Overwatch 2 has begun its 12th season and alongside the Egyptian-themed battle pass and new support hero Juno, Blizzard has released a balance patch. The tweaks have addressed some longstanding issues with heroes like Lifeweaver, while also giving a few tweaks to tanks after supercharging them last season to mixed reception. There’s also a new mode added to the rotation, so the patch has a lot to unpack.
Juno is obviously the star of the season, and she’s received a few tweaks since her test period back in July. Nearly every ability in the Martian medic’s kit has been balanced in some way. Her primary fire has been reduced to 28 shots per second from its original 34, her lock-on torpedoes that damage enemies and heal teammates have become more powerful, and her speed-boosting Hyper Ring ability has an increased deploy range alongside a shorter cooldown. So while her healing and damage output has been lowered, her abilities have been made more efficient. Those are the kinds of minimal changes you’d expect as Blizzard is still figuring out a new hero, so we’ll see if farther-reaching changes are on the horizon. The team also included several quality-of-life adjustments to how Juno’s abilities are communicated, which you can read about in the patch notes below.
Lifeweaver, who Blizzard has had trouble balancing since he launched last year, is getting some pretty notable quality-of-life improvements that will make his kit less punishing to those using the support hero. His primary Healing Blossom that heals teammates now passively charges, allowing you to fire a fully-charged flower across the battlefield instantly. This passive charge is slower than the manual one you can do by holding down the RT/R2/Left click, but it stays charged when you swap between Healing Blossom and his offensive secondary fire. This way you’re not punished for swapping between modes of fire, allowing you to switch to an offensive attack and quickly return to healing if need be. The Petal Platform, which elevates any hero (friend or foe) who stands on it, also got a much-needed update. Now, if someone steps off the platform, rather than remaining in the air and becoming functionally useless, it will return to the ground to lift a player to high ground once more. There have been plenty of times I’ve thrown a platform down as Lifeweaver just for someone to fall off of it almost immediately, so this is a welcome change.
One balance change that affects multiple heroes is a health nerf that cuts a lot of squishy characters’ health down to 225. Overwatch 2 increased most characters’ health in February after adding passive health regeneration in season 9. Blizzard is tweaking health pools for mobile heroes that can get away from a scrap, so the hope here is that this will make it easier to take out the heroes who often harass a backline and get away just before a killing shot. Heroes affected by this nerf include flight-based characters Echo, Juno, and Mercy (Pharah is notably absent), as well as those who can escape a fight easily like Lucio, Sombra, Kiriko, and Moira. Hanzo, meanwhile, has also had his health nerfed, which Blizzard says is to balance the fact that he can one-shot a lot of these heroes now that they have 225 HP.
Beyond hero changes, Season 12 also adds the new mode Clash, which is a King of the Hill-style mode that feels like a reason for Blizzard to bring back old maps without revisiting the maligned two-point capture mode that was phased out in Overwatch 2. Both the Hanaoka and Throne of Anubis maps are based on fan-favorite maps from the original Overwatch Hanamura and Temple of Anubis, respectively. We’ll see how the community reacts to the mode in the coming weeks.
The full patch notes are as follows:
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
- Beam travel speed increased from 1.9 to 2.25 meters per second.
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.
