Overwatch 2 (Switch): all the updates (latest: Ver. ??? – Quick Play Hacked: Kingmaker)

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

Archives: launch to December 2023

Click here for more Software updates!

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

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

Kingmaker

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

• Kingmaker will be in its own playable mode outside of Role Queue and Open Queue in the Unranked menu.
• Players select roles in a first-come, first-served setup, with only two players per role (Tank, Damage, Support).
• Once a role is capped at two players, it’s locked for the remaining team members.
• You cannot switch roles during gameplay, but can switch between rounds for the Control game mode.
• Whichever role has only a single hero, that hero will receive an extra bonus effect and will be to all players in the match.
• This experimental mode runs through December 8.

Tank Kingmaker Bonus

• Health increased by 150 HP.
• Movement speed increased by 15%.
• Decreased crowd control effect and incoming critical damage.

Damage Kingmaker Bonus

• Health increased by 50 HP
• All cooldowns decreased by 20%
• Attack and reload speed increased by 20%

Support Kingmaker Bonus

• Health increased by 100 HP
• Healing to allies increased by 30%
• All cooldowns decreased by 20%

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

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

• Fixed an issue causing the Hero Mastery courses for Brigitte and Cassidy to be unavailable. These can now be played again.
• Fixed an issue with the Stockholm Sunset Name Card.
• In a previous update, fixed an issue where some players were missing first-person primary fire sounds on some heroes.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

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

• Release date: November 22nd 2024
• Patch notes:

INTRODUCING HAZARD

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

 

Hazard

• Tank Role
• Not available in Competitive Play during the Hero Trial

 

Bonespur

• Primary Fire
• Fire a burst of spikes.

 

Spike Guard

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

 

Violent Leap

• Ability 1
• Lunge forward. Activate again to slash at enemies, knocking them back.

 

Jagged Wall

• Ability 2
• Launch a spiked wall that damages and knocks back nearby enemies.

 

Downpour

• Ultimate Ability
• Rain down a torrent of spikes, immobilizing enemies.

 

Vault

• Passive ability
• Scale short walls and grab ledges.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

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

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

Overwatch: Classic

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

 

Warcraft: 30 Anniversary

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

 

Hero Updates

 

Tanks

Doomfist

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

 

Rocket Punch

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

 

Meteor Strike

• Ultimate cost reduced 8%.
• Healing per second while in the air increased from 75 to 90.

Junker Queen

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

 

Jagged Blade

• Base projectile size reduced from 0.2 to 0.15 meters.

 

Adrenaline Rush

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

Mauga

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

 

Overrun

• Cooldown reduced from 6 to 5 seconds.
• Charge movement speed increased 15%.

Damage

Hanzo

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

 

Storm Bow

• Time to fully charge decreased from 0.87 to 0.80 seconds.

 

Dragonstrike

• Now damages enemy buildable objects.

Junkrat

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

 

Concussion Mine

• Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.

Reaper

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

 

The Reapening

• Lifesteal reduced from 35 to 30%.

Tracer

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

 

Recall

• Cooldown reduced from 13 to 12 seconds.

Support

Ana

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

 

Biotic Rifle

• Damage and Healing increased from 70 to 75.

Juno

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

 

Orbital Ray

• Ultimate cost increased 10%.

Kiriko

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

 

Kunai

• Recovery time decreased from 0.55 to 0.5 seconds.

 

Swift Step

• Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 seconds.

 

Protection Suzu

• Cooldown reduced from 15 to 14 seconds.

Lifeweaver

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

 

Lifegrip

• Cooldown reduced from 19 to 18 seconds.
• Healing increased from 50 to 75.

 

Tree of Life

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

Moira

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

 

Biotic Grasp

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

Bug Fixes

 

General

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

Maps

Circuit Royale

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

Petra

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

Heroes

Ana

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

Ramattra

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

Zarya

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

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

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

Limit 2

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

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

• Limit 2 will take over the Open Queue Quick Play slot.
• Players select roles in a first-come, first-served setup, with only two players per role (Tank, Damage, Support).
• Tank heroes will play without the Role Queue HP passive.
• Once a role is capped at two players, it’s locked for the remaining team members, emphasizing strategic composition decisions.
• You can switch roles during the match, but each role remains limited to two players, to maintain the mode’s unique balance.
• This experimental mode runs for three days from November 6 to November 8, offering a limited-time experience to explore new team dynamics in Open Queue.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

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

Arcade Updates

Junkenstein’s Laboratory

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

Ashe

Trail by Fire

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

Fire and Fury

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

Demon’s Ward

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

D.Va

Anti-Boost

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

No Escape

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

Genji

Scary Speed

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

Vampiric Deflect

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

Bitter Revenge

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

Master Ward

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

Kiriko

Not Your Time

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

Drawn Together

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

Unburdened

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

Vindictive Vision

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

Spirit World’s Gift

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

Mercy

Mend and Mar

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

Power for a Price

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

Sustained Servant

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

Witches Never Die

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

Fall from Grace

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

Moira

Frightening Fascination

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

Siphon Strike

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

Equilibrium

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

Orisa

Flight by Night

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

Megamonster

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

Waning Whirlwind

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

Chilling Blow

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

Arcane Energy

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

Violence Begotten

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

Pharah

Scare-ial Superiority

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

Reaper

Swift Shadow

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

Zenyatta

Hallowed Speed

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

Master and Disciple

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

Competitive Updates

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

 

Hero Balance

Tank

Orisa

• Base health increased from 125 to 175.
• Base armor reduced from 350 to 300.

Energy Javelin

• Damage reduced from 80 to 70.

Fortify

• No longer reduces Fusion Driver heat generation.

Ramattra

Pummel

• Reverted to pierce barriers again.
• No longer deals critical damage to barriers.

Wrecking Ball

Quad Cannons

• Ammo increased from 80 to 100.

 

Grappling Claw

• Duration increased from 6 to 8 seconds.

Damage

Sombra

Hack

• Now exits stealth when hacking an enemy target.

Translocator

• Delay before entering stealth reduced from 0.5 to 0.33 seconds.
• Fade in time reduced from 0.3 to 0.15 second.

EMP

• Ultimate cost reduced by 10%.

Support

Juno

 

Orbital Ray

• Healing reduced from 100 to 85 health per second.

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed an issue where the auto-requeue for Quick Play was not working correctly.
• Fixed an issue that did not allow some OWL Player Icons to be purchased individually.
• Fixed an issue with the HDR setting causing the game screen to turn black.
• Fixed an issue where the first purchase attempt of a golden weapon failed.
• Fixed an issue that caused Grey Overwatch League Overwatch 2 skins to be missing from the hero gallery.
• In a previous update, fixed a crash in the hero gallery.

Maps

Dorado

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

Heroes

Mercy

• Fixed a bug with jump/crouch cancel staying active for longer than intended.
• In a previous update, fixed an issue where players with Pink Mercy and Rose Gold Mercy skins equipped could not hear pistol sounds in first person.

Reaper

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

Reinhardt

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

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

Hero Updates

 

Damage

 

Sombra

 

Translocator

• Cooldown reduced from 7 to 6 seconds.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 13)

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

SEASON 13 – SEASON OF SPELLBINDERS

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

 

OVERWATCH 2 X MY HERO ACADEMIA®

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

© K. Horikoshi / Shueisha, My Hero Academia Project

 

HALLOWEEN TERROR 2024

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

 

HERO MASTERY MODE – CASSIDY & BRIGITTE

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

 

GENERAL UPDATES

 

Interactive Scoreboard

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

• Adjusting Mic Volume of other players
• Adjusting your Mic Volume
• Reporting other players
• Joining/Leaving Team Voice Chat
• Joining/Leaving Group Voice Chat
• Muting Team Text Chat
• Muting Match Text Chat
• Muting Text Chat of other players

Matchmaking Updates

• Tuning changes to reduce queue times for Wide matches in Competitive Play.
• Loss Streak avoidance tuned down to prevent cases where it could increase worst case scenario queue times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Public Custom Games

• Hosting Public Custom Games now requires Endorsement Level 3.

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

Streamer Protect

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

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

Challenge Updates

• Select challenges are now visible in the Main Menu.
• Challenge Rewards can now be inspected in detail in the Challenges Menu.

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

SHOP UPDATES

• Mythic Skin Aspects Add-on Cosmetic is now added to the Mythic Shop.
• Overwatch League Store tab was removed and replaced by a separate button in the bottom of the main Shop tab.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

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

• Win requirement per season reduced from 50 to 25.
• The Seasoned Competitor challenge (750 lifetime wins in Competitive Play) is now required to be completed to be eligible for any Top 500 Leaderboard starting in Season 12.

HERO UPDATES

 

General

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

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

TANK

 

Mauga

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

 

Incendiary Chaingun

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

Ramattra

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

Pummel

 

Pummel

• No longer pierces barriers.
• Now deals 2.5x more damage to barriers.

Reinhardt

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

 

Barrier Field

• Barrier Field health reduced from 1600 to 1500.

Damage

 

Hanzo

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

• Base health increased from 225 to 250.

 

Sojourn

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

 

Railgun

• Energy no longer stops degenerating at 25 energy.
• Time before energy degeneration begins increased from 7 to 12 seconds.

 

Disruptor Shot

• Damage per second increased from 60 to 80
• Now generates 25% of damage done to enemy players as Railgun energy.

Sombra

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

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

 

Hack

• No longer ends Stealth but does reveal Sombra.
• Hacked ability lockout effect duration reduced from 1.5 to 1.0 seconds (EMP duration unchanged).
• BOB hacked stun duration reduced from 10 to 3 seconds.

 

Translocator

• Cooldown increased from 5 to 7 seconds.

 

EMP

• Ultimate cost increased 12%.

 

Stealth

• No longer passive and now activates by using Translocator.
• Now has a 5 second duration.
• Added stealth timer around the reticle and removed ability icon.
• Taking damage now reveals Sombra for 1 second instead of ending stealth.

 

Opportunist

• The Opportunist passive has been added back in.
• Increases Sombra’s weapon damage versus hacked targets by 20%.
• See critically injured enemies through walls.

SUPPORT

 

Baptiste

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

 

Biotic Launcher

• Primary fire recoil reduced by 30%.

Brigitte

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

 

Repair Pack

• Cooldown increased from 5 to 5.5 seconds.

Juno

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

 

Mediblaster

• Falloff range reduced from 30-50 meters to 20-35 meters.
• Healing per projectile reduced from 6.5 to 6.

MAP UPDATES

 

CLASH

• Capture time on the final objective points A and E now increases for Attackers as segments get secured consecutively from 1x /1x / 1x to 0.7x /1.1x /1.4x, to make the first segment easier to capture for attackers but consecutive ones harder.
• Defenders now respawn instantly as the first segment and second segment get secured instead of when the previous objective points B or D get captured.
• Unlock time for final objective points A and E has been increased from 25 seconds to 27.5 seconds.
• Decay rate on final objective points A and E have been doubled for attackers to not lose their progress as quickly when stepping off the point.
• Capture time for defenders on objective points B and D has been increased by 10% to give attackers more opportunities to attack the point.

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

Circuit Royal

1st Point

• New exit options from attackers initial spawn to reduce spawn camping.
• Initial high ground right flank brought in and access adjusted to reduce spawn camping.
• Cover options added.
• New far side flank option to contest defenders on the high ground by the bridge.

2nd Point

• Improved spawn protections for attackers leaving the second spawn area to reduce spawn camping.
• Additional cover added while pushing high ground for attackers.
• New flank added for attackers to take rear high ground by the chicane.
• Hill lowered slightly and road angled forward to make approach for attackers slightly more comfortable.

3rd Point

• Improved options for attackers leaving the third spawn area to combat spawn camping.
• Flank route to high ground pool area widened and additional cover added to increase play options in this space.
• Sightlines improved for attackers to poke at entrenched defender positions in the final area.

 

Dorado

1st Point

• Starting high ground cover and access has been adjusted to reduce spawn camping.
• Flank routes have been streamlined for attackers.
• Various geometry adjustments to provide more favorable gameplay opportunities for attackers in the market area.

2nd Point

• Staircase added for easier attacker access to the high ground.
• Added access to the courthouse for attackers.

3rd Point

• Cover added after the chokepoint on the main path.

 

Havana

1st Point

• Reduced sightlines into the attackers’ spawn.
• Added new options for attackers to exit their spawn.
• Reduced oppressive high ground vantage points for defenders.

2nd Point

• Widened doorways and certain routes for cleaner navigation and flow.
• Closed small holes through certain assets to block sightlines and projectiles.

3rd Point

• Redesigned attackers’ spawn interior and added additional routes for a safer attacker exit.
• Sightlines from the fort wall to spawn and main route have been reduced.
• Pathing into the fort has been consolidated on one side for cleaner flow and to give both teams more options while in combat around the final chokepoint.

Numbani

1st Point

• Attackers’ initial spawn room has been pushed a lot closer to first point to reduce runback times.
• Lowered some high ground around first point.
• Easier access to flank routes around first point.
• Combined the paths in the building behind the payload on first point – one room that connects everything.

2nd Point

• Forward defender spawn points have been added to reduce runback times for defenders.
• A staircase has been added near attackers forward spawn for easier access to high ground.
• Added a connecting path past and above the choke into third point.

3nd Point

• Relocated a pesky sign.
• Removed a tree.

 

BUG FIXES

 

General

• Fixed a bug that caused some players to be unable to purchase golden weapons.
• Fixed a bug where the Voice Chat Devices setting was unable to be changed.
• Fived a bug that caused Adrenaline Junkie achievement to sometimes not grant.

Heroes

Baptiste

• Fixed a bug with Baptiste’s Zombie Walk Emote.

Sigma

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

Reaper

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

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

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

• We are providing two tier skips as a bonus this patch because of the issue with challenge progress not being track when queueing for all roles in the Clash game mode.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing Role Queue Mystery Heroes from counting towards Mystery Heroes lifetime challenges.
• Fixed an issue that was causing Xbox Game Pass skins to become unequipped and unfavorited after logging off.
• Fixed an issue that was causing some voice lines to not play in select Invasion Missions.
• Fixed an issue with the default allied health bar setting on certain heroes.
• In a previous update, fixed an issue making ledge grab more intuitive.

HEROES

Ashe

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

Reaper

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

Ramattra

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

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

Overwatch 2 x World of Warcraft

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

 

General Updates

 

Role Queue Mystery Heroes

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

• Role Queue Mystery Heroes added to the Unranked Menu.
• Open Queue Mystery Heroes removed from the Unranked Menu.
• You can still create a custom game of Open Queue Mystery Heroes in Custom Games.

Deathmatch

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

Competitive Updates

 

Competitive Drives

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

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

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

• 500 Competitive Points
• Signature
• 1000 Competitive Points
• Advanced Signature
• 500 Competitive Points
• Elite Signature

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

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

Signatures are removed after a Rank Reset.

HERO UPDATES

 

GENERAL

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

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

TANK

Tank Role Passive

• Knockback resistance reduced from 40% to 25%.

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

 

D.Va

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

• Mech armor health reduced from 375 to 325.
• Mech base health increased from 200 to 225.

Orisa

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

 

Fortify

• Movement speed penalty reduced from 20% to 10%.

Roadhog

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

 

Take a Breather

• Resource regeneration rate increased from 8 to 10 per second.

Sigma

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

 

Hyperspheres

• Impact damage reduced from 25 to 15.
• Explosion damage increased from 30 to 40.
• No longer deals damage to self.

DAMAGE

Bastion

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

 

Configuration: Assault

• Spread reduced from 2.2 to 2 degrees.

 

Configuration: Artillery

• Ultimate cost reduced 12%.

Cassidy

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

 

Flashbang

• Hinder duration reduced from 1.2 to 0.9 seconds.
• Explosion damage increased from 45 to 75.

 

Deadeye

• Ultimate cost reduced 10%.

Hanzo

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

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

 

Storm Bow

• Normal arrows are no longer affected by global projectile size increases.
• Maximum damage increased from 120 to 125.
• Time to fully charge increased from 0.72 to 0.87 seconds.

Venture

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

 

Explorer’s Resolve

• Shield health gained per ability reduced from 40 to 30.

SUPPORT

Moira

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

 

Coalescence

• Damage per second increased from 70 to 85.

Lifeweaver

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

 

Thorn Volley

• Maximum ammo increased from 80 to 100.

Zenyatta

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

 

Destruction Orb

• Damage increased from 48 to 50.

 

Orb of Discord

• Cooldown per target reduced from 7 to 6 seconds.

Map Updates

 

CLASH

• Fast Respawn after a point has been captured has been removed from Clash. We’ll be looking to implement an alternate version of it for Clash in the future.
• Respawn times for defenders get reduced by 2 seconds for each segment the attackers secure in the final capture zone.

FLASHPOINT

• The initial boost of speed heroes receive when leaving the spawn has been increased in duration from 1 second to 2 seconds.
• Increased maximum potential duration of the speed boost effect from 5 to 6 seconds.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue where players were not gaining credit when queuing for all roles in challenges and progression stats.
• Fixed an issue where wall climbing heroes could infinitely ledge grab.

HEROES

CASSIDY

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

D.VA

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

LIFEWEAVER

• Fixed an issue that would cause Lifeweaver’s petal platform to continue to rise when interacting with Mei’s Ice effects.
• Fixed an issue where Lifeweavers’s petal platform can move horizontally if placed on a moving object.

SIGMA

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

SYMMETRA

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

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

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Winston

 

Tesla Cannon

• Damage per second reduced from 75 to 70.

DAMAGE

 

Ashe

 

The Viper

• Reload per bullet increased from 0.2 to 0.25 seconds.
• Primary fire damage reduced from 40 to 35.

Sombra

 

Virus

• Damage over time reduced from 90 to 75.

Support

 

Juno

 

Mediblaster

• Fire rate increased from 14.3 to 15.5 (reverted to the 34 shots per second during the projectile volley).
• Damage reduced from 8 to 7.5.
• Healing reduced from 7 to 6.5.

Bug Fixes

 

General

• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused heroes to be pulled down during a ledge mantle.
• Badges and Emblems are now correctly reflecting your player rank.
• Fixed an issue that caused large FPS drops at the start and end of matches on PlayStation® 5 consoles.
• Fixed a bug where the avoid list might not be respected during backfills.

Heroes

Doomfist

• Fixed the stretched texture on Doomfist’s BAST skin.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

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

Hero Updates

 

Damage

 

Tracer

 

Pulse Pistols

• Damage reduced from 6 to 5.5

Support

 

Illari

 

Solar Rifle

• Maximum damage reduced from 75 to 70
• Minimum damage reduced from 25 to 20

Juno

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

 

Mediblaster

• Damage increased from 7 to 8.

 

Glide Boost

• Cooldown reduced from 8 to 6 seconds

Bug Fixes

Heroes

Juno

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

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

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

Season 12 – New frontiers

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

 

New Hero – Juno

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

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

 

New Core Game Mode – Clash

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

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

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

 

New Clash Map – Throne Of Anubis

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

 

Hero Mastery Updates

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

• Hero Mastery Courses for Pharah and Zarya have been added.

General Updates

 

Avoid As Teammate

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

• Players now have 15 avoid slots divided into 3 Pinned slots and 12 Recent slots.
• Pinned Avoid slots guarantee that these players will never be in your matches and unlike our old Avoid slots, they never time out.
• The new Recent Avoid slots do time out after 7 days like the old Avoid slots, and they only prioritize constructing teams without these players on them.
• The player with the lowest time remaining in the Recent list is removed from the list if a new player is avoided when the list is full.
• Time Remaining for an avoided player in the Recent list can be refreshed by using the Reset Avoid Expiration feature.
• The Avoid List is now its own tab in the Social menu (which still only appears when at least 1 player is avoided).
• Any players that were avoided when Season 11 ended will be removed from the avoided list due to the aforementioned updates to the system.

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

Spawn System Changes

• Group Respawn is replaced by Wave Respawn for all non-Competitive modes.
• Wave Respawn is added to Competitive Play.
• Default respawn time increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
• Overtime respawn time increased from 13 to 14 seconds.
• Wave Respawn is disabled in Overtime.
• Overtime respawn time is not increased in Flashpoint.
• Wave Respawn is disabled when the Payload is near the end of the track in Escort and Hybrid game modes (the same time the existing Anti-Stall system activates).
• When the first hero on a team dies, they start a new Wave for their team.
• Any hero that dies within 6 seconds of a Wave starting automatically joins that Wave.
• A hero joining a Wave will respawn at the exact same time as the hero that started the Wave. This means that the respawn time of heroes joining the wave can be as long as 12 seconds if they died at the same time as the first hero or as short as 6 seconds if they catch the end of the Wave.
• If a hero starts a Wave and no other hero joins the Wave they will respawn 2 seconds faster. This hero will respawn in 10 seconds (the default respawn time before Season 12).

Developer Comments: These changes are designed to reduce the number of one-sided matches. For an in-depth analysis of our thought process behind the changes to respawning, read the latest Director’s Take on PlayOverwatch.com.

Shop Updates

• You can now try out all skins in the practice range from the Hero Gallery or the Premium Shop.

Competitive Play Updates

 

Mid-Year Rank Reset

• Competitive skill ranks for all players have been reset for Season 12.
• Players will need to complete ten placement matches for each role to be ranked and start climbing on the leaderboard.

Developer Comments: Our plan is to reset ranks every 6 months alongside larger updates that shake up the metagame including significant hero balance changes, new heroes like Juno, new game modes like Clash, and changes to core systems like the respawning changes mentioned above.

Predicted Rank

• The Predicted Rank that was displayed to players in Placements at the end of each match is now displayed in all locations that rank is displayed for individual players.
• Predicted Rank is only displayed to players viewing their own Rank (other players can’t see this information).
• Predicted Rank is now used to determine whether a group is Wide or Narrow, meaning that Placements are no longer automatically considered Wide.
• This will allow players to get much faster queues in many scenarios after their Rank has been reset.

Hero Updates

Developer Comments: Our recent 2.11.1 patch (which adjusted all the Tank heroes), saw a significant gain in interest for the role and had a positive lasting effect in queue times for Damage and Support as well. There are a few additional tuning changes in this update for Tanks but this patch is largely focused on adjusting many of the more mobile heroes in the Damage and Support roles.

Mobility is very powerful and we would like for there to be more of a tradeoff for the flexibility that it brings, especially as we add speed boosting abilities by welcoming Juno to the game. We’re moving a handful of heroes to a 225 HP maximum and in some cases increasing potency elsewhere in their kit.

 

Tank

 

D.Va

Developer Comment: The increase in Defense Matrix availability didn’t help D.Va’s overall performance that much compared to the amount of frustration it is causing players on the opposing team, so we’re reverting it to the previous duration.

 

Defense Matrix

• Maximum duration reduced from 3.5 to 3 seconds.

Orisa

Developer Comment: Orisa is still underperforming so we’re increasing the impact damage of Energy Javelin to better reward accuracy with the ability.

 

Energy Javelin

• Impact damage increased from 60 to 80.

Zarya

Developer Comment: Zarya’s secondary fire didn’t benefit much from the projectile size changes in Season 9 since it’s mostly aimed at the ground. We’re increasing its damage to keep it feeling effective relative to her primary fire beam.

 

Particle Cannon

• Secondary fire minimum damage increased from 47 to 55.
• Secondary fire maximum damage increased from 95 to 110.

Damage

 

Echo

Developer Comment: No additional adjustments to support the reduced health pool as, like Pharah, Echo was one of the top performing Damage heroes recently.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

 

Hanzo

Developer Comment: Hanzo doesn’t quite fit the category of being as highly mobile as the other heroes we’re moving to 225 HP, but like Widowmaker, has the potential long-range lethality merits, as he is now able to one-shot the 225 HP heroes. It’s also nice for the Hanzo mirror match to be more decisive as well.

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

 

Junkrat

Developer Comment: This is mostly a reversion back to how Junkrat’s grenades used to ricochet in early Overwatch, which enables more control over the angle of the bounce and helps the weapon better control spaces with some tricky shots, but the projectile size is now reduced after a couple of bounces so there will be fewer random feeling direct impacts near the end of the projectiles lifetime.

 

Frag Launcher

• Projectile size is now reduced by half after the second ricochet.
• Projectiles preserve slightly more velocity on ricochet.

Sojourn

Developer Comment: After reducing the maximum damage of the Railgun’s secondary fire, we’re continuing to look at the effectiveness of Sojourn’s primary fire. These changes are to make it more accurate and better reward accuracy by increasing the energy gained from headshots.

 

Railgun

• Primary fire weapon spread reduced from 2 to 1.6 degrees.
• Critical hits now grant 10 energy.
• Energy degeneration rate reduced from 33 to 15 per second after 7 seconds.

Sombra

Developer Comment: The increased movement speed while in stealth will better enable Sombra to get into advantageous positions or be slightly more evasive with the new lower health.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

 

Virus

Impact damage increased from 25 to 35.

 

Stealth

Bonus movement speed increased from 45 to 60%.

Torbjörn

Developer Comment: This shift in armor health for Torbjorn is to increase survivability against the heroes which are most affected by armor’s damage reduction, such as Tracer.

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
• Base armor increased from 50 to 75.

 

Support

 

Illari

Developer Comment: Illari can deal a lot of damage over the course of a game but may have too much ammo, given that her projectiles are easier to land hits due to their increased projectile size. We’re also removing the extra environment collision size on her Captive Sun projectile so that it doesn’t accidentally detonate early when firing at nearby walls and such. There is a similar fix to prevent her secondary fire beam from impacting a wall instead of allies near it.

 

Solar Rifle

• Maximum ammo reduced from 16 to 14.

 

Captive Sun

Projectile environment collision size reduced from 0.15 to 0 meters.

Juno

Developer Comment: Community feedback on Juno’s trial was split between over and underpowered. On the stat side, she performed strongly in most every categories but particularly overperformed in healing output over the course of a game. These changes are improving her utility while pulling back lightly on healing throughput, since we’d still like her to launch in a strong state as players grow accustomed to her playstyle. There were also quite a few quality-of-life improvements that are listed elsewhere in the patch notes.

• Juno has been added to the lineup.
• Juno is now eligible for Competitive Play.
• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

 

Mediblaster

• Burst projectile volley rate of fire reduced from 34 to 28 shots per second.

 

Pulsar Torpedoes

• Damage and Healing impact increased from 75 to 85.
• Heal-over-time reduced from 60 to 50 health.

 

Hyper Ring

• Deploy range increased by 3.5 meters.
• Cooldown reduced from 16 to 14 seconds.

 

Orbital Ray

• Deploy range increased by 3.5 meters.
• Cooldown reduced from 16 to 14 seconds.

Kiriko

Developer Comment: Despite the perception of how powerful Kiriko feels to play against, she is a hero that consistently underperforms when it comes to winning games. However, she is a highly evasive hero that makes a lot of sense to be in the 225 health bracket. To help counterbalance the loss of health, we’re smoothing out her damage dealing consistency by increasing the Kunai weapon’s base damage and removing the enhanced critical multiplier.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

 

Kunai

• Critical multiplier reduced from 2.5 to 2x.
• Damage increased from 45 to 60.
• Recovery time increased from 0.5 to 0.55 seconds.

Lifeweaver

Developer Comment: The Petal Platform was too easy to waste if a player accidentally ran over it without intending to make use of it. Now it resets back to the ground if no one is standing on it. We’re also reducing its health so that it’s more reasonable counterplay to destroy the platform. Healing Blossom will now passively charge at a slower rate to enable players to swap between weapons without the fear of falling too far behind when swapping back to healing.

 

Healing Blossom

• Healing progress can now charge passively at a reduced rate.
• No longer reduces movement speed when holding a full charge.

 

Petal Platform

• Duration only counts down while the platform is raised.
• Platform now resets if no one is standing on it for 2 seconds.
• Duration increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
• Health reduced from 400 to 300.

 

Rejuvenating Dash

• Healing reduced from 60 to 45.

Mercy

Developer Comment: Mercy’s Guardian Angel movement enables her to be highly evasive and difficult to engage with for many heroes, but is also one of the most fun parts of her ability kit so we’d like to keep that strength, so we’re moving her to 225 HP and increasing the output of her Caduceus Staff beams.

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

 

Caduceus Staff

• Primary fire healing increased from 55 to 60 health per second.
• Secondary fire damage boost increased from 25% to 30%.

Moira

Developer Comment: Moira can be difficult to take down between the low cooldown on her Fade ability and self-healing with the Biotic Orb, so now she has 225 HP and slightly higher damage output to keep an edge to her offensive potential.

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

 

Biotic Grasp

• Secondary fire damage increased from 60 to 65 damage per second.

Lúcio

Developer Comment: Lucio is one of the most mobile heroes and makes his allies faster as well, so we’re moving him into the 225 HP hero category. His playstyle tends to get into closer ranges more often than other heroes in this category, so we’re turning up his Primary fire damage output to increase his effectiveness at range before diving in.

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

 

Sonic Amplifier

Primary fire damage increased from 18 to 22.

Hero Quality of Life Updates

Developer Comments: Alongside balance changes that should make Juno a strong and viable choice in the Support Role, we also heard community feedback to apply several small changes to make the experience of playing with or against Juno a lot more enjoyable. Thank you for your detailed feedback during Juno’s Hero Trial.

 

Support

 

Juno

 

Mediblaster

• The weapon model visuals and firing sounds were updated to indicate when the weapon is at low ammo.
• The heal sounds that play locally to the Juno player were updated to be more noticeable when healing allies closer to full health.

 

Pulsar Torpedoes

• The cooldown when the ability is canceled after no successful lock-ons has been reduced from 5 seconds to 2 seconds.
• Line of Sight checks were improved to better find targets with hitboxes in view.
• Added range forgiveness of an extra 5 meters on current targets that might move beyond the max 40 meters range.
• The local cancel sound was increased in volume to be more noticeable for the Juno player.
• The ally and enemy impact sounds were updated to be more noticeable for the Juno player.
• Healing torpedoes have new impact visuals when hitting enemy barriers and when clipping near walls.

 

Glide Boost

• Now adjusts Juno better when she hits level architecture such as doorways.

 

Hyper Ring

• Juno players will now hear the initial Hyper Ring apply sound when entering their own ring for the first time.
• The sound when re-entering the Hyper Ring was updated to be more noticeable.

 

Orbital Ray

• The Ultimate enemy voice line was updated in tone to better contrast the ally version.
• The enemy version of the ray’s start sound was updated to be more noticeable.

Map Updates

Flashpoint

• Passing through the spawn door barrier of your own spawn will apply a temporary speed boost to get to the capture point faster.
• The speed boost is removed when taking or dealing damage.
• The speed boost is applied by both the default and forward spawns.
• The speed boost counts toward the existing movement speed bonus cap of 75%.

Push

• The Push bot collision has been updated so players cannot contest from certain high ground positions.

General map & Mode updates

• Updates to our map recency system to increase the frequency of new maps and modes at the start of each season.
• Capture point outlines can now be seen through walls on Clash and Flashpoint when the capture point is unlocked.
• Lighting scenarios are now randomized in Quick Play and Competitive Game Mode.

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed a bug where the Gotcha achievement was not awarding properly.
• Fixed a bug where weapon skins were not showing in the weapon variant menu.
• Fixed a bug where first-time users could not skirmish which waiting for a game.

Heroes

Ashe

• Fixed a bug where some of the effects would not trigger with the Ashe mythic skin equipped on Steam.

Illari

• Fixed a bug with Illari’s Solar Rifle secondary fire healing beam impacting the environment instead of players when aiming near edges of collision.

Juno

• Cleaned up some of the effects of Juno’s Pulsars torpedoes when they landed as D.Va was re-entering her mech.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

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

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

• In the first week of Season 11, Daily and Weekly Challenges were resetting progress incorrectly for some players. To compensate for this, we are granting all players 2 tier skips.
• Fixed a misspelling in the subtitles in a voice line for Reinhardt
• Fixed an issue where some Voice Chat volume sliders were missing from the Sound Options
• Fixed in a previous hotfix – Dorado no longer crashes and is re-enabled
• Fixed in a previous hotfix – Ramattra no longer has 11 second cooldowns on his abilities
• Fixed in a previous hotfix – Orisa’s Energy Javelin no longer does critical damage
• Fixed in a previous hotfix – Sombra no longer reveals herself to entire enemy team if spotted by a single enemy

Heroes

Mercy

• We resolved an issue with statistics for Mercy’s Resurrect ability not tracking correctly in the Scoreboard and Progression.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

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

• Release date: July 12th 2024 (North America, Europe) / July 13th 2024 (Japan)
• Patch notes:

Pickable Passives

Sombra has taken over the Quick Play game modes again and will be giving you an extra boost of your choice with Pickable Passives. For the next two days, you can pick an additional passive to benefit the role you are playing in.

Developer Comments: Pickable Passives looks at whether providing an additional upgrade changes how you approach forming compositions or responding to the enemy team during a match. We’re also curious to see how much it puts a dent into overall game clarity. We’re excited to see what y’all think!

 

• Pickable Passives will take over the Quick Play ruleset from July 15 to July 16.
• All players will be able to choose one of three selectable passives for their role to get an extra benefit for their hero.
• Choose and change your passive anytime in the start of the game, in the spawn room, or while in the respawn phase of after being eliminated.
• Standard Role Passives also remain in effect.

Pickable Tank Passives

• Unyielding – Debuff duration reduced by 40%.
• Armored – Convert 100 health into Armor.
• Last Stand – 50% cooldown reduction when below 50% HP.

Pickable Damage Passives

• Slayer – See critical health enemies through walls.
• Trigger Happy – Increase ammo capacity by 20%.
• Frenzy – Eliminations grant a brief 30% speed boost.

Pickable Support Passives

• Resourceful – Reduce cooldowns by 20%.
• Swift Save – Increase Healing by 50% for targets below 35% HP.
• Close Call – Gain a brief 20% speed boost when below 50% HP.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Hotfix)

• Release date: July 12th 2024 (North America, Europe) / July 13th 2024 (Japan)
• Patch notes:

Hero Updates

 

Tank

 

Ramattra

 

Nemesis Form

• Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.
• Base armor reduced from 100 to 75.
• Base health reduced from 275 to 250.

Zarya

 

 

Particle Barrier

• Shared cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 2.5 to 2.25 seconds.

 

Projected Barrier

• Shared cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds.
• Duration reduced from 2.5 to 2.25 seconds.

Damage

 

Pharah

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225

Support

 

Illari

 

Healing Pylon

• Cooldown increased from 12 to 14 seconds

 

Captive Sun

• Ultimate cost increased 12%

Lúcio

 

Sonic Amplifier

• Knockback reduced by 10%

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 11 Midseason)

• Release date: July 9th 2024 (North America, Europe) / July 10th 2024 (Japan)
• Patch notes:

OVERWATCH 2 X TRANSFORMERS

Join the epic battle between the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS with Optimus Prime as Reinhardt, Megatron as Ramattra, Bumblebee as Bastion, and Arcee as Illari. Pick up these limited-time skins in the in-game Premium Shop today. You can also play now through July 22 to collect new Player Icons, Name Cards, and Titles in a series of limited-time challenges to show your allegiance to the AUTOBOTS or the DECEPTICONS.

 

SUMMER GAMES 2024

The Summer Games are back! Jump into the arcade and play your favorite Summer Games in the arcade, including Lúcioball and Winston’s Beach Volleyball. Play to earn new sprays, player icons, and more through a series of event challenges available now through July 29. Then once the games are done, be sure to pick up new Lifeguard skins for Roadhog, Lifeweaver, and Kiriko from the in-game Premium Shop starting on July 30.

 

INTRODUCING MYTHIC WEAPONS

New Mythic Weapons are elevated weapon skins for some of your favorite heroes and will be available in the Mythic Shop that you can redeem with your Mythic Prisms. The Mythic Bound Demon Weapon Skin for Reinhardt changes based on your gameplay, showing epic, dynamic effects that respond to your achievements and cool moments. Whether charging into battle or holding the line, the Mythic Bound Demon Reinhardt Weapon Skin reacts to your every move. Add the Mythic Bound Demon Weapon Skin to your arsenal on July 23.

 

GENERAL UPDATES

 

Introducing Player Surveys

After a match is done, you may occasionally be invited to participate in a web-based survey that you can complete on PC or using your mobile device by scanning the on-screen QR code. This is your chance to let us know how you have been enjoying Overwatch 2 and help identify areas where the game can be improved.

Audio Updates

Adjusted the volume levels of health pool impacts. When shooting enemies with Base Health, Sheilds, Armor, or Overhealth, made the sound cues clearer as to what health type you are damaging.

HERO UPDATES

 

GENERAL

• Armor flat damage reduction increased from 5 to 10 per projectile.
• Enemy health bars now display when they are at their Low Health threshold.

Developer Comments: The armor changes have had a positive impact on which heroes and damage types are slowed down by armor health. We’re increasing the damage reduction on it to further widen the pool of heroes that are significantly affected by armor’s defense.

TANKS

Tank Role Passive

• Ultimate generation reduction increased from 30 to 40%.
• Knockback resistance reduced from 50 to 40%.

Developer Comments: Dealing damage to Tank heroes will be slightly less rewarding with the increased reduction to ultimate generation and will help to balance out the increased healing they may receive with the change to the Damage role passive in this patch. While the knockback resistance was generally useful for tank heroes and their emphasis on positioning, it was also reaching the point where it was difficult for players to tell if knockback abilities were having any effect on them.

 

D.Va

Developer Comment: The maximum duration of Defense Matrix is increased by half a second by reducing the rate at which the resource meter drains when in use, so it won’t take longer to regenerate. The increased damage on Micro Missiles will help the ability feel relatively more impactful against larger health pools.

 

Defense Matrix

• Maximum duration increased from 3 to 3.5 seconds.

 

Micro Missiles

• Explosion damage increased from 4 to 5.5 damage (from 126 to 153 max damage with direct impacts).

Doomfist

Developer Comments: Most of Doomfist’s survivability is through his excellent mobility, but this boost to his passive Overhealth generation will enable him to stay in the fight longer before disengaging, especially when hitting multiple targets with his abilities.

 

The Best Defense…

• Overhealth gained per target increased from 35 to 40 HP.
• Delay before Overhealth begins to drain increased from 1 to 3 seconds.

Junker Queen

Developer Comments: Junker Queen is relatively small and fast for a Tank hero, so Commanding Shout doesn’t need a ton of bonus health to be effective. The increased wound healing better rewards her for managing her abilities well.

 

Commanding Shout

• Overhealth increased from 150 to 175 HP

 

Adrenaline Rush

• Wound damage self-healing multiplier increased from 2 to 2.5x

Mauga

Developer Comments: Cardiac Overdrive is Mauga’s primary tanking ability that keeps him in the fight, but the previous duration was difficult to counter. It is now a more potent effect with a shorter duration to increase the importance of choosing both the right moment to use it as Mauga and when to try mitigating against it as an enemy.

 

Overrun

• Knockback damage increased from 25 to 30
• Stomp damage increased from 60 to 75

 

Cardiac Overdrive

• Duration reduced from 5 to 3 seconds.
• Lifesteal increased from 60 to 100%.
• Damage reduction increased from 30 to 40%.
• Allies now receive only half of the lifesteal and damage reduction effect value.

Orisa

Developer Comments: The Fortify and Javelin Spin abilities were weakened further than necessary when Orisa was overly dominant. She has not been performing well since then but in this patch where we’re broadly adjusting how impactful the role is. So, there is room again to return some of Fortify’s effectiveness.

 

Fortify

• Duration increased from 3.5 to 4 seconds

Ramattra

Developer Comments: The Pummel damage adjustment is notable as it reduces the number of punches required to knockout a 250 health hero.

 

Nemesis Form

• Bonus armor increased from 225 to 300.

 

Pummel

• Pummel damage increased from 60 to 65.

Reinhardt

Developer Comments: One of the core design goals for Reinhardt is to be the hero that shields his team. In the past we’ve reduced the barrier health significantly in order to improve other offensive aspects of his kit to better fit the fast-paced gameplay of Overwatch 2, but perhaps it was too much. We still want to avoid barriers feeling mandatory due to how useful they can be and keep tank diversity at a healthy level. However, with this patch looking at the tank role in particular, we’re increasing Reinhardt’s barrier health again and will evaluate further.

 

Barrier Field

• Maximum health increased from 1400 to 1600.
• Barrier regeneration rate increased from 140 to 160 health per second.

 

Charge

• Wall impact damage increased from 275 to 300.

Roadhog

Developer Comments: The Pig Pen ability wasn’t very useful outside of being used in the Chain Hook combo so we’re increasing its potential threat if an enemy stays within its area.

 

Pig Pen

• Area damage after activating increased from 30 to 45 damage per second.
• Recovery time reduced from 0.55 to 0.4 seconds.
• Cooldown now begins immediately when used instead of after a short delay.

Sigma

Developer Comments: Sigma is a tank that does not currently have an issue with survivability when cycling between managing his barrier, Kinetic Grasp, and weapon range. We are however increasing the damage of Accretion to bring back more of the threat it used to pose and increase the satisfaction in landing it, as it also did not benefit from the global increase to projectile sizes.

 

Accretion

• Impact damage increased from 40 to 80 (120 damage total).

Winston

Developer Comments: Winston is one of the top performing tanks at the moment, though when considering how satisfying the individual abilities within his kit are, the Tesla Cannon secondary fire felt underwhelming for how long it took to charge, so it’ll now be a bit more fluid. We also still want Primal Rage mode Winston to be killable, but adding some health to it will help avoid some of the extreme situations where it could happen too quickly.

 

Tesla Cannon

• Secondary fire charge time reduced from 1 second to 0.85 seconds.

 

Primal Rage

• Maximum health gained increased from 500 to 700.

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comments: Wrecking Ball has excellent mobility and survivability and will now be more efficient in transferring some of that survivability to his teammates, should he choose to return to them. We’re also making the automatic reload in ball form match his manual reload timing for a smoother transition between modes.

 

Quad Cannons

• Automatic reload time while transformed reduced from 2 to 1.6 seconds.

 

Adaptive Shields

• Allied Overhealth transfer ratio increased by 50% (Use up to 50 Overhealth per target to grant allies up to 75 HP).

Zarya

Developer Comments: Increasing the health on these barriers also means the total energy Zarya can gain per barrier is increased, so this is a boost to both her offensive and defensive capabilities.

 

Particle Barrier

• Health increased from 200 to 225.
• Duration increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds.

 

Projected Barrier

• Health increased from 200 to 225.
• Duration increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds.

Damage

Damage Role Passive

• Now only half as effective against Tank heroes (10% healing reduction).

Developer Comments: With Tank heroes being the frontline, they have this healing reduction effect nearly all of the time and are generally the most reliant on incoming healing to support them as well. The damage role passive is providing an important function to game overall, but its effect on tanks survivability and pace of gameplay is more impactful relative to the other roles. As such, we are reducing its potency against Tank heroes.

 

Ashe

Developer Comments: This Big Omnic Butler tanks a lot of incoming fire and will now be more resistant to knockbacks and critical damage.

 

B.O.B.

• B.O.B. now gains the Tank role passive ability.

Cassidy

Developer Comments: With his current tuning Cassidy is performing well in too many aspects between his range, burst damage, and survivability, leading to him being a dominant choice among the Damage heroes by an overwhelming amount. The gameplay goal for Cassidy is to be the sturdier, close-range hitscan who is more proficient at dealing with high mobility flankers. With this in mind, we’re pulling back the effective falloff range of his weapon to help align him with those gameplay goals and to open up more hero variety from the Damage role.

 

Peacekeeper

• Primary fire falloff range rescaled from 25-35 meters to 20-30 meters.

Pharah

Developer Comments: This is a reversion back to Pharah’s Concussive Blast from before her recent rework. Dealing even a small amount of damage with this ability increases her lethality significantly and made it too reliable in finishing off low health targets, due to its wide area and fast projectile speed, without waiting the full recovery to fire another rocket.

 

Concussive Blast

• Explosion damage reduced from 30 to 0.
• Explosion knockback radius increased from 6 to 8 meters.
• Knockback increased by 11%.

SUPPORT

 

Ana

Developer Comments: Rather small change here but we’d like to minimize the amount of time Tanks can be taken out of the fight for and they are also the easiest targets to hit with Sleep Dart.

 

Sleep Dart

• Duration of effect on Tank heroes decreased from 3.5 to 3 seconds.

Illari

Developer Comments: Illari will still see this UI alert but allies generally don’t need to as it could occur fairly often and be distracting.

 

Healing Pylon

• Allies no longer see the “Destroyed” UI when Healing Pylon breaks.

Zenyatta

Developer Comments: We’re reducing the cost of Transcendence as Zenyatta was impacted more than most by some of the changes in this patch.

 

Transcendence

• Ultimate cost decreased 10%.

Bug Fixes

 

General

• Fixed ranked progress bar UI not showing progress for Bronze 5.
• Fixed voice and text chat not functioning on PC with console players.
• Fixed in a previous update – Weekly and Daily Challenges would get reset to 0 after relog for some players.
• Fixed in a previous update – Screen tearing on PlayStation® 5 during large fights.
• Fixed in a previous update – Season 11 Voice Lines could be heard by anyone at any distance.

Heroes

Cassidy

• Fixed Deadeye tracking phased targets when revealed by Infra Sight.

D.Va

• Fixed an issue with Self Destruct hitting targets behind barriers or collision.

Kiriko

• Fixed teleporting to Echo as clone ends making the “Swift Step” ability to break for the remainder of the game.

Lifeweaver

• Fixed an exploit with Lifeweaver tree hiding Symmetra turrets in the payload.

Roadhog

• Fixed Roadhog’s weapon model/placement being largely higher wearing ‘Kaiju’ skin.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ??? (Season 11)

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

Season 11 – Super Mega Ultrawatch

Join Ultrawatch for an action-packed season! Suit up and battle the forces of evil led by the fallen Mythic Calamity Empress Ashe and her sidekick B.O.B, then claim and customize Mythic Ashe’s diabolical dark mage style for your own. Celebrate as Overwatch reaches 100 million players, marked by the long-requested return of Pink Mercy alongside a new Rose Gold Mercy Bundle. From June 25 – July 8, 2024, Blizzard will donate 100% of the purchase price (excluding any applicable platform fees and taxes) to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Continue the celebration by unlocking the Aztec Sombra Bundle through challenges and enjoy a fun Community Crafted mode curated by beloved streamers.

 

Community Crafted Mode

Dive into a new Community Crafted mode, featuring creative and chaotic balance changes and fun hero tweaks designed by your favorite content creators. Emongg, Custa, TQQ, and Eskay bring their creative touches to Tank, projectile Damage, hitscan Damage, and Support heroes, respectively. Experience wacky hero abilities such as Baptiste sharing his kit with Ana, and Reaper’s Wraith Form getting an extra sting.

 

Hero Mastery Updates

Sharpen your kunai and master your aim when Hero Mastery single-player courses for both Kiriko and Soldier: 76 launch this season. Practice your Swift Step and power up your Tactical Visor as you take part in new challenges in a limited-time event from June 20 to July 9. Plus, earn new rewards and up to 22,500 Battle Pass XP.

• Hero Mastery Courses for Solider: 76 and Kiriko have been added.
• Hero Mastery Gauntlet Co-op has been removed.

New Map: Runasapi

Hike your way up the new Runasapi Push map, to a town hidden high in the Peruvian Andes. Amble through marketplaces full of fresh produce and pay a visit to the Inti Warrior Historical Museum and Monument. This exciting Push map is vibrant and challenging as you escort TS-1 through tight streets. Watch out as some fights may take place precariously close to the steep cliffs overlooking the sunny farmlands below.

 

Challenge Updates

 

Weekly Challenge Catch Up

• All past incomplete Weekly Challenges can be completed at any time in a given season.
• When the Weekly Reset occurs on Tuesdays, incomplete Weekly Challenges gain an additional copy of that challenge. When a Weekly Challenge is completed, if that challenge has copies remaining, the Challenge will refresh and can be completed again.

Weekly Milestones

• Weekly Milestones are challenges progressed by completing other Weekly Challenges.
• Each week, a new Weekly Milestone is unlocked. All past Weekly Milestones can be completed at any time in a given season.
• Weekly Milestones progress one at a time. All past Weekly Milestones must be completed to progress a Weekly Milestone.

Competitive Play Updates

• Rank Percentage is now displayed on the Competitive Progress page allowing you to check your exact percentage without playing another match.
• Renamed the Modifiers “Win Streak” and “Loss Streak” to “Win Trend” and “Loss Trend” to more accurately convey that these modifiers are calculated by weighing the most recent games more heavily, but that they are not true streaks.
• Added more parameters for how the matchmaker handles wide groups, so that it can ensure better queue times.
• A button that allows you to view the match’s final Scoreboard has been added to each page during the end-of-game flow.

Hero Updates

General

• Knockdown time when two charging abilities collide reduced from 2 to 1.7 seconds.

Developer Comments: This stun time reduction applies to the knockdown that happens when two charging abilities collide and result in a tie (with Reinhardt, Doomfist, Brigitte, Mauga, Bob). The counterplay and interaction of two charging abilities impacting each other is great, but it took both players out of the fight a little too long.

Tank

D.Va

Developer Comments: These changes will improve D.Va’s effectiveness against smaller targets as she became less effective against armored enemies in the previous patch.

 

 

Fusion Cannons

• Weapon spread reduced from 3.75 to 3.375 degrees.

 

Boosters

• Impact damage increased from 15 to 25.

Junker Queen

Developer Comments: The Tank knockback resistance passive was affecting Junker Queen’s pull effect more than intended. The distance can be affected by their movement, but Tanks are now pulled in about 5-6 meters instead of only 3 meters or so.

 

Jagged Blade

• Now pulls tanks further.

 

Rampage

• Startup time reduced from 0.75 to 0.5 seconds.

Orisa

Developer Comments: Orisa’s survivability was reduced more than necessary in her last round of changes so we’re partially reverting the cooldown increase to Javelin Spin.

 

Javelin Spin

• Cooldown reduced from 9 to 8 seconds.

Roadhog

Developer Comments: Roadhog’s already-powerful survivability increased significantly with the headshot damage reduction from the tank role passive so these changes are to help bring that back in line.

• Base health reduced from 650 to 600.

 

Take a Breather

• Damage reduction reduced from 50 to 40%.

Damage

Cassidy

Developer Comments: We’re reverting the Magnetic Grenade ability to be deployed like Cassidy’s previous Flashbang ability, but it will keep the Hinder effect instead of a full stun. We’ve heard feedback surrounding the Magnetic Grenade ability and agree that while the fantasy of a homing grenade was fun, the moment-to-moment gameplay of it often felt too unpredictable as to whether it would land or not. The Hinder effect has been a useful tool to act as a counter to highly mobile heroes without going back to a full stun and the enemy player losing the ability to fight back.

The Deadeye ultimate is getting an adjustment to increase its flexibility toward the end of its duration, enabling it to get value outside of buying time for Cassidy or his allies, though it may be riskier to hold it for a long time as the damage reduction will fade away along with the movement speed penalty.

 

Peacekeeper

• Secondary fire “Fan the Hammer” damage reduced from 50 to 45.

 

Combat Roll

• Damage reduction reduced from 75 to 50%.

 

Flashbang

• Magnetic Grenade ability is now Flashbang.
• Hinders enemies instead of Stunning them for 1.2 seconds.
• Movement speed reduction increased from 30% to 50%.
• Hinder now prevents crouching movement.
• 45 explosive damage.
• 12 second cooldown.

 

Deadeye

• Movement speed penalty now scales down over time, from 70% to 35%.
• Damage reduction now scales down over time, from 40% to 0%.

Mei

Developer Comments: Mei’s damage output over time is intended to be on the low end for a Damage hero, as she offers strong utility and survivability through her ability kit, but we would like to make the secondary fire icicle more rewarding by increasing the damage and slightly more difficult to land consistently.

 

Endothermic Blaster

• Secondary fire base projectile size reduced from 0.15 to 0.12 meters.
• Secondary fire damage increased from 75 to 85.

Reaper

Developer Comments: With the previous patch change to how armor reduces damage, shotgun weapon heroes like Reaper lost some value since much of their gameplan revolved around pressuring large tank heroes. To help shift Reaper toward being more effective against smaller targets we’re tightening the weapon spread on the Hellfire Shotguns and reducing the amount of time enemies have to react to his Shadow Step teleport.

 

Hellfire Shotguns

• Weapon spread reduced from 6.5 to 6 degrees.

 

Shadow Step

• Cast time reduced from 1.5 to 1.2 seconds.

Sojourn

Developer Comments: This change is reducing the burst damage potential of the secondary fire Railgun shot to both lessen frustration from playing against that burst damage, and to shift power into her sustained primary fire damage. This should smooth out the feast-or-famine nature of Sojourn consistently hitting the secondary fire shots.

 

Railgun

• Secondary fire damage scaling reduced from 30-130 damage down to 1-100 damage.
• Secondary fire projectile no longer requires Overclock to pierce enemy players.
• Primary fire shots per second increased from 14 to 16.

 

Overclock

• Energy charge rate increased from 100 to 120 per second.

Symmetra

Developer Comments: To help solidify Symmetra as a close-range threat, we’re increasing her health to better survive in that range, along with how quickly her primary fire beam damage ramps up.

• Base health increased from 100 to 125 (Total health increased from 250 to 275).

 

Photon Projector

• Primary fire charge rate increased 25%.

Support

Illari

Developer Comments: Illari’s Healing Pylon is intended to be useful for healing her team in relatively safe positions without much focus required, which enables her to either apply pressure with her primary fire or spot heal in bursts from her more limited secondary fire healing beam. To encourage this, it now has improved health and healing output, but is less effective when Illari uses it to heal herself.

 

Outburst

• Damage increased from 10 to 25.

 

Healing Pylon

• Healing per projectile increased from 30 to 40.
• Pylon healing is now only half as effective when targeting Illari.
• Max health increased from 100 to 125.

Kiriko

Developer Comments: “Hard knockdown stuns” refer to most all of the existing knockdowns where the player is stunned and laying on the ground (such as Reinhardt’s Earthshatter), with the exception of Ana’s Sleep Dart effect, which is removed upon taking damage or Protection Suzu’s cleanse.

 

Swift Step

• Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.

 

Protection Suzu

• No longer cleanses hard knockdown stuns.

Map Updates

 

Colosseo

• Removed the glass and added stairs at first checkpoint for additional pathing and combat opportunities.
• Extended the map with a new lowered section and mega health pack behind the second checkpoint for flank/rotational strategies
• Added a route through a building that connects spawn/final point to second checkpoint.
• The initial spawn building has been pulled back to give players more room to smoothly navigate the area out front. There is no added run back time with this change.
• The stairs and cover surrounding the final point have been adjusted to improve the flow of the space and to help teams safely defend the final point.

Push Map Updates

• Reduced the match time from 10 minutes to 8 minutes in Quick Play.
• Increased push robot speed by 10% when pushing the barricade for both Quick Play and Competitive.

Bug Fixes

Maps

Numbani

• Fixed pieces of the environment that allowed abilities to pass through it.

New Junk City

• Fixed lighting in some areas of the map.

Hollywood

• Fixed areas of the map that could cause players to become temporarily stuck.

Heroes

Junker Queen

• Fixed a bug that caused Junker Queen’s Commanding Shout to play the audio again when using a Teleporter.

Reinhardt

• Charge now correctly damages Ice Wall and Tree of Life.

Venture

• Fixed an interaction that allowed Venture to stay burrowed indefinitely.
• Fixed the description of Drill Dash to match its functionality.
• Fixed a bug with Tectonic Shock that could allow it to charge Venture’s Ultimate Meter some situations.

Zarya

• Fixed an interaction where a Particle Shielded Zarya standing on a Teleporter could prevent teammates from using the teleporter.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

• Release date: May 30th 2024 (North America, Europe) / May 31st 2024 (Japan)
• Patch notes:

Bug Fixes

 

General

• Fixed a bug that prevented purchase of Golden Weapons.
• Fixed an issue preventing the Try Out feature in Mythic Shop from working correctly.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

• Release date: May 24th 2024 (North America, Europe) / May 25th 2024 (Japan)
• Patch notes:

 

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Roadhog

Developer comments: Roadhog benefitted greatly from the recent headshot reduction passive for Tanks so we are nerfing his survivability. This change to Take a Breather is aimed at encouraging more mindful resource management. The change to Whole Hog will make the ultimate more of a zoning tool while lowering its lethality, especially against tanks with their recently increased knockback resistance.

 

Take a Breather

• Resource regeneration rate reduced from 10 to 8 per second.
• Maximum healing reduced from 450 to 400.
• Cooldown reduced from 1.5 to 1.25 seconds.

 

Whole Hog

• Knockback increased from 14 to 16.
• Damage per pellet reduced from 7 to 6.

Sigma

Developer comments: Our last patch aimed to make some Tank ultimates more forgiving to use during combat. Sigma’s Gravitic Flux can suffer from missing due to slight line of sight checks but we don’t believe this change had proper communication for all instances. We may return to this change for Sigma down the line with updated visuals.

 

Gravitic Flux

• Gravitic Flux now requires line-of-sight to lift targets again.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

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

Hero Updates

 

DAMAGE

 

Venture

Developer Comments: As we continue to monitor Venture’s gameplay throughout their release Season, we are making a change today that adds more flexibility to using Drill Dashes. Players will now be less punished for using their Drill Dash above ground and immediately burrowing due to the new accelerated cooldown while underground.

 

Drill Dash

• Cooldown now begins when the ability is used.
• Cooldown is no longer decreased by half when used underground.
• Cooldown is accelerated by 90% when underground.

 

Burrow

• Added a 0.2-second grace period after the Burrow timer runs out where emerging can still be charged.

BUG FIXES

 

HEROES

Zarya

• Increase self-knockback on secondary fire to account for increased tank knockback resistance.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

• Release date: May 14th 2024 (North America, Europe) / May 15th 2024 (Japan)
• Patch notes:

OVERWATCH 2 X PORSCHE

Overwatch 2 and Porsche team up for an electric collaboration to showcase the shared essence of these two high-performance brands in an all-new event. Experience the fusion with Legendary Porsche D.Va and Porsche Pharah skins available now in the Premium Shop, plus earn other free high-voltage Porsche-themed cosmetics through event challenges now through June 3.

 

COMPETITIVE PLAY UPDATES

Demotion Protection Modifier

• The Demotion Protection modifier has been moved from below the Rank Progress bar into the bar itself to improve visibility when a player is in a Demotion Protection state.
• When Demotion Protection occurs, you will not be told when your progress is below that skill division’s range. If you lose your Demotion match, the Skill Rank adjustment will show only the adjustment from that match, instead of the net total of that match and the adjustment of the previous match.

New – Pressure Competitive Modifier

• This rank modifier appears for players who are at the far ends of the overall skill distribution.
• For players who are very high ranked (like Champion), this modifier will show when you don’t earn as much progress from winning a match or drop more progress for losing a match.
• For players who are very low ranked (like low Bronze), this modifier will show when you earn more progress for winning a match or drop less progress for losing a match.

Developer comments: This new modifier was added to show how our highest and lowest-skill players are being pushed toward a more average Rank. Competitive Play already calculates this Modifier to your Skill Rank adjustment, but it wasn’t visible until now. Very high or very low-ranked players will see this Modifier after every match while they continue to maintain a Rank at the outer limits of the ranked spectrum. Climbing to the highest skill tiers like Grand Masters or Champions is not intended to be easy, and overcoming Pressure to reach the top is no longer a hidden challenge that players must face.

Grouping Restrictions

The Skill Tier legend was updated to show the changes to grouping restrictions that were applied in a previous update. The grouping restriction changes we applied are the following:

• Grand Master can now group within 3 divisions to be considered a narrow group.
• Champion can now group within 1 division to be considered a narrow group.

Developer comment: While the Season 10 changes to grouping up with friends have contributed to a large improvement in match quality for most players, we’re still looking to reduce queue times for players and groups, especially for higher ranks.

MATCHMAKING UPDATES

• When a player is currently on a loss streak, the matchmaker will try to avoid putting the player on a team that is statistically calculated to have a lower chance of winning.

Developer comments: Loss streaks never feel good. Before each match, we make a prediction about which team will win the game, based on the information we have about the players on both teams. This is how modifiers such as Consolation, Reversal, Uphill Battle, and Expected give or take additional Rank Progress after each Competitive Play match. Since most matches will have a team that has a slightly higher chance of winning, placing a player on the team with the higher chance who is currently on a losing streak is aimed at helping them have a fair chance of breaking that streak. While this won’t guarantee they’ll win, it does provide a helping advantage.

HERO UPDATES

• Armor health has been reverted to provide a flat damage reduction of 5 per projectile, up to a maximum of 50% damage reduction.
• Out-of-combat health regeneration changed from 20 health per second to 10 health per second + 5% of maximum health.

Developer comment: Armor is being reverted to its original functionality to better resistance rapid fire damage and shotgun-type weapons. Out- of- combat health regeneration has been a positive but subtle addition to the game, but had a much smaller impact for tank heroes due to their massive health pools, so we’re adjusting it to heal for a percentage of maximum health.

 

TANKS

Role Passive

• Tanks now have 25% damage reduction against critical headshot damage.
• Knockback resistance increased from 30% to 50%

Developer Comment: Although armor health will now be more effective in some of the more difficult matchups, it will also be losing potency against the typically slower, higher damage instances. To help reduce the feeling of tanks being taken out too quickly by high bursts of damage, the role-wide passive now provides improved defense against critical headshot damage.

 

Junker Queen

Developer Comment: Junker Queen being able to activate Commanding Shout while swinging her axe or during her Ultimate ability will make it more responsive for when an additional burst of health or movement speed is needed.

 

Commanding Shout

• Can now be activated while using other abilities.
• Cooldown reduced from 14 to 12 seconds.

Sigma

Developer Comment: Similar to how Graviton Surge functions, Gravitic Flux no longer needs line of sight to affect enemy targets in its area. There are a fair amount of counterplay options to deal with this ultimate so we’re making it more reliable to grab enemy targets within its area of effect.

 

Gravitic Flux

• No longer requires line of sight to the center of the effect.

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comment: Wrecking Ball has been performing much better after his recent update and these tuning changes will help his abilities feel more impactful.

 

Grappling Claw

• Impact damage increased from 50 to 60.

 

Piledriver

• Movement lockout duration for enemies increased from 0.5 to 0.75 seconds.

 

Minefield

• Damage increased from 130 to 165.
• Explosion knockback increased from 5 to 10.

Zarya

Developer Comment: We have been increasing the value of some tank ultimate abilities to account for the increased health pools and it helps to make the decision of when to counter-swap more of an interesting tradeoff. Graviton Surge was still very useful to set up combos with other ultimate abilities but we want to makes sure it’s powerful enough on its own.

 

Graviton Surge

• Radius increased from 6 to 7 meters.
• Duration increased from 3.5 to 4 seconds

DAMAGE

 

Junkrat

Developer Comment: Junkrat’s weapon has great damage output but is unreliable outside of close range due to its slow projectile speed, which is an intended drawback to its high output. The Season 9 health changes affected Junkrat more than most other heroes since it now requires one more shot to secure an elimination. We’re increasing the damage on direct impacts to return to 2 direct hits for an elimination, without making his combo with Concussion Mine as deadly as before since that one is much easier to execute.

 

Frag Launcher

• Impact damage increased from 40 to 45 (Total damage increased from 120 to 125).

Echo

Developer Comment: While the main benefit of Duplicate is a second health pool and the utility of another hero’s abilities, it was often too difficult to charge an ultimate in the Duplicate time limit so we’re increasing the bonus multiplier slightly.

 

Duplicate

• Ultimate gain multiplier while transformed increased from 4 to 4.5.

Hanzo

Developer Comment: The Dragonstrike ultimate hasn’t been very effective outside of being used in a combo with other abilities that restrict enemy movement, so we’re increasing its speed to help position it as less of a zoning tool and more likely to deal some damage.

Speed increased from 12 to 15 meters per second.

 

Dragonstrike

• Speed increased from 12 to 15 meters per second.

SUPPORT

 

Brigitte

Developer Comment: Resetting the Shield Bash cooldown on ultimate activation was too much potential burst damage for Brigitte when the average maximum health of everyone was lower, but it’s much more reasonable now that it won’t be as lethal.

 

Rally

• Now resets Shield Bash cooldown upon activation.

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug with Mirrorwatch not generating stats in Game Reports.
• Fixed a bug with Competitive Progress not incrementing correctly.

MAPS

• General bug fixes and improvements were performed on multiple maps.

Eichenwalde

• Fixed an area that could cause players to temporarily become stuck.

Samoa

• Fixed a spot on the map that players could become temporarily stuck in.

Shambali

• Fixed a location where players could become stuck for a period of time.

HEROES

Mercy

• Vengeance Skin – Fixed a bug with the feathers on the skin not being properly aligned.

Venture

• Fixed a bug with Tectonic Shock that counted turrets and other non-player targets as valid for the Excavation Annihilation challenge.
• Fixed an issue that could occur with Burrow where Venture could remain burrowed above the ground.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

• Release date: April 30th 2024 (North America, Europe) / May 1st 2024 (Japan)
• Patch notes:

HERO UPDATES

• Damage role passive healing reduction increased from 15% to 20%.

TANK

 

Orisa

 

Fortify

• Duration reduced from 4.5 to 3.5 seconds.
• Orisa now moves 20% slower while fortified.

 

Javelin Spin

• Cooldown increased from 7 to 9 seconds.

Damage

 

Venture

 

SMART Excavator

• Maximum explosion damage decreased from 45 to 40.

 

Drill Dash

• Initial impact damage decreased from 40 to 30.

 

Tectonic Shock

• Ultimate charge cost increased by 10%.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

• Names will no longer be revealed when blocking someone with Streamer Mode enabled.
• Fixed a bug that allowed non-leader players to select the Requeue button.
• Fixed a lighting issue that caused several sprays to look oversaturated.

MAPS

Hanamura

• We have fixed an issue with the lighting on Hanamura (Assault). This map is now available to play in the Assault Arcade mode and in Custom Games.

HEROES

D.Va

• Fixed a bug that caused some pings from D.Va to enter several 0’s into the chat.

Venture

• Fixed an issue with Drill Dash that could occur when interacting with Doomfist’s Rocket Punch or Orisa’s Energy Javelin, sending Venture flying back at a great speed.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

• Release date: April 16th 2024 (North America, Europe) / April 17th 2024 (Japan)
• Patch notes:

 

Limited-Time Mode: Clash Trial

Clash is an upcoming core game mode in Overwatch 2. Teams must battle back and forth over 5 capture points, with each captured objective adding a point to the prevailing team’s score. Teams can win in two ways: either by having control of all five objectives at once, or by scoring five points total before the other team. Clash will be available as a limited-time trial through April 29.

 

How Clash is played

• Five total objectives placed in a linear pattern on a mirrored map.
• Only one objective is active at a time.
• Matches start with the center objective active.
• Players capture an objective by standing on it and filling a progress bar. Capture progress cannot be made if enemy players are contesting the objective.
• When a team captures the current objective, they are awarded one point to their total score and a new objective moving forward from the scoring team’s side is activated.
• Objectives can be secured multiple times. If a team is pushed off an objective and the other team successfully captures it, the next active point will be in the opposite direction.

Win Conditions

Complete one of these conditions to win the match:

• A team has successfully captured five objectives throughout the match to reach a total score of five.
• Regardless of score, a team manages to take the final objective (A or E) on the opponents’ side.

Hanaoka – New Map

Explore never-before-seen corners of Hanamura in the new map Hanaoka, inspired by the visual themes of the beloved Assault map. Explore the shops and restaurants around town or follow the scent of Sakura trees into the once-proud Shimada castle.

Mythic Hero Skin Updates

 

Mythic Hero Skins

• Mythic Hero Skins are now unlocked in the new Mythic Shop in exchange for Mythic Prisms.
• Mythic Hero Skins are unlocked for 50 Mythic Prisms with a starting set of customizations and then can be leveled up with 10 Mythic Prisms per level. You can unlock the skin and all available customizations for a Mythic Hero Skin for 80 Prisms.

Introducing Mythic Prisms

• Mythic Prisms can be earned in the Premium Battle Pass and used in the Mythic Shop to purchase the current featured Mythic Hero Skin for the season and select previous Mythic hero skins. You can earn a total of 80 Mythic Prisms when you complete Premium Battle Pass.
• Earning Mythic Prisms in the Premium Battle Pass is the easiest way to unlock a Mythic Hero Skin and all customizations each season. You can also purchase additional Mythic Prisms in game or in your platform’s store marketplace.

General Updates

 

Challenges

• Completing Weekly Challenge milestones will now reward additional Battle Pass XP.
• Overwatch Coins that were earned in the Weekly Challenges can now be earned in the Battle Pass for all players.
• Reduced the number of Weekly Challenges.

Developer Comments: The number of Weekly Challenges has grown over time, and we are simplifying what players can aim to accomplish, while also making earning Battle Pass XP more straightforward.

Endorsement Changes

• Players who are actioned for disruptive behavior and reduced to Endorsement Level 0 cannot use text or voice chat features until they return to Endorsement Level 1.

Developer Comments: Since we added the Endorsement system to Overwatch, players who have been actioned because of social reports (Inappropriate Communication, Gameplay Sabotage, etc) have had their Endorsement Level reduced to Level 0. That part of the system isn’t changing, but going forward, Level 0 players will no longer be able to speak in voice channels or type in text chat in most modes.

Hide My Name

• Updated option in Streamer Protect, found in your Social Options.
• You are now able to hide your BattleTag from other players in your group and from your friends in the match as well.
• When enabled, anywhere your BattleTag is displayed to players during a match now displays a random anonymized BattleTag, instead of only to the player with the “Hide My Name” setting visibly enabled.

Developer Comments: The “Hide My Name” setting in the Social Options now displays a random anonymized Battle Tag to all players in a match, instead of only to the player with the “Hide My Name” setting enabled. New settings have been added to “Hide My Name From Friends” and “Hide My Name From Group.” Of these two settings, “Hide My Name From Friends” takes priority when group members are also friends. A large list of hand-crafted BattleTags have been created to support this feature. Could it contain easter eggs or silly references?

Progression

• Added progression badges/sub-badges and rewards for Venture. Rewards can be found in Hero Challenges.

Leaver Penalties

Two new thresholds for Unranked Leave Penalties have been added:

• Leaving two out of 20 games will result in a 5-minute suspension from queuing for most modes.
• 10 or more out of 20 games will result in a 48-hour suspension from queuing for most modes.
• All other threshold tiers are unchanged.

Developer Comments: Overwatch 2 is a competitive game even for Unranked game modes, and the match experience for all remaining players is negatively affected when a player leaves before it is completed. Remember a penalty only applies when you leave games and not when you complete games. By introducing a lighter 5-minute penalty, we aim to discourage players from deliberately leaving games they don’t want to play, while not impacting those who may have a technical issue or an urgent need to step away from the game which they can resolve by the time the queue suspension is finished. The larger 48-hour suspension aims to target a very small portion of players who are aggressively leaving games.

• Leaving 10 games in Competitive Play will now result in a season ban regardless of the number of games completed.
• Players can still get banned from Competitive Play in as few as 5 games if they leave very consistently and don’t complete enough games to get back into good standing.
• Games completed in Competitive Play now count toward the 20-game window of the Unranked Leaver Penalty.

Developer Comments: We already suspend players who leave a Competitive and increase penalties up to a season ban for leaving games frequently, but players can work their way back into good standing if they complete several matches. However, this new rule will stop players from gaming the system over time.

Competitive Updates

 

Competitive Role-Specific Titles

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

Competitive Progress

• Each Role Rank Card now displays the associated Competitive Role-Specific title.
• Role Rank Cards can now be selected to open the Match History for the selected role.
• Match history will display the following: Map / Game Mode, Heroes / Role, Date, Score, Results of the match
• Match History can now be selected to open the Game Report for a match.

Grouping Restrictions

• All previous Competitive Grouping Restrictions have been removed.
• All groups in Competitive Play are now classified as Narrow or Wide.
• Players between Bronze and Diamond must be within five divisions of each other player in their group to be in a Narrow Group.
• Players at Master must be within three divisions of each other player in their group to be in a Narrow Group.
• Players at Grandmaster and Champion cannot be in Narrow groups, regardless of how close their ranks are. This restriction ensures that our highest-ranked players have the highest quality Narrow matches.
• Narrow Groups will always be matched against other Narrow Groups or solo players. If a group has both Wide and Narrow configurations of players, the Narrow configuration will always be prioritized.
• Any group that does not meet the criteria is considered a Wide Group. Wide Groups of four players may not queue. This restriction exists so that solo players are never required to make a Wide match.
• Wide Groups have increased queue times and reduced match quality because it’s more difficult to find another group of players with the same ranks in the same roles to match against.
• The amount a player’s Rank Progress changes after each match is modified by the group’s width.
• The wider the group is, the less their ranks will change when winning or losing.
• The higher the rank of the highest-ranked player in a Wide Group, the less the ranks of all players in the group will change when winning or losing.
• Players will now be informed if the configuration of roles they have selected would result in a Wide Group.
• The Tier Legend has been updated, and a new banner has been added to explain the rules described above.

Rank Information

• New Modifier: “Wide”—this modifier reduces changes in Rank Progress when winning or losing matches. The wider your group, the less your Rank Progress will change with each win or loss.
• The modifier “Volatile” has been renamed to “Demotion.” Arrows displayed under the modifiers have been changed to point from left to right instead of right to left.
• New Modifier: Demotion Protection. This modifier appears on the Rank Progress bar to denote when you did not go down in Skill Division because of a loss. If you lose the next match after, then you are dropped down to the previous Skill Division.
• Victory and Defeat have been added below the Rank Progress bar where modifiers are displayed

Golden Weapons

• Golden weapons can now be purchased with either Legacy Competitive Points or 2024 Competitive Points. You cannot purchase weapons with a combination of both currencies.

Hero Updates

 

New Hero: Venture

• Venture has been added to the line-up.
• Venture is immediately available to play in Competitive Play.

Developer Comments: This is a pretty major change from past heroes, but we’ve always wanted to allow new heroes into Competitive when a new season for Overwatch 2 launches. In the past, we wanted to make sure new heroes were free of any bugs or outstanding balance issues, as well as giving players enough time to unlock a hero from the Battle Pass. Because of the recent hero trial, we’re confident Venture is ready to jump into the action right away.

TANK

 

Doomfist

Developer Comments: This quality-of-life improvement streamlines the transition between charging up an empowered Rocket Punch and another ability by removing the requirement of pressing the cancel input first.

 

Rocket Punch

• The empowered punch is no longer consumed when the windup is canceled by using Seismic Slam or Power Block.

Junker Queen

 

Carnage

• Impact damage increased from 90 to 105.

Reinhardt

 

Earthshatter

• Knockdown duration increased from 2.75 to 3 seconds.
• Shockwave range increased from 20 to 25 meters.

Sigma

Developer Comments: This change will improve Sigma’s ability to protect allies that are further away from him.

 

Experimental Barrier

• Movement speed increased from 16.5 to 20 meters per second.

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comments: The general goals here are to add a direct way for Wrecking Ball to support his allies aside from purely enemy team disruption, make the hero more approachable while also adding more avenues for skill expression, and improve quality of life around the grapple.

 

Grappling Claw

• Hold the jump input while the Grappling Claw is attached to terrain to retract it, pulling yourself towards the anchor point. This action can be rebound in his hero settings.
• Now has a one second cooldown if Wrecking Ball never reaches ramming speed before canceling the ability. Interrupting him with Hack, Hinder, and stuns will still trigger the full cooldown.
• The maximum duration timer no longer triggers unless he reaches ramming speed.

 

Adaptive Shield

• Can now be reactivated to redistribute up to 300 overhealth to nearby allies, capping at 75 per person.
• Enemy and ally detection radius increased from 10 to 13 meters.

 

Minefield

• Health increased from 50 to 60.

DAMAGE

 

Sombra

 

Virus

• Total damage over time decreased from 100 to 90.

Tracer

Developer Comments: There is now more downtime before Tracer can safely reengage after driving her away and Pulse Bomb will require more precision.

 

Recall

• Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds.

 

Pulse Bomb

• Base projectile size decreased from 0.2 to 0.1 meters. The total projectile size is now 0.25 meters.

Venture

Developer Comments: We are redistributing the damage on some of their abilities so that positioning relative to the enemy and tracking a target are more important for dealing maximum damage.

 

Drill Dash

• Impact damage decreased from 60 to 40.
• Damage over time increased from 40 to 60.

 

Clobber

• Impact damage decreased from 40 to 30.
• Damage over time increased from 30 to 40.

 

Tectonic Shock

• Vertical knockback decreased by 30%.

SUPPORT

 

Illari

 

Solar Rifle

• Primary fire recovery increased from 0.2 to 0.25 seconds.
• Secondary fire heal-per-second increased from 105 to 115.

Lúcio

 

Sonic Amplifier

• Damage per projectile decreased from 20 to 18.

 

Soundwave

• Damage increased from 35 to 45.

Lifeweaver

 

Rejuvenating Dash

• Heal increased from 50 to 60.

 

Tree of Life

• Pulse healing increased from 75 to 90.

Moira

 

Biotic Grasp

• Damage per second decreased from 65 to 60.

 

Coalescence

• Self-heal per second increased from 50 to 55.

Bug Fixes

 

General

• Hero Mastery Gauntlet – fixed a bug that could cause more AI teammates than intended.
• Fixed a bug with Wall Climb that could allow Heroes with the passive to climb infinitely.
• Fixed a bug with Diamond, Masters, and Grandmaster not playing any effects when entering the Top 500.
• Fixed a bug with duplicate entries on the Leaderboard.
• Fixed the missing flash notification on taskbar when joining a game as a backfill.

Maps

• Fixed in a previous update – resolved an issue where jump pads could become deactivated.

Circuit Royale

• Fixed an issue with the payload tires launching players unexpectedly.

Paraiso

• Fixed an area near the second point where the payload dock could negatively impact Earth Shatter and Tectonic Shock’s ability to hit larger heroes.

Heroes

Echo

• Fixed an issue with Duplicate that could prevent a death being counted if it was used as Echo falls off the map.

Doomfist

• Fixed an interaction with Mei’s Ice Wall that could allow you to get under the map.
• Fixed a bug with Power Block sounds triggering even if it was not blocking damage.

Illari

• Fixed an issue with Captive Sun affecting targets through floors and ceilings.

Junkrat

• Fixed a bug with Riptire receiving the self-healing passive.

Lifeweaver

• Fixed a bug where some un-targetable heroes could be healed by Tree of Life.

Mauga

• Fixed an interaction with Overrun and Brigitte’s Shield Bash that resulted in Mauga being knocked down with Overrun active.

Mercy

• Fixed a bug with the Caduceus Staff not opening up with the Parasol emote and Pose.

Venture

• Fixed a bug that would prevent Drill Dash from activating while underground if the input was pressed while falling through the air and Burrow was active.
• Fixed a bug where Drill Dash could deal damage multiple times with the initial impact and instantly kill targets or knock them back exceedingly far.
• Fixed a bug where certain heroes were still being pushed back even if they escaped from Drill Dash.
• Fixed a bug where Venture would sometimes launch very far if using Drill Dash off a ledge while Burrowed.
• Fixed a bug where attempting to emerge during Burrow near ledges would sometimes end the ability prematurely.
• Fixed a bug where the third-person camera would snap back to first-person instantly if you were in the air when burrow ended.
• Fixed a bug where UI prompts for emerging and Drill Dash were not visible during Burrow.
• Fixed a bug that could allow players to prevent footfall audio from playing.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

• Release date: March 19th 2024 (North America, Europe) / March 20th 2024 (Japan)
• Patch notes:

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Mauga

• Base Health decreased from 400 to 375.

 

Cardiac Overdrive

• No longer fills overhealth on activation.
• Duration increased from 4 to 5 seconds.
• Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

DAMAGE

 

Sombra

 

EMP

• The previous reduction to ultimate cost has been reverted.

Symmetra

 

Photon Projector

• Primary fire damage per second decreased from 65 to 60, scaling with all levels. Maximum damage per second is 180.

 

Sentry Turret

• Health decreased from 50 to 40.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

• Release date: March 12th 2024 (North America, Europe) / March 13th 2024 (Japan)
• Patch notes:

OVERWATCH 2 X COWBOY BEBOP

Celebrate the legendary crew of Bebop in Overwatch 2! Immerse yourself in the iconic saga of Cowboy Bebop with an array of new skins found exclusively in the Overwatch 2 shop. From now until March 25, you can also tackle in-game challenges to answer the call of the bounty hunter and snatch up cosmic cosmetic rewards.

 

GENERAL UPDATES

 

NEW GAME MODE – HERO MASTERY: GAUNTLET

Hero Mastery: Gauntlet is a new co-op game mode where players work together to protect towers from enemy bots. Collect energy and buy powerful upgrades to survive all ten rounds! Focus your skills to earn high scores and compete on the leaderboards. Are you ready to enter the Gauntlet?

• Gauntlet teams can have up to three players and must survive all ten rounds to win. Each game randomizes the upgrades, bots, and targeted towers to keep things fresh.
• The Gauntlet has four difficulties that vary all aspects of gameplay, including score. Work your way up to Legendary and dominate the leaderboards.
• Athena has upgraded the simulation with many new bots for this mode. Be on the lookout for dangerous elite training bots.
• Play with AI mode is available for teams to practice with 1-3 players. Scores and Challenges are not recorded in this mode.

Hero Mastery: Gauntlet is launching with a limited-time event that includes exclusive rewards and challenges. Can you defend the towers and unlock them all?

COMPETITIVE PLAY UPDATES

• Competitive Placements and Overview will now be displayed before Hero Progression at the end of a Competitive Match.
• Competitive Rank Range has been added to the scoreboard so players can view the rank range of a match at any time.
• Modifiers can now be viewed outside of the Competitive Overview with a rank info button found on the Competitive Play menu.
• A new modifier called “Demotion Protection” has been added to the Competitive Overview to notify players that if they lose another game, they will be demoted to the next lowest division.

HERO UPDATES

Developer Comments: This patch is focused on fine-tuning some of the systemic hero changes made in Season 9. In addition, we’re adjusting individual abilities to make them feel more impactful due to heroes having larger health pools.

 

PROJECTILE SIZE UPDATES

• Global projectile size modifier for travel time projectiles with a speed greater than 50 meters per second reduced from 0.1 to 0.075 meters.

Developer Comments: We are decreasing the size of the fastest travel time projectiles because it reduces the frequency of these projectiles failing to headshot due to hitting the enemy’s chest hit volume first.

ROLE PASSIVES UPDATES

• Heal reduction applied by the damage role passive lowered from 20% to 15%.

Developer Comments: The Damage role passive reduces the potency of in-combat healing and helps equalize the effectiveness between burst and damage over time. Nevertheless, we are going to experiment with a lower value to relieve some of the pressure on tank and support roles. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this change as we want the healing reduction to still be noticeable.

OTHER HERO UPDATES

• Added a new UI element above the player’s first-person health bar to show all active healing status effects (Anti-Heal, Amplified Healing, Reduced Healing).

TANK

Doomfist

 

Meteor Strike

• Minimum damage increased from 15 to 50.

Mauga

Developer Comments: We are changing Cardiac Overdrive to make it more forgiving when used for yourself especially when Mauga is low health.

 

Overrun

• Stomp damage increased from 45 to 60.

 

Cardiac Overdrive

• Duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.
• Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds.
• Now fills his passive overhealth by 100.

Orisa

 

Terra Surge

• Charge rate for the first 2.5 seconds increased by 25%.

Ramattra

 

Ravenous Vortex

• Total damage increased from 45 to 70.
• Cooldown decreased from 12 to 11 seconds.

Reinhardt

• Armor increased from 275 to 300.

 

Fire Strike

• Damage increased from 100 to 120.

Roadhog

Developer Comments: We’re improving the consistency of the Hook combo. Enemies are pulled closer to Roadhog and aren’t launched as high when Pig Pen activates, making the Scrap Gun follow-up shot more consistent.

 

Chain Hook

• The enemy final position distance from Roadhog after being pulled decreased from 4 to 3 meters.

 

Pig Pen

• Vertical knockback on activation decreased by 43%

DAMAGE

Hanzo

Developer Comments: We’re reverting the previous change to the base projectile size of Hanzo’s arrows and replacing it with the general global reduction, which affects all travel time projectiles with a speed greater than 50 meters per second, resulting in Hanzo’s arrow projectile staying the same total size as before this patch.

• Base projectile sizes increased from 0.075 to 0.1 meters. The total projectile size, when combined with the general hero change, is still 0.175 meters.

 

Mei

 

Endothermic Blaster

• Ammo increased from 120 to 140.

 

Cryofreeze

• Heal per second increased from 50 to 62.5.

Reaper

 

Death Blossom

• Damage per second increased from 170 to 185.
• Ultimate cost decreased by 12%.

Sombra

Developer Comments: Virus deals critical impact damage when it hits Hacked targets, and this change makes using it as a follow-up more compelling. The Translocator now destroys breakable objects, preventing Sombra from teleporting a shorter distance than expected.

 

Virus

• Impact damage increased from 10 to 25.

 

Translocator

• Destroys breakables while in flight.

 

EMP

• Ultimate cost reduced by 8%.

Symmetra

 

Photon Projector

• Primary fire damage per second increased from 60 to 65, scaling with each stage. The new maximum damage per second is 195.

 

Sentry Turret

• Health increased from 30 to 50.
• Damage per second increased from 25 to 30.

 

Teleporter

• Health increased from 50 to 100.
• Shields increased from 150 to 200.

Torbjörn

 

Deploy Turret

• Turret damage increased from 11 to 13.

SUPPORT

 

Ana

 

Biotic Grenade

• Explosion damage and healing increased from 60 to 90.

Brigitte

 

Repair Pack

• Cooldown reduced from 6 to 5 seconds.

 

Rally

• Cost reduced 8%.

Illari

Developer Comments: We are adjusting the firing cadence of the Solar Rifle, making it more responsive to use and increasing the damage per second but not the burst damage.

 

Solar Rifle

• Primary fire recovery time reduced from 0.3 to 0.2 seconds.
• Maximum charge time reduced from 0.7 to 0.65 seconds.

Lifeweaver

Developer Comments: We’re increasing the burst potential of the Heal Blossom to reinforce Lifeweaver’s role as a high healing throughput support. The heal per second is roughly the same as before, but individual Heal Blossoms can be charged further.

 

Heal Blossom

• Maximum heal amount increased from 70 to 80.
• Maximum charge time increased from 1 to 1.15 seconds.

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue that caused the B button on gamepads to close a Replay instead of opening the Bookmarks.
• Fixed a bug that made all Souvenirs face backward when previewing them in the Battlepass.
• Fixed a bug with the ‘more items in shop’ button in the Event Hub, taking players to a blank screen.
• Fixed a bug that caused your own Progression Screen to display when viewing another player’s Progression Screen.
• Fixed a display issue that sometimes caused the Rank Update Progress Bar to display incorrect values.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the ‘Ring’ dot reticle from displaying correctly for all heroes.
• Fixed an issue that prevented you from opening the Options menu while a Deathmatch game was ending.
• Fixed a bug in Mystery Heroes that could cause jump pads to be disabled for players.
• Leaves now correctly count as a loss during Competitive Placements Matches.

Hero Mastery

• Fixed a bug that gave Echo full Ultimate charge after restarting a run.

MAPS

Junkertown

• Fixed some spots where the lighting was incorrect.

King’s Row

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

Samoa

• Fixed some areas that allowed Torbjorn’s turret to be almost fully obfuscated by the environment.

HEROES

• Fixed a bug that caused the DPS Passive to not be applied by: Symettra and Torbjorn Turrets, Riptire, and B.O.B.

Lifeweaver

• Fixed an interaction with Tree of Life and Mauga that could launch Cage Fight into the sky.
• Fixed a specific instance that allowed Life Grip to pull allies to their death.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

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

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

D.Va

 

Light Gun

• Base projectile size reduced from 0.25 to 0.2 meters. Total projectile size is now 0.3 meters.

Roadhog

 

Take a Breather

• Damage reduction increased from 40 to 50%.

Zarya

 

Particle Cannon

• Primary fire minimum damage increased from 85 to 95 damage per second.
• Primary fire maximum damage increased from 170 to 190 damage per second.

DAMAGE

 

Hanzo

• Base projectile sizes reduced from 0.1 to 0.075 meters. Total projectile size is now 0.175 meters.

Junkrat

 

Concussion Mine

• Cooldown decreased from 8 to 7 seconds.
• Maximum damage increased from 110 to 120.
• Minimum damage increased from 20 to 55.

Soldier: 76

 

Heavy Pulse Rifle

• Now uses the smaller 0.05 meter hitscan projectile size modifier. Total projectile size is now 0.05 meters .

Tracer

 

Pulse Pistols

• Minimum falloff range reduced from 12 to 10.

Widowmaker

 

Widow’s Kiss

• Now uses the smaller 0.05 meter hitscan projectile size modifier. Total projectile size is now 0.05 meters.
• Scoped shot damage falloff min-max range increased from 40-60 to 50-70 meters.

SUPPORT

 

Illari

 

Healing Pylon

• Cooldown decreased from 8 to 6 seconds.
• Cooldown when destroyed by enemies decreased from 15 to 12 seconds.

 

Captive Sun

• Sunstruck explosion damage increased from 100 to 160.
• Sunstruck explosion now has damage falloff again, reducing damage by up to 25%.

Lúcio

 

Sonic Amplifier

• Base projectile size reduced from 0.15 to 0.1 meters. Total projectiles size is now 0.25 meters.

Mercy

 

Caduceus Blaster

• Base projectile size reduced from 0.25 to 0.2 meters. Total projectile size is now 0.3 meters.

Zenyatta

• Base health decreased from 100 to 75.

 

Snap Kick

• Knockback decreased 25%.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

WELCOME TO SEASON 9: CHAMPIONS

Season 9 brings core gameplay updates, a reworked Competitive game mode, and a new Co-op event that will test the courage of even the bravest heroes as they face a dangerous threat of cosmic proportions.

 

NEW EVENT: COSMIC CRISIS

Face off against eldritch abominations in the twisted reality of Cosmic Crisis, a brand-new co-op mission. Work with three other players to repair your ship and escape the Ruins of Ecopoint Antarctica while fighting off the monstrous Null Sector. But keep an eye out for your teammates… an ancient power lurks in the shadows, waiting for its chance to strike.

 

COMPETITIVE PLAY UPDATES

Developer Comments: With your feedback, we’ve made new improvements to Competitive Play that aim to provide more transparency into your progress after every match; plus, we introduced a new skill tier and new Competitive Rewards to earn.

 

Skill Rank Reset

• Given the significant changes to our heroes and the addition of a new skill tier, this reset is designed to give all players a chance to climb higher than ever before.
• All ranks in Role Queue and Open Queue in Competitive Play have been reset to Unranked.

Placement Matches

• Placements have been rebuilt from the ground up. Your predicted rank will be displayed after each placement match.
• You must complete 10 matches in a role to receive your Skill Rank for that role.
• Winning your placements will have a significant impact on your final rank.

Competitive Updates

• Competitive Updates have been reworked. Instead of requiring five wins or 15 losses to get a Competitive Update, updates now happen after every match.
• Going forward, the Competitive Updates page now hosts information about your ranks in Role Queue and Open Queue, as well as your progress toward Competitive Point rewards

Skill Modifiers

• Modifiers now appear on the Competitive Progress page after each match.
• Skill modifiers provide information on how much a rank will gain or lose progress after a match, including win or loss streaks, rank instability, and match favorability.

New Skill Tier – Champion

• A new rank has been added above Grandmaster, called Champion, that is more exclusive than any other rank in Overwatch. Only an exceedingly small percentage of players will ever occupy this echelon of Competitive Play

Versus Screen

• The range of ranks for players in a match of Competitive Play is now displayed on the same screen where both teams are shown with their name cards, player icons, and titles.

New Grouping Requirements

• Bronze through Diamond Players may group with other players within 2 Skill Tiers of their own Skill Rank.
• Master players may group with other players within 1 Skill Tier of their own Skill Rank.
• Grandmaster players may group with other players within 3 Skill Divisions of their own Skill Rank.
• Champion players may group with only one other player within 3 Skill Divisions of their own Skill Rank.

Art & UI Updates

• Skill Tier and Skill Division art for rank icons have been redesigned for improved readability.
• The Competitive Skill Tier legend has been redesigned to include updated and new relevant information.

Competitive Points

• Each win now grants 10 Competitive Points.
• Each draw now grants 5 Competitive Points.
• Each loss still grants 0 Competitive Points.

Competitive Progression

• Competitive Challenges that award additional Competitive Points at the end of the season have been replaced with a new Competitive Progression system.
• Every match grants progress toward your Competitive Progression meter, and after earning 30 you will receive an additional 100 Competitive Points.
• Wins award 3 progress toward your Competitive Progression meter. Draws and Losses award 1 progress.

Matchmaking Rating

• At the start of this season only, the internal Matchmaking Ratings for all players have been adjusted to push players closer to the normalized average (approximately at Gold 3).
• Matchmaking Ratings have been decayed. The higher the rank, the more it has been decayed.
• Most players will start at a lower skill rank and division than their most recent rank.

Competitive Challenges

• Competitive challenges removed. Rewards and progress for Competitive Play are now displayed on the Competitive Progress page and titles are rewarded at the end of the season.

GENERAL UPDATES

 

PLAYER PROGRESSION

• Added a new set of visual upgrades. Hero/Game Mode badge upgrades start at Level 500. Progression Level badge upgrades start at Level 2500.
• Wrecking Ball title rewards are renamed from “Champion” to “Champ” to align with Junker Queen’s usage of the title (and to avoid confusion with the new Champion rank).
• Adjusted amount needed to level up certain sub-badges for Mauga and Illari.

FRIEND ENDORSEMENTS

• The endorsement is only eligible if you’re in the match for a set duration.
• Endorsements are subject to the configured cooldown period of 12 hours.
• Endorsements are subject to cooldown even if you unfriend the recipient.

SETTINGS

• Added a feature for controller/keyboard users that remembers what you had focus when backing out of screens.

CROSSHAIR UPDATES

New Reticle Types have been added.

• Square
• Box
• Line
• Triwing
• Falloff

New Reticle Dots have been added.

• Ring
• Square
• Triangle
• Cross
• Heart

New Reticle color options have been added.

• Brown
• Dark Red
• Light Red
• Light Purple
• Gray
• Teal

HERO UPDATES

Developer Comments: Season 9 features changes to the fundamentals of Overwatch 2 gameplay that affect every hero. We’ve heard the community feedback around some gameplay pain points, and these changes are in response to many of those.

 

GENERAL

Most damage-dealing projectile sizes have been increased by a new global modifier added to their base size.

• +0.05 meters for hitscan projectiles with a high rate of fire or spread (e.g., Tracer’s Pulse Pistols or Reaper’s Hellfire Shotguns).
• +0.08 meters for hitscan projectiles that are more precise (e.g., Cassidy’s Peacekeeper or Soldier:76’s Heavy Pulse Rifle).
• +0.05 meters for travel time projectiles that are shotguns or have a very high rate of fire (e.g., Roadhog’s Scrap Gun or Ramattra’s Void Accelerator).
• +0.10 meters for travel time projectile with a speed greater than 50 meters per second (e.g., Zenyatta’s Destruction Orb).
• +0.15 meters for travel time projectile with a speed less than or equal to 50 meters per second (e.g., Pharah’s Rocket Launcher).
• Very large projectiles with a base size greater than 0.5 meters have been excluded from these increases (e.g., Orisa’s Energy Javelin or Reinhardt’s Fire Strike).

Hero combined HP (base health/armor/shields) increased by 15-25%.

• 150-175 HP heroes increased by 25 HP.
• 200-300 HP heroes increased by 50 HP.
• 300+ HP (Tanks) increased by 75-100 HP.
• Each hero’s precise health increases are listed in their patch notes below.

Ultimate Charge

• All Ultimate ability costs increased by 10%.

Regenerative Passive for All Heroes

• All heroes now regenerate 20 health per second after 5 seconds of not taking damage.

Support Role Passive

• Now reduces the delay before regeneration begins by half (2.5 seconds).

Damage Role Passive

• Reload speed bonus on elimination has been removed.
• New role passive: Dealing damage reduces enemy healing received by 20% for 2 seconds.

Quick Melee

• Damage increased from 30 to 40.

TANK

 

D.Va

• Pilot health increased from 150 to 175.
• Mech armor increased from 300 to 375.

 

Self-Destruct

• Explosion maximum damage increased from 900 to 1000.
• Inner explosion radius (range for maximum damage before falloff begins) increased from 4 to 6 meters.

Doomfist

• Health increased from 300 to 375.

 

Rocket Punch

• Max impact damage increased from 50 to 75.
• Max wall slam damage increased from 30 to 40.

Junker Queen

• Health increased from 300 to 375.

 

Rampage

• Wound damage over time increased from 60 to 90

Mauga

• Health increased from 300 to 400.

 

Orisa

• Armor increased from 275 to 350.

 

Ramattra

• Health increased from 200 to 275.

 

Reinhardt

• Health increased from 200 to 250.
• Armor increased from 250 to 275.

 

Rocket Hammer

• Damage increased from 85 to 100.

 

Charge

• Wall impact damage increased from 225 to 275.

Roadhog

• Health increased from 550 to 650.

 

Sigma

• Shields increased from 200 to 275.

 

Winston

• Health increased from 200 to 225.
• Armor increased from 200 to 250.

 

Tesla Cannon

• Primary Fire damage increased from 60 to 75 damage per second.

 

Primal Rage

• Punch damage increased from 40 to 50.

Wrecking Ball

• Armor increased from 100 to 175.

 

Zarya

• Health increased from 100 to 175.

 

Particle Cannon

• Primary fire beam width increased from 0.15 to 0.2 meters.

DAMAGE

 

Ashe

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

B.O.B.

• B.O.B.’s weapon damage increased from 14 to 17.

Bastion

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Cassidy

• Health increased from 225 to 275.

 

Deadeye

• Initial damage rate increased from 130 to 150.
• Damage rate increased from 260 to 300.

Echo

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Focusing Beam

• Width increased from 0.2 to 0.25 meters.

 

Duplicate

• Maximum combined health value increased from 300 to 350.

Genji

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Dragonblade

• Swing recovery decreased from 0.9 to 0.7 seconds.

Hanzo

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Storm Arrows

• Damage increased from 65 to 75.
• Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.

Junkrat

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Frag Launcher

• Base projectile size reduced from 0.25 to 0.2 meters.

Mei

• Health increased from 250 to 300.

 

Pharah

Developer Comments: Pharah has a significant update that empowers more individual plays and shifting her movement capabilities from high up in the air to more horizontal movement that can cover distance quickly.

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Rocket Launcher

• Recovery reduced from 0.85 to 0.80 seconds.
• Projectile speed increased from 35 to 40 meters per second.
• Explosion self-damage reduced from 50% to 25%.

 

Jet Dash

• New Secondary Fire Ability.
• Provides a quick horizontal boost in the direction Pharah is moving.
• 8-second cooldown.
• Added a setting to activate Jet Dash on Double Jump instead.

 

Jump Jet

• Now restores 50% of Hover Jets fuel and can briefly overfill the maximum fuel amount.
• Vertical boost height reduced by 20%.
• Cooldown increased from 10 to 14 seconds.

 

 

• Cooldown decreased from 9 to 7 seconds.
• Explosion now deals 30 damage to enemy targets.
• Explosion radius reduced from 8 to 6 meters.
• Knockback reduced by 10%.

 

Barrage

• Now instantly refills Hover Jets fuel.

 

Hover Jets

• Speed boost increased from 20% to 40%.
• Now requires landing to recharge fuel.
• Can now be activated without fuel to slow your descent.

Reaper

• Health increased from 250 to 300.

 

Sojourn

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Railgun

• Secondary Fire base projectile size reduced from 0.1 to 0.07 meters.

Soldier: 76

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Sombra

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Symmetra

• Shields increased from 100 to 150.

 

Photon Projector

• Primary fire beam width increased from 0.2 to 0.25 meters.

Torbjörn

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Tracer

• Health increased from 150 to 175.

 

Widowmaker

• Health increased from 175 to 200.

 

SUPPORT

 

Ana

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Baptiste

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Brigitte

• Health increased from 150 to 200.

 

Rocket Flail

• Damage increased from 35 to 45.

Illari

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Kiriko

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Kunai

• Base projectile size reduced from 0.18 to 0.15 meters.

Lifeweaver

• Health increased from 175 to 225.

 

Lúcio

• Health increased from 200 to 250

 

Soundwave

• Damage increased from 25 to 35.
• Knockback increased 12%.
• Movement lockout duration increased from 0.3 to 0.45 seconds.

Moira

• Health increased from 200 to 250.

 

Biotic Grasp

• Secondary fire damage increased from 50 to 65 damage per second.
• Secondary fire target acquisition radius increased from 0.6 to 0.7 meters.

Zenyatta

• Health increased from 75 to 100.
• Shields increased from 150 to 175.

 

MAP UPDATES

 

JUNKERTOWN UPDATE

• New nighttime lighting theme.
• New building near the first point to provide more cover & block long sightlines.
• Added a water tower near the first point to block sightlines from upper choke positions.
• Added more vehicles near the cliff to provide additional cover & block long sightlines.
• Reduced the cliffside path to tighten the space and reduce the overall footprint of the area.
• Removed a small health pack on the second area balcony that was easy for defenders to overuse.
• Added vertical beam at second choke point to promote movement out of the upper floor & make the choke easier to defend.
• Widened and added cover in a hallway in the third area to make close quarter fights easier to maneuver.

Developer Comments: We’ve added more cover—including new structures—to help counter some of the long sightlines around the first checkpoint. Additional changes in the third area allow attackers to push through certain chokes more easily.

 

BUG FIXES

 

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue with some shadows that could appear jagged when on any setting below Ultra.
• Fixed a bug that prevented your skin from changing when using the Change Skin option in Hero Select if you had a Loadout selected.
• Fixed a bug with Golden Weapons being marked as unspecified and not being purchasable.
• Fixed a bug with some callouts for pushing the payload playing at incorrect moments.
• Fixed an issue with Wall Climb failing in some situations.
• Additional bug fixes for general stability and performance.

MAPS

Antarctic Peninsula

• Fixed lighting in some areas of the map.

King’s Row

• Fixed areas of the map that were missing collision.

Midtown

• Fixed some locations that could cause some heroes to become stuck

Shambali Monastery

• Fixed a location of the map that displayed incorrect textures.

HEROES

Doomfist

• Fixed a bug with Meteor Strike that could result in Doomfist getting inside the environment.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented Seismic Slam’s damage from going through turrets.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent Doomfist from acquiring Overhealth in some cases.
• Fixed a bug where Rocket Punch left a small window of time open to use abilities.

Echo

• Fixed an interaction when Duplicating Bastion that prevented the Duplicated Configuration: Artillery’s shots from landing if Duplicate ended before they landed.

Lifeweaver

• Fixed a bug that prevented Tree of Life from healing Reaper when in Wraith form.

Lúcio

• Amp it Up now goes on cooldown if interrupted by stun during its cast time or when dying while it’s active.

Mauga

• Fixed a bug with the burning applied by Mauga not being removed when picking up a health pack.

Orisa

• Terra Surge now correctly pulls in and damages enemies that are on uneven slopes/collision, as long as Orisa has a direct line of sight, they will get pulled/damaged.

Roadhog

• Fixed a bug with Roadhog’s model becoming distorted with some skins during the Heroic Highlight intro.
• Fixed a bug with Pig Pen displaying a Junkrat icon when pinged.

Sombra

• Fixed an interaction that prevented Hack from being interrupted by Rocket Punch or Shield Bash.
• Fixed a bug where Sombra would enter Stealth while escorting the robot in some situations.

Torbjörn

• Fixed a bug with disabling the Interact Cancel Deploy Turret setting causing you to only destroy a deployed turret and not toss out a new one when the ability is used.

Winston

• Fixed a bug with Primal Rage that interrupted the ability to attack if the Ultimate was initiated while Jumping and using Melee at the same time.

Zenyatta

• Golden weapon tint should now properly be reflected on all skins.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Overwatch 2 – Ver. ???

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

BUG FIXES

General

• Fixed a bug that prevented enemy Pings from displaying if Ping was pressed twice

HEROES

Illari

• Fixed an issue preventing Illari’s ammunition from working correctly

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Let’s Hack Into Quick Play

¡Hola amigos! This is Sombra. I was a little bored and figured we should have some fun this weekend. ¿Qué te parece? So, I decided to hack into the game and change the rules of Quick Play to make things more… interesting for a little while. I call it: “Quick Play: Hacked!”

 

Quicker Play

For my first hack, I thought we could use a little change of pace. “Quick Play?” Why not “Quicker Play!” Faster Respawns, less time on the clock, and faster capture and payload movement speeds. Think you can keep up? BOOP!

• Respawning times are now 75% of their original time.
• Payloads in Escort and Hybrid maps will move 60% faster.
• Taking control of the Objective Point in Hybrid is 40% faster than normal.
• Taking control of the objective point in Control is 40% faster than normal, and scoring the capture progress percentage is 80% faster.
• Taking control of the objective point in Flashpoint is 20% faster than normal, and scoring the capture progress percentage is 40% faster.
• When you play an Escort, Hybrid, or Push map, the initial match time has been reduced to 70% of the original time, and any time extensions are also reduced to 70% of the total time added.
• These changes only apply to all players who play in Role Queue and Open Queue Quick Play modes during the duration of the event and will return to normal after January 14. Competitive Play and Arcade modes are not affected by these changes.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment

Year of the Dragon Seasonal Event

The fireworks and festivities for the Year of the Dragon begin on January 30! Mischief and Magic prop hunt game mode returns on the Lijiang Night Market map, with all new props for Rogue Kiriko to transform into that will make you look in every direction imaginable. In addition, celebrate with your fan-favorite Lunar New Year Modes, including Capture the Flag and Bounty Hunter Blitz.

 

HERO UPDATES

 

TANK

 

Mauga

• Base Health increased from 250 to 300.
• Base Armor decreased from 250 to 200.

 

Incendiary and Volatile Chainguns

• Ammo decreased from 350 to 300.

 

Cardiac Overdrive

• Lifesteal decreased from 70% to 60%.
• Cooldown increased from 10 seconds to 12 seconds.

 

Cage Fight

• No longer grants infinite ammo. Still reloads Mauga’s Chainguns at the start of the ultimate.

 

Berserker

• Overhealth conversion rate decreased from 60% to 50%.

Orisa

 

Augmented Fusion Driver

• Removed falloff damage penalty.

 

Fortify

• Now immune to taking forced critical hit damage. Fortify already prevents direct critical damage from headshots.

Roadhog

 

Take a Breather

• Total amount healed reduced from 500 to 450.
• Cooldown between usages increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds.

DAMAGE

 

Sojourn

 

Railgun

• Gradual energy no longer decays below 25%.

Sombra

 

Stealth

• Grace period where Stealth can be canceled immediately after entering it increased from 0.5 to 0.75 seconds.
• Cooldown now pauses at 1 second while capturing or contesting objectives from 1.5 seconds.
• Cooldown on respawning decreased from 1.5 to 1 second.

SUPPORTS

 

Ana

 

Biotic Grenade

• Effect duration reduced from 3.5 to 3 seconds.

Illari

 

Solar Rifle

• Primary fire charge gain is no longer paused by secondary fire, nor channeling Captive Sun.
• Ammo increased from 14 to 16.

 

Captive Sun

• Now fully refills secondary fire resource and resets overheated status.
• Removed the damage falloff penalty on the Sunstruck explosion.

Lifeweaver

 

Thorn Volley

• Projectile speed increased from 70 to 80 meters per second.

 

Petal Platform

• No longer pierced by piercing projectiles.

BUG FIXES

 

General

• Fixed a bug that caused Endorsement Level to appear incorrectly in Custom Games.
• Increased the volume and clarity of Ultimate voice over lines.
• Fixed missing Multikill voice-overs from activating when criteria is met.
• Fixed the ‘Rugby Practice’ challenge not progressing.
• Fixed a bug when spectating that caused the camera to become stuck on 2 members of the team.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the ‘Hero Limit’ option from saving after being modified in Custom Game options.
• Fixed an issue with Reticle options where Dot Size and Outline Thickness would change the reticle appearance even if their opacity was set to 0.
• Fixed a crash related to viewing replays.
• Fixed a bug that prevented you from being able to manually enter the value for Maximum Queue Delay in Streamer Protect settings (this value could always be set using the slider).

Heroes

• Fixed a bug that allowed abilities with shockwaves to hit targets in a floor below.

Bastion

• Fixed an issue with Bastion’s hitbox becoming desynchronized while in Assault mode.

Doomfist

• Fixed a bug with Rocket Punch that could cause the targets of the punch to potentially lose their walking animation.

Echo

• Fixed a bug that occurred when an Echo copied Sigma’s Kinetic Grasp would not grow when taking damage.

Illari

• Fixed a bug where the Sunstruck effect wouldn’t detonate if the damage threshold was reached in the last 0.6 seconds of the effect.

Mercy

• Fixed an issue that reduced Guardian Angels active duration by cancelling the ability while simultaneously pressing crouch or jump.
• Fixed an issue that forced Mercy to reload if Valkryie was activated during the reload animation.

• Additional notes: none.
• Source: Blizzard Entertainment