EVENT UPDATES

New Event – Starwatch: Galactic Rescue

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

Battle for Olympus Returns

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

GENERAL UPDATES

Ping System

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

Push Game Mode Update

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

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

Matchmaking

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

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Competitive Deathmatch

• The 2023 Competitive Deathmatch season begins on May 16!

HERO UPDATES

TANK

Junker Queen

Scattergun

• Maximum ammo increased from 6 to 8

Jagged Blade

• Projectile size increased from 0.15 to 0.20 meters

Rampage

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

Adrenaline Rush

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

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

Orisa

Augmented Fusion Driver

• Damage increased from 12 to 13

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

Winston

Jet Pack

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

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

Wrecking Ball

Adaptive Shield

• Effect duration decreased from 9 to 7 seconds

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

DAMAGE

Echo

Duplicate

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

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

Junkrat

Concussion Mine

• Maximum damage increased from 100 to 110

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

SUPPORT

Ana

Biotic Grenade

• Explosion healing decreased from 100 to 60

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

Baptiste

Immortality Field

• Cooldown decreased from 25 to 23 seconds

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

Kiriko

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

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

Lifeweaver

Life Grip

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

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

HERO OPTION UPDATES

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

TANK

D.Va

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Doomfist

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

Hand Cannon UI – On by default

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

Orisa

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

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Ramattra

Block now respects holding the input through being stunned.

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Reinhardt

Added the Hero-Specific Options

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

Roadhog

Added the Hero-Specific Option

• Hide Whole Hog Timer – Off by default

Sigma

Gravitic Flux now automatically casts when the timer runs out

Winston

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

• Toggle Secondary Fire – Off by default

Wrecking Ball

Pressing the Quick Melee button now cancels Roll

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

Toggle Quick Melee During Roll

DAMAGE

Bastion

Configuration: Artillery now automatically casts when the timer runs out

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Cassidy

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Echo

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Genji

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Mei

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

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Pharah

Added the Hero-Specific Option

• Toggle Hover Jets – Off by default

Reaper

Added the Hero-Specific Options

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

Sombra

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

Toggle Hack – Off by default

Symmetra

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Torbjörn

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

• Hide Overload Timer – Off by default

Tracer

Added the Hero-Specific Option:

• Blink UI – On by default

SUPPORT

Baptiste

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

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Brigitte

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Kiriko

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

• Healing Ofuda Cancels Reload – On by default

Lifeweaver

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Lúcio

Allow Backwards Wall Ride option now On by default

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

Mercy

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

Zenyatta

Added the Hero-Specific Options:

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

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

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

MAPS

Antarctic Peninsula

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

Busan

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

Circuit Royale

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

Esperança

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

Hollywood

• Removed a planter near the first choke

Lijang Tower

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

Shambali Monastery

• Fixed some areas on the map that would eat projectiles

HEROES

Ana

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

Ashe

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

Bastion

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

Brigitte

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

Doomfist

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

D.Va

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

Genji

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

Kiriko

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

Lifeweaver

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

Mei

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

Pharah

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

Ramattra

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

Reaper

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

Sojourn

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

Sombra

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

Widowmaker

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

WORKSHOP

• Fixed multiple issues related to Custom Projectiles

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

HERO UPDATES

SUPPORT

LIFEWEAVER

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

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

General

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

Healing Blossom

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

Thorn Volley

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

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

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

Parting Gift (Passive)

• Parting gift has been removed

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

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

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

MAPS

Esperança

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

HEROES

Lifeweaver

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

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

OVERWATCH 2 SEASON FOUR

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

INTRODUCING LIFEWEAVER

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

Lifeweaver

Lifeweaver has been added to the line-up.

Healing Blossom

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

Thorn Volley

• Rapidly fire a spread of projectiles.

Petal Platform

• Throw a platform that springs upwards when stepped on.

Rejuvenating Dash

• Dash toward your traveling direction and lightly heal yourself.

Life Grip

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

Tree of Life

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

Parting Gift (Passive)

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

GENERAL UPDATES

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

Accessibility

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

Stranded Spawn System

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

Matchmaking

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

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Top 500 Leaderboard Eligibility

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

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

Competitive Leaver Penalty Changes

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

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

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

Competitive Point Reward Changes

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

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

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

Competitive Challenge Titles

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

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

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

Competitive Match Rank

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

Seasonal Rank Decay Removed

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

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

Competitive Skill Update and Progression

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

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

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

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

HERO UPDATES

TANK

Reinhardt

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

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

Sigma

Accretion

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

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

DAMAGE

Cassidy

• Base health reduced from 225 to 200

Magnetic Grenade

• Damage reduced from 131 to 120

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

Sombra

• EMP can now disable Blizzard

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

SUPPORT

Ana

Sleep Dart

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

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

Brigitte

Rally

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

Repair Pack

• Range reduced from 30 to 25 meters

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

Mercy

Caduceus Staff

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

Guardian Angel

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

Valkyrie

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

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

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

Moira

Fade

• Can now be activated during Coalescence

Coalescence

• Bonus movement speed reduced from 50 to 40%

Biotic Grasp

• Lingering heal duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds

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

MAP UPDATES

General Updates

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

New Arcade Map: Talantis

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

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

Season 4 Map Lighting

Push

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

Hybrid

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

Escort

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

Control

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

WORKSHOP UPDATES

Introducing Workshop Projectiles

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

• Create Projectile
• Create Homing Projectile
• Create Projectile Effect

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

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

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

MAPS

Circuit Royale

• Fixed multiple lighting issues in Circuit Royale

Hanamura

• Fixed multiple cases of lighting and geometry

Ilios

• Fixed areas in Ilios where players could become stuck

New Queen Street

• Fixed multiple cases of lighting an geometry in Toronto

Oasis

• Fixed areas in Oasis that blocked players and gameplay

Shambali Monastery

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

HEROES

Ashe

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

Bastion

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

Cassidy

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

Doomfist

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

Echo

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

Genji

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

Kiriko

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

Mercy

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

Moira

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

Orisa

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

Pharah

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

Roadhog

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

Sigma

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

Sombra

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

Torbjorn

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

Tracer

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

Widowmaker

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

Zarya

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

Zenyatta

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

DEVELOPER NOTE – TEST PATCH

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

HERO UPDATES

General

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

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

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

Role Passives

Damage:

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

Heal 50 health on elimination.

Tank:

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

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

Support:

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

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

Tank

Doomfist

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

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

D.Va

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

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

Junker Queen

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

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

Orisa

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

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

Ramattra

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

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

Reinhardt

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

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

Roadhog

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

• Hook
  • Range increased by 50%.

Sigma

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

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

Winston

Dev Comment: Winston!

• Winston?
  • Winston!

Wrecking Ball

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

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

Zarya

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

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

Damage

Ashe

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

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

Bastion

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

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

Cassidy

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

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

Echo

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

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

Genji

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

• Sometimes Genji heals himself when requesting healing.

Hanzo

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

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

Junkrat

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

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

Mei

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

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

Pharah

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

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

Reaper

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

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

Soldier: 76

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

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

Sojourn

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

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

Sombra

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

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

Symmetra

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

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

Torbjörn

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

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

Tracer

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

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

Widowmaker

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

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

Support

Ana

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

• Biotic Rifle
  • Can now headshot enemies.

Baptiste

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

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

Brigitte

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

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

Kiriko

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

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

Lucio

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

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

Mercy

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

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

Moira

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

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

Zenyatta

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

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

NEW COLLABORATION: OVERWATCH 2 X ONE-PUNCH MAN

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

OVERWATCH LEAGUE 2023 SEASON

New Overwatch League Team Skins

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

Team Bundles Now Available

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

GENERAL UPDATES

Adjusted Distance Attenuation on Enemy Footsteps

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

Challenges

Weekly Challenges

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

Daily Challenges

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

Challenge Progress during End of Round

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

End of Match Scoreboard Update

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

Matchmaking

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

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Competitive Mystery Heroes

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

Competitive Screen Layout Update

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

Top 500 Leaderboard Update

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

HERO UPDATES

TANK

Orisa

Terra Surge

• Terra Surge can now be interrupted by Hack

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

Ramattra

Annihilation

• Using Annihilation while in Nemesis Form refreshes your bonus armor

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

Roadhog

Chain Hook

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

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

Wrecking Ball

General

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

Grappling Claw

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

Minefield

• Minefield arming time increased from 1 to 1.25 seconds

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

Zarya

General

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

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

DAMAGE

Ashe

B.O.B.

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

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

Hanzo

Lunge

• Lunge cooldown decreased from 5 to 4 seconds

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

Mei

Blizzard

• Blizzard ultimate cast time reduced from 0.5 to 0.4 seconds

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

Pharah

Jump Jet

• Jump Jet movement is now influenced by directional inputs

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

Sojourn

General

• Torso hit volume width increased by 20%

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

SUPPORT

Baptiste

Immortality Field

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

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

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

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

MAPS

Antarctic Peninsula

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

Busan

• Fixed a bug with the physics of the Cow

Circuit Royale

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

Colosseo

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

Esperanca

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

Lijiang Tower

• Fixed areas of the map that allowed players to escape

Midtown

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

HEROES

Ashe

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

Echo

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

Hanzo

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

Reinhardt

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

Lúcio

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

Orisa

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

Symmetra

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

Torbjörn

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

WORKSHOP

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

OVERWATCH 2, SEASON 3

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

NEW MAP: ANTARCTIC PENINSULA

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

NEW FEATURE: STREAMER PROTECT

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

GENERAL UPDATES

Accessibility Improvements

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

Challenges

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

Endorsements

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

Game Report

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

Mystery Heroes Changes

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

Overwatch Credits are back

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

Ping System Update

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

COMPETITIVE PLAY

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

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

WORKSHOP UPDATES

• Workshop Editor is back!

Workshop Moderation Tools

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

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

HERO UPDATES

ALL HEROES

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

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

TANK ROLE PASSIVE

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

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

TANK

D.Va

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

Doomfist

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

Junkerqueen

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

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

Orisa

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

Augmented Fusion Driver

• Damage falloff range reduced from 25 to 15 meters

Ramattra

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

Annihilation

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

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

Reinhardt

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

Charge

• Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 seconds

Fire Strike

• Damage increased from 90 to 100

Earthshatter

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

Rocket Hammer

• Knockback impulse reduced from 10 to 6

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

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

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

Roadhog

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

Whole Hog

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

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

Sigma

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

Gravitic Flux

• Ultimate cost increased 7%

Winston

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

Barrier Projector

• Health reduced from 700 to 650

Wrecking Ball

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

Pile Driver

• Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds

Minefield

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

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

Zarya

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

Graviton Surge

Ultimate cost increased 8%

DAMAGE

Cassidy

Combat Roll

• Movement is no longer blocked by enemy player collision

Peacekeeper

• Primary fire falloff range increased from 20 to 25 meters

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

Junkrat

Concussion Mine

• Maximum damage reduced from 120 to 100

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

Mei

Blizzard

• Ultimate cost reduced 5%

Pharah

Barrage

• Ultimate cost reduced 5%

Reaper

Death Blossom

• Ultimate cost reduced 8%

Soldier:76

Heavy Pulse Rifle

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

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

Sombra

Machine Pistol

• Damage per projectile increased from 7 to 7.5

Hack

• Health pack hacked duration increased from 30 to 45 seconds

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

Symmetra

Photon Barrier

• Ultimate cost increased 10%

Torbjorn

Deploy Turret

• Turret base health reduced from 250 to 225

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

Widowmaker

• Base health reduced from 200 to 175

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

SUPPORT

Ana

Biotic Grenade

• Effect duration reduced from 4 to 3.5 seconds

Brigitte

Repair Pack

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

Rally

• Ultimate cost reduced 10%

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

Lucio

Sound Barrier

• Ultimate cost reduced 7%

Mercy

Guardian Angel

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

Caduceus Staff

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

Regeneration Passive

• Regeneration Passive removed

New Passive: “Sympathetic Recovery”

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

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

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

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

Moira

Coalescence

• Ultimate cost reduced 5%

Zenyatta

Orb of Destruction

• Ammo increased from 20 to 25

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

SEASON 3 MAP POOLS

Push

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

Hybrid

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

Escort

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

Control

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

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

Ping System

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

Other Fixes

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

MAPS

Blizzard World

• Fixed lighting in several areas around the map

Busan

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

Dorado

• Fixed lighting in some areas of the map

Esperança

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

Oasis

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

Colosseo

• Fixed ambient lighting across the map

Shambali Monastery

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

HEROES

Ana

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

Doomfist

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

Genji

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

Junkerqueen

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

Junkrat

• Fixed an issue with Steel Trap sometimes failing to place

Kiriko

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

Mercy

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

Moira

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

Ramattra

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

Sigma

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

Sombra

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

Symmetra

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

NEW SEASONAL MODE: BATTLE FOR OLYMPUS FFA

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

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

 

COMPETITIVE PLAY

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

 

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Junker Queen

 

Adrenaline Rush

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

 

Carnage

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

 

Jagged Blade

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

Zarya

 

 

Energy

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

SUPPORT

 

Brigitte

 

Barrier Shield

• Health increased from 250 to 300

Moira

 

Biotic Orb

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

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

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

MAPS

Watchpoint Gibraltar

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

Shambali Monastery

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

HEROES

Bastion

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

Kiriko

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

Mercy

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

Ramattra

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

Tracer

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

BUG FIXES

Maps

Shambali

• Resolved an issue with geometry on Shambali

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

OVERWATCH 2, SEASON 2

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

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

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

 

GENERAL UPDATES

 

Control Game Mode

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

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

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

Hero Updates and Challenges

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

Shop Update

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

COMPETITIVE PLAY

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

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

 

HERO UPDATES

Damage Role Passive

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

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

 

TANK

 

Ramattra

• Ramattra has been added to the line-up

 

Void Accelerator (Omnic Form)

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

 

Nemesis Form

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

 

Pummel (Nemesis Form)

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

 

Ravenous Vortex

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

 

Annihilation

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

Doomfist

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

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

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

 

Rocket Punch

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

 

Power Block

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

 

Meteor Strike

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

 

The Best Defense…

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

Junker Queen

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

• Torso and head hit volume size increased 12%

 

Rampage

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

 

Commanding Shout

• Cooldown reduced from 15 to 14 seconds

 

Adrenaline Rush

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

DAMAGE

 

Bastion

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

 

Configuration Artillery

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

 

Reconfigure

• Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds

Sojourn

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

 

Railgun

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

Symmetra

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

 

Proton Projector

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

Tracer

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

 

Pulse Pistols

• Damage increased from 5 to 6

SUPPORT

 

Ana

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

 

Sleep Dart

• Cooldown reduced from 15 to 14 seconds

Kiriko

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

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

 

Kitsune Rush

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

 

Protection Suzu

• Cast time reduced from 0.15 to 0.1 second

 

Kunai

• Ammo increased from 12 to 15

 

Swift Step

• Ability input can now be held to activate

Mercy

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

• Weapon swap time reduced from 0.5 to 0.35 seconds

 

Caduceus Blaster

• Ammo increased from 20 to 25

SEASON 2 MAP POOLS

 

Push

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

Hybrid

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

ESCORT

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

Control

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

BUG FIXES

 

General

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

Maps

Busan

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

Colosseo

• Fixed geometry that allowed some heroes to contest undetected

Esperança

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

Gibraltar

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

Nepal

• Replaced some missing pillars on Sanctum

Rio

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

Route 66

• Fixed lighting issues across the map

New Queen Street

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

Heroes

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

Cassidy

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

Doomfist

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

D.Va

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

Junker Queen

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

Mercy

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

Moira

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

Pharah

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

Soldier 76

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

Symmetra

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

Tracer

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

Winston

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

Zenyatta

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment