

Each Hero will have exclusive Hero Items that specifically change the attributes of that Hero’s weapons, abilities, or passives.

Powers

At the start of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th round players will equip a Power for their Hero.

Powers cannot be removed once they are equipped.

Leagues

Stadium is a competitive mode with its own ranking system.

There is a total of seven Leagues, Rookie, Novice, Contender, Elite, Pro, All-Star, Legend

Each League has five divisions with 5 being the lowest rank and 1 being the highest.

Players start in the Rookie Division 5 League every season.

Players gain Stadium Points for every match win along with progress to advancing into the next League.

In the Rookie and Novice Leagues, players do not lose Stadium Points for a loss.

Players lose small amounts of Stadium Points after a match loss in the Contender or Elite Leagues.

Players lose similar amounts of Stadium Points to what they win after a match loss in Pro, All-Star, and Legend Leagues.

Rewards

Players earn 10 Competitive Points for every match win in Stadium.

Players earn additional rewards including Name Cards, Weapon Charms, and Titles based on which League they reached the highest throughout the season and these rewards are only useable for the duration of the next season.

Players can earn the Epic Orisa Elite Skin by reaching the Elite League in the Tank Role in Season 16.

Players can earn the Epic Genji Elite Skin by reaching the Elite League in the Damage Role in Season 16.

Players can earn the Epic Moira Elite Skin by reaching the Elite League in the Support Role in Season 16. Players can earn the Legendary Juno All-Star Skin by reaching the All-Star League in any Role in Season 16.

Competitive Leaver Penalties

The same leaver penalties for Competitive Play also apply for Stadium.

Players who disconnect or leave will only have a few minutes to return without penalty.

Players who abandon a match entirely will be given the same penalties as if leaving a Competitive Play match up and including a season ban.

Players who are suspended or banned in either Stadium or Competitive play cannot play both modes while that suspension is in effect.

New Hero: Freja

Once Overwatch’s top search-and-rescue operative, Freja now uses her elite tracking skills to hunt targets as a merciless bounty hunter. Agile, aggressive, and lethal, Freja rewards players who think fast, reposition smart, and strike with precision. Armed with her Revdraw Crossbow and a deadly set of movement abilities, Freja excels in high-pressure combat. Plus, her Bola Shot Ultimate tangles enemies together, setting up devastating team plays. With a dynamic, strategy-driven kit, she’s built for players who thrive on precision—and she never misses her mark.

Freja is added to the Hero Roster

Freja is now playable in Competitive Play

New Mythic Skin: Heart of Hope Juno Hero Skin

Juno, the newest Hero of Heart, steps into the fight against Woe with her Mythic Heart of Hope skin, featuring four brilliant stages of customization that evolve as her radiance grows. From a bright-eyed protector to an unstoppable warrior, and even a corrupted version lost to Woe In between, her progression tells a story of resilience and destiny. With dynamic ability VFX, shifting colorways, new hairstyles, and the Sharks of Dreams by her side, Juno’s transformation is more than just cosmetic—it’s a magical journey, yours to shape.

New Mythic Aspect: Iridescent Aspects

Introducing the new Iridescent Aspects, a prismatic upgrade that lets you bring even more personality to your fully leveled Mythic Hero Skins. This dazzling new customization option adds a vibrant, high-energy finish, making your Hero stand out like never before. Mythic Heart of Hope Juno’s Iridescent Aspect debuts at launch on April 22, with all previous Mythic Hero Skins gaining their Iridescent Aspects starting May 20.

General Updates

Streamer Protect

New Option: Hide Player Icon from Others – Displays the default player icon instead.

New Option: Hide Name Card from Others – Hides the Name Card, as if no Name Card were equipped.

New Option: Hide Player Title from Others – Hides the Player Title, as if no Player Title were equipped.

Reporting Features

Players can now receive an instant notification if a player is already actioned.

Prior to this feature, reporting a player that had already been banned or suspended would not result in any additional information. The Instant Reporting Feedback feature will immediately inform the player of the fact that banned or suspended players have been actioned when they are reported.

Players can now Report from Replays. This new feature benefits from Instant Reporting Feedback described above. Since Replays can be shared, a new set of measures has been developed that will always prevent organized mass reports from taking actions against players.

Competitive Play Updates

Hero Bans

Hero Bans have been added to Competitive Play modes.

Before the Ban Phase, players will be able to select their Preferred Hero. Selecting a Preferred Hero does not prevent it from being banned, it just communicates which Hero the player would like to play. This selection is optional.

Players will enter the Ban Phase before the Versus Screen is displayed.

Players can communicate with their own team during this phase but can’t see or communicate with the enemy team.

Bans are simultaneous, with each team banning 2 Heroes with a Ranked Choice system.

Each player’s first choice carries the most weight, while their second and third choices contribute proportionally fewer votes.

Players aren’t required to choose any Heroes to ban; they can pass by pressing the Ready button.

Players can reset all their ban choices with the Reset button, or they can select any current choice and then swap that choice individually.

Players can see which Heroes their allies are choosing to ban and which Hero they prefer to play on the left side of the screen during the bans phase.

Allied choices are ordered from left to right, with the leftmost choice being their highest priority to ban.

Ban Results are calculated when the Ban Phase ends. Only 2 Heroes can be banned per role.

If a Hero is tied for votes, ties are broken by the number of players that voted for that Hero.

If Heroes are still tied, ties are broken randomly.

Developer Comments: The battlefield just got more dynamic. With Hero Bans, you can influence matchups in Competitive Play through team-based voting to remove key counters from the game, leading to fresh strategies. You can remove up to two Heroes per match per team, so coordinate with your team, adapt your plans, and shape the meta your way.

In 6v6 Game modes, wave respawn threshold reduced from 6 to 3 seconds.

Developer Comments: At the start of Season 15 we introduced perks, and it’s been amazing to see how you’ve embraced and experimented with them. Our goal is to make sure there’s always a meaningful choice when it comes to both Minor and Major perks, with decisions influenced by the state of the game and your preferred playstyle. We’re constantly iterating on perks, which is why we’re making some changes across the Hero roster. There will be new perks for 9 Heroes, aiming to give those Heroes fresh and exciting ways to fight on the battlefield. We’re also fine-tuning several perks to improve the gameplay experience for both players who use them and those who face them. It’s been incredible to watch the community embrace this new system, and we’re constantly reviewing your feedback to make Perks as great as they can possibly be!

Tank

D.Va

Bunny Stomp

Now combined with Ejection Suit.

Bunny Power

New Minor Perk

Eject grants 75 temporary overhealth and Call Mech’s damage radius is increased by 50%.

Extended Boosters

New Minor Perk

Hitting an enemy with Boosters increases the duration by 0.5 seconds.

Hazard

Off the Top

Increase Leap Slash’s damage from 30% to 50%.

Orisa

Developer Comments: Orisa has been underperforming in comparison to other tanks. Increasing her damage to allow her to be more threatening without boosting her survivability.

Augmented Fusion Driver

Damage increased from 13 to 14.

Fortify

Now prevents Hack’s ability lockout from interrupting abilities.

Heat Dissipater

Increase amount of heat reduced per headshot by 33%.

Reinhardt

Fiery Uptake

Removed.

Crusader’s Fire

New Minor Perk

Refund a charge of Fire Strike when you stun an enemy, overfilling up to 3.

Shield Slam

Shield Slam distance increased by 50%.

Roadhog

Hog Toss

Removed.

Pent Up

New Minor Perk

When Pig Pen is triggered, refill 50% Take a Breather resource which can overfill.

Hogdrogen Exposure

Increased radius from 8 to 10 meters.

Sigma

Levitation

Jump can now be held down to hover.

Winston

Developer Comments: With the introduction of perks, Winston has been overperforming. By adjusting his survivability—exchanging some of his armor for health—we aim to bring him in line with other tanks, without significantly impacting his overall gameplay.

Base health increased from 225 to 275.

Base armor reduced from 250 to 200.

Wrecking Ball

In 6v6 game modes, Armor health reduced from 150 to 100.

Damage

Cassidy

Past Noon

Removed.

Even the Odds

New Minor Perk

Regenerate 20 health per second for each enemy targeted by Deadeye.

Freja

Developer Comments: We received positive feedback during Freja’s Hero trial, and it’s exciting to see how much you enjoy experimenting with her kit. However, we’ve noticed that Freja is struggling to keep up with other Damage Heroes, particularly in terms of lethality. So, we’re adjusting the time it takes for her to earn her minor perk, bringing it in line with other Heroes. Additionally, we’re increasing the number of shots before her max spread kicks in, making her Revdraw Crossbow more reliable at all ranges. Finally, while Freja’s Bola Shot was charging quickly, its effectiveness was somewhat lacking. We’re boosting both its damage and radius slightly, ensuring it can better secure eliminations when it lands.

Time to earn Minor Perk reduced by 18%.

Revdraw Crossbow

Number of shots before max spread increased from 8 to 12.

Bola Shot

Bola Shot Damage and Explosion radius increased from 5 to 5.5 meters.

Bola Shot damage over time increased from 75 to 90.

Hanzo

Developer Comments: Restoring the functionality of Hanzo’s Storm Bow to retain draw progress will enable him to use wall climb more effectively, improving his ability to take space and position himself.

Storm Bow

Arrow draw progress is preserved while wall climbing.

Storm Arrows

Projectile speed increased from 110 to 140 meters per second.

Junkrat

Aluminum Frame

Now also reveals trapped enemies to allies.

Tick Tock

The description has been changed to “Concussive Mine strengthens .5 seconds after landing, increasing damage by 50%, explosion radius by 50%, and health by 200%.”

Mei

Chilling Reach

Removed.

Biting Cold

Moved to Minor perk.

Secondary fire hits slow enemies by 20% for 1.5 seconds.

Deep Freeze

New Major Perk.

Continuously hitting enemies with primary fire freezes them for a short time.

Sombra

Viral Efficacy

Removed.

Encrypted Upload

New Minor Perk.

Hack can be used while invisible, successful hacks increase the duration of stealth by 2 seconds.

Stack Overflow

Removed.

Viral Replication

New Major Perk.

Hitting a hacked enemy with Virus spreads Virus to enemies within 8 meters.

Soldier: 76

Field Emergency

The description has been changed to “Biotic Field’s healing is increased by 100% on Low health targets.”

Torbjörn

Overloaded Turret

Now transforms into Level 3 Sentry Turret if Overload was activated before fully constructed.

Tracer

Flashback

Blinks restored reduced from 3 to 2.

Quantum Entanglement

Quantum Entanglement now additionally grants 20 over ammo.

Support

Ana

Groggy

Reduced initial slow from 75% to 50%.

Now also deals 50 damage over the duration.

Biotic Bounce

Second bounce damage and healing reduced from 50 to 25.

Baptiste

Biotic Launcher

Healing explosion increased from 50 to 60.

Direct impact healing increased from 20 to 30.

Maximum ammo reduced from 13 to 10.

Assault Burst

Will now do instant healing but cannot critically heal low targets.

Juno

Hyper Boost

Removed.

Re-Boots

Moved to Minor Perk.

Duration increase removed.

Locked On

New Major Perk.

Reduce the cooldown of Pulsar Torpedoes by 1.5 seconds for every enemy hit.

Lifeweaver

Thorn Volley

Projectile speed increased from 80 to 100 meters per second.

Lifeweaving

Bonus healing increased from 30 to 40.

Lúcio

Groovin

Removed.

Beat Drop

New Minor Perk.

Amp it Up is active during Sound Barrier.

Mercy

Angelic Recovery

Removed.

Angelic Resurrection

New Minor Perk.

Mercy gains 100 overhealth after casting Resurrect.

Zenyatta

Orb of Discord

In 6v6 game modes, Duration before expiring when target is out of sight reduced from 3 to 1.5 seconds.

Ascendance

Jump can now be held down to hover.

Duality

Increased converted damage from 20% to 30%.

Bug Fixes

Heroes

Juno

Fixed an issue with Juno’s Ember skin.

Kiriko

Fixed an issue preventing Kiriko’s wall climb animation from playing after swift step.

Ramattra

Fixed an issue with Rammatra’s Void Barrier animation.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: April 8th/9th 2025
Patch notes:

Totally Normalwatch Updates

These changes only apply to heroes for the Totally Normalwatch game mode.

Tank

Wrecking Ball

Health decreased from 425 to 350.

Bonus health increases from Roll impacts reduced from 25 to 20.

Damage

Echo

Sticky Bombs

Fire rate reduced by 30%.

Explosion damage reduced from 14 to 12.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: April 1st/2nd 2025
Patch notes:

Everything is Normal

There is nothing to worry about here. Everything is perfectly normal. The development team has been dealing with an ant problem at their desks for the last few weeks and somehow caused these changes to take place somewhere in the game, but we think we fixed it… maybe. Don’t look at that game mode in the Arcade. We’re not sure where it came from. We’ll try to get it taken down but we’re not able to update that until April 14. Until we do, we’ve put up some challenges to distract you with and you can earn some new cosmetics including the Rainy Ducky Orisa Legendary Skin. Thanks, and you may now resume your totally normal Overwatch 2 experience.

Very Normal Hero Updates

Perks are disabled as we address an issue with a certain member of the development team yelling “PERKS!” every time they say the word Perks in our meetings.

Tanks

D.Va

Developer Comments: The Meka Squad are having a rough time against the Gwishin Omnics. So, they are experimenting with new designs to save on materials and rations.

Mech Size reduced by 50%.

Mech Base Health reduced from 375 to 25.

Mech Armor Health is unchanged.

Pilot D.Va size reduced by 50%.

Pilot Base Health reduced from 175 to 25.

Fusion Cannons

Rate of fire increased by 100%.

Damage reduced by 50%.

Light Gun

Rate of Fire increased by 100%.

Reload Speed increased by 25%.

Damage reduced by 25%.

Self-Destruct

Press Interact during Self-Destruct to freeze mech in place.

Doomfist

Developer Comment: Doomfist decided the best way to win is by punching the opponents… a lot.

Hand Cannon

Removed from Primary Fire.

Quick Melee

Replaces Hand Cannon as the Primary Fire.

Melee speed increased by 50%.

Melee damage increased by 50%.

Doomfist now lunges toward nearby enemies when he melees.

Rocket Punch

Melee damage now builds Rocket Punch Charge meter.

Charge meter no longer decays.

Charge time reduced by 50%.

Seismic Slam

Cooldown decreased by 1 second.

Hazard

Developer Comments: Hazard got tired of rooting people in place, so he thought he’d try knocking them around instead.

Jagged Wall

Jagged Wall Knockback increased by 400%.

Jagged Wall Cooldown decreased from 12 to 8 seconds.

Junker Queen

Developer Comments: Everyone got tired of Junker Queen shouting at them and started to ignore her. So, she has gotten selfish and is hoarding her Commanding Shout buffs for herself. She always wants to directly confront anyone who gets hit by Gracie .

Jagged Blade

Can no longer be recalled with Secondary Fire.

Junker Queen flies towards Gracie while Secondary Fire is held.

Commanding Shout

No longer affects allies.

Overhealth increased by 50%.

Bonus Move Speed increased from 30% to 60%.

Mauga

Developer Comments: Gunny and Cha-Cha will now lift up their Papa, and whoever is tethered to him.

While airborne and firing both Chainguns at the same time, Mauga is pushed backwards in the direction he is aiming.

Incendiary Chaingun

Ammo reduced from 300 to 150.

Reload Speed increased by 15%.

Volatile Chaingun

Ammo reduced from 300 to 150.

Reload Speed increased by 15%.

Overrun

Can now be used during Cage Fight.

Cage Fight

Tether is now centered on Mauga and follows him.

Grants Mauga infinite ammo for the duration.

Orisa

Developer Comments: “I see you glancing at me. You wish to ride me into battle?”

Hanzo can press Interact while near Orisa to ride her into battle, giving Orisa extra movement speed.

Javelin Spin

Javelin Spin now pulls enemies towards Orisa.

Ramattra

Developer Comments: Ramattra has elevated the discourse of battle, along with his opponents.

Ravenous Vortex

Now reverses the gravity of all enemies inside.

Reinhardt

Developer Comments: Reinhardt recently saw some street racing anime and has become so obsessed with it that he has learned to drift.

Charge

Cooldown reduced from 7 to 3.5 seconds.

Turn speed increased by 150%.

Charge lasts until you collide with a wall.

Roadhog

Developer Comments: We’ve been seen everyone’s feedback about Chain Hook being so inconsistent over the years, so we hope that throwing three of them at once makes it more reliably lethal.

Chain Hook

Now throws 3 Hooks at once.

Sigma

Developer Comments: Sigma’s realized he was not abiding by Newton’s third law of motion, so he figures by deflecting the projectiles he blocks with Kinetic Grasp would make him a more psychics law abiding citizen.

Kinetic Grasp

Deflects projectiles instead of absorbing them.

Sigma gains free flight during Kinetic Grasp.

Winston

Developer Comment: “Winston Slam!”

Jump Pack

Press Crouch to do a body slam and deal more damage while coming down during Jump Pack.

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comment: Hammond has decided to try imitating tumbleweeds and snowballs.

Size reduced by 50%.

Wrecking Ball gains Overhealth based on his size.

Roll

Damaging enemies during Roll increases Wrecking Ball’s size.

Piledriver

Area of effect increases based on Wrecking Ball’s size.

Zarya

Developer Comment: Zarya’s enemies have always feared her skills in battle, but now they will run in fear of her reflection too.

Particle Cannon

Primary Fire now ricochets off of enemy heroes and the environment.

Damage

Ashe

Developer Comments: Bob’s arm cannons are in the shop, but he’s much more eager to jump into the fray.

Coach Gun

Increased knockback on enemy heroes and briefly reduces their air control.

B.O.B.

B.O.B. no longer shoots.

B.O.B. now repeatedly dashes towards the nearest enemy hero and attempts to knock them into the air.

Ultimate Cost reduced by 70%.

Bastion

Developer Comments: Bastion made a new friend that happens to be grenade-sized.

A-36 Tactical Grenade

Now spawns an explosive training bot.

Configuration Artillery

Impacts spawns explosive training bots.

Cassidy

Developer Comments: Cassidy recently borrowed Hanzo’s scatter arrow and figured out how to make new ammunition out of the tech.

Peacekeeper

Primary and Secondary Fire both ricochet three times. Ricocheted bullets deal increased damage.

Echo

Developer Comments: Echo is testing new updates in flight technology, but it seems her other abilities were affected.

Tri-Shot

Now fires Sticky Bombs.

Damage reduced from 25 to 14.

Sticky Bombs

Now fires a volley of Tri-Shot projectiles.

Damage increased from 17 to 20.

Flight

Flight is now always active.

Activating Flight now causes Echo to dash a short distance.

Focusing Beam

Now does extra damage to enemies above half health.

Genji

Developer Comments: Genji can once again spam that annoying emote to heal himself, though there might be negative consequences this time.

Genji once again can occasionally heal himself when requesting healing.

Don’t abuse this. You’ve been warned.

Hanzo

Developer Comments: It’s not a preposterous thought. Hanzo is making a longtime dream come true.

Storm Bow

Fully-charged arrows ricochet twice.

Storm Arrow

Each arrow ricochets up to 5 times.

Wall Climb

While wall climbing, press Reload to attach yourself to the wall.

Samurai Kishu

New Passive

Press Interact while near Orisa to ride her into battle.

While riding, gain 25% damage reduction.

While riding, Orisa controls Hanzo’s movement.

While riding, feel 20% cooler.

Junkrat

Developer Comments: Junkrat loves explosions so much he decided to become one.

Concussive Mine

Can now place up to 5 mines at once.

Maximum damage reduced by 50%.

Max charges increased to 5.

Cooldown reduced to 4 seconds.

RIP-Tire

Junkrat becomes invisible and untargetable while using Riptire.

Junkrat teleports to Riptire when it explodes.

Junkrat dies if the Riptire is destroyed.

Mei

Developer Comments: The cold doesn’t bother Mei anymore, but it may bother Mei’s enemies.

Cyro-Freeze

Now creates a miniature Blizzard.

Mei can now move during Cryo-Freeze.

Moira

Developer Comments: Fixed a bug where Moira was classified as a Support Hero and removed any unintended healing. Thank you for your patience as we resolved this seven-year-old issue that has prevented Moira mains from reaching their ultimate damage potential.

Moved to Damage role.

Now has Damage role passive.

No longer has the Support role passive.

Biotic Grasp

Primary fire no longer heals and instead deals damage.

Biotic Orb

Healing Orb removed.

Coalescence

Now only deals damage.

Pharah

Developer Comment: Pharah now takes her enemies on a magic rocket ride.

Rocket Launcher

Direct hits deal increased damage to airborne enemies.

Jet Dash

Pull nearby enemies along with Pharah.

Jump Jet

Pulls nearby enemies along with Pharah.

Reaper

Developer Comment: Talon got tired of all of the shotguns Reaper was wasting and cut him off their weapon budget until he learns to be more resourceful.

Hellfire Shotguns

Reaper can no longer reload and drops his shotguns on the ground when empty.

Dropped shotguns must be picked up to restore ammo.

Movement Speed increased by 25% when out of ammo.

Picking up shotguns increases attack speed for a short duration.

Note: It’s hard to melee enemies without your shotguns.

Sojourn

Developer Comment: Railgun can now be overcharged to deal more damage. WARNING: Okoton Kelvin-87 Railgun’s recoil dampeners not certified for high energy payloads.

Raingun

Max charge is now 300%.

Railgun Secondary Fire deals increased damage at above 100% charge.

Railgun Secondary Fire knocks back Sojourn if fired at above 100% charge.

Soldier: 76

Developer Comment: Soldier: 76 being the stubborn old soldier that he is says he doesn’t need any help and can still outrun anyone on the battlefield.

Soldier 76 can no longer see allied or enemy health bars. Including his own.

Passive healing starts faster and heals much faster.

Sprint

Running speed increased by 100%.

Sombra

Developer Comment: Sombra is exploiting a memory leak, and the only way to shut her down is to press Alt+F4.

Hack

Hacking enemies grants a stacking buff (with a maximum of 10) of movement speed and magazine size.

Stacks are lost on death.

Symmetra

Developer Comments: Symmetra is trying out the latest Vishkar fashions on her allies: turrets! She also traded in her gun for a new tankbuster gun that is overcharged.

Photon Projector

Primary Fire now does damage based on target’s maximum health.

Secondary Fire charge time reduced.

Sentry Turret

Turret health Increased by 50%.

Cooldown reduced by 40%.

Projectile speed increased by 100%.

Can now stick to allies.

Torbjörn

Developer Comments: Torbjörn’s turret just needs some hammering to reach maximum potential.

Deploy Turret

Turret can be Overhealed by Forge Hammer.

When Overhealed, Turret gains increased size, damage, and health.

Tracer

Developer Comments: Reinhardt taught Tracer how to charge very short distances, if she stays low enough.

Blink

Blinking while crouching collides with enemies.

Colliding with enemies deals damage and knocks them back.

Venture

Developer Comments: Venture got tired of working underground. We hope you dig these changes.

If Venture is directly impacted by the projectile from Accretion or a similar ability, Venture is not knocked down and instead consumes the rock and heals themselves.

Burrow

Can now fly while burrowed.

Emerge can be charged longer for a stronger effect.

Widowmaker

Developer Comments: Widowmaker has learned how to catch her prey in her webbing.

Grappling Hook

Can now hit enemy heroes, dealing damage and granting Widowmaker Overhealth.

Quick Melee

First successful melee attack after hitting a hero with Grappling Hook deals extra damage.

Support

Ana

Developer Comment: We’ve heard feedback from Ana players that their teammates ignore them when they call out that they are reloading and go and feed into the enemies anyways. We’re hoping this change makes for good practice for them to start paying more attention to their Support teammates.

Biotic Rifle

• Magazine size reduced from 15 to 1. • Reload speed increased by 25%. • Damage and healing increased from 75 to 150.

Baptiste

Developer Comment: Baptiste discovered some of those old retro platformer video games and now it’s all he ever wants to do.

Exo Boots

Press Crouch while airborne to stomp on enemies.

Brigitte

Developer Comments: Mace to the face was working so well, so Brigitte thought she’d try her shield too.

Shield Bash

Removed.

Shield Throw

New Ability.

Shield Throw will toss Brigitte’s Shield which stuns and bounces between enemies.

Rally

During Rally, Shield Throw can hit more enemies.

Illari

Developer Comment: Illari got tired of allies being out of healing range, she altered her rifle accordingly.

Solar Rifle

Primary Fire now heals allies and does not deal damage.

Secondary Fire now damages enemies and does not heal allies.

Secondary Fire range increased by 50%.

Juno

Developer Comment: We fixed a bug where allies and enemies were not getting welcomed into orbit as indicated by her Ultimate voice line.

Quick Melee

Knockback increased.

Oribital Ray

Reverses gravity on all allies and enemies inside.

Kiriko

Developer Comment: Kiriko took some swiftness out of her step and put it into attack speed. What could go wrong?

Swift Step

Swift Step now grants Kiriko overhealth and increased attack speed, but she can no longer choose her target.

Lifeweaver

Developer Comment: Be careful, as you don’t not want Lifeweaver to be a thorn in your side.

Thorn Volley

Projectiles now home in on enemies.

Projectiles per shot reduced from 2 to 1.

Rate of fire reduced by 35%.

Projectile speed reduced by 70%.

When enough projectiles hit an enemy, they explode for 160 damage.

Lúcio

Developer Comments: “Can’t stop, won’t stop.”

Wall Ride

Lúcio gains increasing Move, Reload, and Attack Speed while wall-riding.

Buffs from Wall Ride persists for several seconds after touching the ground.

Mercy

Developer Comment: Mercy’s new pistol is just like a loot box… you’ll never know what you’ll get.

Caduceus Blaster

Now fire random projectiles.

Zenyatta

Developer Comment: “We are all one within the many, googly irises.”

Orb of Destruction

Now fires sticky googly eyes instead of orbs.

Damage reduced by 25%.

Attack Speed increased by 50%.

Bug Fixes

Developer Comments: On a positive note, we did fix a few other bugs. (Yes, these are real.)

General

Fixed an issue preventing users from using Perks in the 6v6 Maximum 2 Tanks Open Queue Quick Play and will now be played for the remainder of Season 16.

Fixed an issue preventing Perks to be selected while Overtime is in progress.

Fixed an issue with Zarya’s kit in hero mastery and have reenabled Zarya’s Hero Mastery Courses.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: March 25th/26th 2025
Patch notes:

Hero Updates

Balance changes apply to both 5v5 and 6v6 game modes.

Tank

Mauga

Cardiac Overdrive

No longer provides allies with damage reduction.

Cage Fight

Ultimate cost increased 8%.

Barrier health reduced from 1500 to 1200 HP.

Berserker Passive

Overhealth conversion rate reduced from 50% to 40%.

Roadhog

Take a Breather

Maximum healing increased from 400 to 450.

Whole Hog

Ultimate cost reduced 12%.

Winston

Primal Rage

Ultimate cost increased 10%.

Zarya

Energy

Degeneration rate increased from 2 to 2.5 per second.

Damage

Cassidy

Peacekeeper

Primary fire falloff range increased from 20 to 25 meters.

Secondary fire damage increased from 45 to 50.

Echo

Base health reduced from 225 to 150.

Shield health increased from 0 to 75.

Soldier: 76

Heavy Pulse Rifle

Primary fire now uses the larger projectile size (0.07 meters).

Sojourn

Power Slide

Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.

Maximum duration reduced from 1.2 to 1 second.

Widowmaker

Base health increased from 200 to 225 HP.

Support

Ana

Biotic Grenade

Cooldown increased from 12 to 14 seconds for non-6v6 games modes.

Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds for 6v6 games modes.

Shrike

Self-Nano Boost duration reduced from 8 to 6 seconds.

Juno

Orbital Ray

Ultimate cost increased 10%.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: March 19th/20th 2025
Patch notes:

Introducing Freja

As head of Search and Rescue, Freja Skov dedicated her life to Overwatch and its mission of global peace. With the agency’s resources, there was no one Freja couldn’t find, no victim beyond her reach. But when Overwatch disbanded, Freja found herself adrift, purposeless… until she found a new market for her talent. As a bounty hunter, Freja attracted a different kind of clientele, one that showed her the true value of her skills. Now through March 24, get hands-on with her powerful crossbow, explosive bolts, and game-changing Ultimate. With a dynamic, strategy-driven kit, she’s built for players who thrive on precision and positioning—and she never misses her mark.

Freja

Damage Role

Not available in Competitive Play during the Hero Trial

Revdraw Crossbow

Primary Fire.

Rapidly fire automatic bolts.

Take Aim

Secondary Fire.

Slow your momentum to take aim with a high-speed explosive bolt. Using Quick Dash refreshes Take Aim.

Quick Dash

Ability 1.

Vault in the direction you’re moving and refresh Take Aim.

Updraft

Ability 2.

Launch upward with a gust of wind.

Bola Shot

Ultimate ability.

Fire an explosive bola. Hitting an enemy wraps them up and pulls in other nearby enemies.

Bounty Hunting

Passive ability.

Every 3 Final Blows, gain bonus ultimate charge.

Frost Bolts

Minor Perk.

Enemies hit by 3 regular bolts in quick succession are slowed by 20% for 2 seconds.

Tracking Instinct

Minor Perk.

Critical health enemies are revealed to you.

Ready to Hunt

Major Perk.

Updraft grants a temporary free use of Quick Dash.

Relentless Barrage

Major Perk.

Direct hits with Take Aim refund 4 automatic bolt ammo.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: March 18th/19th 2025
Patch notes:

Overwatch 2 X LE SSERAFIM

Overwatch 2 x LE SSERAFIM are back with a new collab, bringing their energy, attitude, and bold aesthetic to the battlefield. With five brand-new Legendary skins featuring vibrant colors and standout details—like Ashe’s dynamite to light up the fight with RGB effects—this collection is a must-have for fans of both Overwatch 2 and LE SSERAFIM. Complete in-game challenges to earn free cosmetics, including the Legendary Fawksey James Junkrat skin.

Overwatch 2 Classic – GOATS

Step into Overwatch history with Overwatch Classic: GOATS, where teamwork, sustain, and strategy reign supreme. This iconic meta defined an entire era of competitive play, proving that three tanks, three supports, and perfectly timed abilities could be the ultimate formula for victory. Whether you remember GOATS from its prime or are experiencing it for the first time, now’s your chance to relive one of Overwatch’s most influential moments that rewrote the rules of team play. Overwatch 2 Classic: GOATS begins on March 25.

Heroes added include Moira, Brigitte, and Wrecking Ball.

Maps added include Blizzard World, Rialto, and Busan.

Hero balance is adjusted to the September 2018 Hero Balance.

New Mythic Weapon – Widowmaker’s Dame Chance

A gift from Talon’s favorite financier, Dame Chance is a rifle of grace, refinement, and supreme lethality. Featuring a stunning crystalline core that reacts to your performance, evolving customization, exclusive animations, and a dynamic Mythic HUD, this is the ultimate sniper’s flex. If you live for those pixel-perfect headshots, it’s time to show the world what true precision looks like with the Mythic Dame Chance Widowmaker Weapon Skin.

Hero Updates

Tanks

Junker Queen

Developer Comments: Increasing the duration of Deep Wounds to ensure that Junker Queen can maintain wounds even longer on enemies she’s actively targeting.

Deep Wounds

Extended wound duration increased from 0.25 to 0.5 seconds.

Ramattra

Developer Comments: An additional element has been added to Prolonged Barrier to enable Ramattra to control a larger area and provide effective cover with the shield.

Prolonged Barrier

Now additionally increases the size of the Void Barrier by 25%.

Reinhardt

Developer Comments: We’re making improvements to several of Reinhardt’s perks to increase their usability in various situations.

Crusader’s Resolve

Passive Regeneration trigger rate increased from 50% to 75%.

Shield Slam

Cooldown reduced from 8 to 6 seconds.

Roadhog

Developer Comments: The increased throw distance modifies how Roadhog can use Hog Toss. Adding a damage increase component will make Pig Pen more effective even when not utilizing the throw distance

Hog Toss

Now also increases the damage of Pig Pen by 25%.

Winston

Developer Comments: Short Circuit is being adjusted to improve its effectiveness in specific matchups against deployables such as barriers or turrets.

Short Circuit

Damage versus deployable objects increased from 30% to 50%

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comments: The transfer cost is being reduced to amplify the value of shields when given to allies.

Transfer Efficiency

Ally transfer cost reduction increased from 33% to 50%.

Damage

Bastion

Developer Comments: Adding a resource meter will control Bastion’s healing ability, ensuring more balanced gameplay and fair engagements with low damage output heroes.

Self-Repair

Now has a resource required to heal.

Cassidy

Developer Comments: Increasing Past Noon’s refund aims to improve High Noon and its zoning capabilities, adding incentive to change how the ultimate is used.

Past Noon

Ultimate charge refunded increased from 30% to 40%.

Genji

Developer Comments: The utility of Genji’s perks, such as Acrobatics and Blade Twisting, has been limited due to their specific use cases. We have improved the conditions of these perks and increased the healing of Meditation to align it with other Major perks.

Acrobatics

Now also resets double jump on wall climb.

Meditation

Healing increased from 25 to 35 health per second.

Blade Twisting

Duration after an elimination to trigger bonus damage increased from 6 to 10 seconds.

Bonus damage is now dealt over 1 second instead of 2 seconds.

Mei

Developer Comments: The cooldown increase for Permafrost has been removed to ensure it does not create negative impact for Ice Wall.

Permafrost

No longer increases cooldown of Ice Wall.

Pharah

Developer Comments: We are increasing the amount of converted shields to enhance Pharah’s self-sufficiency when Helix Shields is selected.

Helix Shields

Converted Shields increased from 75 to 125.

Reaper

Developer Comments: The recovery time change will allow Reaper to weave primary fire shots between uses of Dire Trigger, reducing the friction of using this ability.

Dire Triggers

Recovery time reduced from 0.9 to 0.7 seconds.

Soldier: 76

Developer Comments: Reducing Stim Pack’s cast time will make it more responsive, allowing use during combat without dramatically affecting shooting uptime.

Stim Pack

Cast time reduced from 0.4 to 0.15 seconds.

Stim Pack anti-heal is now cleansable.

Sombra

Developer Comments: Improving Sombra’s Major Perks to ensure they’re providing value without heavily impacting her core gameplay.

Stack Overflow

Range penalty reduced from 30% to 15%.

White Hat

Hack is now uninterruptible from damage when healing allies.

Torbjörn

Developer Comments: Torbjörn’s Turret has become difficult to deal with when paired with his Major Perks. The base statistics of Deploy Turret are being reduced, and some power is being reallocated to the Minor Perk Craftsman.

Deploy Turret

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Turret Damage reduced from 13 to 12.

Craftsman

Now additionally increases Deploy Turret base health by 25

Tracer

Developer Comments: Increasing duration gives players additional time to take advantage of the overhealth after recalling.

Quantum Entanglement

Overhealth duration increased from 3.5 to 6 seconds.

Support

Baptiste

Developer Comments: Increasing Assault Burst’s attack speed to balance its loss of instant healing. Also, boosted Automated Healing as its current effectiveness is low for an ultimate perk.

Automated Healing

Healing per shot is increased from 25 to 30.

Assault Burst

Attack speed increased from 20% to 30%.

Brigitte

Developer Comments: Barrier Restoration now grants increased movement speed, offering Brigitte additional options when she is unable to use Shield Bash on opponents.

Barrier Restoration

After Shield Bashing, Brigitte gains 30% movement speed for 1.5 seconds.

Iliari

Developer Comments: Increasing the power of Summer Solstice for more effective use of her ultimate ability and improved flight time.

Solar Rifle

Weapon recharging is no longer paused while using Quick Melee.

Summer Solstice

Additionally provides 30% increased attack speed while Captive Sun is active

Juno

Developer Comments: Enhancing Re-Boots to be a more valuable mobility perk, allowing players to hover for longer and utilize the double jump reset.

Re-boots

Now also increases the duration of Glide Boost by 25%.

Lifeweaver

Developer Comments: Triggering Superbloom can be challenging, so we are making several changes to improve the consistency of the perk.

Superbloom

Damage increased from 30 to 40.

Number of hits to trigger increased from 16 to 20.

Window of time to land hits increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds.

Lifeweaving

Bonus to Healing Blossom heal increased from 20 to 30.

Mercy

Developer Comments: The cast time has been shortened to make Flash Heal more responsive for use in emergency situations.

Flash Heal

Cast time reduced from 0.875 to 0.4 seconds.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed an issue causing Maximilien’s Vault cards to not show a full 5 cards.

Fixed an issue where the Overwatch League shop was missing from the shop menu.

Fixed an issue causing disconnects with the replay system.

Fixed an issue where the loot box thumbnails might not appear.

Fixed an issue with the switch spawn button not working.

Fixed a bug where some skins were incorrectly showing they were available for purchase in the hero gallery.

Fixed a bug where Ana’s Bastet skin was missing from the game.

Heroes

Orisa

In a previous update, fixed an issue where Orisa’s overhealth would not restore if fully depleted using the Bulwark perk.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Hotfix

Release date: March 4th/5th 2025
Patch notes:

Fixed an issue which applied the galaxy weapon tint to other hero items.

Fixed an issue which caused Ashe’s default weapon skin to disappear from the weapon skin menu.

Fixed an issue which would cause players to get stuck on the loot box screen if they were previously opening loot boxes before transitioning into a game.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Hotfix

Release date: February 25th/26th 2025
Patch notes:

Heroes

Ana

Fixed a bug with the Headhunter Perk that allowed Ana to land critical shots on a Fortified Orisa.

Bastion

Fixed a bug with the Lindholm Explosives Perk that prevented Direct Hits from granting Ultimate Charge.

Junkerqueen

Fixed a bug with the Perk Savage Satiation that caused Lifesteal to only trigger on the first enemy hit.

Juno

Fixed a bug with the Master Blaster Perk that allowed Juno to land critical shots on a Fortified Orisa.

Sojourn

Fixed a bug with the Dual Thrusters Perk allowing Sojourn an additional (third) slide.

Symmetra

Fixed a bug with Symmetra’s Turrets in Total Mayhem.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Hotfix

Release date: February 20th/21st 2025
Patch notes:

General

Fixed a bug with Perks not being granted at the start of round 3 on Payload and Hybrid Maps.

Heroes

Ashe

Fixed a bug with Viper’s Sting failing to properly refresh its count when hitting new targets.

Doomfist

Fixed a bug with Block not granting Doomfist charge for Blocking some abilities.

Illari

Fixed a bug with Illari’s Solar Power Perk occasionally locking out Illari from using Solar Rifle’s Healing Beam.

Pharah

Fixed a bug with Helix Shield not correctly applying if the Perk is selected while you are dead.

Venture

Fixed a bug with the Covered in Dirt Perk erroneously affecting Drill Dash.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 15)

Release date: February 18th/19th 2025
Patch notes:

Season 15 – Honor And Glory

Season 15 introduces Perks, Overwatch 2’s groundbreaking new gameplay feature that lets players unlock mid-match hero upgrades, providing more choice and strategy. With the launch of the 2025 Competitive Year, fresh rewards like Galactic Weapon Skins and exclusive charms await those who climb the ranks. Plus, weekly challenges in the Perked Up event offer exciting treasures, including Rainy Day Mercy and Legendary Loot Boxes. Don’t miss out on Mythic Pixiu Zenyatta and more as Overwatch 2 takes bold steps into its most exciting season yet!

New Mythic Skin – Pixiu Zenyatta

Inspired by the golden dragon Pixiu, the Mythic Pixiu Zenyatta skin combines godly beauty with unique customizations. This skin evolves as you do, featuring four progression levels, thematic sound effects, and an optional Gilded Aspect so you can dominate the battlefield in true divine style.

Loot Boxes Are Back

Get ready for the return of Loot Boxes, loaded with loot and surprises to expand your arsenal and bring the hype. Whether you’re new or a veteran hero, you’ll love the thrill of Loot Boxes to unlock new content as you progress through the Premium Battle Pass or when you earn loot boxes as you complete games every week! There will be two types of Loot Boxes that you’ll be able to earn, Loot Boxes and Legendary Loot Boxes.

Starting in Season 15, you can earn up to three Loot Boxes every week by completing up to 27 games each week with wins counting as double.

Starting in Season 15, you can earn a free Legendary Loot Box in the free track of the Battle Pass and an additional two Legendary Loot Boxes in the Premium Track of the Battle Pass.

Loot Box

Every Loot Box draws from a curated collection of Overwatch and Overwatch 2 cosmetic items.

Each box will drop four items when opened. The items you get are now randomly selected at the time of box opening.

Loot Boxes will prioritize giving you items you don’t already own.

If a Loot Box can’t avoid giving you any items you already own, the loot box will instead grant progress towards a bonus Loot Box.

At the start of each season, any unopened boxes from previous seasons will be automatically opened and all items dropped from them are added to your collection.

Drop Rates

On average, each rarity has the following chances of dropping per one Loot Box opened.

Legendary: 5.1%

Epic: 21.93%

Rare: 96.26%

Common: 97.97%

Guaranteed Drops

A Legendary item is guaranteed to drop within 20 consecutive box openings.

An Epic item is guaranteed to drop within five consecutive box openings.

At least one Rare item or better is guaranteed to drop in every box.

Legendary Loot Box

Each Legendary Loot Box is guaranteed to contain at least one Legendary item.

Drops Rates

On average, each rarity has the following chances of dropping per one Legendary Box opened.

Legendary: 100%

Epic: 21.93%

Rare: 96.26%

Common: 97.97%

Competitive Play Updates

It’s a whole new year for Competitive with Perks reshaping strategy, rank resets leveling the playing field, and stellar new Galactic Weapon Skins plus Weapon Charm rewards waiting at the top. Are you ready to rise? Show the world your skill and climb the ladder like never before—victory awaits.

Skill Rank Reset

The highest Ranks (Master, Grandmaster, and Champion) have been tuned to include a higher percentage of the player population once players are well calibrated.

Given the addition of Perks and the tuning of higher Tiers, this reset is designed to put players on an even playing field and give them a chance to climb even higher than ever before.

All ranks in Role Queue and Open Queue in Competitive Play have been reset to Unranked and all players will need to complete their respective 10 placement matches for each role.

Competitive Rewards

Galactic Weapon Variants can now be unlocked with Competitive Points, allowing you to reach for the stars while you rank up.

Jade Weapon Variants join Gold Weapon Variants as Legacy Rewards.

Legacy Rewards can be purchased with Legacy Competitive Points.

Competitive Weapon Charms will be awarded to players in Platinum and above in Season 16 based on your performance in Season 15.

End-of-season titles for Competitive Role Queue now include the role the rank was achieved in. Examples include Champion Tank, Champion Support, Champion Damage, and Open Queue Champion.

Competitive Point Conversion

All Competitive Points earned in the 2024 Competitive Year have been converted into Legacy Competitive Points.

Competitive Points can now be manually converted into Legacy Competitive Points when purchasing Weapon Variants.

Ranks on Portraits

Competitive Hero Portraits return to Competitive Play with Overwatch 2’s Rank icons, giving players that share their gameplay new opportunities to show off their skill.

Map Pool

Clash Maps Hanaoka and Throne of Anubis are removed from the Competitive Play pool.

All players can still play on all Escort, Hybrid, Control, Push, and Flashpoint maps.

General Updates

Voice Lines

Refactored ultimate voice lines to allow custom player-specific voice lines instead also being heard by opponents.

Mode-specific ultimate lines are now enabled to play game-wide for players with relevant skins equipped (ex. Warlock Ashe, Greek Gods skins, etc).

Custom ultimate lines are now enabled for several Mythic skins, with more to come in future patches.

Previously unused custom ultimate lines are now available for several other skins.

Developer Comment: Going into Overwatch 2, we took into account player feedback that skin-specific ultimate lines from enemy heroes created gameplay difficulties for many players. As such, we restricted any custom hostile ultimate VO to special game modes, but we were not able to implement them into the broader game.

By changing the way we trigger ultimate voice lines, we can now play a player-specific custom line without affecting the line heard by enemy players. This means that we’ll have much more flexibility for changing ultimate voice lines in the future.

Emotes

Emotes can now be cancelled mid-animation shortly after they are activated.

Introducing Perks

Take your gameplay to the next level with Perks—Overwatch 2’s dynamic new mid-match upgrade system for Quickplay and Competitive. As the action heats up, unlock and choose game-changing abilities to amplify your hero’s power and evolve your strategy in real time. Adapt to every challenge, counter your enemies, and turn the tide of battle in your favor.

Perks are now enabled in Quick Play and Competitive modes.

How to gain Perk progress

• Perk progress is gained by dealing damage, securing eliminations, and healing your allies. • Throughout the match, the rate at which you gain Perks will gradually increase. • When you eliminate an enemy who is at a higher perk level than you (full level), that elimination is also worth more Perk progress.

Swapping Heroes

When you swap heroes, your new hero will be set to level 1 with zero perk progress.

Your progress will be saved on any heroes that you play throughout the round though. So, if you played Tracer to Level 3 and got her Major Perk, when you switch back to Tracer you will be at Level 3 with your perks equipped.

Selecting Perks

There are multiple options available to select your perks into fit your personal play style.

Standard Selection: Hold down Left Alt on keyboard or up on the directional pad for controller, then aim at the left or right perk or press your shoulder buttons on controller to select.

Quick Selection: You can also set your own bindings to select your perks without bringing up the Perk selection user interface, which is great for once you’ve really gotten your perks down and don’t need the menu.

You can also bind your perk selection to be a toggle instead of holding by default.

Celebrate In Our Perked-Up Event

Celebrate the debut of Overwatch 2’s game-changing Perks system with the Perked Up Event, available all season long. Take on challenges to snag weekly rewards, including up to 10 Loot Boxes per week and Rainy Day Mercy! Plus, team up with the community via Twitch Drops and Support a Streamer to unlock Rainy Day Mei and Tracer. This limited time event runs from February 18 to April 22.

For season 15 only, players can earn up to an additional 10 loot boxes each week by completing up to 15 games with wins counting as double.

Challenges for Loot Boxes reset every week, so any loot boxes not earned in that week are missed out.

Hero Perks

Instead of hero balance updates, we’re opening up Season 15 with adding Hero Perks to all 41 heroes. Our intention is to give you some time to adapt to such a large shift for the game, but we’ll be monitoring to see if any perks need immediate tuning. So, check out each new perk and plan out new strategies and playstyles that can benefit your playstyle.

Tanks

D.Va

Bunny Stomp

Call Mech’s damage radius is increased by 50%.

Ejection Suit

Eject grants 75 temporary overhealth.

Shield System

Convert 150 health to shields. Defense Matrix restores shields based on 25% of its damage absorbed.

Heavy Rockets

Micro Missiles are swapped for Heavy Rockets which fire fewer projectiles with increased damage and explosion size.

Doomfist

One-Two

Hitting an enemy with Rocket Punch reloads all Hand Cannon ammo.

Survival of the Fittest

The Best Defense grants 25 overhealth from eliminations and its max overhealth is increased by 50.

Seismic Empowerment

Hitting 3 or more enemies with Seismic Slam empowers Rocket Punch.

Power Matrix

Power Block absorbs projectiles for the first second of its duration.

Hazard

Off the Top

Violent Leap’s Slash deals 30% more damage to enemies above 250 health.

Reconstitution

Jagged Wall hits charge Spike Guard with 25 energy, up to 50 extra.

Anarchic Zeal

Spike Guard’s spikes gain 25% Lifesteal.

Deep Leap

Violent Leap’s range is increased by 20%.

Junker Queen

Rending Recall

Recalling Jagged Blade from a stuck target refreshes its wound.

Battle Shout

Commanding Shout fully reloads Scatter Gun and increases allied reload speed by 50%.

Deep Wounds

Scattergun hits extend your wound durations on those enemies by .25 seconds.

Savage Satiation

Carnage’s impact damage gains 100% lifesteal.

Mauga

Kinetic Bandolier

Overrun reloads up to 150 ammo while charging.

Two Hearts

While on an objective, Mauga counts as 2 heroes and regenerates 20 health per second.

Firewalker

Overrun ignites enemies hit.

Combat Fuel

Critical hits grant Mauga 2 temporary overhealth on Cardiac Overdrive’s next use, up to 100 overhealth.

Orisa

Heat Dissipator

Primary Fire critical hits refund heat.

Fleeting Bulwark

Fortify briefly grants an additional 100 overhealth when activated.

Charged Javelin

Hold Secondary Fire to charge Energy Javelin, increasing its speed and knockback. Pierces enemies at full power.

Protective Barrier

Convert Javelin Spin to instead launch a barrier.

Ramattra

Void Surge

Void Accelerator periodically releases a burst of 6 additional projectiles during continuous fire.

Prolonged Barrier

Void Barrier’s duration is increased by 25%.

Nanite Repair

Ramattra is healed for 50 health per second while within Ravenous Vortex.

Vengeful Vortex

While Ravenous Vortex is airborne, use Secondary Fire again to detonate it, dealing 50 damage and pulling enemies downward.

Reinhardt

Crusader’s Resolve

While using Barrier Field, your passive health regeneration triggers 50% sooner.

Fiery Uptake

Barrier Field is healed for 100% of Fire Strike’s damage dealt.

Shield Slam

While Barrier Field is active, use Secondary Fire to damage and knockback enemies.

Crushing Victory

Charge damage grants temporary overhealth for 50% of the damage dealt.

Roadhog

Scrap Hook

Chain Hook hits reload 2 ammo.

Hog Toss

Pig Pen’s throw range is increased by 50%.

Invigorate

Take A Breather rapidly increases Roadhog’s movement speed by 30%.

Hogdrogen Exposure

Take A Breather also heals nearby allies for 50% of its healing.

Sigma

Kinetic Cycle

Absorbing projectiles with Kinetic Grasp also reduces Accretion’s cooldown.

Massive Impact

Accretion’s knockdown duration increases to up to 3 seconds based on travel distance.

Hyper Strike

Every 5 direct hits with Hyperspheres, your next successful Quick Melee levitates and knocks away enemies.

Levitation

Activate and hold Double Jump to briefly levitate upward.

Winston

Short Circuit

Tesla Cannon deals 30% more damage to deployable objects.

Heavy Landing

During Primal Rage, Jump Pack’s damage and area increase by up to 75% while airborne.

Chain Lightning

Fully charged Secondary Fire hits bounce to up to 2 additional targets.

Revitalizing Barrier

Barrier Projector heals allies within it for 30 health per second.

Wrecking Ball

Steamroller

Roll impacts deal 100% more damage to Tanks.

Pack Rat

Health Packs heal an additional 100 health.

Hang Time

Piledriver winds up longer, gaining air control and dealing up to 50% more damage.

Transfer Efficiency

Reactivating Adaptive Shield reduces its cooldown by 1.5 seconds per ally affected and ally health gained is increased by 33%.

Zarya

Jump-Ups

Secondary Fire’s self-knockback is increased by 75%.

Graviton Crush

Graviton Surge deals up to 30% of enemy max health as damage over time.

Energy Lance

Particle Cannon’s beam pierces enemies while over 50 energy.

Spotter

Projected Barrier activates ally health regeneration and increases their movement speed by 15%.

Damage

Ashe

Rapid Fire

Unscoped shots gain 30% increased attack speed, but deal 15% less damage.

Sidewinder

Coach Gun pushes Ashe and enemies 20% farther.

Viper’s Sting

Hitting 2 consecutive scoped shots on a target deals 25 extra damage and reloads 2 ammo.

Airburst

Dynamite has a 40% increased detonation radius while airborne and refunds 3 ammo when thrown.

Bastion

Smart Bomb

A-36 Tactical Grenade’s self-knockback is increased by 25% and no longer damages you.

Armored Artillery

Configuration: Artillery grants 300 temporary overhealth.

Lindholm Explosives

Configuration: Assault’s weapon slowly fires explosive shells instead of a rotary cannon.

Self-Repair

Press Ability 2 to rapidly heal yourself.

Cassidy

Quick Draw

Fan the Hammer shots are individually controlled and can crit for 50% more damage.

Past Noon

Deadeye refunds 30% Ultimate Charge if it fully expires.

Gun Slingin’

Critical hits with Primary Fire reduce the cooldown of Combat Roll by 3 seconds.

Bang Bang

Cassidy throws a second Flashbang that travels farther, but both Flashbangs deal 30% reduced damage.

Echo

Friendly Imaging

Duplicate can also target allies.

Enhanced Duplication

During Duplicate, your clone’s first ultimate extends Duplicate’s duration by 3 seconds.

Full Salvo

Sticky Bombs fires 50% more projectiles, but all Sticky Bombs deal 15% less damage.

High Beams

Focusing Beam eliminations reset Flight’s cooldown.

Genji

Acrobatics

Swift Strike resets double jump.

Dragon’s Thirst

Dragonblade swings gain 30% lifesteal.

Blade Twisting

Swift Strike deals 25 additional damage over time when used shortly after an Elimination.

Meditation

Regenerate 25 health per second while Deflect is active.

Hanzo

Sonic Disruption

Sonic Arrow hacks nearby Health Packs for 12 seconds.

Scatter Arrows

Storm Arrows split into 3 new projectiles on their first ricochet and bounce 2 extra times.

Dragon Fury

After hitting an enemy with Primary Fire, gain 25% attack speed for 1 second.

Yamagami Technique

Wall Climb accelerates your Lunge cooldown by 250%.

Junkrat

Aluminium Frame

Steel Trap’s throw range is increased by 50%.

Nitro Boost

During RIP-Tire, use Ability 1 to gain a quick boost of speed. Doing so reduces RIP-Tire’s damage by 50%.

Frag Cannon

Frag Launcher’s projectile speed is increased by 40%, but its max ammo is reduced by 1.

Tick Tock

Concussive Mine arms .5 seconds after landing, increasing damage by 50%, explosion radius by 50%, and health by 200%.

Mei

Chilling Reach

Primary Fire’s range is increased by 30%.

Permafrost

Ice Wall’s duration and cooldown are increased by 2 seconds.

Biting Cold

Secondary fire hits slow enemies by 15% for 1.5 seconds, stacking up to 30%.

Cryo-Storm

Cryo-Freeze slows and deals 70 damage per second to nearby enemies.

Pharah

Drift Thrusters

Pharah can move while Barrage is active.

Helix Shields

Convert 75 health to shields.

Concussive Implosion

Concussive Blast’s knockback is inverted to a pull in.

Fuel Stores

Jet Dash grants 50% fuel. Maximum overfuel is increased by 100%.

Ramattra

Death’s Shadow

Shadow Step reloads Hellfire Shotguns and has 25% increased range.

Soul Reaving

Collect Soul Globes from dead enemies to restore 50 health.

Dire Triggers

Use Secondary Fire to fire a volley with long range accuracy from both Hellfire Shotguns.

Ravenous Wraith

Leaving Wraith Form grants 40% additional lifesteal for 3 seconds.

Sojourn

Extended Mag

Maximum ammo increased by 15.

Overcharged

Railgun’s maximum energy is increased by 50 while Overclock is active.

Dual Thrusters

Power Slide gains an additional charge and its jump height shifts to lateral movement.

Adhesive Siphon

Disruptor Shot can stick to enemies and generates Railgun energy when dealing damage.

Soldier: 76

Recycled Pulse Munitions

Helix Rockets reload 15 ammo if they damage an enemy.

Field Emergency

Biotic Field’s healing is increased by 100% on critical health allies.

Agility Training

Sprint’s speed is increased by 20% and Reload can be performed while Sprint is active.

Stim Pack

Biotic Field can be used as a Stim Pack, increasing Attack Speed and Reload Speed by 30% while being unhealable for 4 seconds.

Sombra

Viral Efficacy

Virus’ cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds when an enemy affected by Virus is eliminated.

CTRL ALT ESC

Teleporting with Translocator while at critical health initiates passive health regeneration.

White Hat

Hack can be used on allies to restore 100 health over 2 seconds.

Stack Overflow

Hack’s silence duration is increased by 100%, but its range is decreased by 30%.

Symmetra

Sentry Capacity

Sentry Turret gains an additional charge.

Advanced Teleportation

Teleporter’s range is increased by 50%.

Perfect Alignment

Primary Fire’s range increases by 15% with each additional charge level.

Shield Battery

Symmetra regenerates 20 shields per second while within 10 meters of her teleporter.

Torbjörn

Craftsman

Forge Hammer can restore armor health to allies. Turret repair’s heal is increased by 25%.

Fully Loaded

Activating Overload fully refills Rivet Gun’s ammo.

Anchor Bolts

Deploy Turret’s throw range is increased by 50% and it can now attach to walls and ceilings.

Overloaded Turret

Overload upgrades your Turret for 5 seconds, increasing its health and damage.

Tracer

Blink Packs

Health Packs restore 1 Blink charge.

Blast from the Past

Pulse Bomb’s radius is increased by 50%.

Flashback

Recall restores all Blink charges.

Quantum Entanglement

Recall grants 50 overhealth that decays over time.

Venture

Seismic Sense

While underground, Venture can sense enemies within 25 meters.

Excavation Exhilaration

While Tectonic Shock is active, cooldowns refresh 300% faster

SMART-R Excavator

SMART Excavator’s range is increased by 25%.

Covered In Dirt

Dealing damage with Clobber grants up to 30 Explorer’s Resolve shields.

Widowmaker

Scoped Efficiency

Scoped shots cost 3 ammo instead of 5.

Focused Aim

Scoped shots charge 50% faster during Infra-sight.

Escape Plan

Scoped shot hits reduce Grappling Hook’s cooldown by up to 4 seconds.

Deadly Deux

Venom Mine gains 50% increased damage and a second charge, enabling 2 active mines at a time.

Support

Ana

Groggy

Enemies waking from Sleep Dart are slowed for 2 seconds.

Biotic Bounce

After exploding, Biotic Grenade bounces and explodes again for 50 damage and healing.

Headhunter

Biotic Rifle can crit enemies.

Shrike

Using Nano Boost also casts it on Ana.

Baptiste

Field Medicine

Immortality Field restores 80 health to nearby allies and 40 health to Baptiste when destroyed.

Automated Healing

After placing Amplification Matrix, your Shoulder Turret periodically fires up to 12 shots at allies, each restoring 25 health.

Assault Burst

Regenerative Burst grants Baptiste 20% attack speed for 4 seconds, but no longer instantly heals.

Rocket Boots

While airborne from Exo Boots, use Jump to dash horizontally.

Brigitte

Barrier Restoration

Shield Bash restores 100 health to Barrier Shield when it hits an enemy.

Morale Boost

Inspire lasts 3 seconds longer when activated by Whip Shot.

Quick Fix

Repair Packs instantly heal an additional 35 health to critical health allies.

Whiplash

Whip Shot’s knockback can slam enemies into walls, dealing 50 extra damage.

Illari

Rapid Construction

Healing Pylon builds 300% faster and its cooldown is reduced by 1.5 seconds.

Summer Solstice

Illari’s flight time during Captive Sun is increased by 3 seconds and her flight speed is increased by 20%.

Solar Power

Fully charged Solar Rifle hits grant 12.5% of your maximum solar energy, overfilling up to 50%.

Sunburn

Outburst ignites enemies, dealing an additional 70 damage over 3 seconds.

Juno

Familiar Vitals

Pulsar Torpedoes lock onto allies 35% faster.

Hyper Boost

While using Glide Boost, passing through Hyper Ring pushes you forward.

Master Blaster

Mediblaster can crit enemies.

Re-Boots

Activating Glide Boost resets Double Jump.

Kiriko

Urgent Care

Healing Ofuda projectile speed is increased by 50% when seeking critical health allies.

Fortune Teller

Kunai hits launch 2 Healing Ofuda to an ally in front of you.

Shuffling

Swift Step can be used again within 4 seconds of its initial cast.

Foxtrot

Protection Suzu grants 40% movement speed to allies for 2 seconds.

Lifeweaver

Cleansing Grasp

Life Grip cleanses negative effects.

Life Cycle

While alive, regenerate 10 health per second. Upon death, drop a healing seed that heals allies for 250 health.

Lifeweaving

Rejuvenating Dash adds 20 healing to your next Healing Blossom within 3 seconds.

Superbloom

Thorns detonate for 30 extra damage when enough stick within 1.5 seconds.

Lúcio

Bass Blowout

Soundwave’s knockback is increased by 15%.

Groovin’

Regenerate 4 ammo per second while wall riding.

Noise Violation

Crossfade’s range is increased by 150% while Amp It Up is active.

Accelerando

Lucio’s attack speed is increased by 50% while Amp It Up is active.

Mercy

Angelic Recovery

Mercy receives 15 health per second while Caduceus Staff is attached to a full health ally.

Winged Reach

Guardian Angel’s range is increased by 30%.

Chain Boost

Secondary Fire links to a second nearby ally.

Flash Heal

Resurrect can be used on Caduceus Staff’s active target to restore 150 health. Doing so incurs a 15 second cooldown.

Moira

Vanish

Fade’s duration is increased by 0.5 seconds.

Uprush

Fade’s jump height is increased by 50%.

Ethical Nourishment

Biotic Orb’s first 50 healing is instant on each ally it encounters.

Contamination

Enemies being damaged by Biotic Orb receive 25% reduced healing.

Zenyatta

Zenith Kick

Snap Kick’s knockback distance is increased by 30%.

Ascendance

Activate and hold Double Jump to hover for up to 3 seconds.

Focused Destruction

Secondary Fire charges 20% faster and can store 1 extra Orb of Destruction.

Duality

Zenyatta heals Orb of Harmony targets for 20% of his damage dealt to Orb of Discord targets.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed a bug where players were unable to rename highlights when saving them.

Fixes a bug where Voice Line Icons would sometimes appear over prestige tiers in the battle pass.

Fixed a bug where the Drives Signature VFX would sometimes extend off the nametag.

Fixed a bug where the final score would sometimes not appear in ranked games.

Heroes

Fixed a bug where Hazard’s Jagged Wall projectiles would not respect barrier.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: February 7th/8th 2025
Patch notes:

Bug Fixes

Heroes

Doomfist (Overwatch Classic – Moth Meta)

In Overwatch Classic, we’ve adjusted Seismic Slam’s ground checks and the shockwave hitbox to the older values.

In Overwatch Classic, air time for Uppercut was adjusted to the original value. Loss of air control duration is set to the original 3 seconds instead of 0.6 seconds.

In Overwatch Classic, Meteor Strike no longer can cancel Seismic Slam and Uppercut.

In O verwatch Classic, Rocket Punch no longer can cancel Seismic Slam and Uppercut.

Developer comment: We’ve applied multiple adjustments to retune Doomfist to be closer to his original balance from the original September 2017 balance for both gameplay and feel. We are looking to apply additional bug fixes next week to address other issues reported.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: February 6th/7th 2025
Patch notes:

Bug Fixes

Heroes

Mercy (Overwatch Classic – Moth Meta)

Guardian Angel has been updated to have increased speed and range during Valkyrie.

Mercy’s resurrect cast time has been improved.

Developer Comment: We have made some adjustments to Mercy’s abilities to be more like the original feel of the hero in 2017. Additionally, we’re planning an update to Doomfist in the mode in the next patch.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: February 4th/5th 2025
Patch notes:

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed an issue where the game may ask you to restart to apply changes when no changes have been made.

Heroes

Ashe

Fixed an issue causing Ashe Lead Rose Mythic weapon to clip into the stage inside the Mythic Shop.

Moira

Fixed an issue with texture distortion when using the Facepalm emote as Moira with certain skins.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: January 28th/29th 2025
Patch notes:

New Player Experience

Players new to Overwatch 2 may encounter AI-controlled opponents in the first five opening matches of Quick Play.

New players will now have Quick Play Role Queue available instead of Quick Play Open Queue.

The total number of matches required to unlock all other modes has been reduced from 10 to 5.

Players on new accounts that demonstrate clearly experienced performance may be immediately seeded to higher MMR faster. Those on seasoned accounts who have already played multiple games are not subjected to this rapid MMR adjustment.

Developer Comment: We have noticed that genuinely new players can sometimes be paired against players who are starting alternate accounts which can create a poor first-time experience for those new players. Also, to help keep players on alternate accounts from playing at a high level on lower skill matches, we are starting to roll out a new system which will rapidly adjust the initial matchmaking rating of new players to match their skills significantly faster.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 14 Mid-Season Update)

Release date: January 21st/22nd 2025
Patch notes:

YEAR OF THE SNAKE SEASONAL EVENT

Celebrate the Lunar New Year – Year of the Snake – in Overwatch 2 with the return of Mischief & Magic, a festive game mode that blends strategy, stealth, and skill along with Bounty Hunter and Capture the Flag. Complete event challenges to unlock exclusive rewards, including Lunar New Year-themed cosmetics that capture the joy and vibrancy of the season. Don’t miss your chance to outwit, outplay, and outlast your opponents!

VALENTINE’S DAY 2025

Take aim and fall in love again with the return of the Love of Geometry game mode. This team Deathmatch brawl pits teams of four Cupid Hanzos against each other. Be sure to watch out as hiding around corners is not safe as everyone can use the original Scatter Arrow ability for Hanzo. This is an event that you’ll fall in love with again as it runs from February 4 to February 18.

6V6 EXPERIMENTAL – MINIMUM 1, MAXIMUM 3

Step back into Overwatch’s origins even more with a fresh twist on the beloved six-player team format. The 6v6 Min 1, Max 3 Mode is a unique experiment that blends nostalgia with modern gameplay dynamics, offering a structured composition alongside the flexibility to switch roles mid-match. And your participation in this experiment will help shape the future of Overwatch 2’s gameplay—so don’t miss this chance to leave your mark.

Heroes are selected first come, first serve.

Each team must have at least one hero from all three roles, but cannot have more than three heroes from any given role.

Players can switch between roles while in the spawn room.

Hero balance for this experiment uses the same hero balance from the 6v6 2-2-2 Role Queue experiment.

This game mode is available to play in Unranked from January 21 to February 3.

OVERWATCH CLASSIC – MOTH META

Overwatch Classic – Moth Meta brings you back to one of the most iconic and chaotic chapters in Overwatch history. Mercy’s legendary “Moth” gameplay takes the spotlight as her lightning-fast Resurrects redefine team fights, while heroes like DPS Doomfist and Symmetra with her Shield Generator make a triumphant return to the battlefield. Step onto beloved maps Oasis, Eichenwalde, and Junkertown, where every skirmish is packed with nostalgic strategies and unpredictable mayhem.

Heroes added include Ana, Sombra, Orisa, and Doomfist.

Maps added include Eichenwalde, Oasis, Horizon Lunar Colony, and Junkertown.

Hero balance is adjusted to the September 2017 Hero Balance.

NEW MYTHIC WEAPON – ASHE’S LEAD ROSE

Our latest Mythic Weapon is Ashe’s Lead Rose. Growing up in the Lead Rose Manor, Ashe was expected to be the perfect daughter. But while her parents had hoped for a flawless rose, they never expected Ashe’s thorns. Like Ashe, this weapon is both beautiful and lethal. The more Ashe embraces her rebellious nature by earning eliminations, the more she blooms into the person she was meant to be! At level one, players will unlock her base Mythic weapon. Level two unlocks reactivity and the Mythic HUD. The beloved flourish is on Level Three which allows Ashe to tauntingly toss a rose at her opponents. And Level Four is the elimination effects, exploding enemies in a burst of rose petals.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

COMPETITIVE DRIVES

A new Drives signature is available to earn from February 11 to February 16

Players can now earn up to 6,000 Competitive Points by completing Competitive Drive Stages, enough to unlock 2 Jade or Golden Weapon Variants.

COMPETITIVE REWARDS

As the 2024 Competitive Year concludes, Season 14 is the last chance to redeem Competitive Points for Jade Weapon Variants. After Season 14 is complete, any accumulated Competitive Points will be converted to Legacy Competitive Points which can be redeemed for Golden Weapon Variants. Jade Weapon Variants will not be available to collect starting in Season 15.

HERO UPDATES

These hero balance updates only apply to our standard game modes and not the 6v6 Experiment or Overwatch Classic.

TANK

Ramattra

Developer Comment: Ramattra has been underperforming relative to other brawl tanks. Adding a small increase to his armor will provide a necessary boost without altering his core gameplay.

Base Armor increased from 75 to 100

Winston

Developer Comment: Winston’s dive potential has been impacted by the increased health pools of enemies. By boosting the damage of the Tesla Cannon’s secondary fire and providing more ammo, this will allow Winston to follow up and finish off enemies without needing to reload as often.

Tesla Cannon

Ammo increased from 100 to 120

Secondary fire max charge damage increased from 50 to 60

Primal Rage

Ultimate ability cost increased by 12%

Hazard

Developer Comment: We’re finding our newest tank’s mobility to be a little too hazardous. By decreasing Violent Leap’s cooldown, Hazard will have to be more selective with how he dives into the opponent backlines.

Violent Leap

Violent Leap cooldown increased from 5 to 6 seconds.

DAMAGE

Echo

Developer Comment: Echo has been slightly underperforming recently, so we are increasing the base damage of the Focusing Beam. This change will make it easier to push enemies into the critical health threshold.

Focusing Beam

Damage-per-second on targets above 50% HP increased from 50 to 75.

Tracer

Developer Comment: Tracer has remained less threatening since the damage reduction to her Pulse Pistols. Reducing their spread will make her damage more consistent at slightly longer ranges.

Pulse Pistols

Spread decreased by 15%

SUPPORT

Ana

Developer Comment: Recent changes to her rifle have made Ana a highly impactful support. Reducing the damage of her Biotic Grenade will adjust some of her breakpoints and slightly affect her self-sustainability.

Biotic Grenade

Explosion damage and healing decreased from 90 to 75.

Illari

Developer Comment: lllari can struggle to heal allies without her Healing Pylon. Increasing the maximum resource of her secondary fire will allow her to support her team more effectively during those moments.

Solar Rifle

Secondary Fire Maximum resource increased from 3 to 3.5 seconds.

Juno

Developer Comment: Juno’s ultimate remains too powerful when used effectively by her allies. Reducing both the duration and damage amplification will reduce the potency of the ultimate.

Orbital Ray

Duration reduced from 10 to 8 seconds

Damage amplification reduced from 35% to 30%

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

Fixed an issue where competitive titles will sometimes unequip after a logout.

MAPS

Circuit Royal

Fixed an issue which now prevents turrets from being placed inside the sportscars.

HEROES

Bastion

Fixed in previous release, fixed an issue causing Bastion’s Ultimate to not have impact sounds or VFX.

Hazard

Fixed an issue where Hazard’s Jagged Wall projectiles would pass through certain player made objects such as Cryo-Freeze, Ice Wall, Petal Platform.

Sombra

Fixed an issue where Sombra’s EMP can sometimes fail to hit opponents if they had previously interacted with Jagged Wall.

Zenyatta

Fixed an issue causing Zenyatta to T-Pose with the “Retro Hero” emote.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: January 7th/8th 2025
Patch notes:

Hero Balance Updates

These hero balance updates only apply to our standard game modes and not the 6v6 Experiment.

Tank

Hazard

Spike Guard

Damage reduction is reduced from 75% to 65%.

Duration reduced from 3.5 to 3 seconds.

Damage

Sojourn

Railgun

Time before energy degeneration begins decreased from 12 to 9 seconds.

Widowmaker

Widow’s Kiss

Scoped shots no longer benefit from global projectile size increases.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: December 19th/20th 2024
Patch notes:

General

Fixed in a previous update an issue which was preventing queueing for the Yeti Hunter game mode

Heroes

Brigitte

Fixed an issue with Brigitte’s Medic skin not appearing in the Hero Gallery and being able to be equipped.

Hazard

Fixed an issue with the confirmation prompts for Hazard’s Jagged Wall when turning preplacement controls to “On”

Fixed an issue preventing Hazard’s Jagged Wall ability from being placed on the destructible ground in Petra.

Fixed an issue with Hazards Golden Weapon Variant, which is now available.

Juno

Fixed in a previous update an issue where Juno’s Orbital Ray could stack the damage boost on a subset of heroes.

Lifeweaver

Fixed in a previous update an issue with Lifeweaver’s Healing Blossom projectile preventing it from curving.

Mauga

Fixed in a previous update an issue with Mauga’s gameplay in Freeze Flash elimination is now available to play in that mode again.

Sojourn

Fixed an issue with Sojourn’s Disruptor shot not providing the correct damage.

Sombra

Fixed in a previous update an issue where Sombra could hack a friendly Lifeweaver Petal Platform

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: December 17th/18th 2024
Patch notes:

6v6 Experiment – 2-2-2 Role Queue

Revisit the roots of Overwatch with the 6v6 Role Queue experiment, bringing back the structured 2-2-2 team composition for a limited time. This mode combines the thrill of the original six-player team dynamic with the strategic depth of Overwatch 2’s updated heroes and abilities. Dive in to experience a new balance of strategy, adaptability, and pure team synergy—showcasing how modern Overwatch gameplay thrives in a classic format.

The 6v6 Experiment will be available to play in the Unranked Menu from December 17 to January 6.

This mode uses the Role Queue Ruleset comprised of 2 Tank Heroes, 2 Damage Heroes, and 2 Support Heroes.

Map selection and gameplay is based on the Quick Play ruleset.

Experimental Changes

To accommodate the 6v6 format, multiple heroes received balance changes that better suit their abilities in the 6v6 format. These changes are only applied for this mode and are adjusted from the most recent hero balance from the December 10 Patch.

General

Base health regeneration timer increased from 5 to 7 seconds.

Tank

Tank role passive

Knockback and critical damage reduction removed.

No longer affects health.

Now only reduces ultimate charge generated by 25%.

D.Va

Base health increased from 225 to 350.

Base armor reduced from 325 to 300.

Fusion Cannons

Weapon spread increased from 3.375 to 4 degrees.

Movement speed penalty increased from 30% to 40%.

Defense Matrix

Maximum duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.

Boosters

Cooldown increased from 3.5 to 4 seconds.

Micro Missiles

Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.

Doomfist

Base health increased from 375 to 425.

Seismic Slam

Cooldown increased from 6.5 to 7.5 seconds.

Power Block

Maximum duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 seconds.

Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.

The Best Defense (Passive)

Overhealth gained per target reduced from 40 to 35 HP.

Maximum temporary health reduced from 200 to 150 health.

Hazard

Spike Guard

Duration reduced from 3.5 to 3 seconds.

Recharge time increased from 5 to 6 seconds.

Jagged Wall

Cooldown increased from 12 to 15 seconds.

Health increased from 400 to 500.

Junker Queen

Base health increased from 375 to 425.

Commanding Shout

Cooldown increased from 12 to 15 seconds.

Adrenaline Rush

Self-healing from wounds damage scalar reduced from 2.5x to 1.0x.

Mauga

Base armor reduced from 150 to 100.

Base health increased from 425 to 450.

Overrun

Cooldown increased from 5 to 7 seconds.

Stomp damage reduced from 75 to 60.

Cardiac Overdrive

o Allied lifesteal reduced from 50% to 30%. o Cooldown increased from 15 to 17 seconds.

Cage Fight

Maximum duration reduced from 8 to 7 seconds.

Orisa

Base armor reduced from 325 to 250.

Base health increased from 150 to 250.

Augmented Fusion Driver

Now has damage falloff starting at 25 meters.

Energy Javelin

Maximum duration reduced from 8 to 7 seconds.

Fortify

No longer immune to critical damage.

Ramattra

Base health increased from 250 to 375.

Void Barrier

Cooldown increased from 13 to 16 seconds.

Nemesis form

Bonus armor reduced from 300 to 200.

Reinhardt

Base health increased from 250 to 325.

Base armor reduced from 300 to 225.

Now has the Steadfast passive again, reducing knockback by 30%.

Barrier Field

Health increased from 1500 to 2000.

Charge

Cooldown increased from 7 to 10 seconds.

Steering reduced 50%.

Fire Strike

Ability charges reduced from 2 to 1.

Earthshatter

Distance reduced from 25 to 20 meters.

Roadhog

Base health increased from 600 to 650.

Scrap Gun

Secondary fire air burst projectile added.

Primary fire 4 large center projectiles removed.

Primary fire pellets per shot increased from 16 to 25 projectiles.

Damage per pellet increased from 6.25 to 6.5.

Critical damage multiplier increased from 1.5 to 2x.

Chain Hook

Cooldown increased from 6 to 8 seconds.

Take a Breather

Default bind moved from secondary fire to Ability 2.

Maximum heal reduced from 400 to 325.

Damage reduction increased from 40 to 50%.

Cooldown is now 8 seconds, no longer resource based.

Whole Hog

Duration reduced from 8 to 6 seconds.

Sigma

Base shield health reduced from 275 to 250.

Experimental Barrier

Recharge rate increased from 85 to 100 health per second.

Accretion

Damage reduced from 120 to 100.

Winston

Base health increased from 225 to 350.

Base armor reduced from 250 to 200.

Tesla Cannon

No longer ignores armor damage reduction.

Secondary fire charge time increased from 0.85 to 1.1 sec.

Secondary fire ammo cost increased from 12 to 25.

Jump Pack

Cooldown increased from 5 to 6 seconds.

Barrier Projector

Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds.

Primal Rage

Maximum health gain reduced from 700 to 500.

Wrecking Ball

Base shield health removed.

Base health increased from 300 to 500.

Base armor reduced from 175 to 150.

Adaptive Shields

No longer able to disperse shields to allies.

Radius reduced from 13 to 8 meters.

Overhealth gained per target reduced from 100 to 75.

Pile Driver

Cooldown increased from 8 to 10 seconds.

Zarya

Base health increased from 175 to 225.

Particle Barrier

No longer shares a cooldown with Projected Barrier.

Health reduced from 225 to 200.

Duration reduced from 2.25 to 2 seconds.

Cooldown reduced from 11 to 10 seconds.

Projected Barrier

Health reduced from 225 to 200.

Duration reduced from 2.25 to 2 seconds.

Cooldown reduced from 9 to 8 seconds.

Damage

Damage role passive

Healing reduction decreased from 25% to 15%.

No longer has reduced effectiveness for tank heroes.

Ashe

B.O.B.

B.O.B.’s health increased from 1000 to 1200.

Cassidy

Peacekeeper

Fan the hammer secondary fire damage increased from 45 to 50.

Echo

Focusing Beam

Damage multiplier for low health targets increased from 3.5 to 4x (200 DPS).

Duplicate

No longer has a max health for copied target.

Hanzo

Storm Bow

Time to fully charge each shot reduced from 0.8 to 0.72 seconds.

Mei

Ice Wall

Wall Health increased from 250 to 300.

Soldier: 76

Heavy Pulse Rifle

Damage increased from 19 to 20.

Torbjörn

Deploy Turret

Damage increased from 13 to 15.

Tracer

Pulse Pistols

Falloff range increased from 10 to 12 meters.

Widowmaker

Base health increased from 200 to 225.

Support

Ana

Biotic Rifle

Maximum ammo reduced from 15 to 12.

Biotic Grenade

Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds.

Sleep Dart

No longer has reduced duration versus Tank heroes.

Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds.

Baptiste

Regenerative Burst

No longer heals twice as much for allies under 50% max health.

Instant heal increased from 40 to 50.

Healing over time increased from 40 to 100 over 5 seconds.

Immortality Field

Drone Health increased from 125 to 150

Illari

Solar Rifle

Max damage increased from 70 to 75.

Min damage increased from 20 to 25.

Healing Pylon

Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds.

Juno

Pulsar Torpedoes

Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

Hyper Ring

Maximum duration reduced from 6 to 4.5 seconds.

Oribital Ray

Maximum duration reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.

Kiriko

Healing Ofuda

Recovery time reduced from 0.9 to 0.8 seconds.

Healing per projectile increased from 13 to 14.

Lifeweaver

Healing Blossom

Maximum heal increased from 80 to 90.

Petal Platform

Cooldown increased from 12 to 15 seconds.

Tree of Life

Maximum duration reduced from 15 to 12 seconds.

Cooldown increased from 12 to 15 seconds.

Zenyatta

Orb of Destruction

Ammo reduced from 25 to 20.

Harmony Orb

Time to wear off when not in line of sight reduced from 5 to 3 seconds.

Orb of Discord

No longer has a cooldown per target.

Time to fall off target when not in line of sight increased from 1.5 to 3 seconds.

Snap Kick (Passive)

Knockback reduced 20%.

No longer increases quick melee damage.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: December 16th/17th 2024
Patch notes:

HERO BALANCE UPDATES

TANK

Hazard

Downpour

Ultimate cost increased 13%.

DAMAGE

Sojourn

Railgun

Primary fire shots-per-second reduced from 16 to 15.

Disruptor Shot

No longer generates energy.

Overclock

Energy charge rate reduced from 120 to 100 per second.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 14: Hazard)

Release date: December 10th/11th 2024
Patch notes:

Season 14: Hazard

Get ready for an explosive season as we introduce Hazard, the new Scottish tank hero, embodying the spirit of anarchy for the greater good. Then test your skills with a unique blend of past and present in the 6v6 Role Queue event, where teamwork and synergy shine within the 2-2-2 setup. Plus, prepare to wield the hammer of Gods as Mythic Thor Reinhardt and earn up to five Legendary skins with the Premium Battle Pass. Packed with nostalgia, customization, and radical gameplay, Season 14 has everything you need to dominate in style and become a hazard to the competition.

Winter Wonderland 2024

The Winter Wonderland event returns now through January 7, bringing fan-favorite modes and exclusive rewards for the holiday season! From Mei’s Snowball Offensive to Freezethaw Elimination, there’s something for everyone. Complete challenges to earn seasonal rewards, including the festive Winter Casual Hanzo skin.

6V6 Role Queue Experiment

Explore Overwatch 2’s latest evolution with the 6v6 Role Queue experiment, where strategy meets nostalgia. Dive into this unique mode to experience the dynamics of 6-player teams while maintaining structured gameplay, showcasing how modern Overwatch 2 heroes and abilities adapt to the classic team format.

Hero Mastery – Ashe

Practice your sharpshooting skills and get B.O.B. to do something, when Hero Mastery courses for Ashe arrives on January 14.

Hero updates

Damage Role Passive

Debuff duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds.

Healing reduction increased from 20% to 25%.

Global Projectile Size Bonus

Hitscan radius large reduced from 0.08 to 0.07 meters.

Hitscan radius small reduced from 0.05 to 0.04 meters.

Projectile radius large reduced from 0.15 to 0.12 meters.

Developer Comment: We’re increasing the potency of the damage role passive in order to make the threat of sustained damage more meaningful by slowing down health recovery while in combat. At the same time, we’re slightly decreasing how reliable hitscan and large travel time projectiles are to hit.

TANK

Doomfist

Developer Comment: The recent increase to Rocket Punch wall slam angle has added a lot of consistency and made Doomfist significantly more threatening. To help account for this we’re pulling out some of the survivability from Seismic Slam.

Seismic Slam

Shockwave range reduced from 18 to 15 meters.

Cooldown increased from 6 to 6.5 seconds.

Hazard

Developer Comment: The community feedback from Hazard’s trial has been largely positive, despite underperforming slightly. We’re adjusting his kit to increase the damage of his primary fire, making Bonespur more consistent and a reliable tool for finishing off enemies. Spike Guard protection sometimes felt inconsistent due to being used from a third-person perspective. To address this, we’ve widened the forward blocking angle, providing Hazard with more reliable protection. Additionally, the damage of Spike Guard has been slightly reduced to balance the increased Bonespur damage and protection radius. We’re also strengthening the Jagged Wall to make it more impactful, while increasing the time required to retrigger the knockback effect to minimize frustration from frequent knockbacks.

Bonespur

Damage per spike increased from 6.75 to 7.5.

Each volley’s center projectile no longer has a random launch spread and now always launches straight.

Spike Guard

The angle of protection provided by Spike Guard increased from 104 degrees to 180 degrees.

Damage per second reduced from 75 to 70.

Violent Leap

Post-slash recovery time for Primary Fire and Quick Melee increased from .3 seconds to .5 seconds.

Jagged Wall

Health increased from 350 to 400.

Knockback damage increased from 40 to 50.

Damage interval increased from 1.5 seconds per target to 1.75 seconds per target.

Downpour

Airborne momentum lost by casting Downpour reduced from 90% to 50%.

Vault

Minimum obstacle height to trigger Vault reduced from 1.75 meters to 1.25 meters, which should allow Hazard to scale short obstacles more consistently.

Mauga

Developer Comment: The Overrun changes from the last patch have been great for enabling more active Mauga playstyles. We’re converting some of his armor back to normal health to balance out some of the added survivability gained from the Overrun changes.

Base armor reduced from 200 to 150.

Base health increased from 375 to 425.

Orisa

Developer Comment: Although Orisa’s effectiveness dropped off further than expected, the removal of the Fortify heat reduction mechanic has had positive effects on gameplay by making her ammo resource more meaningful. We’re keeping that change while walking back some of the armor health loss. We also think her Terra Surge ultimate ability could be more effective so it now pulls enemies in from a further distance but the damage range hasn’t changed so it won’t be harder to get out of the area.

Armor increased from 300 to 325.

Base health reduced from 175 to 150.

Terra Surge

Pull radius increased from 8.5 to 10.5 meters

Ramattra

Developer Comment: Ravenous Vortex will now be more effective at dealing with bursts of high speed momentum, though this change does not have much effect on abilities that continuously move you for a duration like Reinhardt Charge or D.Va Boosters.

Ravenous Vortex

Now briefly interrupts horizontal momentum when first affecting a target.

Slowing field now ignores barriers for line of sight.

Winston

Developer Comment: Winston’s leap now has a higher maximum damage to better reward accuracy when landing directly next to a target, though it still has damage falloff when landing further away.

Jump Pack

Damage increased from 50 to 60.

DAMAGE

Ashe

Developer Comment: There were some inconsistencies for when Coach Gun was disabled by mobility lock abilities. Now Ashe will be able to activate Coach Gun while mobility is locked out (such as Junkrat’s Steel Trap) to knockback enemies but won’t move herself.

Coach Gun

Can now be activated while affected by mobility locking abilities but won’t move Ashe.

Pharah

Developer Comment: Pharah is a difficult hero to deal with for many due to her high flying mobility and burst damage. We’re reducing how often her horizontal movement cooldown is available to make it slightly more of a positioning commitment when used.

Jet Dash

Cooldown increased from 8 to 9 seconds.

Sojourn

Developer Comment: Sojourn has received adjustments to increase the rate of her energy gain and shifted some power into her Disruptor Shot ability recently, though the secondary fire lacking in impact undermines her core gameplay fantasy as “the Railgun hero”. We’re adding some damage back to it and will keep a close eye on how powerful she ends up being.

Railgun

Secondary fire damage scaling increased from 1-100 damage to 20-120 damage.

Soldier: 76

Developer Comment: Soldier could use a small increase to his effectiveness and with changes to the damage role passive it’s a good time to make his Biotic Field more available.

Biotic Field

Cooldown reduced from 18 to 15 seconds.

Symmetra

Developer Comment: Symmetra is performing quite well but we’d like to further enable teamplay around an interesting ability like the Teleporter by making it more difficult to destroy.

Teleporter

Base shield health increased from 200 to 250.

Torbjörn

Developer Comment: We’d like to make the turret more effective without increasing its damage. It now builds more quickly to better enable repositioning it for a faster pace of gameplay. We’ve also fixed a grievous oversight from moving to larger health pools and Torbjörn’s Forge Hammer will strike fear into his enemies once again.

Forge Hammer

Damage increased from 55 to 70.

Deploy Turret

Build time reduced from 3 to 2.5 seconds.

Base health increased from 225 to 250.

Venture

Developer Comment: This is mostly a quality-of-life change that makes Venture’s cooldown cycle more consistent, as they tend to activate Burrow while soaring through the air quite often.

Drill Dash

Cooldown rate is now faster anytime Burrow is active, rather than requiring the player to be underground.

SUPPORT

Baptiste

Developer Comment: Adjusting the values of Regenerative Burst will increase Baptiste’s self-survivability while also providing greater support to his teammates.

Regenerative Burst

Cooldown decreased from 15 to 14 seconds.

Radius increased from 10 to 12 meters.

Brigitte

Developer Comment: The duration has been reduced to limit Brigitte’s Inspire uptime, while the healing per second remains unchanged, ensuring that healing output is unaffected when Inspire is triggered consistently.

Inspire

Duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.

Illari

Developer Comment: Illari’s Captive Sun can be difficult to use effectively due to enemies’ ability to dodge its effects. Increasing the radius will improve the consistency and overall value of the ultimate.

Captive Sun

Explosion radius increased from 8 to 10 meters.

Lúcio

Developer Comment: The adjustment to Lúcio’s health pool has impacted his survivability in fights, this change will increase his durability in combat by improving his self-healing capabilities. Additionally, Sound Barrier now falls faster while in mid-air, enabling more reactive and safer usage from higher positions.

Crossfade

Self-healing penalty decreased from 60% to 40%.

Sound Barrier

Now falls faster when used in mid-air.

CUSTOM GAME UPDATES

A new option to enable or disable passive health regeneration is now available in Settings > Heroes > General.

BUG FIXES

MAPS

Temple of Anubis

Fixed an issue where spectating on the Temple of Anubis map could cause extreme performance issues.

HEROES

Brigitte

Fixed an issue where Brigitte could still get damaged while holding up her shield at the end of the Bash ability.

Hazard

Fixed a bug where Vault would sometimes abruptly cancel itself when attaching to walls via Violent Leap.

Fixed a bug where Vault sometimes wouldn’t climb walls when Hazard was perfectly perpendicular to the wall.

Fixed a bug where Vault wouldn’t climb walls at all when Hazard’s forward movement was partially impeded by a flanking wall.

Mercy

Fixed an issue causing Mercy’s resurrect lines to not play.

Moira

Fixed a bug where Moira’s orbs would sometimes visually stop moving.

Reinhardt

Fixed an issue where Reinhardt’s Earth Shatter ability was not affecting enemy heroes on certain floor sections.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Quick Play Hacked – Kingmaker)

Release date: December 4th/5th 2024
Patch notes:

Kingmaker

In Quick Play Hacked – Kingmaker, you’ll crown your team’s champion in a new twist from the previous Limit 2 experiment where the lone player in their role earns bonus powers to dominate the match. Experiment with new compositions while leveraging the Kingmaker system to give every role a chance to shine, even in unconventional lineups. You’ll want to be strategic in your role picks, as roles are locked at the start of each round, but switching roles mid-match can unlock game-changing potential.

Kingmaker will be in its own playable mode outside of Role Queue and Open Queue in the Unranked menu.

Players select roles in a first-come, first-served setup, with only two players per role (Tank, Damage, Support).

Once a role is capped at two players, it’s locked for the remaining team members.

You cannot switch roles during gameplay, but can switch between rounds for the Control game mode.

Whichever role has only a single hero, that hero will receive an extra bonus effect and will be to all players in the match.

This experimental mode runs through December 8.

Tank Kingmaker Bonus

Health increased by 150 HP.

Movement speed increased by 15%.

Decreased crowd control effect and incoming critical damage.

Damage Kingmaker Bonus

Health increased by 50 HP

All cooldowns decreased by 20%

Attack and reload speed increased by 20%

Support Kingmaker Bonus

Health increased by 100 HP

Healing to allies increased by 30%

All cooldowns decreased by 20%

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: November 26th/27th 2024
Patch notes:

Fixed an issue causing the Hero Mastery courses for Brigitte and Cassidy to be unavailable. These can now be played again.

Fixed an issue with the Stockholm Sunset Name Card.

In a previous update, fixed an issue where some players were missing first-person primary fire sounds on some heroes.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hazard Hero Trial)

Release date: November 22nd 2024
Patch notes:

INTRODUCING HAZARD

Step into the fray with Hazard, a Tank hero unlike any other. This brawl dive disruptor is here to fight against injustice with high mobility and a wall-placing ability that brings new layers of strategy to the game. Inspired by his Scottish roots and the punk ethos of his faction, the Phreaks, Hazard is all about rebellion, resilience, and radical justice for the greater good. Embrace anarchy and reshape the battlefield! Try out Hazard in your unranked games during a limited-time trial now through November 25.

Hazard

Tank Role

Not available in Competitive Play during the Hero Trial

Bonespur

Primary Fire

Fire a burst of spikes.

Spike Guard

Secondary Fire

Protect yourself, firing homing spikes at nearby enemies. While active, reduce damage taken and regenerate ammo.

Violent Leap

Ability 1

Lunge forward. Activate again to slash at enemies, knocking them back.

Jagged Wall

Ability 2

Launch a spiked wall that damages and knocks back nearby enemies.

Downpour

Ultimate Ability

Rain down a torrent of spikes, immobilizing enemies.

Vault

Passive ability

Scale short walls and grab ledges.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 13 Mid-Season)

Release date: November 12th/13th 2024
Patch notes:

Overwatch: Classic

For both new and seasoned Overwatch fans, this three-week event beginning November 12 offers a chance to step back in time and experience the thrilling origins of Overwatch. Revisit iconic maps, enjoy the original hero roster featuring their classic abilities, and embrace the chaotic fun of 6v6 with no-limit team compositions.

Warcraft: 30 Anniversary

To commemorate three decades of Warcraft, log in any time from November 15 to November 22 and receive free rewards as a celebration gift!

Hero Updates

Tanks

Doomfist

Developer Comments: This Rocket Punch adjustment makes it slightly easier to trigger the wall slam which should result in fewer enemies sliding along the wall.

Rocket Punch

Angle required for wall slam increased from 44 to 55 degrees.

Meteor Strike

Ultimate cost reduced 8%.

Healing per second while in the air increased from 75 to 90.

Junker Queen

Developer Comments: Although she’s not the most played, Junker Queen is the top performing tank at the moment. These adjustments are aimed at tuning her down slightly by reducing her self-healing and making the knife throw require more accuracy.

Jagged Blade

Base projectile size reduced from 0.2 to 0.15 meters.

Adrenaline Rush

Wound damage self-healing multiplier reduced from 2.5 to 2.25x.

Mauga

Developer Comments: Mauga has been underperforming for a while now so we’re putting some power into perhaps his most engaging ability, Overrun.

Overrun

Cooldown reduced from 6 to 5 seconds.

Charge movement speed increased 15%.

Damage

Hanzo

Developer Comments: The Dragonstrike change enables it to damage non-player entities such as barriers, turrets, traps, and mines. This should increase its usefulness even when not eliminating opponents as it can now help clear the battlefield of other obstacles as well.

Storm Bow

Time to fully charge decreased from 0.87 to 0.80 seconds.

Dragonstrike

Now damages enemy buildable objects.

Junkrat

Developer Comments: We’re increasing the cooldown on Concussion Mine to reduce the frequency of both Junkrat’s mobility and burst damage combo.

Concussion Mine

Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.

Reaper

Developer Comments The added survivability from this passive is being tuned down now that Reaper has 300 health and more reliable mobility after the cast time reduction to Shadow Step.

The Reapening

Lifesteal reduced from 35 to 30%.

Tracer

Developer Comments: This is a revert to a previous nerf now that Tracer is less threatening due to Pulse Pistol damage coming down recently.

Recall

Cooldown reduced from 13 to 12 seconds.

Support

Ana

Developer Comments: This damage value has gone back and forth a few times as it’s a significant break point for the number of shots to eliminate some heroes.

Biotic Rifle

Damage and Healing increased from 70 to 75.

Juno

Developer Comments: Juno was the top tier meta support hero and was overperforming last season. Orbital Ray has also proven to be one of the more impactful ultimate abilities so we’re reducing how frequently it comes up.

Orbital Ray

Ultimate cost increased 10%.

Kiriko

Developer Comment: Kiriko was heavily impacted by the health reduction to 225 HP and was already on the weaker side of support heroes, so we’re lightly reducing her ability cooldowns and weapon recovery to add some effectiveness back into her.

Kunai

Recovery time decreased from 0.55 to 0.5 seconds.

Swift Step

Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 seconds.

Protection Suzu

Cooldown reduced from 15 to 14 seconds.

Lifeweaver

Developer Comment: Lifegrip is great for repositioning allies to help save them but it also telegraphs where they’re going to end up so they may take a bunch of damage right afterwards. We’re adding a bit more healing to it to help this happen less often, but we’ll keep an eye on it so we don’t overdo it.

Lifegrip

Cooldown reduced from 19 to 18 seconds.

Healing increased from 50 to 75.

Tree of Life

Time before Overhealth begins to drain when out of range increased from 2.5 to 6 seconds.

Moira

Developer Comment: Moira wasn’t that adversely affected by the move to 225 HP, but she could use a small boost to her survivability.

Biotic Grasp

Self-healing increased from 24 to 30 health per second.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed an issue with cosmetic voice effects being heard by other players.

Maps

Circuit Royale

Fixed an issue where one of the Circuit Royale side rooms had super bright lighting.

Petra

Fixed an issue with the Petra arena map and it is available to play again.

Heroes

Ana

Lowered the combined damage and healing required to evolve the Midnight Sun Mythic weapon. Evolution 2: Reduced requirement by 40%, from 5,000 to 3,000. Evolution 3 (Final): Reduced requirement by 20%, from 10,000 to 8,000.

Ramattra

Fixed an issue where Ramattra could recast barrier if he was stunned while casting the first barrier.

Zarya

Fixed a rare issue where Zarya could avoid damage from a Reinhardt pin.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Quick Play Hacked)

Release date: November 6th/7th 2024
Patch notes:

Limit 2

Reimagine 5v5 with role limits and mid-match flexibility from November 6 to November 10!

Quick Play Hacked – Limit 2 challenges teams to rethink their strategy by limiting each role to two players in a fresh spin on 5v5 gameplay. This mode combines the freedom of Open Queue with the added structure of capped role slots, giving you more control over team balance and dynamics while fostering unique tactical choices. Adapt mid-game, redefine team dynamics, and test your limits across Open Queue!

Limit 2 will take over the Open Queue Quick Play slot.

Players select roles in a first-come, first-served setup, with only two players per role (Tank, Damage, Support).

Tank heroes will play without the Role Queue HP passive.

Once a role is capped at two players, it’s locked for the remaining team members, emphasizing strategic composition decisions.

You can switch roles during the match, but each role remains limited to two players, to maintain the mode’s unique balance.

This experimental mode runs for three days from November 6 to November 8, offering a limited-time experience to explore new team dynamics in Open Queue.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: October 29th/30th 2024
Patch notes:

Arcade Updates

Junkenstein’s Laboratory

We have been excited to see everyone playing and trying out the different mutations Junkenstein’s Laboratory for the last couple of weeks. As we enter the final week of this limited-time event we are going to make some adjustments to the different mutations each hero can receive before each round. Junkenstein’s Laboratory will still be playable in the Arcade through November 4.

Ashe

Trail by Fire

Damage to burning targets now earns an additional 30% ultimate charge, previously 25%

Fire and Fury

The Viper’s shots on burning targets now reduces the cooldowns of Coach Gun and Dynamite by 7%, previously 5%.

Demon’s Ward

We have increased the health of the shield from the deployed Barrier Projector to 600 from 300.

D.Va

Anti-Boost

Fixed an issue where Booster impact was dealing extra damage in addition to the anti-healing debuff.

No Escape

Weapon Damage increase is reduced to 75% was 100%.

Genji

Scary Speed

Shuriken critical hits now increases attack speed by 3%, up to 10 stacks, for 10 seconds, previously increased attack speed by 2%, up to 15 stacks, for 10 seconds.

Vampiric Deflect

Deflect now heals for 15% of your max health per second, previously 10%.

Bitter Revenge

Deflect now causes the next Swift Strike to deal up to 75% more damage based on the damage prevented, previously 50%.

Master Ward

Cooldown is now increased by 3 seconds, previously 5 seconds.

Kiriko

Not Your Time

Now delivers 30% extra healing to allies below 50% health, previously 25% extra healing.

Drawn Together

After teleporting, grant the nearest ally 75 Overhealth for 5 seconds, previously 50 Overhealth.

Unburdened

After throwing a Protection Suzu, attack speed is increased by 20% for 10 second, previously 5 seconds.

Vindictive Vision

Damaging enemies farther than 12 meters now reveals them for 5 seconds, previously 3 seconds.

Spirit World’s Gift

Protection Suzu now heals Kiriko for extra 100 health and grants and 25% movement speed for 5 seconds, previously 80 health for 3 seconds.

Mercy

Mend and Mar

Mercy now heals all allies within 20 meters for 150% of the damage she deals while not in Valkyrie, previously 100%. Healing for damage dealt while Valkyrie is active remains at 200%.

Power for a Price

Caduceus Staff’s damage boost now heals attached targets for 10% of their damage dealt to enemies, previously 7.5%.

Sustained Servant

The cooldown is reduced to 7 seconds, previously 10 seconds.

Witches Never Die

We have increased the health of the shield health from the deployed Barrier Projector to 600 from 300.

Fall from Grace

While using Angelic Descent, Movement Speed is now increased by 20%, previously 15%.

Moira

Frightening Fascination

Secondary Fire now stays locked to targets at a 40% narrow angle, previously from 50%.

Siphon Strike

Quick Melee now restores 15% of Max Biotic energy, previously 10%.

Equilibrium

Now reduces movement speed by 20%, previously 30%.

Orisa

Flight by Night

While casting Javelin Spin, Orisa gains free flight and 15% increased movement speed.

Megamonster

Gain 200% Overhealth while being slowed by 20%, previously 35%.

Waning Whirlwind

Javelin Spin now instantly depletes 90% of Max Augmented Fusion Driver’s Overheat meter, previously 50%.

Chilling Blow

Energy Javelin now instantly depletes 90% of Augmented Fusion Driver’s Overheat meter, previously 50%.

Arcane Energy

Energy Javelin now has 20% reduced cooldown, previously 15%.

Violence Begotten

Critical hits now increases attack speed by 8% for 5 seconds, previously 6%.

Pharah

Scare-ial Superiority

After using Jump Jets and Jet Dash, Pharah deals 20% more damage now for only 3 seconds, previously 5 seconds.

Reaper

Swift Shadow

Shadow Step cast time now reduced by 30%, previously 35%.

Zenyatta

Hallowed Speed

Harmony orb now buffs target with 20% movement speed, previously 25%.

Master and Disciple

Zenyatta now gains a 40% effective Harmony Orb on himself, previously 50%. The ally Harmony Orb effectiveness remains the same at 20%.

Competitive Updates

Starting in Season 13 for games of Open Queue Competitive, we now match players in wide groups, narrow groups, and solo players in the same matchmaking pool. This change is aimed at helping groups of any size in Open Queue from having to wait extremely long wait times to find a match. We will be removing the Wide Group modifier and notification UI in Open Queue Competitive in a future update.

Hero Balance

Tank

Orisa

Base health increased from 125 to 175.

Base armor reduced from 350 to 300.

Energy Javelin

Damage reduced from 80 to 70.

Fortify

No longer reduces Fusion Driver heat generation.

Ramattra

Pummel

Reverted to pierce barriers again.

No longer deals critical damage to barriers.

Wrecking Ball

Quad Cannons

Ammo increased from 80 to 100.

Grappling Claw

Duration increased from 6 to 8 seconds.

Damage

Sombra

Hack

Now exits stealth when hacking an enemy target.

Translocator

Delay before entering stealth reduced from 0.5 to 0.33 seconds.

Fade in time reduced from 0.3 to 0.15 second.

EMP

Ultimate cost reduced by 10%.

Support

Juno

Orbital Ray

Healing reduced from 100 to 85 health per second.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed an issue where the auto-requeue for Quick Play was not working correctly.

Fixed an issue that did not allow some OWL Player Icons to be purchased individually.

Fixed an issue with the HDR setting causing the game screen to turn black.

Fixed an issue where the first purchase attempt of a golden weapon failed.

Fixed an issue that caused Grey Overwatch League Overwatch 2 skins to be missing from the hero gallery.

In a previous update, fixed a crash in the hero gallery.

Maps

Dorado

Fixed an issue where the payload could be contested from unintended places on Dorado.

Heroes

Mercy

Fixed a bug with jump/crouch cancel staying active for longer than intended.

In a previous update, fixed an issue where players with Pink Mercy and Rose Gold Mercy skins equipped could not hear pistol sounds in first person.

Reaper

Fixed an issue where reaper would sometimes not play custom shadow step sounds in first person.

Reinhardt

In a previous update, fixed an issue where the All Might Reinhardt skin would not play Ultimate sounds.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: October 21st 2024 (North America, Europe) / October 22nd 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Hero Updates

Damage

Sombra

Translocator

Cooldown reduced from 7 to 6 seconds.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 13)

Release date: October 15th 2024 (North America, Europe) / October 16th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

SEASON 13 – SEASON OF SPELLBINDERS

Haunt your foes in Season 13 with Mythic Spellbinder Widowmaker, a master of witchcraft with stylish animations and enchanting effects. Then battle it out in Junkenstein’s Laboratory, the spooky new Halloween Terror PvP game mode with mutations that turn heroes to horrors! Plus, heroes and villainswatch their ideas of justice collide in the My Hero Academia collab featuring exclusive cosmetics inspired by the anime’s iconic characters. Get ready for a season filled with magic, might, and macabre moments!

OVERWATCH 2 X MY HERO ACADEMIA®

Choose heroism or villainy with the latest Overwatch 2 collaboration featuring exclusive skins inspired by My Hero Academia’s iconic characters. Battle as a hero of justice with Tracer as Deku, Reinhardt as All Might, and Juno as Uravity, or create chaos with Reaper as Tomura Shigaraki and Kiriko as Himiko Toga. Don’t miss the Mega Bundle for the ultimate My Hero Academia collection—available for a limited time only, October 17-30.

© K. Horikoshi / Shueisha, My Hero Academia Project

HALLOWEEN TERROR 2024

This Halloween, the Halloween Terror event delivers a spooky good time with both brand-new and returning game modes. Experience the eerie madness of Junkenstein’s Laboratory, a fast-paced Team Deathmatch where you can enhance your heroes with powerful cursed talent cards. Then return to the chilling co-op adventure of Junkenstein’s Revenge, battling hordes of zombie Omnics and monstrous bosses. Finally, uncover the terrifying secrets of Adlersbrunn in Wrath of the Bride, a gripping PvE experience filled with puzzles, haunted castles, and jump scares. Face the frights and conquer the terror!

HERO MASTERY MODE – CASSIDY & BRIGITTE

Two new heroes will test their skills in Hero Mastery. Starting on October 31st through to November 12th, you’ll have a chance to perfect your skills with Cassidy’s Peacekeeper or bash bots of the edge with Brigitte’s Shield Bash. Complete exclusive challenges through to earn new exclusive rewards and bonus Battle Pass XP as you test your skills in these new courses.

GENERAL UPDATES

Interactive Scoreboard

To give players easier access to social features, especially on controllers, we’ve added the ability to interact with the Scoreboard. The Interactive Scoreboard is intended to make reporting faster and easier, but also to improve your social experience through whatever channels you prefer to communicate in or avoid entirely. The following features are now accessible via Interactive Scoreboard:

Adjusting Mic Volume of other players

Adjusting your Mic Volume

Reporting other players

Joining/Leaving Team Voice Chat

Joining/Leaving Group Voice Chat

Muting Team Text Chat

Muting Match Text Chat

Muting Text Chat of other players

Matchmaking Updates

Tuning changes to reduce queue times for Wide matches in Competitive Play.

Loss Streak avoidance tuned down to prevent cases where it could increase worst case scenario queue times.

Developer Comments: We’re not seeing any measurable impact from this tech in preventing loss streaks and we’re concerned it might be making queue times longer. So we’re scaling it back for now.

Role Delta tuning tightened, to try to match Ranks on the roles on each team more closely.

Developer Comments: We believe that match quality improves significantly when you are matched closely with one of the members on the opposing team in the same role. We believe we can tighten this preference without significantly impacting queue times.

Role Delta has been updated to prioritize the Tank Role above other roles.

Developer Comments: We’ve been thinking about how to improve the Tank experience from every angle, to give them more even matchups and reduce 1-sided matches for the whole team further.

At higher Ranks the effects of MMR Decay, Winning Trend, Losing Trend, and Calibration have been reduced.

Developer Comments: At our highest ranks these modifiers could sometimes allow very high skill players playing on new accounts to get lucky and surpass their peak ranks considerably, without actually earning their new rank like other players that have played more on their accounts.

At higher Ranks the matchmaker now takes into account the benefits of grouping when constructing matches.

Developer Comments: At the highest ranks, groups have had noteworthy advantages against teams composed of all solo players for some time now. Our aim with this addition isn’t to remove the advantage of grouping at higher ranks entirely, but we’d like the advantage of grouping at higher ranks to be less extreme.

Public Custom Games

Hosting Public Custom Games now requires Endorsement Level 3.

Developer Comments: A reminder that we’ve been actioning accounts that post disruptive content in the Game Browser and we’re serious about removing problematic players that don’t follow our Code of Conduct. Whenever an account is actioned for a social penalty, they’re reduced to Endorsement Level 0, so the combination of social actions and this feature will allow for one chance to change their behavior before they’re permanently banned. Anyone that is below Endorsement Level 3 can still host games with the “Friends” or “Invite Only” settings, but they will not have access to the “Everyone” setting.

Streamer Protect

Access to the “Hide My Name” function of Streamer Protect now requires completing the “Unrelenting Hero” Lifetime Challenge.

Developer Comments: We’ve been listening to community feedback that newer accounts should be required to earn access to the feature, but it’s important that this feature can’t be abused by various types of disruptive players that tend to play on very new accounts. As a reminder, the “Hide My Name” feature does not prevent disruptive players from being punished when they’re reported since we know their actual battle tag behind the scenes.

Challenge Updates

Select challenges are now visible in the Main Menu.

Challenge Rewards can now be inspected in detail in the Challenges Menu.

Developer Comments: Challenges are now in the main menu to highlight their rewards, primarily for new Event Challenges.

SHOP UPDATES

Mythic Skin Aspects Add-on Cosmetic is now added to the Mythic Shop.

Overwatch League Store tab was removed and replaced by a separate button in the bottom of the main Shop tab.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

The requirements to appear on the Top 500 Leaderboard have changed:

Win requirement per season reduced from 50 to 25.

The Seasoned Competitor challenge (750 lifetime wins in Competitive Play) is now required to be completed to be eligible for any Top 500 Leaderboard starting in Season 12.

HERO UPDATES

General

Swapping your hero hides your selection on the enemy scoreboard for 15 seconds.

Developer Comments: This change adds a more friction to counterswapping, especially in the extreme case where two players on opposite teams are both sitting in spawn with the scoreboard open and rapidly switch their heroes in response to each other’s choices.

TANK

Mauga

Developer Comment: Increasing the duration of Mauga’s burn effect will help better reward going for the smaller, harder to hit targets.

Incendiary Chaingun

Ignite damage over time duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.

Ramattra

Developer Comments: Ramattra’s Pummel projectiles passing through barriers was a source of frustration for players trying to protect themselves or their allies. With these changes enabling Ramattra to deal critical damage to barriers, he will still be a valuable hero choice against barrier mechanics, but won’t immediately apply damage to players on the other side.

Pummel

Pummel

No longer pierces barriers.

Now deals 2.5x more damage to barriers.

Reinhardt

Developer Comments: This is just some fine tuning for the barrier health and regeneration rate as it had become slightly too tough to break through.

Barrier Field

Barrier Field health reduced from 1600 to 1500.

Damage

Hanzo

Developer Comments: We are reverting Hanzo back to his previous health now that it’s possible to take out an opposing Hanzo with a well-aimed headshot thanks to the weapon damage changes.

Base health increased from 225 to 250.

Sojourn

Developer Comments: These Railgun changes swap out the 25 minimum energy it decays to for a longer time before it begins to degenerate which alleviates some of the pressure to quickly use the secondary fire. Disruptor shot is getting a damage increase to helps its effectiveness as an area denial tool, andlong with additional utility through generating a small amount of Railgun energy to make it more broadly useful.

Railgun

Energy no longer stops degenerating at 25 energy.

Time before energy degeneration begins increased from 7 to 12 seconds.

Disruptor Shot

Damage per second increased from 60 to 80

Now generates 25% of damage done to enemy players as Railgun energy.

Sombra

Developer Comments: This is a significant change to Sombra’s playstyle in the hopes of making her more interactive for the opposing team and shifting some of her power from the utility of Stealth and Hack into increased lethality.

Stealth having a limited duration less than the Translocator cooldown is intended to create brief windows of vulnerability. It still enables Sombra to cross through dangerous areas unseen, but to really hang around in the enemy backline will require moving from cover-to-cover similar to other flanking heroes. No longer having the stealth movement speed removed upon taking damage also enhances its usefulness as an escape tool.

Hack

No longer ends Stealth but does reveal Sombra.

Hacked ability lockout effect duration reduced from 1.5 to 1.0 seconds (EMP duration unchanged).

BOB hacked stun duration reduced from 10 to 3 seconds.

Translocator

Cooldown increased from 5 to 7 seconds.

EMP

Ultimate cost increased 12%.

Stealth

No longer passive and now activates by using Translocator.

Now has a 5 second duration.

Added stealth timer around the reticle and removed ability icon.

Taking damage now reveals Sombra for 1 second instead of ending stealth.

Opportunist

The Opportunist passive has been added back in.

Increases Sombra’s weapon damage versus hacked targets by 20%.

See critically injured enemies through walls.

SUPPORT

Baptiste

Developer Comment: This change is aimed at reducing the fatigue resulting from controlling the recoil over longer periods of play more than trying to add power to Baptiste’s primary fire.

Biotic Launcher

Primary fire recoil reduced by 30%.

Brigitte

Developer Comment: Brigitte’s healing output over the course of a match is quite high, so this is just a slight adjustment to help bring that in line.

Repair Pack

Cooldown increased from 5 to 5.5 seconds.

Juno

Developer Comments: Juno’s healing output is too high for how much mobility she possesses so we’re shortening her falloff range to increase the importance of positioning well with her mobility abilities.

Mediblaster

Falloff range reduced from 30-50 meters to 20-35 meters.

Healing per projectile reduced from 6.5 to 6.

MAP UPDATES

CLASH

Capture time on the final objective points A and E now increases for Attackers as segments get secured consecutively from 1x /1x / 1x to 0.7x /1.1x /1.4x, to make the first segment easier to capture for attackers but consecutive ones harder.

Defenders now respawn instantly as the first segment and second segment get secured instead of when the previous objective points B or D get captured.

Unlock time for final objective points A and E has been increased from 25 seconds to 27.5 seconds.

Decay rate on final objective points A and E have been doubled for attackers to not lose their progress as quickly when stepping off the point.

Capture time for defenders on objective points B and D has been increased by 10% to give attackers more opportunities to attack the point.

Developer Comments: We want to reduce the number of one-sided stomps occurring in the Clash game mode. We also want to address the difficulty of securing at least one segment on the final objective points as attackers. So, we tweaked the capture time for the defending team to make the fight for objective points B and D a bit more favorable for attackers.

Circuit Royal

1st Point

New exit options from attackers initial spawn to reduce spawn camping.

Initial high ground right flank brought in and access adjusted to reduce spawn camping.

Cover options added.

New far side flank option to contest defenders on the high ground by the bridge.

2nd Point

Improved spawn protections for attackers leaving the second spawn area to reduce spawn camping.

Additional cover added while pushing high ground for attackers.

New flank added for attackers to take rear high ground by the chicane.

Hill lowered slightly and road angled forward to make approach for attackers slightly more comfortable.

3rd Point

Improved options for attackers leaving the third spawn area to combat spawn camping.

Flank route to high ground pool area widened and additional cover added to increase play options in this space.

Sightlines improved for attackers to poke at entrenched defender positions in the final area.

Dorado

1st Point

Starting high ground cover and access has been adjusted to reduce spawn camping.

Flank routes have been streamlined for attackers.

Various geometry adjustments to provide more favorable gameplay opportunities for attackers in the market area.

2nd Point

Staircase added for easier attacker access to the high ground.

Added access to the courthouse for attackers.

3rd Point

Cover added after the chokepoint on the main path.

Havana

1st Point

Reduced sightlines into the attackers’ spawn.

Added new options for attackers to exit their spawn.

Reduced oppressive high ground vantage points for defenders.

2nd Point

Widened doorways and certain routes for cleaner navigation and flow.

Closed small holes through certain assets to block sightlines and projectiles.

3rd Point

Redesigned attackers’ spawn interior and added additional routes for a safer attacker exit.

Sightlines from the fort wall to spawn and main route have been reduced.

Pathing into the fort has been consolidated on one side for cleaner flow and to give both teams more options while in combat around the final chokepoint.

Numbani

1st Point

Attackers’ initial spawn room has been pushed a lot closer to first point to reduce runback times.

Lowered some high ground around first point.

Easier access to flank routes around first point.

Combined the paths in the building behind the payload on first point – one room that connects everything.

2nd Point

Forward defender spawn points have been added to reduce runback times for defenders.

A staircase has been added near attackers forward spawn for easier access to high ground.

Added a connecting path past and above the choke into third point.

3nd Point

Relocated a pesky sign.

Removed a tree.

BUG FIXES

General

Fixed a bug that caused some players to be unable to purchase golden weapons.

Fixed a bug where the Voice Chat Devices setting was unable to be changed.

Fived a bug that caused Adrenaline Junkie achievement to sometimes not grant.

Heroes

Baptiste

Fixed a bug with Baptiste’s Zombie Walk Emote.

Sigma

Fixed a bug where Sigma would not gain Overhealth for Juno’s Mediblaster.

Reaper

In a previous update, fixed a bug that caused exit sound enemy reaper’s shadow step to not play.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: October 1st 2024 (North America, Europe) / October 2nd 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

We are providing two tier skips as a bonus this patch because of the issue with challenge progress not being track when queueing for all roles in the Clash game mode.

Fixed an issue that was preventing Role Queue Mystery Heroes from counting towards Mystery Heroes lifetime challenges.

Fixed an issue that was causing Xbox Game Pass skins to become unequipped and unfavorited after logging off.

Fixed an issue that was causing some voice lines to not play in select Invasion Missions.

Fixed an issue with the default allied health bar setting on certain heroes.

In a previous update, fixed an issue making ledge grab more intuitive.

HEROES

Ashe

In a previous update, fixed an unintended delay between Ashe’s scoped and unscoped fire rate.

Reaper

Fixed an issue where mythic Reaper emerging out of Shadowstep was not playing custom sound.

Ramattra

Fixed an unintended armor interaction between Brig’s Rally and Rammatra’s Nemesis Form.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: September 17th 2024 (North America, Europe) / September 18th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Overwatch 2 x World of Warcraft

Join the celebration as Overwatch and World of Warcraft unite the realms for a legendary crossover event! From September 17-30, dive into glory with Sylvanas Windrunner Widowmaker, Lich King Reinhardt, Thrall Zenyatta, and Diamond Magni Torbjorn Legendary skins – complete with iconic voice lines, emotes, and Plays of the Game inspired by WoW. Play now to unlock up to 8 free rewards and experience the magic!

General Updates

Role Queue Mystery Heroes

Role Queue Mystery Heroes is a new variation of the popular Mystery Heroes game mode but using the Role Queue rules. Once you select your role, your heroes played will be randomly selected among the heroes in that role and will not change roles throughout the match.

Role Queue Mystery Heroes added to the Unranked Menu.

Open Queue Mystery Heroes removed from the Unranked Menu.

You can still create a custom game of Open Queue Mystery Heroes in Custom Games.

Deathmatch

Deathmatch is moved from the Unranked Menu to the Arcade Menu and will appear in daily rotation with other Deathmatch modes.

Competitive Updates

Competitive Drives

Competitive Drives are limited-time events that take place near the end of seasons in Competitive Play Role Queue. As you complete a Drive you’ll earn bonus Competitive Points and a new reward called “Signatures”. Signatures are a cosmetic reward that appears on your name in most locations where your name is displayed, including your Name Card, Play of the Game Highlights, Scoreboard, and Hero Select. Signatures are upgraded as you reach Checkpoints in a Drive.

When you win a match you’ll earn Drive Score and progress toward the next Checkpoint. Losing subtracts Drive Score, but generally less than winning, and Checkpoints prevent you from losing score once you reach them.

There are 6 Checkpoints and they grant the following rewards in order of completion:

500 Competitive Points

Signature

1000 Competitive Points

Advanced Signature

500 Competitive Points

Elite Signature

Your progression on a Drive is shared across all roles in Role Queue. You do not earn progression toward your Drive in Open Queue Competitive Play.

When you complete Drives your Signature will be upgraded to show off how many Drives you’ve completed in total.

Signatures are removed after a Rank Reset.

HERO UPDATES

GENERAL

Armor flat damage reduction decreased from 10 to 7 per impact.

Developer Comment: The recent increase to armor’s effectiveness improved the survivability of armored heroes more than we’d like for how passive it is, so we’re tuning it down to a middle-ground value.

TANK

Tank Role Passive

• Knockback resistance reduced from 40% to 25%.

Developer Comment: This knockback resistance value has changed a few times as the environment of the game shifts. With Juno entering the roster and bringing more sources of speed boost to help rush down the enemy team, we’d like to make tanks more susceptible to displacement again.

D.Va

Developer Comment: There has been a lot of community feedback surrounding D.Va lately. On average she hasn’t been overperforming, but she’s quite difficult to take down. So we’re shifting some of her armor to normal health and reducing her max combined health by 25 armor. With armor’s effectiveness being hit in the same patch, we’ll keep an eye on how this plays out and adjust as necessary.

Mech armor health reduced from 375 to 325.

Mech base health increased from 200 to 225.

Orisa

Developer Comment: We still don’t want Orisa to easily chase enemies down while Fortified since there’s not much you can do to fight back during that time, so while we’re not removing the movement speed penalty entirely, we are lowering it to a point where it will feel much better for Orisa to use.

Fortify

Movement speed penalty reduced from 20% to 10%.

Roadhog

Developer Comment: This is a reversion to Roadhog’s previous resource regeneration rate to improve his primary tanking ability’s uptime. There were several adjustments to reduce the power of this ability but they may not have been necessary as Roadhog has been underperforming for some time now.

Take a Breather

Resource regeneration rate increased from 8 to 10 per second.

Sigma

Developer Comment: This shift in damage from the Hyperspheres direct impact into the explosion component is to improve the effectiveness of the airburst explosion when playing at max range and makes it more threatening against tightly grouped enemies.

Hyperspheres

Impact damage reduced from 25 to 15.

Explosion damage increased from 30 to 40.

No longer deals damage to self.

DAMAGE

Bastion

Developer Comment: The spread reduction is intended to improve the Assault mode weapon’s effective range against smaller targets while not changing much in regard to how good it is against tank heroes and their large size.

Configuration: Assault

Spread reduced from 2.2 to 2 degrees.

Configuration: Artillery

Ultimate cost reduced 12%.

Cassidy

Developer Comment: We’re reducing how impactful the hinder effect is by lowering its duration, as this crowd control can be a significant source of frustration for players. Since now there is less time to follow up with shots from the weapon while the opponent is hindered, we’re increasing the explosion damage of Flashbang.

Flashbang

Hinder duration reduced from 1.2 to 0.9 seconds.

Explosion damage increased from 45 to 75.

Deadeye

Ultimate cost reduced 10%.

Hanzo

Developer Comment: This change restores Hanzo’s one hit headshot kill against 250 health heroes, though it will require more accuracy with the smaller projectile size and is now slower to charge shots to reduce the frequency of projectiles being thrown out.

After trying the recent iterations of Hanzo post Season 9, we feel the one-shot capability is too essential to the core gameplay feel of these sniper heroes (similar to Widowmaker) without a much larger rework. Being limited to a smaller range of heroes that could be one shot (225 HP and below) added some texture to the hero matchups but wasn’t a satisfying compromise for either side.

Storm Bow

Normal arrows are no longer affected by global projectile size increases.

Maximum damage increased from 120 to 125.

Time to fully charge increased from 0.72 to 0.87 seconds.

Venture

Developer Comment: As a highly mobile damage hero, Venture doesn’t need quite as much shield health from their passive as they currently get to be successful. Even though they are a close-range hero, their abilities enable them to close the gap quickly and effectively without taking much damage.

Explorer’s Resolve

Shield health gained per ability reduced from 40 to 30.

SUPPORT

Moira

Developer Comment: Moira’s ultimate didn’t feel threatening enough after the health adjustments across the cast and her own lower health value.

Coalescence

Damage per second increased from 70 to 85.

Lifeweaver

Developer Comment: The increased firing duration for Thorn Volley will give Lifeweaver more damage presence and it lines up better with his auto-charging heal timing to help that flow nicely.

Thorn Volley

Maximum ammo increased from 80 to 100.

Zenyatta

Developer Comment: With the current addition of more speed boosts in the game, Zenyatta (and generally more poke-oriented team compositions by extension) has fallen off a bit due to how immobile and vulnerable he can be. We’ve tried increasing his health in the past but it’s proven problematic, so instead we’re leaning into his glass-cannon nature. We’re improving his damage this time, which should enable new break points in how many shots are required to eliminate an enemy.

Destruction Orb

Damage increased from 48 to 50.

Orb of Discord

Cooldown per target reduced from 7 to 6 seconds.

Map Updates

CLASH

Fast Respawn after a point has been captured has been removed from Clash. We’ll be looking to implement an alternate version of it for Clash in the future.

Respawn times for defenders get reduced by 2 seconds for each segment the attackers secure in the final capture zone.

FLASHPOINT

The initial boost of speed heroes receive when leaving the spawn has been increased in duration from 1 second to 2 seconds.

Increased maximum potential duration of the speed boost effect from 5 to 6 seconds.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

Fixed an issue where players were not gaining credit when queuing for all roles in challenges and progression stats.

Fixed an issue where wall climbing heroes could infinitely ledge grab.

HEROES

CASSIDY

Fixed an issue where Deadeye would incorrectly indicate a killing blow on Ramattra.

D.VA

Fixed an issue with D.Va’s Boosters movement speed stacking multiplicatively with speed boosting abilities.

LIFEWEAVER

Fixed an issue that would cause Lifeweaver’s petal platform to continue to rise when interacting with Mei’s Ice effects.

Fixed an issue where Lifeweavers’s petal platform can move horizontally if placed on a moving object.

SIGMA

Fixed an issue with Sigma’s Gravitic Flux percentage health damage being affected by damage reduction.

SYMMETRA

Fixed an issue where audio would remain muffled if you used a teleporter while hindered.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: September 3rd 2024 (North America, Europe) / September 4th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

HERO UPDATES

TANK

Winston

Tesla Cannon

Damage per second reduced from 75 to 70.

DAMAGE

Ashe

The Viper

Reload per bullet increased from 0.2 to 0.25 seconds.

Primary fire damage reduced from 40 to 35.

Sombra

Virus

Damage over time reduced from 90 to 75.

Support

Juno

Mediblaster

Fire rate increased from 14.3 to 15.5 (reverted to the 34 shots per second during the projectile volley).

Damage reduced from 8 to 7.5.

Healing reduced from 7 to 6.5.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed a bug that occasionally caused heroes to be pulled down during a ledge mantle.

Badges and Emblems are now correctly reflecting your player rank.

Fixed an issue that caused large FPS drops at the start and end of matches on PlayStation® 5 consoles.

Fixed a bug where the avoid list might not be respected during backfills.

Heroes

Doomfist

Fixed the stretched texture on Doomfist’s BAST skin.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: August 23rd 2024 (North America, Europe) / August 24th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Hero Updates

Damage

Tracer

Pulse Pistols

Damage reduced from 6 to 5.5

Support

Illari

Solar Rifle

Maximum damage reduced from 75 to 70

Minimum damage reduced from 25 to 20

Juno

Developer Comments: While Juno’s damage output from her Mediblaster is increased, her healing output is unchanged.

Mediblaster

Damage increased from 7 to 8.

Glide Boost

Cooldown reduced from 8 to 6 seconds

Bug Fixes

Heroes

Juno

Fixed a bug with falloff reaching its maximum reduction slightly before 50 meters

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: August 20th 2024 (North America, Europe) / August 21st 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Season 12 – New frontiers

Prepare for an interstellar journey to discover new frontiers as this season introduces Juno, a cheerful and extraordinary new Support hero hailing from Mars. Then battle through two new maps in the Clash game mode where you’ll engage in an intense tug of war for the win! Unleash ancient Egyptian divinity with the new Mythic Anubis Reaper Hero Skin and smite your foes using the heavenly sword of the sun God Ra with the upcoming Mythic Midnight Sun Ana Weapon Skin. Upgrade to the premium battle pass and add Legendary Bast Doomfist, Oni Ana, and more to your collection.

New Hero – Juno

Overwatch 2’s newest Support hero has touched down from Mars! Juno has landed with her versatile Mediblaster and Pulsar Torpedoes providing simultaneous healing and damage. Plus, Juno’s Hyper Ring propels the team into action, boosting movement for faster fights, and her high mobility allows her to swiftly maneuver the battlefield to provide critical support or evade threats effectively.

Juno Teo Minh was born on Mars during Project Red Promise – Lucheng Interstellar’s secret multi-stage initiative to terraform the planet. When dust storms began to ravage the planet, the Red Promise Colony lost contact with Lucheng, throwing the project’s future into jeopardy. To protect Juno, the Red Promise Team sent her to planet Earth, where she could live her life in safety. Now, Juno is determined to find a way to save her home and family – before time runs out.

New Core Game Mode – Clash

Get ready to experience Clash, a new core game mode in Overwatch 2! Clash features 5 capture objectives placed in a linear path on a mirrored map. Only one objective is active at a time, and the match starts with Objective C, the center one. Capture an objective by standing on it uncontested until the capture progress is complete. Teams that capture an objective are awarded 1 point to their score.

Since the trial for Clash that took place earlier this year, the final capture points for each team (A and E) are even more rewarding, worth three points that are split up into segments on the capture progress . A win comes when a team reaches five total points from capturing various objectives on the map, or if they manage to push into their opponent’s territory and fully capture the final objective.

Clash arrives in both Quick Play and Competitive Play with the new Hanaoka and Throne of Anubis maps and a temporary boost in frequency to ensure you get more chances to play. You can also play Clash in the Arcade for a limited time as well.

New Clash Map – Throne Of Anubis

Deep within these once-proud temple grounds lies the Throne of Anubis, the god program quarantined by Helix International. The quiet streets and historical sites surrounding the Throne carry an air of tension, for fear that the power that began the Omnic Crisis may yet again awaken.

Hero Mastery Updates

Charge up your particle cannon and load up your rockets! Hero Mastery single-player courses for both Pharah and Zarya launch this season. Time your shots and protect ally bots as you take part in new challenges in a limited-time event from August 20 to September 3. Plus earn new rewards and up to 22,500 Battle Pass XP.

Hero Mastery Courses for Pharah and Zarya have been added.

General Updates

Avoid As Teammate

The Avoid List has been updated with the following new features:

Players now have 15 avoid slots divided into 3 Pinned slots and 12 Recent slots.

Pinned Avoid slots guarantee that these players will never be in your matches and unlike our old Avoid slots, they never time out.

The new Recent Avoid slots do time out after 7 days like the old Avoid slots, and they only prioritize constructing teams without these players on them.

The player with the lowest time remaining in the Recent list is removed from the list if a new player is avoided when the list is full.

Time Remaining for an avoided player in the Recent list can be refreshed by using the Reset Avoid Expiration feature.

The Avoid List is now its own tab in the Social menu (which still only appears when at least 1 player is avoided).

Any players that were avoided when Season 11 ended will be removed from the avoided list due to the aforementioned updates to the system.

Developer Comments: Avoiding other players has been a great way to curate your experience since the system was added, but with these changes we wanted to explore giving players best ways to manage their avoid slots.

Spawn System Changes

Group Respawn is replaced by Wave Respawn for all non-Competitive modes.

Wave Respawn is added to Competitive Play.

Default respawn time increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

Overtime respawn time increased from 13 to 14 seconds.

Wave Respawn is disabled in Overtime.

Overtime respawn time is not increased in Flashpoint.

Wave Respawn is disabled when the Payload is near the end of the track in Escort and Hybrid game modes (the same time the existing Anti-Stall system activates).

When the first hero on a team dies, they start a new Wave for their team.

Any hero that dies within 6 seconds of a Wave starting automatically joins that Wave.

A hero joining a Wave will respawn at the exact same time as the hero that started the Wave. This means that the respawn time of heroes joining the wave can be as long as 12 seconds if they died at the same time as the first hero or as short as 6 seconds if they catch the end of the Wave.

If a hero starts a Wave and no other hero joins the Wave they will respawn 2 seconds faster. This hero will respawn in 10 seconds (the default respawn time before Season 12).

Developer Comments: These changes are designed to reduce the number of one-sided matches. For an in-depth analysis of our thought process behind the changes to respawning, read the latest Director’s Take on PlayOverwatch.com.

Shop Updates

You can now try out all skins in the practice range from the Hero Gallery or the Premium Shop.

Competitive Play Updates

Mid-Year Rank Reset

Competitive skill ranks for all players have been reset for Season 12.

Players will need to complete ten placement matches for each role to be ranked and start climbing on the leaderboard.

Developer Comments: Our plan is to reset ranks every 6 months alongside larger updates that shake up the metagame including significant hero balance changes, new heroes like Juno, new game modes like Clash, and changes to core systems like the respawning changes mentioned above.

Predicted Rank

The Predicted Rank that was displayed to players in Placements at the end of each match is now displayed in all locations that rank is displayed for individual players.

Predicted Rank is only displayed to players viewing their own Rank (other players can’t see this information).

Predicted Rank is now used to determine whether a group is Wide or Narrow, meaning that Placements are no longer automatically considered Wide.

This will allow players to get much faster queues in many scenarios after their Rank has been reset.

Hero Updates

Developer Comments: Our recent 2.11.1 patch (which adjusted all the Tank heroes), saw a significant gain in interest for the role and had a positive lasting effect in queue times for Damage and Support as well. There are a few additional tuning changes in this update for Tanks but this patch is largely focused on adjusting many of the more mobile heroes in the Damage and Support roles.

Mobility is very powerful and we would like for there to be more of a tradeoff for the flexibility that it brings, especially as we add speed boosting abilities by welcoming Juno to the game. We’re moving a handful of heroes to a 225 HP maximum and in some cases increasing potency elsewhere in their kit.

Tank

D.Va

Developer Comment: The increase in Defense Matrix availability didn’t help D.Va’s overall performance that much compared to the amount of frustration it is causing players on the opposing team, so we’re reverting it to the previous duration.

Defense Matrix

Maximum duration reduced from 3.5 to 3 seconds.

Orisa

Developer Comment: Orisa is still underperforming so we’re increasing the impact damage of Energy Javelin to better reward accuracy with the ability.

Energy Javelin

Impact damage increased from 60 to 80.

Zarya

Developer Comment: Zarya’s secondary fire didn’t benefit much from the projectile size changes in Season 9 since it’s mostly aimed at the ground. We’re increasing its damage to keep it feeling effective relative to her primary fire beam.

Particle Cannon

Secondary fire minimum damage increased from 47 to 55.

Secondary fire maximum damage increased from 95 to 110.

Damage

Echo

Developer Comment: No additional adjustments to support the reduced health pool as, like Pharah, Echo was one of the top performing Damage heroes recently.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Hanzo

Developer Comment: Hanzo doesn’t quite fit the category of being as highly mobile as the other heroes we’re moving to 225 HP, but like Widowmaker, has the potential long-range lethality merits, as he is now able to one-shot the 225 HP heroes. It’s also nice for the Hanzo mirror match to be more decisive as well.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Junkrat

Developer Comment: This is mostly a reversion back to how Junkrat’s grenades used to ricochet in early Overwatch, which enables more control over the angle of the bounce and helps the weapon better control spaces with some tricky shots, but the projectile size is now reduced after a couple of bounces so there will be fewer random feeling direct impacts near the end of the projectiles lifetime.

Frag Launcher

Projectile size is now reduced by half after the second ricochet.

Projectiles preserve slightly more velocity on ricochet.

Sojourn

Developer Comment: After reducing the maximum damage of the Railgun’s secondary fire, we’re continuing to look at the effectiveness of Sojourn’s primary fire. These changes are to make it more accurate and better reward accuracy by increasing the energy gained from headshots.

Railgun

Primary fire weapon spread reduced from 2 to 1.6 degrees.

Critical hits now grant 10 energy.

Energy degeneration rate reduced from 33 to 15 per second after 7 seconds.

Sombra

Developer Comment: The increased movement speed while in stealth will better enable Sombra to get into advantageous positions or be slightly more evasive with the new lower health.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Virus

Impact damage increased from 25 to 35.

Stealth

Bonus movement speed increased from 45 to 60%.

Torbjörn

Developer Comment: This shift in armor health for Torbjorn is to increase survivability against the heroes which are most affected by armor’s damage reduction, such as Tracer.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Base armor increased from 50 to 75.

Support

Illari

Developer Comment: Illari can deal a lot of damage over the course of a game but may have too much ammo, given that her projectiles are easier to land hits due to their increased projectile size. We’re also removing the extra environment collision size on her Captive Sun projectile so that it doesn’t accidentally detonate early when firing at nearby walls and such. There is a similar fix to prevent her secondary fire beam from impacting a wall instead of allies near it.

Solar Rifle

Maximum ammo reduced from 16 to 14.

Captive Sun

Projectile environment collision size reduced from 0.15 to 0 meters.

Juno

Developer Comment: Community feedback on Juno’s trial was split between over and underpowered. On the stat side, she performed strongly in most every categories but particularly overperformed in healing output over the course of a game. These changes are improving her utility while pulling back lightly on healing throughput, since we’d still like her to launch in a strong state as players grow accustomed to her playstyle. There were also quite a few quality-of-life improvements that are listed elsewhere in the patch notes.

Juno has been added to the lineup.

Juno is now eligible for Competitive Play.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Mediblaster

Burst projectile volley rate of fire reduced from 34 to 28 shots per second.

Pulsar Torpedoes

Damage and Healing impact increased from 75 to 85.

Heal-over-time reduced from 60 to 50 health.

Hyper Ring

Deploy range increased by 3.5 meters.

Cooldown reduced from 16 to 14 seconds.

Orbital Ray

Deploy range increased by 3.5 meters.

Cooldown reduced from 16 to 14 seconds.

Kiriko

Developer Comment: Despite the perception of how powerful Kiriko feels to play against, she is a hero that consistently underperforms when it comes to winning games. However, she is a highly evasive hero that makes a lot of sense to be in the 225 health bracket. To help counterbalance the loss of health, we’re smoothing out her damage dealing consistency by increasing the Kunai weapon’s base damage and removing the enhanced critical multiplier.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Kunai

Critical multiplier reduced from 2.5 to 2x.

Damage increased from 45 to 60.

Recovery time increased from 0.5 to 0.55 seconds.

Lifeweaver

Developer Comment: The Petal Platform was too easy to waste if a player accidentally ran over it without intending to make use of it. Now it resets back to the ground if no one is standing on it. We’re also reducing its health so that it’s more reasonable counterplay to destroy the platform. Healing Blossom will now passively charge at a slower rate to enable players to swap between weapons without the fear of falling too far behind when swapping back to healing.

Healing Blossom

Healing progress can now charge passively at a reduced rate.

No longer reduces movement speed when holding a full charge.

Petal Platform

Duration only counts down while the platform is raised.

Platform now resets if no one is standing on it for 2 seconds.

Duration increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

Health reduced from 400 to 300.

Rejuvenating Dash

Healing reduced from 60 to 45.

Mercy

Developer Comment: Mercy’s Guardian Angel movement enables her to be highly evasive and difficult to engage with for many heroes, but is also one of the most fun parts of her ability kit so we’d like to keep that strength, so we’re moving her to 225 HP and increasing the output of her Caduceus Staff beams.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Caduceus Staff

Primary fire healing increased from 55 to 60 health per second.

Secondary fire damage boost increased from 25% to 30%.

Moira

Developer Comment: Moira can be difficult to take down between the low cooldown on her Fade ability and self-healing with the Biotic Orb, so now she has 225 HP and slightly higher damage output to keep an edge to her offensive potential.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Biotic Grasp

Secondary fire damage increased from 60 to 65 damage per second.

Lúcio

Developer Comment: Lucio is one of the most mobile heroes and makes his allies faster as well, so we’re moving him into the 225 HP hero category. His playstyle tends to get into closer ranges more often than other heroes in this category, so we’re turning up his Primary fire damage output to increase his effectiveness at range before diving in.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Sonic Amplifier

Primary fire damage increased from 18 to 22.

Hero Quality of Life Updates

Developer Comments: Alongside balance changes that should make Juno a strong and viable choice in the Support Role, we also heard community feedback to apply several small changes to make the experience of playing with or against Juno a lot more enjoyable. Thank you for your detailed feedback during Juno’s Hero Trial.

Support

Juno

Mediblaster

The weapon model visuals and firing sounds were updated to indicate when the weapon is at low ammo.

The heal sounds that play locally to the Juno player were updated to be more noticeable when healing allies closer to full health.

Pulsar Torpedoes

The cooldown when the ability is canceled after no successful lock-ons has been reduced from 5 seconds to 2 seconds.

Line of Sight checks were improved to better find targets with hitboxes in view.

Added range forgiveness of an extra 5 meters on current targets that might move beyond the max 40 meters range.

The local cancel sound was increased in volume to be more noticeable for the Juno player.

The ally and enemy impact sounds were updated to be more noticeable for the Juno player.

Healing torpedoes have new impact visuals when hitting enemy barriers and when clipping near walls.

Glide Boost

Now adjusts Juno better when she hits level architecture such as doorways.

Hyper Ring

Juno players will now hear the initial Hyper Ring apply sound when entering their own ring for the first time.

The sound when re-entering the Hyper Ring was updated to be more noticeable.

Orbital Ray

The Ultimate enemy voice line was updated in tone to better contrast the ally version.

The enemy version of the ray’s start sound was updated to be more noticeable.

Map Updates

Flashpoint

Passing through the spawn door barrier of your own spawn will apply a temporary speed boost to get to the capture point faster.

The speed boost is removed when taking or dealing damage.

The speed boost is applied by both the default and forward spawns.

The speed boost counts toward the existing movement speed bonus cap of 75%.

Push

The Push bot collision has been updated so players cannot contest from certain high ground positions.

General map & Mode updates

Updates to our map recency system to increase the frequency of new maps and modes at the start of each season.

Capture point outlines can now be seen through walls on Clash and Flashpoint when the capture point is unlocked.

Lighting scenarios are now randomized in Quick Play and Competitive Game Mode.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed a bug where the Gotcha achievement was not awarding properly.

Fixed a bug where weapon skins were not showing in the weapon variant menu.

Fixed a bug where first-time users could not skirmish which waiting for a game.

Heroes

Ashe

Fixed a bug where some of the effects would not trigger with the Ashe mythic skin equipped on Steam.

Illari

Fixed a bug with Illari’s Solar Rifle secondary fire healing beam impacting the environment instead of players when aiming near edges of collision.

Juno

Cleaned up some of the effects of Juno’s Pulsars torpedoes when they landed as D.Va was re-entering her mech.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: July 23rd 2024 (North America, Europe) / July 24th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

In the first week of Season 11, Daily and Weekly Challenges were resetting progress incorrectly for some players. To compensate for this, we are granting all players 2 tier skips.

Fixed a misspelling in the subtitles in a voice line for Reinhardt

Fixed an issue where some Voice Chat volume sliders were missing from the Sound Options

Fixed in a previous hotfix – Dorado no longer crashes and is re-enabled

Fixed in a previous hotfix – Ramattra no longer has 11 second cooldowns on his abilities

Fixed in a previous hotfix – Orisa’s Energy Javelin no longer does critical damage

Fixed in a previous hotfix – Sombra no longer reveals herself to entire enemy team if spotted by a single enemy

Heroes

Mercy

We resolved an issue with statistics for Mercy’s Resurrect ability not tracking correctly in the Scoreboard and Progression.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Quick Play Hacked)

Release date: July 12th 2024 (North America, Europe) / July 13th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Pickable Passives

Sombra has taken over the Quick Play game modes again and will be giving you an extra boost of your choice with Pickable Passives. For the next two days, you can pick an additional passive to benefit the role you are playing in.

Developer Comments: Pickable Passives looks at whether providing an additional upgrade changes how you approach forming compositions or responding to the enemy team during a match. We’re also curious to see how much it puts a dent into overall game clarity. We’re excited to see what y’all think!

Pickable Passives will take over the Quick Play ruleset from July 15 to July 16.

All players will be able to choose one of three selectable passives for their role to get an extra benefit for their hero.

Choose and change your passive anytime in the start of the game, in the spawn room, or while in the respawn phase of after being eliminated.

Standard Role Passives also remain in effect.

Pickable Tank Passives

Unyielding – Debuff duration reduced by 40%.

Armored – Convert 100 health into Armor.

Last Stand – 50% cooldown reduction when below 50% HP.

Pickable Damage Passives

Slayer – See critical health enemies through walls.

Trigger Happy – Increase ammo capacity by 20%.

Frenzy – Eliminations grant a brief 30% speed boost.

Pickable Support Passives

Resourceful – Reduce cooldowns by 20%.

Swift Save – Increase Healing by 50% for targets below 35% HP.

Close Call – Gain a brief 20% speed boost when below 50% HP.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

Release date: July 12th 2024 (North America, Europe) / July 13th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Hero Updates

Tank

Ramattra

Nemesis Form

Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.

Base armor reduced from 100 to 75.

Base health reduced from 275 to 250.

Zarya

Particle Barrier

Shared cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds.

Duration reduced from 2.5 to 2.25 seconds.

Projected Barrier

Shared cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds.

Duration reduced from 2.5 to 2.25 seconds.

Damage

Pharah

Base health reduced from 250 to 225

Support

Illari

Healing Pylon

Cooldown increased from 12 to 14 seconds

Captive Sun

Ultimate cost increased 12%

Lúcio

Sonic Amplifier

Knockback reduced by 10%

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 11 Midseason)

Release date: July 9th 2024 (North America, Europe) / July 10th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

OVERWATCH 2 X TRANSFORMERS

Join the epic battle between the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS with Optimus Prime as Reinhardt, Megatron as Ramattra, Bumblebee as Bastion, and Arcee as Illari. Pick up these limited-time skins in the in-game Premium Shop today. You can also play now through July 22 to collect new Player Icons, Name Cards, and Titles in a series of limited-time challenges to show your allegiance to the AUTOBOTS or the DECEPTICONS.

SUMMER GAMES 2024

The Summer Games are back! Jump into the arcade and play your favorite Summer Games in the arcade, including Lúcioball and Winston’s Beach Volleyball. Play to earn new sprays, player icons, and more through a series of event challenges available now through July 29. Then once the games are done, be sure to pick up new Lifeguard skins for Roadhog, Lifeweaver, and Kiriko from the in-game Premium Shop starting on July 30.

INTRODUCING MYTHIC WEAPONS

New Mythic Weapons are elevated weapon skins for some of your favorite heroes and will be available in the Mythic Shop that you can redeem with your Mythic Prisms. The Mythic Bound Demon Weapon Skin for Reinhardt changes based on your gameplay, showing epic, dynamic effects that respond to your achievements and cool moments. Whether charging into battle or holding the line, the Mythic Bound Demon Reinhardt Weapon Skin reacts to your every move. Add the Mythic Bound Demon Weapon Skin to your arsenal on July 23.

GENERAL UPDATES

Introducing Player Surveys

After a match is done, you may occasionally be invited to participate in a web-based survey that you can complete on PC or using your mobile device by scanning the on-screen QR code. This is your chance to let us know how you have been enjoying Overwatch 2 and help identify areas where the game can be improved.

Audio Updates

Adjusted the volume levels of health pool impacts. When shooting enemies with Base Health, Sheilds, Armor, or Overhealth, made the sound cues clearer as to what health type you are damaging.

HERO UPDATES

GENERAL

Armor flat damage reduction increased from 5 to 10 per projectile.

Enemy health bars now display when they are at their Low Health threshold.

Developer Comments: The armor changes have had a positive impact on which heroes and damage types are slowed down by armor health. We’re increasing the damage reduction on it to further widen the pool of heroes that are significantly affected by armor’s defense.

TANKS

Tank Role Passive

Ultimate generation reduction increased from 30 to 40%.

Knockback resistance reduced from 50 to 40%.

Developer Comments: Dealing damage to Tank heroes will be slightly less rewarding with the increased reduction to ultimate generation and will help to balance out the increased healing they may receive with the change to the Damage role passive in this patch. While the knockback resistance was generally useful for tank heroes and their emphasis on positioning, it was also reaching the point where it was difficult for players to tell if knockback abilities were having any effect on them.

D.Va

Developer Comment: The maximum duration of Defense Matrix is increased by half a second by reducing the rate at which the resource meter drains when in use, so it won’t take longer to regenerate. The increased damage on Micro Missiles will help the ability feel relatively more impactful against larger health pools.

Defense Matrix

Maximum duration increased from 3 to 3.5 seconds.

Micro Missiles

Explosion damage increased from 4 to 5.5 damage (from 126 to 153 max damage with direct impacts).

Doomfist

Developer Comments: Most of Doomfist’s survivability is through his excellent mobility, but this boost to his passive Overhealth generation will enable him to stay in the fight longer before disengaging, especially when hitting multiple targets with his abilities.

The Best Defense…

Overhealth gained per target increased from 35 to 40 HP.

Delay before Overhealth begins to drain increased from 1 to 3 seconds.

Junker Queen

Developer Comments: Junker Queen is relatively small and fast for a Tank hero, so Commanding Shout doesn’t need a ton of bonus health to be effective. The increased wound healing better rewards her for managing her abilities well.

Commanding Shout

Overhealth increased from 150 to 175 HP

Adrenaline Rush

Wound damage self-healing multiplier increased from 2 to 2.5x

Mauga

Developer Comments: Cardiac Overdrive is Mauga’s primary tanking ability that keeps him in the fight, but the previous duration was difficult to counter. It is now a more potent effect with a shorter duration to increase the importance of choosing both the right moment to use it as Mauga and when to try mitigating against it as an enemy.

Overrun

Knockback damage increased from 25 to 30

Stomp damage increased from 60 to 75

Cardiac Overdrive

Duration reduced from 5 to 3 seconds.

Lifesteal increased from 60 to 100%.

Damage reduction increased from 30 to 40%.

Allies now receive only half of the lifesteal and damage reduction effect value.

Orisa

Developer Comments: The Fortify and Javelin Spin abilities were weakened further than necessary when Orisa was overly dominant. She has not been performing well since then but in this patch where we’re broadly adjusting how impactful the role is. So, there is room again to return some of Fortify’s effectiveness.

Fortify

Duration increased from 3.5 to 4 seconds

Ramattra

Developer Comments: The Pummel damage adjustment is notable as it reduces the number of punches required to knockout a 250 health hero.

Nemesis Form

Bonus armor increased from 225 to 300.

Pummel

Pummel damage increased from 60 to 65.

Reinhardt

Developer Comments: One of the core design goals for Reinhardt is to be the hero that shields his team. In the past we’ve reduced the barrier health significantly in order to improve other offensive aspects of his kit to better fit the fast-paced gameplay of Overwatch 2, but perhaps it was too much. We still want to avoid barriers feeling mandatory due to how useful they can be and keep tank diversity at a healthy level. However, with this patch looking at the tank role in particular, we’re increasing Reinhardt’s barrier health again and will evaluate further.

Barrier Field

Maximum health increased from 1400 to 1600.

Barrier regeneration rate increased from 140 to 160 health per second.

Charge

Wall impact damage increased from 275 to 300.

Roadhog

Developer Comments: The Pig Pen ability wasn’t very useful outside of being used in the Chain Hook combo so we’re increasing its potential threat if an enemy stays within its area.

Pig Pen

Area damage after activating increased from 30 to 45 damage per second.

Recovery time reduced from 0.55 to 0.4 seconds.

Cooldown now begins immediately when used instead of after a short delay.

Sigma

Developer Comments: Sigma is a tank that does not currently have an issue with survivability when cycling between managing his barrier, Kinetic Grasp, and weapon range. We are however increasing the damage of Accretion to bring back more of the threat it used to pose and increase the satisfaction in landing it, as it also did not benefit from the global increase to projectile sizes.

Accretion

Impact damage increased from 40 to 80 (120 damage total).

Winston

Developer Comments: Winston is one of the top performing tanks at the moment, though when considering how satisfying the individual abilities within his kit are, the Tesla Cannon secondary fire felt underwhelming for how long it took to charge, so it’ll now be a bit more fluid. We also still want Primal Rage mode Winston to be killable, but adding some health to it will help avoid some of the extreme situations where it could happen too quickly.

Tesla Cannon

Secondary fire charge time reduced from 1 second to 0.85 seconds.

Primal Rage

Maximum health gained increased from 500 to 700.

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comments: Wrecking Ball has excellent mobility and survivability and will now be more efficient in transferring some of that survivability to his teammates, should he choose to return to them. We’re also making the automatic reload in ball form match his manual reload timing for a smoother transition between modes.

Quad Cannons

Automatic reload time while transformed reduced from 2 to 1.6 seconds.

Adaptive Shields

Allied Overhealth transfer ratio increased by 50% (Use up to 50 Overhealth per target to grant allies up to 75 HP).

Zarya

Developer Comments: Increasing the health on these barriers also means the total energy Zarya can gain per barrier is increased, so this is a boost to both her offensive and defensive capabilities.

Particle Barrier

Health increased from 200 to 225.

Duration increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds.

Projected Barrier

Health increased from 200 to 225.

Duration increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds.

Damage

Damage Role Passive

Now only half as effective against Tank heroes (10% healing reduction).

Developer Comments: With Tank heroes being the frontline, they have this healing reduction effect nearly all of the time and are generally the most reliant on incoming healing to support them as well. The damage role passive is providing an important function to game overall, but its effect on tanks survivability and pace of gameplay is more impactful relative to the other roles. As such, we are reducing its potency against Tank heroes.

Ashe

Developer Comments: This Big Omnic Butler tanks a lot of incoming fire and will now be more resistant to knockbacks and critical damage.

B.O.B.

B.O.B. now gains the Tank role passive ability.

Cassidy

Developer Comments: With his current tuning Cassidy is performing well in too many aspects between his range, burst damage, and survivability, leading to him being a dominant choice among the Damage heroes by an overwhelming amount. The gameplay goal for Cassidy is to be the sturdier, close-range hitscan who is more proficient at dealing with high mobility flankers. With this in mind, we’re pulling back the effective falloff range of his weapon to help align him with those gameplay goals and to open up more hero variety from the Damage role.

Peacekeeper

Primary fire falloff range rescaled from 25-35 meters to 20-30 meters.

Pharah

Developer Comments: This is a reversion back to Pharah’s Concussive Blast from before her recent rework. Dealing even a small amount of damage with this ability increases her lethality significantly and made it too reliable in finishing off low health targets, due to its wide area and fast projectile speed, without waiting the full recovery to fire another rocket.

Concussive Blast

Explosion damage reduced from 30 to 0.

Explosion knockback radius increased from 6 to 8 meters.

Knockback increased by 11%.

SUPPORT

Ana

Developer Comments: Rather small change here but we’d like to minimize the amount of time Tanks can be taken out of the fight for and they are also the easiest targets to hit with Sleep Dart.

Sleep Dart

Duration of effect on Tank heroes decreased from 3.5 to 3 seconds.

Illari

Developer Comments: Illari will still see this UI alert but allies generally don’t need to as it could occur fairly often and be distracting.

Healing Pylon

Allies no longer see the “Destroyed” UI when Healing Pylon breaks.

Zenyatta

Developer Comments: We’re reducing the cost of Transcendence as Zenyatta was impacted more than most by some of the changes in this patch.

Transcendence

Ultimate cost decreased 10%.

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed ranked progress bar UI not showing progress for Bronze 5.

Fixed voice and text chat not functioning on PC with console players.

Fixed in a previous update – Weekly and Daily Challenges would get reset to 0 after relog for some players.

Fixed in a previous update – Screen tearing on PlayStation® 5 during large fights.

Fixed in a previous update – Season 11 Voice Lines could be heard by anyone at any distance.

Heroes

Cassidy

Fixed Deadeye tracking phased targets when revealed by Infra Sight.

D.Va

Fixed an issue with Self Destruct hitting targets behind barriers or collision.

Kiriko

Fixed teleporting to Echo as clone ends making the “Swift Step” ability to break for the remainder of the game.

Lifeweaver

Fixed an exploit with Lifeweaver tree hiding Symmetra turrets in the payload.

Roadhog

Fixed Roadhog’s weapon model/placement being largely higher wearing ‘Kaiju’ skin.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 11)

Release date: June 20th 2024 (North America, Europe) / June 21st 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Season 11 – Super Mega Ultrawatch

Join Ultrawatch for an action-packed season! Suit up and battle the forces of evil led by the fallen Mythic Calamity Empress Ashe and her sidekick B.O.B, then claim and customize Mythic Ashe’s diabolical dark mage style for your own. Celebrate as Overwatch reaches 100 million players, marked by the long-requested return of Pink Mercy alongside a new Rose Gold Mercy Bundle. From June 25 – July 8, 2024, Blizzard will donate 100% of the purchase price (excluding any applicable platform fees and taxes) to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Continue the celebration by unlocking the Aztec Sombra Bundle through challenges and enjoy a fun Community Crafted mode curated by beloved streamers.

Community Crafted Mode

Dive into a new Community Crafted mode, featuring creative and chaotic balance changes and fun hero tweaks designed by your favorite content creators. Emongg, Custa, TQQ, and Eskay bring their creative touches to Tank, projectile Damage, hitscan Damage, and Support heroes, respectively. Experience wacky hero abilities such as Baptiste sharing his kit with Ana, and Reaper’s Wraith Form getting an extra sting.

Hero Mastery Updates

Sharpen your kunai and master your aim when Hero Mastery single-player courses for both Kiriko and Soldier: 76 launch this season. Practice your Swift Step and power up your Tactical Visor as you take part in new challenges in a limited-time event from June 20 to July 9. Plus, earn new rewards and up to 22,500 Battle Pass XP.

Hero Mastery Courses for Solider: 76 and Kiriko have been added.

Hero Mastery Gauntlet Co-op has been removed.

New Map: Runasapi

Hike your way up the new Runasapi Push map, to a town hidden high in the Peruvian Andes. Amble through marketplaces full of fresh produce and pay a visit to the Inti Warrior Historical Museum and Monument. This exciting Push map is vibrant and challenging as you escort TS-1 through tight streets. Watch out as some fights may take place precariously close to the steep cliffs overlooking the sunny farmlands below.

Challenge Updates

Weekly Challenge Catch Up

All past incomplete Weekly Challenges can be completed at any time in a given season.

When the Weekly Reset occurs on Tuesdays, incomplete Weekly Challenges gain an additional copy of that challenge. When a Weekly Challenge is completed, if that challenge has copies remaining, the Challenge will refresh and can be completed again.

Weekly Milestones

Weekly Milestones are challenges progressed by completing other Weekly Challenges.

Each week, a new Weekly Milestone is unlocked. All past Weekly Milestones can be completed at any time in a given season.

Weekly Milestones progress one at a time. All past Weekly Milestones must be completed to progress a Weekly Milestone.

Competitive Play Updates

Rank Percentage is now displayed on the Competitive Progress page allowing you to check your exact percentage without playing another match.

Renamed the Modifiers “Win Streak” and “Loss Streak” to “Win Trend” and “Loss Trend” to more accurately convey that these modifiers are calculated by weighing the most recent games more heavily, but that they are not true streaks.

Added more parameters for how the matchmaker handles wide groups, so that it can ensure better queue times.

A button that allows you to view the match’s final Scoreboard has been added to each page during the end-of-game flow.

Hero Updates

General

Knockdown time when two charging abilities collide reduced from 2 to 1.7 seconds.

Developer Comments: This stun time reduction applies to the knockdown that happens when two charging abilities collide and result in a tie (with Reinhardt, Doomfist, Brigitte, Mauga, Bob). The counterplay and interaction of two charging abilities impacting each other is great, but it took both players out of the fight a little too long.

Tank

D.Va

Developer Comments: These changes will improve D.Va’s effectiveness against smaller targets as she became less effective against armored enemies in the previous patch.

Fusion Cannons

Weapon spread reduced from 3.75 to 3.375 degrees.

Boosters

Impact damage increased from 15 to 25.

Junker Queen

Developer Comments: The Tank knockback resistance passive was affecting Junker Queen’s pull effect more than intended. The distance can be affected by their movement, but Tanks are now pulled in about 5-6 meters instead of only 3 meters or so.

Jagged Blade

Now pulls tanks further.

Rampage

Startup time reduced from 0.75 to 0.5 seconds.

Orisa

Developer Comments: Orisa’s survivability was reduced more than necessary in her last round of changes so we’re partially reverting the cooldown increase to Javelin Spin.

Javelin Spin

Cooldown reduced from 9 to 8 seconds.

Roadhog

Developer Comments: Roadhog’s already-powerful survivability increased significantly with the headshot damage reduction from the tank role passive so these changes are to help bring that back in line.

Base health reduced from 650 to 600.

Take a Breather

Damage reduction reduced from 50 to 40%.

Damage

Cassidy

Developer Comments: We’re reverting the Magnetic Grenade ability to be deployed like Cassidy’s previous Flashbang ability, but it will keep the Hinder effect instead of a full stun. We’ve heard feedback surrounding the Magnetic Grenade ability and agree that while the fantasy of a homing grenade was fun, the moment-to-moment gameplay of it often felt too unpredictable as to whether it would land or not. The Hinder effect has been a useful tool to act as a counter to highly mobile heroes without going back to a full stun and the enemy player losing the ability to fight back.

The Deadeye ultimate is getting an adjustment to increase its flexibility toward the end of its duration, enabling it to get value outside of buying time for Cassidy or his allies, though it may be riskier to hold it for a long time as the damage reduction will fade away along with the movement speed penalty.

Peacekeeper

Secondary fire “Fan the Hammer” damage reduced from 50 to 45.

Combat Roll

Damage reduction reduced from 75 to 50%.

Flashbang

Magnetic Grenade ability is now Flashbang.

Hinders enemies instead of Stunning them for 1.2 seconds.

Movement speed reduction increased from 30% to 50%.

Hinder now prevents crouching movement.

45 explosive damage.

12 second cooldown.

Deadeye

Movement speed penalty now scales down over time, from 70% to 35%.

Damage reduction now scales down over time, from 40% to 0%.

Mei

Developer Comments: Mei’s damage output over time is intended to be on the low end for a Damage hero, as she offers strong utility and survivability through her ability kit, but we would like to make the secondary fire icicle more rewarding by increasing the damage and slightly more difficult to land consistently.

Endothermic Blaster

Secondary fire base projectile size reduced from 0.15 to 0.12 meters.

Secondary fire damage increased from 75 to 85.

Reaper

Developer Comments: With the previous patch change to how armor reduces damage, shotgun weapon heroes like Reaper lost some value since much of their gameplan revolved around pressuring large tank heroes. To help shift Reaper toward being more effective against smaller targets we’re tightening the weapon spread on the Hellfire Shotguns and reducing the amount of time enemies have to react to his Shadow Step teleport.

Hellfire Shotguns

Weapon spread reduced from 6.5 to 6 degrees.

Shadow Step

Cast time reduced from 1.5 to 1.2 seconds.

Sojourn

Developer Comments: This change is reducing the burst damage potential of the secondary fire Railgun shot to both lessen frustration from playing against that burst damage, and to shift power into her sustained primary fire damage. This should smooth out the feast-or-famine nature of Sojourn consistently hitting the secondary fire shots.

Railgun

Secondary fire damage scaling reduced from 30-130 damage down to 1-100 damage.

Secondary fire projectile no longer requires Overclock to pierce enemy players.

Primary fire shots per second increased from 14 to 16.

Overclock

Energy charge rate increased from 100 to 120 per second.

Symmetra

Developer Comments: To help solidify Symmetra as a close-range threat, we’re increasing her health to better survive in that range, along with how quickly her primary fire beam damage ramps up.

Base health increased from 100 to 125 (Total health increased from 250 to 275).

Photon Projector

Primary fire charge rate increased 25%.

Support

Illari

Developer Comments: Illari’s Healing Pylon is intended to be useful for healing her team in relatively safe positions without much focus required, which enables her to either apply pressure with her primary fire or spot heal in bursts from her more limited secondary fire healing beam. To encourage this, it now has improved health and healing output, but is less effective when Illari uses it to heal herself.

Outburst

Damage increased from 10 to 25.

Healing Pylon

Healing per projectile increased from 30 to 40.

Pylon healing is now only half as effective when targeting Illari.

Max health increased from 100 to 125.

Kiriko

Developer Comments: “Hard knockdown stuns” refer to most all of the existing knockdowns where the player is stunned and laying on the ground (such as Reinhardt’s Earthshatter), with the exception of Ana’s Sleep Dart effect, which is removed upon taking damage or Protection Suzu’s cleanse.

Swift Step

Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.

Protection Suzu

No longer cleanses hard knockdown stuns.

Map Updates

Colosseo

Removed the glass and added stairs at first checkpoint for additional pathing and combat opportunities.

Extended the map with a new lowered section and mega health pack behind the second checkpoint for flank/rotational strategies

Added a route through a building that connects spawn/final point to second checkpoint.

The initial spawn building has been pulled back to give players more room to smoothly navigate the area out front. There is no added run back time with this change.

The stairs and cover surrounding the final point have been adjusted to improve the flow of the space and to help teams safely defend the final point.

Push Map Updates

Reduced the match time from 10 minutes to 8 minutes in Quick Play.

Increased push robot speed by 10% when pushing the barricade for both Quick Play and Competitive.

Bug Fixes

Maps

Numbani

Fixed pieces of the environment that allowed abilities to pass through it.

New Junk City

Fixed lighting in some areas of the map.

Hollywood

Fixed areas of the map that could cause players to become temporarily stuck.

Heroes

Junker Queen

Fixed a bug that caused Junker Queen’s Commanding Shout to play the audio again when using a Teleporter.

Reinhardt

Charge now correctly damages Ice Wall and Tree of Life.

Venture

Fixed an interaction that allowed Venture to stay burrowed indefinitely.

Fixed the description of Drill Dash to match its functionality.

Fixed a bug with Tectonic Shock that could allow it to charge Venture’s Ultimate Meter some situations.

Zarya

Fixed an interaction where a Particle Shielded Zarya standing on a Teleporter could prevent teammates from using the teleporter.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: May 30th 2024 (North America, Europe) / May 31st 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed a bug that prevented purchase of Golden Weapons.

Fixed an issue preventing the Try Out feature in Mythic Shop from working correctly.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: May 24th 2024 (North America, Europe) / May 25th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

HERO UPDATES

TANK

Roadhog

Developer comments: Roadhog benefitted greatly from the recent headshot reduction passive for Tanks so we are nerfing his survivability. This change to Take a Breather is aimed at encouraging more mindful resource management. The change to Whole Hog will make the ultimate more of a zoning tool while lowering its lethality, especially against tanks with their recently increased knockback resistance.

Take a Breather

Resource regeneration rate reduced from 10 to 8 per second.

Maximum healing reduced from 450 to 400.

Cooldown reduced from 1.5 to 1.25 seconds.

Whole Hog

Knockback increased from 14 to 16.

Damage per pellet reduced from 7 to 6.

Sigma

Developer comments: Our last patch aimed to make some Tank ultimates more forgiving to use during combat. Sigma’s Gravitic Flux can suffer from missing due to slight line of sight checks but we don’t believe this change had proper communication for all instances. We may return to this change for Sigma down the line with updated visuals.

Gravitic Flux

Gravitic Flux now requires line-of-sight to lift targets again.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: May 21st 2024 (North America, Europe) / May 22nd 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Hero Updates

DAMAGE

Venture

Developer Comments: As we continue to monitor Venture’s gameplay throughout their release Season, we are making a change today that adds more flexibility to using Drill Dashes. Players will now be less punished for using their Drill Dash above ground and immediately burrowing due to the new accelerated cooldown while underground.

Drill Dash

Cooldown now begins when the ability is used.

Cooldown is no longer decreased by half when used underground.

Cooldown is accelerated by 90% when underground.

Burrow

Added a 0.2-second grace period after the Burrow timer runs out where emerging can still be charged.

BUG FIXES

HEROES

Zarya

Increase self-knockback on secondary fire to account for increased tank knockback resistance.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: May 14th 2024 (North America, Europe) / May 15th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

OVERWATCH 2 X PORSCHE

Overwatch 2 and Porsche team up for an electric collaboration to showcase the shared essence of these two high-performance brands in an all-new event. Experience the fusion with Legendary Porsche D.Va and Porsche Pharah skins available now in the Premium Shop, plus earn other free high-voltage Porsche-themed cosmetics through event challenges now through June 3.

COMPETITIVE PLAY UPDATES

Demotion Protection Modifier

The Demotion Protection modifier has been moved from below the Rank Progress bar into the bar itself to improve visibility when a player is in a Demotion Protection state.

When Demotion Protection occurs, you will not be told when your progress is below that skill division’s range. If you lose your Demotion match, the Skill Rank adjustment will show only the adjustment from that match, instead of the net total of that match and the adjustment of the previous match.

New – Pressure Competitive Modifier

This rank modifier appears for players who are at the far ends of the overall skill distribution.

For players who are very high ranked (like Champion), this modifier will show when you don’t earn as much progress from winning a match or drop more progress for losing a match.

For players who are very low ranked (like low Bronze), this modifier will show when you earn more progress for winning a match or drop less progress for losing a match.

Developer comments: This new modifier was added to show how our highest and lowest-skill players are being pushed toward a more average Rank. Competitive Play already calculates this Modifier to your Skill Rank adjustment, but it wasn’t visible until now. Very high or very low-ranked players will see this Modifier after every match while they continue to maintain a Rank at the outer limits of the ranked spectrum. Climbing to the highest skill tiers like Grand Masters or Champions is not intended to be easy, and overcoming Pressure to reach the top is no longer a hidden challenge that players must face.

Grouping Restrictions

The Skill Tier legend was updated to show the changes to grouping restrictions that were applied in a previous update. The grouping restriction changes we applied are the following:

Grand Master can now group within 3 divisions to be considered a narrow group.

Champion can now group within 1 division to be considered a narrow group.

Developer comment: While the Season 10 changes to grouping up with friends have contributed to a large improvement in match quality for most players, we’re still looking to reduce queue times for players and groups, especially for higher ranks.

MATCHMAKING UPDATES

When a player is currently on a loss streak, the matchmaker will try to avoid putting the player on a team that is statistically calculated to have a lower chance of winning.

Developer comments: Loss streaks never feel good. Before each match, we make a prediction about which team will win the game, based on the information we have about the players on both teams. This is how modifiers such as Consolation, Reversal, Uphill Battle, and Expected give or take additional Rank Progress after each Competitive Play match. Since most matches will have a team that has a slightly higher chance of winning, placing a player on the team with the higher chance who is currently on a losing streak is aimed at helping them have a fair chance of breaking that streak. While this won’t guarantee they’ll win, it does provide a helping advantage.

HERO UPDATES

Armor health has been reverted to provide a flat damage reduction of 5 per projectile, up to a maximum of 50% damage reduction.

Out-of-combat health regeneration changed from 20 health per second to 10 health per second + 5% of maximum health.

Developer comment: Armor is being reverted to its original functionality to better resistance rapid fire damage and shotgun-type weapons. Out- of- combat health regeneration has been a positive but subtle addition to the game, but had a much smaller impact for tank heroes due to their massive health pools, so we’re adjusting it to heal for a percentage of maximum health.

TANKS

Role Passive

Tanks now have 25% damage reduction against critical headshot damage.

Knockback resistance increased from 30% to 50%

Developer Comment: Although armor health will now be more effective in some of the more difficult matchups, it will also be losing potency against the typically slower, higher damage instances. To help reduce the feeling of tanks being taken out too quickly by high bursts of damage, the role-wide passive now provides improved defense against critical headshot damage.

Junker Queen

Developer Comment: Junker Queen being able to activate Commanding Shout while swinging her axe or during her Ultimate ability will make it more responsive for when an additional burst of health or movement speed is needed.

Commanding Shout

Can now be activated while using other abilities.

Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds.

Sigma

Developer Comment: Similar to how Graviton Surge functions, Gravitic Flux no longer needs line of sight to affect enemy targets in its area. There are a fair amount of counterplay options to deal with this ultimate so we’re making it more reliable to grab enemy targets within its area of effect.

Gravitic Flux

No longer requires line of sight to the center of the effect.

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comment: Wrecking Ball has been performing much better after his recent update and these tuning changes will help his abilities feel more impactful.

Grappling Claw

Impact damage increased from 50 to 60.

Piledriver

Movement lockout duration for enemies increased from 0.5 to 0.75 seconds.

Minefield

Damage increased from 130 to 165.

Explosion knockback increased from 5 to 10.

Zarya

Developer Comment: We have been increasing the value of some tank ultimate abilities to account for the increased health pools and it helps to make the decision of when to counter-swap more of an interesting tradeoff. Graviton Surge was still very useful to set up combos with other ultimate abilities but we want to makes sure it’s powerful enough on its own.

Graviton Surge

Radius increased from 6 to 7 meters.

Duration increased from 3.5 to 4 seconds

DAMAGE

Junkrat

Developer Comment: Junkrat’s weapon has great damage output but is unreliable outside of close range due to its slow projectile speed, which is an intended drawback to its high output. The Season 9 health changes affected Junkrat more than most other heroes since it now requires one more shot to secure an elimination. We’re increasing the damage on direct impacts to return to 2 direct hits for an elimination, without making his combo with Concussion Mine as deadly as before since that one is much easier to execute.

Frag Launcher

Impact damage increased from 40 to 45 (Total damage increased from 120 to 125).

Echo

Developer Comment: While the main benefit of Duplicate is a second health pool and the utility of another hero’s abilities, it was often too difficult to charge an ultimate in the Duplicate time limit so we’re increasing the bonus multiplier slightly.

Duplicate

Ultimate gain multiplier while transformed increased from 4 to 4.5.

Hanzo

Developer Comment: The Dragonstrike ultimate hasn’t been very effective outside of being used in a combo with other abilities that restrict enemy movement, so we’re increasing its speed to help position it as less of a zoning tool and more likely to deal some damage.

Speed increased from 12 to 15 meters per second.

Dragonstrike

Speed increased from 12 to 15 meters per second.

SUPPORT

Brigitte

Developer Comment: Resetting the Shield Bash cooldown on ultimate activation was too much potential burst damage for Brigitte when the average maximum health of everyone was lower, but it’s much more reasonable now that it won’t be as lethal.

Rally

Now resets Shield Bash cooldown upon activation.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

Fixed a bug with Mirrorwatch not generating stats in Game Reports.

Fixed a bug with Competitive Progress not incrementing correctly.

MAPS

General bug fixes and improvements were performed on multiple maps.

Eichenwalde

Fixed an area that could cause players to temporarily become stuck.

Samoa

Fixed a spot on the map that players could become temporarily stuck in.

Shambali

Fixed a location where players could become stuck for a period of time.

HEROES

Mercy

Vengeance Skin – Fixed a bug with the feathers on the skin not being properly aligned.

Venture

Fixed a bug with Tectonic Shock that counted turrets and other non-player targets as valid for the Excavation Annihilation challenge.

Fixed an issue that could occur with Burrow where Venture could remain burrowed above the ground.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: April 30th 2024 (North America, Europe) / May 1st 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

HERO UPDATES

Damage role passive healing reduction increased from 15% to 20%.

TANK

Orisa

Fortify

Duration reduced from 4.5 to 3.5 seconds.

Orisa now moves 20% slower while fortified.

Javelin Spin

Cooldown increased from 7 to 9 seconds.

Damage

Venture

SMART Excavator

Maximum explosion damage decreased from 45 to 40.

Drill Dash

Initial impact damage decreased from 40 to 30.

Tectonic Shock

Ultimate charge cost increased by 10%.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

Names will no longer be revealed when blocking someone with Streamer Mode enabled.

Fixed a bug that allowed non-leader players to select the Requeue button.

Fixed a lighting issue that caused several sprays to look oversaturated.

MAPS

Hanamura

We have fixed an issue with the lighting on Hanamura (Assault). This map is now available to play in the Assault Arcade mode and in Custom Games.

HEROES

D.Va

Fixed a bug that caused some pings from D.Va to enter several 0’s into the chat.

Venture

Fixed an issue with Drill Dash that could occur when interacting with Doomfist’s Rocket Punch or Orisa’s Energy Javelin, sending Venture flying back at a great speed.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: April 16th 2024 (North America, Europe) / April 17th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Limited-Time Mode: Clash Trial

Clash is an upcoming core game mode in Overwatch 2. Teams must battle back and forth over 5 capture points, with each captured objective adding a point to the prevailing team’s score. Teams can win in two ways: either by having control of all five objectives at once, or by scoring five points total before the other team. Clash will be available as a limited-time trial through April 29.

How Clash is played

Five total objectives placed in a linear pattern on a mirrored map.

Only one objective is active at a time.

Matches start with the center objective active.

Players capture an objective by standing on it and filling a progress bar. Capture progress cannot be made if enemy players are contesting the objective.

When a team captures the current objective, they are awarded one point to their total score and a new objective moving forward from the scoring team’s side is activated.

Objectives can be secured multiple times. If a team is pushed off an objective and the other team successfully captures it, the next active point will be in the opposite direction.

Win Conditions

Complete one of these conditions to win the match:

A team has successfully captured five objectives throughout the match to reach a total score of five.

Regardless of score, a team manages to take the final objective (A or E) on the opponents’ side.

Hanaoka – New Map

Explore never-before-seen corners of Hanamura in the new map Hanaoka, inspired by the visual themes of the beloved Assault map. Explore the shops and restaurants around town or follow the scent of Sakura trees into the once-proud Shimada castle.

Mythic Hero Skin Updates

Mythic Hero Skins

Mythic Hero Skins are now unlocked in the new Mythic Shop in exchange for Mythic Prisms.

Mythic Hero Skins are unlocked for 50 Mythic Prisms with a starting set of customizations and then can be leveled up with 10 Mythic Prisms per level. You can unlock the skin and all available customizations for a Mythic Hero Skin for 80 Prisms.

Introducing Mythic Prisms

Mythic Prisms can be earned in the Premium Battle Pass and used in the Mythic Shop to purchase the current featured Mythic Hero Skin for the season and select previous Mythic hero skins. You can earn a total of 80 Mythic Prisms when you complete Premium Battle Pass.

Earning Mythic Prisms in the Premium Battle Pass is the easiest way to unlock a Mythic Hero Skin and all customizations each season. You can also purchase additional Mythic Prisms in game or in your platform’s store marketplace.

General Updates

Challenges

Completing Weekly Challenge milestones will now reward additional Battle Pass XP.

Overwatch Coins that were earned in the Weekly Challenges can now be earned in the Battle Pass for all players.

Reduced the number of Weekly Challenges.

Developer Comments: The number of Weekly Challenges has grown over time, and we are simplifying what players can aim to accomplish, while also making earning Battle Pass XP more straightforward.

Endorsement Changes

Players who are actioned for disruptive behavior and reduced to Endorsement Level 0 cannot use text or voice chat features until they return to Endorsement Level 1.

Developer Comments: Since we added the Endorsement system to Overwatch, players who have been actioned because of social reports (Inappropriate Communication, Gameplay Sabotage, etc) have had their Endorsement Level reduced to Level 0. That part of the system isn’t changing, but going forward, Level 0 players will no longer be able to speak in voice channels or type in text chat in most modes.

Hide My Name

Updated option in Streamer Protect, found in your Social Options.

You are now able to hide your BattleTag from other players in your group and from your friends in the match as well.

When enabled, anywhere your BattleTag is displayed to players during a match now displays a random anonymized BattleTag, instead of only to the player with the “Hide My Name” setting visibly enabled.

Developer Comments: The “Hide My Name” setting in the Social Options now displays a random anonymized Battle Tag to all players in a match, instead of only to the player with the “Hide My Name” setting enabled. New settings have been added to “Hide My Name From Friends” and “Hide My Name From Group.” Of these two settings, “Hide My Name From Friends” takes priority when group members are also friends. A large list of hand-crafted BattleTags have been created to support this feature. Could it contain easter eggs or silly references?

Progression

Added progression badges/sub-badges and rewards for Venture. Rewards can be found in Hero Challenges.

Leaver Penalties

Two new thresholds for Unranked Leave Penalties have been added:

Leaving two out of 20 games will result in a 5-minute suspension from queuing for most modes.

10 or more out of 20 games will result in a 48-hour suspension from queuing for most modes.

All other threshold tiers are unchanged.

Developer Comments: Overwatch 2 is a competitive game even for Unranked game modes, and the match experience for all remaining players is negatively affected when a player leaves before it is completed. Remember a penalty only applies when you leave games and not when you complete games. By introducing a lighter 5-minute penalty, we aim to discourage players from deliberately leaving games they don’t want to play, while not impacting those who may have a technical issue or an urgent need to step away from the game which they can resolve by the time the queue suspension is finished. The larger 48-hour suspension aims to target a very small portion of players who are aggressively leaving games.

Leaving 10 games in Competitive Play will now result in a season ban regardless of the number of games completed.

Players can still get banned from Competitive Play in as few as 5 games if they leave very consistently and don’t complete enough games to get back into good standing.

Games completed in Competitive Play now count toward the 20-game window of the Unranked Leaver Penalty.

Developer Comments: We already suspend players who leave a Competitive and increase penalties up to a season ban for leaving games frequently, but players can work their way back into good standing if they complete several matches. However, this new rule will stop players from gaming the system over time.

Competitive Updates

Competitive Role-Specific Titles

End-of-season titles for Competitive Role Queue now include the role the rank was achieved in.

Examples include Champion Tank, Champion Support, Champion Damage, and Open Queue Champion.

Competitive Progress

Each Role Rank Card now displays the associated Competitive Role-Specific title.

Role Rank Cards can now be selected to open the Match History for the selected role.

Match history will display the following: Map / Game Mode, Heroes / Role, Date, Score, Results of the match

Match History can now be selected to open the Game Report for a match.

Grouping Restrictions

All previous Competitive Grouping Restrictions have been removed.

All groups in Competitive Play are now classified as Narrow or Wide.

Players between Bronze and Diamond must be within five divisions of each other player in their group to be in a Narrow Group.

Players at Master must be within three divisions of each other player in their group to be in a Narrow Group.

Players at Grandmaster and Champion cannot be in Narrow groups, regardless of how close their ranks are. This restriction ensures that our highest-ranked players have the highest quality Narrow matches.

Narrow Groups will always be matched against other Narrow Groups or solo players. If a group has both Wide and Narrow configurations of players, the Narrow configuration will always be prioritized.

Any group that does not meet the criteria is considered a Wide Group. Wide Groups of four players may not queue. This restriction exists so that solo players are never required to make a Wide match.

Wide Groups have increased queue times and reduced match quality because it’s more difficult to find another group of players with the same ranks in the same roles to match against.

The amount a player’s Rank Progress changes after each match is modified by the group’s width.

The wider the group is, the less their ranks will change when winning or losing.

The higher the rank of the highest-ranked player in a Wide Group, the less the ranks of all players in the group will change when winning or losing.

Players will now be informed if the configuration of roles they have selected would result in a Wide Group.

The Tier Legend has been updated, and a new banner has been added to explain the rules described above.

Rank Information

New Modifier: “Wide”—this modifier reduces changes in Rank Progress when winning or losing matches. The wider your group, the less your Rank Progress will change with each win or loss.

The modifier “Volatile” has been renamed to “Demotion.” Arrows displayed under the modifiers have been changed to point from left to right instead of right to left.

New Modifier: Demotion Protection. This modifier appears on the Rank Progress bar to denote when you did not go down in Skill Division because of a loss. If you lose the next match after, then you are dropped down to the previous Skill Division.

Victory and Defeat have been added below the Rank Progress bar where modifiers are displayed

Golden Weapons

Golden weapons can now be purchased with either Legacy Competitive Points or 2024 Competitive Points. You cannot purchase weapons with a combination of both currencies.

Hero Updates

New Hero: Venture

Venture has been added to the line-up.

Venture is immediately available to play in Competitive Play.

Developer Comments: This is a pretty major change from past heroes, but we’ve always wanted to allow new heroes into Competitive when a new season for Overwatch 2 launches. In the past, we wanted to make sure new heroes were free of any bugs or outstanding balance issues, as well as giving players enough time to unlock a hero from the Battle Pass. Because of the recent hero trial, we’re confident Venture is ready to jump into the action right away.

TANK

Doomfist

Developer Comments: This quality-of-life improvement streamlines the transition between charging up an empowered Rocket Punch and another ability by removing the requirement of pressing the cancel input first.

Rocket Punch

The empowered punch is no longer consumed when the windup is canceled by using Seismic Slam or Power Block.

Junker Queen

Carnage

Impact damage increased from 90 to 105.

Reinhardt

Earthshatter

Knockdown duration increased from 2.75 to 3 seconds.

Shockwave range increased from 20 to 25 meters.

Sigma

Developer Comments: This change will improve Sigma’s ability to protect allies that are further away from him.

Experimental Barrier

Movement speed increased from 16.5 to 20 meters per second.

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comments: The general goals here are to add a direct way for Wrecking Ball to support his allies aside from purely enemy team disruption, make the hero more approachable while also adding more avenues for skill expression, and improve quality of life around the grapple.

Grappling Claw

Hold the jump input while the Grappling Claw is attached to terrain to retract it, pulling yourself towards the anchor point. This action can be rebound in his hero settings.

Now has a one second cooldown if Wrecking Ball never reaches ramming speed before canceling the ability. Interrupting him with Hack, Hinder, and stuns will still trigger the full cooldown.

The maximum duration timer no longer triggers unless he reaches ramming speed.

Adaptive Shield

Can now be reactivated to redistribute up to 300 overhealth to nearby allies, capping at 75 per person.

Enemy and ally detection radius increased from 10 to 13 meters.

Minefield

Health increased from 50 to 60.

DAMAGE

Sombra

Virus

Total damage over time decreased from 100 to 90.

Tracer

Developer Comments: There is now more downtime before Tracer can safely reengage after driving her away and Pulse Bomb will require more precision.

Recall

Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds.

Pulse Bomb

Base projectile size decreased from 0.2 to 0.1 meters. The total projectile size is now 0.25 meters.

Venture

Developer Comments: We are redistributing the damage on some of their abilities so that positioning relative to the enemy and tracking a target are more important for dealing maximum damage.

Drill Dash

Impact damage decreased from 60 to 40.

Damage over time increased from 40 to 60.

Clobber

Impact damage decreased from 40 to 30.

Damage over time increased from 30 to 40.

Tectonic Shock

Vertical knockback decreased by 30%.

SUPPORT

Illari

Solar Rifle

Primary fire recovery increased from 0.2 to 0.25 seconds.

Secondary fire heal-per-second increased from 105 to 115.

Lúcio

Sonic Amplifier

Damage per projectile decreased from 20 to 18.

Soundwave

Damage increased from 35 to 45.

Lifeweaver

Rejuvenating Dash

Heal increased from 50 to 60.

Tree of Life

Pulse healing increased from 75 to 90.

Moira

Biotic Grasp

Damage per second decreased from 65 to 60.

Coalescence

Self-heal per second increased from 50 to 55.

Bug Fixes

General

Hero Mastery Gauntlet – fixed a bug that could cause more AI teammates than intended.

Fixed a bug with Wall Climb that could allow Heroes with the passive to climb infinitely.

Fixed a bug with Diamond, Masters, and Grandmaster not playing any effects when entering the Top 500.

Fixed a bug with duplicate entries on the Leaderboard.

Fixed the missing flash notification on taskbar when joining a game as a backfill.

Maps

Fixed in a previous update – resolved an issue where jump pads could become deactivated.

Circuit Royale

Fixed an issue with the payload tires launching players unexpectedly.

Paraiso

Fixed an area near the second point where the payload dock could negatively impact Earth Shatter and Tectonic Shock’s ability to hit larger heroes.

Heroes

Echo

Fixed an issue with Duplicate that could prevent a death being counted if it was used as Echo falls off the map.

Doomfist

Fixed an interaction with Mei’s Ice Wall that could allow you to get under the map.

Fixed a bug with Power Block sounds triggering even if it was not blocking damage.

Illari

Fixed an issue with Captive Sun affecting targets through floors and ceilings.

Junkrat

Fixed a bug with Riptire receiving the self-healing passive.

Lifeweaver

Fixed a bug where some un-targetable heroes could be healed by Tree of Life.

Mauga

Fixed an interaction with Overrun and Brigitte’s Shield Bash that resulted in Mauga being knocked down with Overrun active.

Mercy

Fixed a bug with the Caduceus Staff not opening up with the Parasol emote and Pose.

Venture

Fixed a bug that would prevent Drill Dash from activating while underground if the input was pressed while falling through the air and Burrow was active.

Fixed a bug where Drill Dash could deal damage multiple times with the initial impact and instantly kill targets or knock them back exceedingly far.

Fixed a bug where certain heroes were still being pushed back even if they escaped from Drill Dash.

Fixed a bug where Venture would sometimes launch very far if using Drill Dash off a ledge while Burrowed.

Fixed a bug where attempting to emerge during Burrow near ledges would sometimes end the ability prematurely.

Fixed a bug where the third-person camera would snap back to first-person instantly if you were in the air when burrow ended.

Fixed a bug where UI prompts for emerging and Drill Dash were not visible during Burrow.

Fixed a bug that could allow players to prevent footfall audio from playing.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: March 19th 2024 (North America, Europe) / March 20th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

HERO UPDATES

TANK

Mauga

Base Health decreased from 400 to 375.

Cardiac Overdrive

No longer fills overhealth on activation.

Duration increased from 4 to 5 seconds.

Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

DAMAGE

Sombra

EMP

The previous reduction to ultimate cost has been reverted.

Symmetra

Photon Projector

Primary fire damage per second decreased from 65 to 60, scaling with all levels. Maximum damage per second is 180.

Sentry Turret

Health decreased from 50 to 40.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: March 12th 2024 (North America, Europe) / March 13th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

OVERWATCH 2 X COWBOY BEBOP

Celebrate the legendary crew of Bebop in Overwatch 2! Immerse yourself in the iconic saga of Cowboy Bebop with an array of new skins found exclusively in the Overwatch 2 shop. From now until March 25, you can also tackle in-game challenges to answer the call of the bounty hunter and snatch up cosmic cosmetic rewards.

GENERAL UPDATES

NEW GAME MODE – HERO MASTERY: GAUNTLET

Hero Mastery: Gauntlet is a new co-op game mode where players work together to protect towers from enemy bots. Collect energy and buy powerful upgrades to survive all ten rounds! Focus your skills to earn high scores and compete on the leaderboards. Are you ready to enter the Gauntlet?

Gauntlet teams can have up to three players and must survive all ten rounds to win. Each game randomizes the upgrades, bots, and targeted towers to keep things fresh.

The Gauntlet has four difficulties that vary all aspects of gameplay, including score. Work your way up to Legendary and dominate the leaderboards.

Athena has upgraded the simulation with many new bots for this mode. Be on the lookout for dangerous elite training bots.

Play with AI mode is available for teams to practice with 1-3 players. Scores and Challenges are not recorded in this mode.

Hero Mastery: Gauntlet is launching with a limited-time event that includes exclusive rewards and challenges. Can you defend the towers and unlock them all?

COMPETITIVE PLAY UPDATES

Competitive Placements and Overview will now be displayed before Hero Progression at the end of a Competitive Match.

Competitive Rank Range has been added to the scoreboard so players can view the rank range of a match at any time.

Modifiers can now be viewed outside of the Competitive Overview with a rank info button found on the Competitive Play menu.

A new modifier called “Demotion Protection” has been added to the Competitive Overview to notify players that if they lose another game, they will be demoted to the next lowest division.

HERO UPDATES

Developer Comments: This patch is focused on fine-tuning some of the systemic hero changes made in Season 9. In addition, we’re adjusting individual abilities to make them feel more impactful due to heroes having larger health pools.

PROJECTILE SIZE UPDATES

Global projectile size modifier for travel time projectiles with a speed greater than 50 meters per second reduced from 0.1 to 0.075 meters.

Developer Comments: We are decreasing the size of the fastest travel time projectiles because it reduces the frequency of these projectiles failing to headshot due to hitting the enemy’s chest hit volume first.

ROLE PASSIVES UPDATES

Heal reduction applied by the damage role passive lowered from 20% to 15%.

Developer Comments: The Damage role passive reduces the potency of in-combat healing and helps equalize the effectiveness between burst and damage over time. Nevertheless, we are going to experiment with a lower value to relieve some of the pressure on tank and support roles. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this change as we want the healing reduction to still be noticeable.

OTHER HERO UPDATES

Added a new UI element above the player’s first-person health bar to show all active healing status effects (Anti-Heal, Amplified Healing, Reduced Healing).

TANK

Doomfist

Meteor Strike

Minimum damage increased from 15 to 50.

Mauga

Developer Comments: We are changing Cardiac Overdrive to make it more forgiving when used for yourself especially when Mauga is low health.

Overrun

Stomp damage increased from 45 to 60.

Cardiac Overdrive

Duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.

Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds.

Now fills his passive overhealth by 100.

Orisa

Terra Surge

Charge rate for the first 2.5 seconds increased by 25%.

Ramattra

Ravenous Vortex

Total damage increased from 45 to 70.

Cooldown decreased from 12 to 11 seconds.

Reinhardt

Armor increased from 275 to 300.

Fire Strike

Damage increased from 100 to 120.

Roadhog

Developer Comments: We’re improving the consistency of the Hook combo. Enemies are pulled closer to Roadhog and aren’t launched as high when Pig Pen activates, making the Scrap Gun follow-up shot more consistent.

Chain Hook

The enemy final position distance from Roadhog after being pulled decreased from 4 to 3 meters.

Pig Pen

Vertical knockback on activation decreased by 43%

DAMAGE

Hanzo

Developer Comments: We’re reverting the previous change to the base projectile size of Hanzo’s arrows and replacing it with the general global reduction, which affects all travel time projectiles with a speed greater than 50 meters per second, resulting in Hanzo’s arrow projectile staying the same total size as before this patch.

Base projectile sizes increased from 0.075 to 0.1 meters. The total projectile size, when combined with the general hero change, is still 0.175 meters.

Mei

Endothermic Blaster

Ammo increased from 120 to 140.

Cryofreeze

Heal per second increased from 50 to 62.5.

Reaper

Death Blossom

Damage per second increased from 170 to 185.

Ultimate cost decreased by 12%.

Sombra

Developer Comments: Virus deals critical impact damage when it hits Hacked targets, and this change makes using it as a follow-up more compelling. The Translocator now destroys breakable objects, preventing Sombra from teleporting a shorter distance than expected.

Virus

Impact damage increased from 10 to 25.

Translocator

Destroys breakables while in flight.

EMP

Ultimate cost reduced by 8%.

Symmetra

Photon Projector

Primary fire damage per second increased from 60 to 65, scaling with each stage. The new maximum damage per second is 195.

Sentry Turret

Health increased from 30 to 50.

Damage per second increased from 25 to 30.

Teleporter

Health increased from 50 to 100.

Shields increased from 150 to 200.

Torbjörn

Deploy Turret

Turret damage increased from 11 to 13.

SUPPORT

Ana

Biotic Grenade

Explosion damage and healing increased from 60 to 90.

Brigitte

Repair Pack

Cooldown reduced from 6 to 5 seconds.

Rally

Cost reduced 8%.

Illari

Developer Comments: We are adjusting the firing cadence of the Solar Rifle, making it more responsive to use and increasing the damage per second but not the burst damage.

Solar Rifle

Primary fire recovery time reduced from 0.3 to 0.2 seconds.

Maximum charge time reduced from 0.7 to 0.65 seconds.

Lifeweaver

Developer Comments: We’re increasing the burst potential of the Heal Blossom to reinforce Lifeweaver’s role as a high healing throughput support. The heal per second is roughly the same as before, but individual Heal Blossoms can be charged further.

Heal Blossom

Maximum heal amount increased from 70 to 80.

Maximum charge time increased from 1 to 1.15 seconds.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

Fixed an issue that caused the B button on gamepads to close a Replay instead of opening the Bookmarks.

Fixed a bug that made all Souvenirs face backward when previewing them in the Battlepass.

Fixed a bug with the ‘more items in shop’ button in the Event Hub, taking players to a blank screen.

Fixed a bug that caused your own Progression Screen to display when viewing another player’s Progression Screen.

Fixed a display issue that sometimes caused the Rank Update Progress Bar to display incorrect values.

Fixed an issue that prevented the ‘Ring’ dot reticle from displaying correctly for all heroes.

Fixed an issue that prevented you from opening the Options menu while a Deathmatch game was ending.

Fixed a bug in Mystery Heroes that could cause jump pads to be disabled for players.

Leaves now correctly count as a loss during Competitive Placements Matches.

Hero Mastery

Fixed a bug that gave Echo full Ultimate charge after restarting a run.

MAPS

Junkertown

Fixed some spots where the lighting was incorrect.

King’s Row

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

Samoa

Fixed some areas that allowed Torbjorn’s turret to be almost fully obfuscated by the environment.

HEROES

Fixed a bug that caused the DPS Passive to not be applied by: Symettra and Torbjorn Turrets, Riptire, and B.O.B.

Lifeweaver

Fixed an interaction with Tree of Life and Mauga that could launch Cage Fight into the sky.

Fixed a specific instance that allowed Life Grip to pull allies to their death.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: February 21st 2024 (North America, Europe) / February 22nd 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

HERO UPDATES

TANK

D.Va

Light Gun

Base projectile size reduced from 0.25 to 0.2 meters. Total projectile size is now 0.3 meters.

Roadhog

Take a Breather

Damage reduction increased from 40 to 50%.

Zarya

Particle Cannon

Primary fire minimum damage increased from 85 to 95 damage per second.

Primary fire maximum damage increased from 170 to 190 damage per second.

DAMAGE

Hanzo

Base projectile sizes reduced from 0.1 to 0.075 meters. Total projectile size is now 0.175 meters.

Junkrat

Concussion Mine

Cooldown decreased from 8 to 7 seconds.

Maximum damage increased from 110 to 120.

Minimum damage increased from 20 to 55.

Soldier: 76

Heavy Pulse Rifle

Now uses the smaller 0.05 meter hitscan projectile size modifier. Total projectile size is now 0.05 meters .

Tracer

Pulse Pistols

Minimum falloff range reduced from 12 to 10.

Widowmaker

Widow’s Kiss

Now uses the smaller 0.05 meter hitscan projectile size modifier. Total projectile size is now 0.05 meters.

Scoped shot damage falloff min-max range increased from 40-60 to 50-70 meters.

SUPPORT

Illari

Healing Pylon

Cooldown decreased from 8 to 6 seconds.

Cooldown when destroyed by enemies decreased from 15 to 12 seconds.

Captive Sun

Sunstruck explosion damage increased from 100 to 160.

Sunstruck explosion now has damage falloff again, reducing damage by up to 25%.

Lúcio

Sonic Amplifier

Base projectile size reduced from 0.15 to 0.1 meters. Total projectiles size is now 0.25 meters.

Mercy

Caduceus Blaster

Base projectile size reduced from 0.25 to 0.2 meters. Total projectile size is now 0.3 meters.

Zenyatta

Base health decreased from 100 to 75.

Snap Kick

Knockback decreased 25%.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 9)

Release date: February 13th 2024 (North America, Europe) / February 14th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

WELCOME TO SEASON 9: CHAMPIONS

Season 9 brings core gameplay updates, a reworked Competitive game mode, and a new Co-op event that will test the courage of even the bravest heroes as they face a dangerous threat of cosmic proportions.

NEW EVENT: COSMIC CRISIS

Face off against eldritch abominations in the twisted reality of Cosmic Crisis, a brand-new co-op mission. Work with three other players to repair your ship and escape the Ruins of Ecopoint Antarctica while fighting off the monstrous Null Sector. But keep an eye out for your teammates… an ancient power lurks in the shadows, waiting for its chance to strike.

COMPETITIVE PLAY UPDATES

Developer Comments: With your feedback, we’ve made new improvements to Competitive Play that aim to provide more transparency into your progress after every match; plus, we introduced a new skill tier and new Competitive Rewards to earn.

Skill Rank Reset

Given the significant changes to our heroes and the addition of a new skill tier, this reset is designed to give all players a chance to climb higher than ever before.

All ranks in Role Queue and Open Queue in Competitive Play have been reset to Unranked.

Placement Matches

Placements have been rebuilt from the ground up. Your predicted rank will be displayed after each placement match.

You must complete 10 matches in a role to receive your Skill Rank for that role.

Winning your placements will have a significant impact on your final rank.

Competitive Updates

Competitive Updates have been reworked. Instead of requiring five wins or 15 losses to get a Competitive Update, updates now happen after every match.

Going forward, the Competitive Updates page now hosts information about your ranks in Role Queue and Open Queue, as well as your progress toward Competitive Point rewards

Skill Modifiers

Modifiers now appear on the Competitive Progress page after each match.

Skill modifiers provide information on how much a rank will gain or lose progress after a match, including win or loss streaks, rank instability, and match favorability.

New Skill Tier – Champion

A new rank has been added above Grandmaster, called Champion, that is more exclusive than any other rank in Overwatch. Only an exceedingly small percentage of players will ever occupy this echelon of Competitive Play

Versus Screen

The range of ranks for players in a match of Competitive Play is now displayed on the same screen where both teams are shown with their name cards, player icons, and titles.

New Grouping Requirements

Bronze through Diamond Players may group with other players within 2 Skill Tiers of their own Skill Rank.

Master players may group with other players within 1 Skill Tier of their own Skill Rank.

Grandmaster players may group with other players within 3 Skill Divisions of their own Skill Rank.

Champion players may group with only one other player within 3 Skill Divisions of their own Skill Rank.

Art & UI Updates

Skill Tier and Skill Division art for rank icons have been redesigned for improved readability.

The Competitive Skill Tier legend has been redesigned to include updated and new relevant information.

Competitive Points

Each win now grants 10 Competitive Points.

Each draw now grants 5 Competitive Points.

Each loss still grants 0 Competitive Points.

Competitive Progression

Competitive Challenges that award additional Competitive Points at the end of the season have been replaced with a new Competitive Progression system.

Every match grants progress toward your Competitive Progression meter, and after earning 30 you will receive an additional 100 Competitive Points.

Wins award 3 progress toward your Competitive Progression meter. Draws and Losses award 1 progress.

Matchmaking Rating

At the start of this season only, the internal Matchmaking Ratings for all players have been adjusted to push players closer to the normalized average (approximately at Gold 3).

Matchmaking Ratings have been decayed. The higher the rank, the more it has been decayed.

Most players will start at a lower skill rank and division than their most recent rank.

Competitive Challenges

Competitive challenges removed. Rewards and progress for Competitive Play are now displayed on the Competitive Progress page and titles are rewarded at the end of the season.

GENERAL UPDATES

PLAYER PROGRESSION

Added a new set of visual upgrades. Hero/Game Mode badge upgrades start at Level 500. Progression Level badge upgrades start at Level 2500.

Wrecking Ball title rewards are renamed from “Champion” to “Champ” to align with Junker Queen’s usage of the title (and to avoid confusion with the new Champion rank).

Adjusted amount needed to level up certain sub-badges for Mauga and Illari.

FRIEND ENDORSEMENTS

The endorsement is only eligible if you’re in the match for a set duration.

Endorsements are subject to the configured cooldown period of 12 hours.

Endorsements are subject to cooldown even if you unfriend the recipient.

SETTINGS

Added a feature for controller/keyboard users that remembers what you had focus when backing out of screens.

CROSSHAIR UPDATES

New Reticle Types have been added.

Square

Box

Line

Triwing

Falloff

New Reticle Dots have been added.

Ring

Square

Triangle

Cross

Heart

New Reticle color options have been added.

Brown

Dark Red

Light Red

Light Purple

Gray

Teal

HERO UPDATES

Developer Comments: Season 9 features changes to the fundamentals of Overwatch 2 gameplay that affect every hero. We’ve heard the community feedback around some gameplay pain points, and these changes are in response to many of those.

GENERAL

Most damage-dealing projectile sizes have been increased by a new global modifier added to their base size.

+0.05 meters for hitscan projectiles with a high rate of fire or spread (e.g., Tracer’s Pulse Pistols or Reaper’s Hellfire Shotguns).

+0.08 meters for hitscan projectiles that are more precise (e.g., Cassidy’s Peacekeeper or Soldier:76’s Heavy Pulse Rifle).

+0.05 meters for travel time projectiles that are shotguns or have a very high rate of fire (e.g., Roadhog’s Scrap Gun or Ramattra’s Void Accelerator).

+0.10 meters for travel time projectile with a speed greater than 50 meters per second (e.g., Zenyatta’s Destruction Orb).

+0.15 meters for travel time projectile with a speed less than or equal to 50 meters per second (e.g., Pharah’s Rocket Launcher).

Very large projectiles with a base size greater than 0.5 meters have been excluded from these increases (e.g., Orisa’s Energy Javelin or Reinhardt’s Fire Strike).

Hero combined HP (base health/armor/shields) increased by 15-25%.

150-175 HP heroes increased by 25 HP.

200-300 HP heroes increased by 50 HP.

300+ HP (Tanks) increased by 75-100 HP.

Each hero’s precise health increases are listed in their patch notes below.

Ultimate Charge

All Ultimate ability costs increased by 10%.

Regenerative Passive for All Heroes

All heroes now regenerate 20 health per second after 5 seconds of not taking damage.

Support Role Passive

Now reduces the delay before regeneration begins by half (2.5 seconds).

Damage Role Passive

Reload speed bonus on elimination has been removed.

New role passive: Dealing damage reduces enemy healing received by 20% for 2 seconds.

Quick Melee

Damage increased from 30 to 40.

TANK

D.Va

Pilot health increased from 150 to 175.

Mech armor increased from 300 to 375.

Self-Destruct

Explosion maximum damage increased from 900 to 1000.

Inner explosion radius (range for maximum damage before falloff begins) increased from 4 to 6 meters.

Doomfist

Health increased from 300 to 375.

Rocket Punch

Max impact damage increased from 50 to 75.

Max wall slam damage increased from 30 to 40.

Junker Queen

Health increased from 300 to 375.

Rampage

Wound damage over time increased from 60 to 90

Mauga

Health increased from 300 to 400.

Orisa

Armor increased from 275 to 350.

Ramattra

Health increased from 200 to 275.

Reinhardt

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Armor increased from 250 to 275.

Rocket Hammer

Damage increased from 85 to 100.

Charge

Wall impact damage increased from 225 to 275.

Roadhog

Health increased from 550 to 650.

Sigma

Shields increased from 200 to 275.

Winston

Health increased from 200 to 225.

Armor increased from 200 to 250.

Tesla Cannon

Primary Fire damage increased from 60 to 75 damage per second.

Primal Rage

Punch damage increased from 40 to 50.

Wrecking Ball

Armor increased from 100 to 175.

Zarya

Health increased from 100 to 175.

Particle Cannon

Primary fire beam width increased from 0.15 to 0.2 meters.

DAMAGE

Ashe

Health increased from 200 to 250.

B.O.B.

B.O.B.’s weapon damage increased from 14 to 17.

Bastion

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Cassidy

Health increased from 225 to 275.

Deadeye

Initial damage rate increased from 130 to 150.

Damage rate increased from 260 to 300.

Echo

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Focusing Beam

Width increased from 0.2 to 0.25 meters.

Duplicate

Maximum combined health value increased from 300 to 350.

Genji

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Dragonblade

Swing recovery decreased from 0.9 to 0.7 seconds.

Hanzo

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Storm Arrows

Damage increased from 65 to 75.

Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.

Junkrat

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Frag Launcher

Base projectile size reduced from 0.25 to 0.2 meters.

Mei

Health increased from 250 to 300.

Pharah

Developer Comments: Pharah has a significant update that empowers more individual plays and shifting her movement capabilities from high up in the air to more horizontal movement that can cover distance quickly.

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Rocket Launcher

Recovery reduced from 0.85 to 0.80 seconds.

Projectile speed increased from 35 to 40 meters per second.

Explosion self-damage reduced from 50% to 25%.

Jet Dash

New Secondary Fire Ability.

Provides a quick horizontal boost in the direction Pharah is moving.

8-second cooldown.

Added a setting to activate Jet Dash on Double Jump instead.

Jump Jet

Now restores 50% of Hover Jets fuel and can briefly overfill the maximum fuel amount.

Vertical boost height reduced by 20%.

Cooldown increased from 10 to 14 seconds.

Cooldown decreased from 9 to 7 seconds.

Explosion now deals 30 damage to enemy targets.

Explosion radius reduced from 8 to 6 meters.

Knockback reduced by 10%.

Barrage

Now instantly refills Hover Jets fuel.

Hover Jets

Speed boost increased from 20% to 40%.

Now requires landing to recharge fuel.

Can now be activated without fuel to slow your descent.

Reaper

Health increased from 250 to 300.

Sojourn

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Railgun

• Secondary Fire base projectile size reduced from 0.1 to 0.07 meters.

Soldier: 76

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Sombra

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Symmetra

Shields increased from 100 to 150.

Photon Projector

Primary fire beam width increased from 0.2 to 0.25 meters.

Torbjörn

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Tracer

Health increased from 150 to 175.

Widowmaker

Health increased from 175 to 200.

SUPPORT

Ana

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Baptiste

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Brigitte

Health increased from 150 to 200.

Rocket Flail

Damage increased from 35 to 45.

Illari

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Kiriko

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Kunai

Base projectile size reduced from 0.18 to 0.15 meters.

Lifeweaver

Health increased from 175 to 225.

Lúcio

Health increased from 200 to 250

Soundwave

Damage increased from 25 to 35.

Knockback increased 12%.

Movement lockout duration increased from 0.3 to 0.45 seconds.

Moira

Health increased from 200 to 250.

Biotic Grasp

Secondary fire damage increased from 50 to 65 damage per second.

Secondary fire target acquisition radius increased from 0.6 to 0.7 meters.

Zenyatta

Health increased from 75 to 100.

Shields increased from 150 to 175.

MAP UPDATES

JUNKERTOWN UPDATE

New nighttime lighting theme.

New building near the first point to provide more cover & block long sightlines.

Added a water tower near the first point to block sightlines from upper choke positions.

Added more vehicles near the cliff to provide additional cover & block long sightlines.

Reduced the cliffside path to tighten the space and reduce the overall footprint of the area.

Removed a small health pack on the second area balcony that was easy for defenders to overuse.

Added vertical beam at second choke point to promote movement out of the upper floor & make the choke easier to defend.

Widened and added cover in a hallway in the third area to make close quarter fights easier to maneuver.

Developer Comments: We’ve added more cover—including new structures—to help counter some of the long sightlines around the first checkpoint. Additional changes in the third area allow attackers to push through certain chokes more easily.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

Fixed an issue with some shadows that could appear jagged when on any setting below Ultra.

Fixed a bug that prevented your skin from changing when using the Change Skin option in Hero Select if you had a Loadout selected.

Fixed a bug with Golden Weapons being marked as unspecified and not being purchasable.

Fixed a bug with some callouts for pushing the payload playing at incorrect moments.

Fixed an issue with Wall Climb failing in some situations.

Additional bug fixes for general stability and performance.

MAPS

Antarctic Peninsula

Fixed lighting in some areas of the map.

King’s Row

Fixed areas of the map that were missing collision.

Midtown

Fixed some locations that could cause some heroes to become stuck

Shambali Monastery

Fixed a location of the map that displayed incorrect textures.

HEROES

Doomfist

Fixed a bug with Meteor Strike that could result in Doomfist getting inside the environment.

Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented Seismic Slam’s damage from going through turrets.

Fixed a bug that could prevent Doomfist from acquiring Overhealth in some cases.

Fixed a bug where Rocket Punch left a small window of time open to use abilities.

Echo

Fixed an interaction when Duplicating Bastion that prevented the Duplicated Configuration: Artillery’s shots from landing if Duplicate ended before they landed.

Lifeweaver

Fixed a bug that prevented Tree of Life from healing Reaper when in Wraith form.

Lúcio

Amp it Up now goes on cooldown if interrupted by stun during its cast time or when dying while it’s active.

Mauga

Fixed a bug with the burning applied by Mauga not being removed when picking up a health pack.

Orisa

Terra Surge now correctly pulls in and damages enemies that are on uneven slopes/collision, as long as Orisa has a direct line of sight, they will get pulled/damaged.

Roadhog

Fixed a bug with Roadhog’s model becoming distorted with some skins during the Heroic Highlight intro.

Fixed a bug with Pig Pen displaying a Junkrat icon when pinged.

Sombra

Fixed an interaction that prevented Hack from being interrupted by Rocket Punch or Shield Bash.

Fixed a bug where Sombra would enter Stealth while escorting the robot in some situations.

Torbjörn

Fixed a bug with disabling the Interact Cancel Deploy Turret setting causing you to only destroy a deployed turret and not toss out a new one when the ability is used.

Winston

Fixed a bug with Primal Rage that interrupted the ability to attack if the Ultimate was initiated while Jumping and using Melee at the same time.

Zenyatta

Golden weapon tint should now properly be reflected on all skins.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: January 17th 2024 (North America, Europe) / January 18th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

BUG FIXES

General

Fixed a bug that prevented enemy Pings from displaying if Ping was pressed twice

HEROES

Illari

Fixed an issue preventing Illari’s ammunition from working correctly

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: January 12th 2024 (North America, Europe) / January 13th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Let’s Hack Into Quick Play

¡Hola amigos! This is Sombra. I was a little bored and figured we should have some fun this weekend. ¿Qué te parece? So, I decided to hack into the game and change the rules of Quick Play to make things more… interesting for a little while. I call it: “Quick Play: Hacked!”

Quicker Play

For my first hack, I thought we could use a little change of pace. “Quick Play?” Why not “Quicker Play!” Faster Respawns, less time on the clock, and faster capture and payload movement speeds. Think you can keep up? BOOP!

Respawning times are now 75% of their original time.

Payloads in Escort and Hybrid maps will move 60% faster.

Taking control of the Objective Point in Hybrid is 40% faster than normal.

Taking control of the objective point in Control is 40% faster than normal, and scoring the capture progress percentage is 80% faster.

Taking control of the objective point in Flashpoint is 20% faster than normal, and scoring the capture progress percentage is 40% faster.

When you play an Escort, Hybrid, or Push map, the initial match time has been reduced to 70% of the original time, and any time extensions are also reduced to 70% of the total time added.

These changes only apply to all players who play in Role Queue and Open Queue Quick Play modes during the duration of the event and will return to normal after January 14. Competitive Play and Arcade modes are not affected by these changes.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

Release date: January 9th 2024 (North America, Europe) / January 10th 2024 (Japan)
Patch notes:

Year of the Dragon Seasonal Event

The fireworks and festivities for the Year of the Dragon begin on January 30! Mischief and Magic prop hunt game mode returns on the Lijiang Night Market map, with all new props for Rogue Kiriko to transform into that will make you look in every direction imaginable. In addition, celebrate with your fan-favorite Lunar New Year Modes, including Capture the Flag and Bounty Hunter Blitz.

HERO UPDATES

TANK

Mauga

Base Health increased from 250 to 300.

Base Armor decreased from 250 to 200.

Incendiary and Volatile Chainguns

Ammo decreased from 350 to 300.

Cardiac Overdrive

Lifesteal decreased from 70% to 60%.

Cooldown increased from 10 seconds to 12 seconds.

Cage Fight

No longer grants infinite ammo. Still reloads Mauga’s Chainguns at the start of the ultimate.

Berserker

Overhealth conversion rate decreased from 60% to 50%.

Orisa

Augmented Fusion Driver

Removed falloff damage penalty.

Fortify

Now immune to taking forced critical hit damage. Fortify already prevents direct critical damage from headshots.

Roadhog

Take a Breather

Total amount healed reduced from 500 to 450.

Cooldown between usages increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds.

DAMAGE

Sojourn

Railgun

Gradual energy no longer decays below 25%.

Sombra

Stealth

Grace period where Stealth can be canceled immediately after entering it increased from 0.5 to 0.75 seconds.

Cooldown now pauses at 1 second while capturing or contesting objectives from 1.5 seconds.

Cooldown on respawning decreased from 1.5 to 1 second.

SUPPORTS

Ana

Biotic Grenade

Effect duration reduced from 3.5 to 3 seconds.

Illari

Solar Rifle

Primary fire charge gain is no longer paused by secondary fire, nor channeling Captive Sun.

Ammo increased from 14 to 16.

Captive Sun

Now fully refills secondary fire resource and resets overheated status.

Removed the damage falloff penalty on the Sunstruck explosion.

Lifeweaver

Thorn Volley

Projectile speed increased from 70 to 80 meters per second.

Petal Platform

No longer pierced by piercing projectiles.

BUG FIXES

General

Fixed a bug that caused Endorsement Level to appear incorrectly in Custom Games.

Increased the volume and clarity of Ultimate voice over lines.

Fixed missing Multikill voice-overs from activating when criteria is met.

Fixed the ‘Rugby Practice’ challenge not progressing.

Fixed a bug when spectating that caused the camera to become stuck on 2 members of the team.

Fixed an issue that prevented the ‘Hero Limit’ option from saving after being modified in Custom Game options.

Fixed an issue with Reticle options where Dot Size and Outline Thickness would change the reticle appearance even if their opacity was set to 0.

Fixed a crash related to viewing replays.

Fixed a bug that prevented you from being able to manually enter the value for Maximum Queue Delay in Streamer Protect settings (this value could always be set using the slider).

Heroes

Fixed a bug that allowed abilities with shockwaves to hit targets in a floor below.

Bastion

Fixed an issue with Bastion’s hitbox becoming desynchronized while in Assault mode.

Doomfist

Fixed a bug with Rocket Punch that could cause the targets of the punch to potentially lose their walking animation.

Echo

Fixed a bug that occurred when an Echo copied Sigma’s Kinetic Grasp would not grow when taking damage.

Illari

Fixed a bug where the Sunstruck effect wouldn’t detonate if the damage threshold was reached in the last 0.6 seconds of the effect.

Mercy

Fixed an issue that reduced Guardian Angels active duration by cancelling the ability while simultaneously pressing crouch or jump.

Fixed an issue that forced Mercy to reload if Valkryie was activated during the reload animation.

Additional notes: none.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment

How to download updates for Overwatch 2 for the Nintendo Switch?

To download the updates for Overwatch 2, you have three options:

let the console do its thing if you have automatic downloads activated, and didn’t completely turn it off

If not…

try to launch the game from the Home Menu while being connected to the internet. You should get a prompt when doing so: simply follow the instructions on screen;

select the game > press either + or – to go to the Options page > select Software update > select Via the Internet.

To check that you have the latest version installed, simply select the game on the Home Menu, and press – or + to go to the Options: the version number is displayed just below the game title.