The second season of Overwatch 2 is upon us, with plenty of balance changes, a new hero and map, and some familiar maps returning with new visual effects on them. The Overwatch patch notes for season 2 went live on December 6 and can be downloaded through Battle.net launcher or the Xbox, Playstation, or Nintendo stores.
The Overwatch patch notes for Season 2 seek to remedy the imbalances from Season 1. This includes nerfs to Sojourn and buffs to Junker Queen, Tracer and Doomfist. And then there are tweaks to Symmetra and Kiriko that will help their playstyles feel less oppressive.
This is the first large patch since the launch of the new Overwatch. Blizzard seems to be taking their time gathering data from each season and making changes based on those. Now without further ado, here are all the Overwatch patch notes for Season 2.
OVERWATCH PATCH NOTES: SEASON 2 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
New hero, Ramattra, won’t be available in competitive for 2 weeks
HERO UPDATES
GENERAL
Damage Role Passive
No longer provides a movement speed bonus
Reload speed bonus increased from 25 to 35%
TANK
Ramattra
Ramattra has been added to the line-up
Void Accelerator (Omnic Form)
Primary: Fire a stream of projectiles in a fixed pattern
Secondary: Create a barrier at the targeted location
Nemesis Form
Transform into Nemesis Form, changing your attacks and gaining bonus armor
Pummel (Nemesis Form)
Primary: Punch forward, creating a wave of piercing energy with every swing
Secondary: Significantly reduces damage taken from the front and reduces movement speed
Ravenous Vortex
Fire a nano ball, which explodes when it hits the ground, spreading a damaging field. Affected enemies are slowed and pulled downward
Annihilation
Enter Nemesis Form and create an energy swarm surrounding yourself. This swarm will lash out towards nearby enemies, dealing damage and pausing the duration when damage is dealt.
Doomfist
Rocket Punch
Impact damage range (minimum-maximum) increased from 15-30 to 25-50 damage
Wall slam damage range (minimum-maximum) reduced from 20-40 to 10-30 damage
Empowered Rocket Punch wall slam stun duration range reduced from 0.5-1 to 0.25-0.75 seconds
Non-Empowered Rocket Punch now stuns for the minimum 0.25 second duration on wall slam
Empowered Rocket Punch knockback radius reduced from 4 to 3 meters
Minimum time before cancel option becomes available reduced from 0.25 to 0.12 seconds
Cooldown reduced from 4 to 3 seconds
This has been in since his rework but was not mentioned
Power Block
Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 seconds
Duration increased from 2 to 2.5 seconds
Minimum damage mitigated required to empower Rocket Punch reduced from 90 to 80 damage
Meteor Strike
Now empowers Rocket Punch on landing
Enemy slow duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds
‘The Best Defense…’ Passive
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’ Passive
Adrenaline passive healing multiplier increased from 1 to 1.25x damage dealt by wounds
DAMAGE
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
Photon 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
SUPPORT
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
OVERWATCH PATCH NOTES: 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)
OVERWATCH PATCH NOTES: SEASON 2 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
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Featured image courtesy of Respawn Entertainment.
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