What you need to know
- Overwatch 2’s Season 2 update goes live today, bringing new content, a new Battle Pass, and more to Blizzard’s popular hero shooter. Notably, the update also includes several significant balance changes.
- The most significant tweaks from the patch notes are buffs to Doomfist and nerfs to Sojourn, although changes for Bastion, Symmetra, Mercy, Ana, Kiriko, and Junker Queen are included as well. The damage hero role passive has also been adjusted, as its movement speed boost removed but the reload speed buff increased to 35%.
- The update also brings the new tank hero Ramattra to the game, the new Shambali Monastery map, and some improvements to the Control game mode and Competitive play.
Overwatch 2’s Season 2 update is now live and available to all players across all platforms. The update offers a substantial amount of new content for fans of Blizzard’s popular hero shooter to enjoy, including the new tank hero Ramattra, the brand new Escort map Shambali Monastery, and a fresh Season 2 Battle Pass with 80 tiers of cosmetics to unlock.
On top of these additions, Season 2 also brings a variety of hero changes, bug fixes, and more to the game to improve its gameplay balance and stability. The biggest of these are buffs that Doomfist, one of the worst-performing tanks in Overwatch 2, received. Doomfist’s overall lethality and survivability have been increased substantially, making him more of a threat than he was before.
The update also includes some big nerfs to Sojourn, Overwatch 2’s new damage hero that has dominated in higher ranks since the game’s launch in October. Her Railgun’s maximum effective range and critical hit multiplier have both been reduced to make her feel less oppressive overall, though even with these changes, she should still be a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.
There are smaller tweaks for Bastion, Symmetra, Mercy, Ana, Kiriko, and Junker Queen as well, with the majority of them aiming to make playing both as and against these heroes a smoother and more consistent experience. The damage hero role passive has also had its movement speed boost removed, but to compensate, the reload speed buff it provides has been raised to 35%. For a fully detailed list of all the changes in the Overwatch 2 Season 2 update, have a look through the complete patch notes below.
Overwatch 2 Season 2: Patch notes
We’ve listed all the patch notes for the Season 2 update below.
General
- Whenever a point is captured on Control, the team losing control of the point counts as having contested the point for the purposes of Overtime even if they were not present.
- Challenges for unlocking Junker Queen, Sojourn, and Kiriko added.
- 70+ player icon rewards have been added to challenges with the release of Season 2.
- A Hero purchase tab has been added in the Shop.
- Damage role passive: No longer provides a movement speed bonus. Reload speed bonus increased from 25 to 35%.
Competitive play
- There are new, temporary Competitive title rewards for name cards based on your end of season rank.
- You can only earn these titles at the end of the current Competitive season and can only use them in the season following.
- Heroes that aren’t eligible for competitive play will have a lock icon in the Hero Gallery.
- Implemented a group of matchmaking enhancements to improve match quality.
- Minor polish improvements to the competitive play UI flow.
Hero changes
RAMATTRA
- Ramattra has been added to the game, and is available now in Quick Play and Arcade matches.
- Ramattra will not be released in Competitive for two weeks.
- Void Accelerator (Omnic Form)
- Primary: Fire a stream of projectiles in a fixed pattern
- Secondary: Create a barrier at the targeted location
- Nemesis Form
- Transform into Nemesis Form, changing your attacks and gaining bonus armor
- Pummel (Nemesis Form)
- Primary: Punch forward, creating a wave of piercing energy with every swing
- Secondary: Significantly reduces damage taken from the front and reduces movement speed
- Ravenous Vortex
- Fire a nano ball, which explodes when it hits the ground, spreading a damaging field. Affected enemies are slowed and pulled downward
- Annihilation (Ultimate)
- Enter Nemesis Form and create an energy swarm surrounding yourself. This swarm will lash out towards nearby enemies, dealing damage and pausing the duration when damage is dealt.
DOOMFIST
- Rocket Punch
- Impact damage range (minimum-maximum) increased from 15-30 to 25-50 damage
- Wall slam damage range (minimum-maximum) reduced from 20-40 to 10-30 damage
- Empowered Rocket Punch wall slam stun duration range reduced from 0.5-1 to 0.25-0.75 seconds
- Non-Empowered Rocket Punch now stuns for the minimum 0.25 second duration on wall slam
- Empowered Rocket Punch knockback radius reduced from 4 to 3 meters
- Minimum time before cancel option becomes available reduced from 0.25 to 0.12 seconds
- Cooldown reduced from 4 to 3 seconds
- Power Block
- Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 seconds
- Duration increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds
- Minimum damage mitigated required to empower Rocket Punch reduced from 90 to 80 damage
- Meteor Strike
- Now empowers Rocket Punch on landing
- Enemy slow duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds
- The Best Defense…
- Maximum temporary health increased from 150 to 200 health
- Temporary health gained per target hit with abilities increased from 30 to 40 health
JUNKER QUEEN
- Torso and head hit volume size increased 12%
- Rampage
- Wound duration reduced from 5 to 4.5 seconds
- Ultimate cost reduced by 10%
- Commanding Shout
- Cooldown reduced from 15 to 14 seconds
- Adrenaline Rush
- Adrenaline passive healing multiplier increased from 1 to 1.25x damage dealt by wounds
BASTION
- Configuration Artillery
- Delay before projectile drops reduced from 1 to 0.6 seconds
- Explosion damage reduced from 300 to 250
- No longer deals explosion damage to self
- Minimum delay between placing shots reduced by 20%
- Reconfigure
- Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds
SOJOURN
- Railgun
- Energy delay before draining reduced from 8 to 5 seconds
- Secondary fire damage falloff starting range reduced from 70 to 40 meters
- Secondary fire critical damage multiplier reduced from 2 to 1.5
- Secondary fire damage now scales linearly with energy from 30 to 130 damage (1 energy converts to 1 damage added)
- Primary fire damage per projectile increased from 9 to 10
- Overclock energy charge rate increased by 20%
SYMMETRA
- Proton Projector
- Beam charge rate and decay rate increased by 20%
- Primary fire ammo consumption rate increased from 7 to 10 per second
- Primary fire gains ammo from damaging barriers again
TRACER
- Pulse Pistols
- Damage increased from 5 to 6
ANA
- Sleep Dart
- Cooldown reduced from 15 to 14 seconds
KIRIKO
- Arm hit volumes width reduced 15%
- Added an auto-wall climb hero option
- Kitsune Rush
- Ultimate cost increased by 10%
- Movement speed bonus reduced from 50 to 30%
- Cooldown rate reduced from 3 to 2 times faster
- Protection Suzu
- Cast time reduced from 0.15 to 0.1 second
- Kunai
- Ammo increased from 12 to 15
- Swift Step
- Ability input can now be held to activate
MERCY
- Weapon swap time reduced from 0.5 to 0.35 seconds
- Caduceus Blaster
- Ammo increased from 20 to 25
Season 2 map pools
PUSH
- New Queen Street – Morning
- Colosseo – Evening
- Esperança – Morning
HYBRID
- Blizzard World – Overcast (NEW)
- Eichenwalde – Evening
- King’s Row – Evening
- Midtown – Morning
- Paraíso – Morning
ESCORT
- Dorado – Evening
- Junkertown – Morning
- Circuit royal – Night
- Rialto – Morning
- Route 66 – Night
- Shambali Monastery – Night (NEW MAP)
CONTROL
- Busan – Night
- Ilios – Evening
- Lijiang Tower – Dawn
- Nepal – Evening (NEW)
- Oasis – Morning (NEW)
Bug fixes
GENERAL
- Fixed a bug that was causing Roadhog’s breaths to not be audible when viewing some animations in the Hero Gallery
- Fixed a bug that caused some players to lose competitive challenge progress
- Resolved an issue where several products couldn’t be unlocked from the Hero Gallery
- Fixed an issue with the Lifesaver Challenge not counting Mercy’s Resurrect as a ‘Save’
- Resolved an issue with purchases not immediately showing up after purchase
- Fixed a bug with Torbjörn and Symmetra’s turrets displaying hostile red overlays in Deathmatch for the player that placed them
MAPS
- Busan
- Fixed an area of the map where players could get stuck
- Colosseo
- Fixed geometry that allowed some heroes to contest undetected
- Esperança
- Fixed some areas that could be used to escape the playable space
- Fixed geometry that allowed some heroes to contest undetected
- Gibraltar
- Fixed lighting issues across the map
- Fixed some areas where Torbjörn could place his turret in unreachable spots
- Nepal
- Replaced some missing pillars on Sanctum
- Rio
- Fixed a bug that allowed some heroes to get inside of the payload
- Route 66
- Fixed lighting issues across the map
- New Queen Street
- Fixed some issues with shadows across the map
- Fixed an area of the map where players could get stuck
HEROES
- Heroes no longer take damage from their own abilities if they’re on the other side of a friendly barrier
- Fixed an issue with the Damage Passive where sometimes a double reload animation could occur when the buff was active
- Cassidy
- Resolved an issue with some skins using the wrong props in the ‘Flashbang’ victory pose
- Doomfist
- Fixed an issue where Doomfist’s Power Block reduced the damage from some area of effect abilities
- Meteor Strike – You can no longer detect Sombra if the targeting reticle gets near her
- D.Va
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to use Self-Destruct during their Mech’s destruction while Hacked
- Junker Queen
- Jagged Blade can no longer be recalled while slept, stunned, hacked or frozen
- Fixed an issue with Jagged Blade being consumed by friendly abilities like Deflect, Defense Matrix, etc.
- Jagged Blade now takes a curved trajectory on return
- Mercy
- Guardian Angel now correctly resets its cooldown if Valkyrie is used
- Guardian Angel ‘cancel boost’ is now disabled when Mercy is stunned
- Moira
- Junkrat’s Trap no longer displays at chest height in first person when using Fade
- Pharah
- Fixed a bug that reduced the ult cost of Rocket Barrage
- Soldier 76
- Fixed an issue where Soldier 76 was unable to critical hit max range enemies during Tactical Visor
- Symmetra
- Fixed a bug that resulted in all VO being cut out when taking the Teleporter
- Tracer
- Fixed a big causing her Pulse Pistol damage falloff to not start until max range
- Winston
- Resolved an issue with the Werewolf skin and the ‘Excuse me’ highlight intro turning Winston red in the Hero Gallery
- Zenyatta
- Fixed an issue with melee not correctly animating if used to cancel alternate fire
Overwatch 2 is available now on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch. It’s arguably one of the best Xbox shooters available, and since it’s free-to-play, it doesn’t cost anything to check it out. Alternatively, players can purchase the Overwatch 2: Watchpoint Pack that provides access to a Premium Battle Pass, 2,000 Overwatch Coins, and a bundle of unique Legendary skins.
