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Season 2 in Overwatch 2 is now live, with a new hero, a new map returning from Overwatch, and a variety of balance shifts and changes.
The biggest change is obviously the new Tank Ramattra. He can morph into two different forms to change his tactics on the fly. Blizzard also changed up the battle pass to make Ramattra easier to unlock, at level 45 of the new battle pass. If you advance through the battle pass, you will earn rewards inspired by ancient Greece. Shambali Monastery returns, revamped for Overwatch 2. It’s an escort map, where you will battle in mountainous city streets and explore ancient temple grounds.
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Now Playing: Season 2 Trailer | Overwatch 2
As for buffs and nerfs, Doomfist has been buffed to enable more play as a brawling, interrupting tank. He can now activate Empowered Rocket Punch more consistently, but in turn it has less effect. Bastion’s ultimate has been buffed to make it harder to dodge, but also has been made somewhat less lethal. Sojourn can no longer one-shot-kill a hero at full 200 health, but has increased primary fire damage and her weapon’s energy charges faster during her ultimate.
Season 2 will also see the launch of competitive play. At the end of the season, you will be rewarded limited-time titles based on your rank at the end of the season. You can only use those titles in the following season, so the titles that you earn throughout Season 2 will only be available during Season 3. Heroes that are not available for competitive play will display a lock icon in the hero gallery. Improvements to matchmaking and competitive UI have also been made. Ramattra will not be available in competitive for two weeks.
You can read the full patch notes below or on the Blizzard website.
GENERAL UPDATES
Control Game Mode
We fixed a bug regarding overtime on control maps, however, that fix led to other bugs we had to resolve. Ultimately, this led to some anticlimactic game play results that we weren’t happy with. After hearing player feedback, we’ve made the following change:
Whenever a point is captured on Control, the team losing control of the point counts as having contested the point for the purposes of Overtime even if they were not present.
For example, if Team A has 99% and Team B has current control of the point, but then Team A take back control of the point, Overtime will automatically trigger and start to burn down unless Team B can touch again.At lower capture percentages this change will have no impact on the game mode, as this new rule is only applied for the purposes of Overtime
Hero Updates and Challenges
We’ve added Challenges for unlocking Junker Queen, Sojourn, and Kiriko70+ player icon rewards have been added to challenges with the release of Season 2
Shop Update
We’ve added a Hero purchase tab in the Shop
COMPETITIVE PLAY
Season 2 competitive play begins now! Here are some updates we’re introducing to competitive:
There are new, temporary Competitive title rewards for name cards based on your end of season rankYou can only earn these titles at the end of the current Competitive season and can only use them in the season followingHeroes that aren’t eligible for competitive play will have a lock icon in the Hero GalleryImplemented a group of matchmaking enhancements to improve match qualityMinor polish improvements to the competitive play UI flowNew hero, Ramattra, won’t be available in competitive for 2 weeks
HERO UPDATES
Damage Role Passive
No longer provides a movement speed bonusReload speed bonus increased from 25 to 35%
Developer comments: We’ve decided to remove increased movement speed from the Damage role passive and, in turn, make the reload speed more significant. While the additional movement speed was a helpful indicator that the passive was active, we saw change in speed negatively affecting the ability to aim precisely.
TANK
Ramattra
Ramattra has been added to the line-up
Void Accelerator (Omnic Form)
Primary: Fire a stream of projectiles in a fixed patternSecondary: 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 swingSecondary: Significantly reduces damage taken from the front and reduces movement speed
Ravenous Vortex
Fire a nano ball, which explodes when it hits the ground, spreading a damaging field. Affected enemies are slowed and pulled downward
Annihilation
Enter Nemesis Form and create an energy swarm surrounding yourself. This swarm will lash out towards nearby enemies, dealing damage and pausing the duration when damage is dealt.
Doomfist
Developer comments: There are several changes here for Doomfist with the intent to increase his presence as a disruptive brawler-style tank. The buff to his passive ability will help him stay in the fight longer, especially when he’s hitting multiple enemies with his abilities.
The changes to Power Block and Meteor Strike are intended to increase the availability of Empowered Rocket Punch, which enables him to more easily disrupt enemies and impact multiple targets. Due to gaining Empowered Rocket Punch more consistently, the stun duration and size are slightly decreased to reduce some of the frustration in playing against it.
For Rocket Punch we’re shifting some of its damage away from requiring wall impacts so that it’s broadly more useful regardless of where fights are taken.
Rocket Punch
Impact damage range (minimum-maximum) increased from 15-30 to 25-50 damageWall slam damage range (minimum-maximum) reduced from 20-40 to 10-30 damageEmpowered Rocket Punch wall slam stun duration range reduced from 0.5-1 to 0.25-0.75 secondsNon-Empowered Rocket Punch now stuns for the minimum 0.25 second duration on wall slamEmpowered Rocket Punch knockback radius reduced from 4 to 3 metersMinimum time before cancel option becomes available reduced from 0.25 to 0.12 secondsCooldown reduced from 4 to 3 secondsThis has been in since his rework but was not mentioned
Power Block
Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 secondsDuration increased from 2 to 2.5 secondsMinimum damage mitigated required to empower Rocket Punch reduced from 90 to 80 damage
Meteor Strike
Now empowers Rocket Punch on landingEnemy slow duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds
The Best Defense…
Maximum temporary health increased from 150 to 200 healthTemporary health gained per target hit with abilities increased from 30 to 40 health
Junker Queen
Developer comments: Commanding Shout is Junker Queen’s primary tanking ability and utility, but the additional survivability it granted her team proved to be too powerful and needed to be tuned back significantly in a previous patch. We’re looking to shift more of that survivability into Junker Queen herself by increasing the amount her passive ability heals through dealing damage with wounds.
Torso and head hit volume size increased 12%
Rampage
Wound duration reduced from 5 to 4.5 secondsUltimate cost reduced by 10%
Commanding Shout
Cooldown reduced from 15 to 14 seconds
Adrenaline Rush
Adrenaline passive healing multiplier increased from 1 to 1.25x damage dealt by wounds
DAMAGE
Bastion
Developer comments: The intent for Bastion’s ultimate is that enemy players can survive it if they are quick to react to the damaging impact areas, however, it ended up being too easy to avoid the damage areas entirely. We’re reducing both the amount of warning time and explosion damage so that it’s more reliable in dealing damage, but it won’t be as lethal the closer the target gets to the edge of the explosion range.
Configuration Artillery
Delay before projectile drops reduced from 1 to 0.6 secondsExplosion damage reduced from 300 to 250No longer deals explosion damage to selfMinimum delay between placing shots reduced by 20%
Reconfigure
Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds
Sojourn
Developer comments: Sojourn is performing well at the highest tiers of competitive play but poorly below those tiers. Much of the perception that she is too powerful seems to be driven by the reaction to dying to long range, charged headshots from her Railgun secondary fire. These changes are aimed at reducing frustrations there, with the biggest change being the reduced critical multiplier for headshots. A fully charged headshot no longer kills a full health 200 hp hero. To help account for this loss of power we’re increasing the damage of her primary fire and how quickly her energy charges during her ultimate.
Railgun
Energy delay before draining reduced from 8 to 5 secondsSecondary fire damage falloff starting range reduced from 70 to 40 metersSecondary fire critical damage multiplier reduced from 2 to 1.5Secondary 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 10Overclock energy charge rate increased by 20%
Symmetra
Developer comments: The changes to Symmetra’s primary fire will make her gameplay faster by enabling her to charge the beam up to dangerous levels more quickly. However, it will also drain to less lethal levels at an increased rate when not damaging a target. We’re reverting the adjustments to her ammo management because, while it helped with matchups where there were no barriers, it lost something interesting to its interactions.
Proton Projector
Beam charge rate and decay rate increased by 20%Primary fire ammo consumption rate increased from 7 to 10 per secondPrimary fire gains ammo from damaging barriers again
Tracer
Developer comments: We balanced Tracer’s damage in a previous patch due to an undiscovered bug regarding her Pulse Pistol’s falloff damage. The bug is resolved, so we are reverting the damage.
Pulse Pistols
Damage increased from 5 to 6
SUPPORT
Ana
Developer comments: Sleep Dart is still one of the most powerful crowd control abilities in 5v5, though with the addition of cleanse mechanics to offer a potential counter to this effect we’re more comfortable with reducing the cooldown here to improve Ana’s personal survivability.
Sleep Dart
Cooldown reduced from 15 to 14 seconds
Kiriko
Developer comments: The hit volume adjustment is to help address her arms sometimes blocking headshots in some of her animations. Kiriko feels balanced overall, but her ultimate could feel too frenetic at times. We’re reducing both the movement speed and cooldown rate boost it grants so that it’s easier to aim during its effect for both allies and enemies, as well as there being fewer abilities being thrown about. The rest of the changes are primarily for quality-of-life improvements to make the abilities feel better to use.
Arm hit volumes width reduced 15%Added an auto-wall climb hero option
Kitsune Rush
Ultimate cost increased by 10%Movement speed bonus reduced from 50 to 30%Cooldown rate reduced from 3 to 2 times faster
Protection Suzu
Cast time reduced from 0.15 to 0.1 second
Kunai
Ammo increased from 12 to 15
Swift Step
Ability input can now be held to activate
Mercy
Developer comments: This is a change that will enable Mercy to better defend herself or even go on the offensive at times. In 5v5 these situations occur much more often.
Weapon swap time reduced from 0.5 to 0.35 seconds
Caduceus Blaster
Ammo increased from 20 to 25
SEASON 2 MAP POOLS
Push
New Queen Street – MorningColosseo – EveningEsperança – Morning
Hybrid
Blizzard World – Overcast (NEW)Eichenwalde – EveningKing’s Row – EveningMidtown – MorningParaíso – Morning
Escort
Dorado – EveningJunkertown – MorningCircuit royal – NightRialto – MorningRoute 66 – NightShambali Monastery – Night (NEW MAP)
Control
Busan – NightIlios – EveningLijiang Tower – DawnNepal – 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 GalleryFixed a bug that caused some players to lose competitive challenge progressResolved an issue where several products couldn’t be unlocked from the Hero GalleryFixed an issue with the Lifesaver Challenge not counting Mercy’s Resurrect as a ‘Save’Resolved an issue with purchases not immediately showing up after purchaseFixed 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 spaceFixed geometry that allowed some heroes to contest undetected
Gibraltar
Fixed lighting issues across the mapFixed 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 mapFixed 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 barrierFixed 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 abilitiesMeteor 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 frozenFixed 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 usedGuardian 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
