Overwatch 2 Patch Adds New Map, New Game Mode, and Massive Gameplay Changes

Overwatch 2’s latest patch notes added a long list of changes to its hero balancing and a new core gameplay map: Aatlis. In addition, the patch debuts Hacks & Hijinx, a new game mode with low gravity jumps and Ultimate charging health packs; the limited-time 6v6 mode will only have Control maps, running from July 15 to July 28.   

The hero balancing targets nerfing overbearing picks while providing some needed buffs to underperforming heroes. New stadium heroes, Sigma, Junkrat, and Zenyatta were added to the game mode, alongside balance updates for numerous heroes.

Here are the Overwatch 2 Patch Notes, according to Blizzard’s official blog post. 

Match Modifiers in Hacks & Hijinx

• Mini Maxing – All heroes are 50% smaller. Health reduced by 30%.
• Lie Low – Heroes become invisible while crouching. However, their invisiblity can still be detected at a short distance. The hero stops being invisible when they have received damage or attacks.
• Fired Up – On Fire heroes have decreased cooldowns and deal more damage or healing, but are also visible by everyone.
• Charge Pack – Health packs also grant ultimate charge.
• Power Punch – Quick melee attacks knock back enemies.
• Vampiric Healing – Heroes don’t passively regenerate HP, but each hero has the Vampiric Passive.
• Aerial Combat – Heroes deal and receive 50% more damage while in the air. Gravity decreased.
• Back in action – Respawn time decreased. Does not apply during Overtime.
• Berserkers – Heroes don’t passively regenerate HP. For each 10% of total HP lost, increases attack speed by 6% and reduce cooldowns by 6%.
• Super Jump – Heroes jump 200% higher.
• Motion Detection – Moving enemies within 25 meters are visitable through walls. Crouching enemies remain invisible.
• Explosive – Heroes explode on death, dealing damage to all nearby heroes.
• Hyper Speed – Movement speed is increased by 20% for all heroes.
• Buff Hunt – Every minute, one random hero has increased HP, deals more damage, and generates ult charge faster. Eliminate the buffed hero to gain the buff.
• Damage Pack – Health packs also increase damage dealt by 20% for 10 – 20 seconds or until death.
• Fallen Comrade – Heroes drop of a globe on death that increases damage, armor, and movement speed when picked up by a teammate

General Updates

Map Voting

• Map voting is a new feature that gives players more agency about what map they would prefer to play on.
• At the start of every Quick Play or Competitive Match, three maps will appear, and each player will cast a single vote on the map they will want to play.
• During the Map Voting phase, match text and voice channels are disabled. Team chat is enabled.
• Votes for each map from all players are then displayed and the game will then “roll” to see which vote is selected.
• Maps with more votes are more likely to be selected but maps with less votes can still be selected if the roll lands on one of the votes for the map with less votes.
• If players vote overwhelmingly for a single map, that map is automatically selected.
• After Map Voting in Competitive Play, the Hero Ban phase will begin.

Report Tool

• A new report category called Emergency is now added to the report tool and can be access in all areas you can report a player except for the quick-select report button in the Scoreboard.
• You can then report instances of social communication that implies a threat of extreme harm to another person or a group of persons.
• False reporting other players using these categories may result in actions issued on the reporting player’s account. Please remember to abide by the Blizzard In-Game Code of Conduct including when reporting other players.

Player Endorsements

• Endorsement scoring has been updated to be more dynamic and to improve the accuracy of the system, with the goal of making Endorsement level feel more earned. Endorsement level should feel like a better measure of positivity, sportsmanship, and teamwork once the system has had some time to adjust to the new scoring.
• The scoring system now considers a variety of circumstances when players endorse each other, such as giving bonus score in situations players rarely endorse, like endorsing an enemy on a loss.
• Players that never Endorse others will cause much less decay for their allies. We’d like players that want to ignore the system to also be ignored by the system.
• These scoring updates may cause endorsement levels to be more volatile in the short term, so we’ll be watching these changes carefully and tuning the dynamic scoring as needed.

Streamer Protect

• Hide My Name now rotates to a different fake BattleTag after every match.
• A new option in Streamer Protect advanced options will now block licensed music from playing in order to prevent the risk of copyright claims on player’s personal social and streaming channels. When enabled, the default Overwatch 2 theme will now play in any lobby where music we flag is considered to be copyrighted by a third party.

Hero Updates

• Damage role passive healing reduction increased from 25% to 30%
• Base health regeneration timer increased from 5 to 6 seconds

Tank

Junker Queen

• Commanding Shout – Ability 1
  • Junker Queen overhealth increased from 175 to 200.
  • Allied overhealth increased from 50 to 75.
  • Duration for self-reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.
  • Allied duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.

Mauga

• Berserker – Passive
  • Overhealth conversion rate increased from 40% to 50%.

Ramattra

• Nanite Repair – Major Perk
  • Healing per second increased from 50 to 75.

Zarya

• Graviton Crush – Minor Perk
  • Damage dealt over time increased from 30% to 40% of maximum health.
• Spotter – Major Perk
  • Movement speed increased from 15% to 25%.

Damage

Bastion

• Model and hit volume size reduced by 10%.

Echo

• Tri-Shot – Primary Fire
  • Spread decreased from 1.4 to 1.1 degrees.

Pharah

• Helix Shields – Minor Perk
  • Shield health regeneration triggers when landing direct hits with rockets.

Reaper

• Hellfire Shotguns – Primary Fire
  • Damage per pellet increased from 5.4 to 5.75 (108 to 115 per volley).

Soldier: 76

• Stim Pack – Major Perk
  • On PC platforms, Stim Pack default button changed from “Next Weapon” to “Equip Weapon 1.”

Tracer

• Pulse Pistol – Primary Fire
  • Damage increased from 5.5 to 6.

Venture

• Smart Excavator – Primary Fire
  • Recovery time reduced from 0.7 to 0.6 seconds.

Support

Lifeweaver

• Cleansing Grasp – Minor Perk
  • Life Grip cooldown is reduced by 4 seconds if a debuff is cleansed.

Lúcio

• Crossfade – Ability 1
  • Base healing increased from 16 to 20 health per second.

Moira

• Biotic Grasp – Secondary Fire
  • Healing per second increased from 70 to 80.

Zenyatta

• Duality – Major Perk
  • Increased converted damage from 30% to 40%.

Stadium Updates

• Competitive Ranks have been reset with everyone restarting at Rookie 1.
• Players who reach Epic Rank for the first time in the Tank Role can still earn the Epic Elite Orisa skin.
• Players who reach Epic Rank for the first time in the Damage Role can still earn the Epic Elite Genji skin.
• Players who reach Epic Rank for the first time in the Support Role can still earn the Epic Elite Moira skin.
• Players who reach All-Star Rank will earn the Legendary All-Star Mercy skin and the Legendary All-Star Juno skin.

New Stadium Heroes

• Sigma – Tank
• Junkrat – Damage
• Zenyatta – Support

New Stadium Maps

• Esperança has been added as a new Push game mode map.
• Samoa Volcano has been added as a new Control game mode map.

Introducing Stadium Builds

• Use this new feature to create builds and save them to easily access later, from any Stadium game.
• Stadium Armory has been updated to support additional example builds and offer quick access to your saved builds with a new tabbed view.
• Access the new Stadium Forge from the Stadium Practice Range.
• Save up to 10 builds per hero.
• Access quick actions from the build list to order your builds, share, edit, duplicate or delete.
• Name and describe your builds, to easily find them later.
• You can share your custom builds with others by generating a share code. Share codes are good for up to a year.
• You can copy Example Builds to your saved list and make modifications.
• You can copy builds from any player in Stadium games, allowing you to review or edit them later in the Stadium forge.
• You can copy builds from Stadium replays.
• Save builds you have in-progress from any Stadium game.

Example Builds

• New example builds have been added for all 21 heroes.
• Example builds have been expanded from 9 items to 12.
• Example builds now have Early, Late and Flex categories for items, giving players more insight into when to purchase.

Custom Games

• Stadium is now supported in Custom Games.
• Choose from a variety of options to customize your Stadium games.

Drives

• Starting in Season 17, you can now earn progress toward Drives from Stadium games.

Third Person Camera Improvements

• An all-new implementation of aim down sights has been added for Ana and Ashe.
• Nearby allies will now smoothly fade in and out when your camera collides with them.

Ranked Updates

• Reduced the size of Pro, All-Star and Legend ranked progression bands.

Stadium Hero Updates

Tank

D.Va

• MEKA Punch – Power
  • Booster elimination also resets cooldown of boosters.
  • During boosters, quick melee now gains 50% attack speed (instead of 75% damage).
• Dae-hyun’s Detonator – Rare Ability Hero Item
  • Now shows danger warning sign to the enemy if the enemy is within the blast radius.
  • Decreased radius to 100% (down from 200%).
• Nano Cola™ Nitrous – Epic Survival Hero Item
  • Increased health stat to 50 (up from 25).
  • Removed stat: health increase 5%.

Junker Queen

• Let’s Go Win – Power
  • Decreased cooldown reduction to 50% (down from 100%).
• Cut ‘Em, Gracie! – Power
  • Increased reduction on cooldown to 2s per enemy hit (up from 1s).

Orisa

• Siphonic Spear – Rare Survival Hero Item.
  • Added stat: 25 Health.
• Arcfinder – Rare Ability Hero Item.
  • Added stat: 5% Cooldown reduction.

Reinhardt

• Impact Burst – Power
  • Now only damages other enemies around primary target.
  • Explosion damage increased to 30% of Fire Strike damage (Up from 15%).
• Magma Strike – Power
  • Trail of lava now triggers on every second Fire Strike instead of every second Fire Strike cast within 2s.
• Chimera’s Maw – Epic Hero Ability Item
  • Rarity changed to Epic (from Rare).
  • Added 25% Fire Strike Projectile Speed.
  • Added “For each additional enemy Fire Strike damages beyond the initial target, reduce Fire Strike cooldown by 5%”.
• Rocket Strike – Epic Hero Ability Item
  • Removed.
• Wilhelmwagen – Epic Hero Survival Item
  • Changed to Epic Survival Item (from Power).
  • Added 50 Armor.
  • 11000 Cost.
  • Removed “you heal for 5% of the damage it mitigates”.
• Infusion Generator – Power
  • Changed to Power (from Epic Survival Item).
  • Barrier Field Health increase now only increases from Bonus Max Life.
  • Barrier Field Health scaling increased to 250% (up from 100%).
• To Me, My Friends – Power
  • Increased healing based on Max Life to 5% (up from 4%).

Sigma

• Added to the Stadium Hero Roster
• Zero Gravity – Power
  • When you use an ability, gain the ability to fly for 2.5s.
• Hyperloop – Power
  • Hyperspheres direct hits reduce the cooldown of [Accretion] by 0.5s.
• Trinisphere – Power
  • Your primary fire launches a third [Hypersphere] that deals 50% reduced damage.
• Event Horizon – Power
  • Damage absorbed by Kinetic Grasp also restores Experimental Barrier’s health. Excess is converted to Overhealth.
• Symphonic Syzygy – Power
  • When Kinetic Grasp ends, for every 100 damage absorbed gain 10% Attack Speed for 4s, stacking up to 4 times.
• Orbital Barrier – Power
  • Get a mini Experimental Barrier that orbits around you. It has 50% reduced health.
• Philharmonic Fortitude – Power
  • Experimental Barrier has 25% increased Max Health. Barrier health regenerates constantly but 50% slower while deployed.
• Mass Driver – Power
  • Accretion projectiles that pass through [Experimental Barrier] gain 300% increased projectile speed and deal 20% increased damage.
• Singularity – Power
  • Accretion splash damage is increased by 25% and enemies are pulled towards its explosion.
• Maestro – Power
  • 50% Ultimate Cost Reduction
  • Gravitic Flux radius is reduced by 50%.
• Apogee Alignment – Power
  • When you use an ability, create 2 Hyperspheres that orbit around you. Orbiting [Hyperspheres] deal 50% reduced damage.
• Astrophysical – Power
  • Quick Melee causes enemies hit to levitate into the air for 1s. (10s CD)
• Velocity Vector – Rare Weapon Hero Item
  • +10% Attack Speed
  • +15% Hypersphere Range
  • Cost: 4500
• Maglev Multiplier – Rare Weapon Hero Item
  • 10% Weapon Power
  • +5% Ability Power
  • Gravitic Flux levitates enemies for 20% longer. Enemies affected take 25% increased damage from Hyperspheres.
  • Cost: 5000
• Synced Shielding – Rare Ability Hero Item
  • +25 Shields
  • While behind Experimental Barrier, gain +5% Weapon Power and Attack Speed.
  • While in front of Experimental Barrier, gain +5% Move Speed and Lifesteal.
  • Cost: 4500
• Beam Splitter – Rare Survival Hero Item
  • +25 Shields
  • +5% Cooldown Reduction
  • While Kinetic Grasp is active, reduce incoming Beam damage by 50%.
  • Cost: 4000
• Antimatter – Epic Weapon Hero Item
  • +15% Weapon Power
  • +35% Hyperspheres Explosion Radius
  • Cost: 10000
• The Harness – Epic Ability Hero Item
  • +25% Ability Power
  • +50% Accretion Explosion Radius
  • Cost: 11000
• De Kuiper’s Thesis – Epic Survival Hero Item
  • +50 Shields
  • Experimental Barrier heals nearby allies for 3% of Sigma’s life every 1s.
  • Cost: 11000