Key Takeaways
- Overwatch 2’s mid-Season 12 update includes nerfs for heroes like D.Va and Venture and the new Role Queue Mystery Heroes mode.
- New buffs have been made for Orisa, Roadhog, Sigma, and other heroes to balance the gameplay.
- The update also introduces new Competitive Drive limited-time events and Overwatch 2’s World of Warcraft collaboration.
Overwatch 2 has officially rolled out its mid-Season 12 update, which includes a long-awaited nerf to D.Va and the tank passive, buffs for several other heroes, and the new Role Queue Mystery Heroes game mode. This update, along with the World of Warcraft collaboration event, are live in Overwatch 2 right now.
Season 12 of Overwatch 2 began on August 20, and is set to run until October 15, meaning players are officially halfway through New Frontiers. As it has in previous seasons, Overwatch 2 has implemented a sizable update to keep the live-service hero shooter as fresh and balanced as possible.
This time, a few nerfs were implemented to bring certain heroes down to size, especially in the survivability of certain characters. The flat damage reduction of armor has been reduced from 10 to 7 per impact, and the knockback resistance for the tank role is now 25%, lowered from 40%. As Overwatch 2 had previously teased, D.Va also lost some of her armor and her total health on top of being impacted by both general nerfs. Venture also got hit, with their Explorer’s Resolve shield-gaining passive losing a little bit of its potency per ability use.
Several Overwatch 2 heroes came out of this balance update with buffs, however. Orisa’s Fortify movement speed penalty has been lessened, Roadhog’s Take a Breather recharges faster, and Sigma’s Hyperspheres deal more area damage now. Bastion, Cassidy, Hanzo, Moira, Lifeweaver, and Zenyatta all also received buffs to their offensive capabilities to help them pose more of a threat in certain matchups.
This update added a new Unranked game mode called Role Queue Mystery Heroes, which works like its predecessor, but by lessening the randomness by only using characters from each player’s chosen role. This mode has replaced Open Queue Mystery Heroes on the main menu, but the original can still be made in Custom Games. Additionally, Competitive Drives are new limited-time events that Overwatch 2 will be starting near the end of each season. During each Drive, fans can earn Signatures – Overwatch 2 cosmetics used to customize one’s account name – as well as even more Competitive Points.
Last but certainly not least, this patch heralds the start of the Overwatch 2 x World of Warcraft collaboration event. Until the end of September, players can pick up Lich King Reinhardt, Widowmaker Sylvanas, Thrall Zenyatta, and diamond Magni Torbjorn, along with their associated cosmetics, in the cash shop, or complete in-game tasks to earn sprays, name plates, titles, and experience to finish out the last of the Season 12 Battle Pass.
Overwatch 2 Mid-Season 12 Patch Notes – September 17, 2024
Overwatch 2 x World of Warcraft
Join the celebration as Overwatch and World of Warcraft unite the realms for a legendary crossover event! From September 17-30, dive into glory with Sylvanas Windrunner Widowmaker, Lich King Reinhardt, Thrall Zenyatta, and Diamond Magni Torbjorn Legendary skins – complete with iconic voice lines, emotes, and Plays of the Game inspired by WoW. Play now to unlock up to 8 free rewards and experience the magic!
General Updates
Role Queue Mystery Heroes
Role Queue Mystery Heroes is a new variation of the popular Mystery Heroes game mode but using the Role Queue rules. Once you select your role, your heroes played will be randomly selected among the heroes in that role and will not change roles throughout the match.
- Role Queue Mystery Heroes added to the Unranked Menu.
- Open Queue Mystery Heroes removed from the Unranked Menu.
- You can still create a custom game of Open Queue Mystery Heroes in Custom Games.
Deathmatch
- Deathmatch is moved from the Unranked Menu to the Arcade Menu and will appear in daily rotation with other Deathmatch modes.
Competitive Updates
Competitive Drives
Competitive Drives are limited-time events that take place near the end of seasons in Competitive Play Role Queue. As you complete a Drive you’ll earn bonus Competitive Points and a new reward called “Signatures”. Signatures are a cosmetic reward that appears on your name in most locations where your name is displayed, including your Name Card, Play of the Game Highlights, Scoreboard, and Hero Select. Signatures are upgraded as you reach Checkpoints in a Drive.
When you win a match you’ll earn Drive Score and progress toward the next Checkpoint. Losing subtracts Drive Score, but generally less than winning, and Checkpoints prevent you from losing score once you reach them.
There are 6 Checkpoints and they grant the following rewards in order of completion:
- 500 Competitive Points
- Signature
- 1000 Competitive Points
- Advanced Signature
- 500 Competitive Points
- Elite Signature
Your progression on a Drive is shared across all roles in Role Queue. You do not earn progression toward your Drive in Open Queue Competitive Play.
When you complete Drives your Signature will be upgraded to show off how many Drives you’ve completed in total.
Signatures are removed after a Rank Reset.
HERO UPDATES
GENERAL
- Armor flat damage reduction decreased from 10 to 7 per impact.
Developer Comment: The recent increase to armor’s effectiveness improved the survivability of armored heroes more than we’d like for how passive it is, so we’re tuning it down to a middle-ground value.
TANK
- Tank Role Passive
- Knockback resistance reduced from 40% to 25%.
Developer Comment: This knockback resistance value has changed a few times as the environment of the game shifts. With Juno entering the roster and bringing more sources of speed boost to help rush down the enemy team, we’d like to make tanks more susceptible to displacement again.
D.Va
Developer Comment: There has been a lot of community feedback surrounding D.Va lately. On average she hasn’t been overperforming, but she’s quite difficult to take down. So we’re shifting some of her armor to normal health and reducing her max combined health by 25 armor. With armor’s effectiveness being hit in the same patch, we’ll keep an eye on how this plays out and adjust as necessary.
- Mech armor health reduced from 375 to 325.
- Mech base health increased from 200 to 225.
Orisa
Developer Comment: We still don’t want Orisa to easily chase enemies down while Fortified since there’s not much you can do to fight back during that time, so while we’re not removing the movement speed penalty entirely, we are lowering it to a point where it will feel much better for Orisa to use.
- Fortify
- Movement speed penalty reduced from 20% to 10%.
Roadhog
Developer Comment: This is a reversion to Roadhog’s previous resource regeneration rate to improve his primary tanking ability’s uptime. There were several adjustments to reduce the power of this ability but they may not have been necessary as Roadhog has been underperforming for some time now.
- Take a Breather
- Resource regeneration rate increased from 8 to 10 per second.
Sigma
Developer Comment: This shift in damage from the Hyperspheres direct impact into the explosion component is to improve the effectiveness of the airburst explosion when playing at max range and makes it more threatening against tightly grouped enemies.
- Hyperspheres
- Impact damage reduced from 25 to 15.
- Explosion damage increased from 30 to 40.
- No longer deals damage to self.
DAMAGE
Bastion
Developer Comment: The spread reduction is intended to improve the Assault mode weapon’s effective range against smaller targets while not changing much in regard to how good it is against tank heroes and their large size.
- Configuration: Assault
- Spread reduced from 2.2 to 2 degrees.
- Configuration: Artillery
- Ultimate cost reduced 12%.
Cassidy
Developer Comment: We’re reducing how impactful the hinder effect is by lowering its duration, as this crowd control can be a significant source of frustration for players. Since now there is less time to follow up with shots from the weapon while the opponent is hindered, we’re increasing the explosion damage of Flashbang.
- Flashbang
- Hinder duration reduced from 1.2 to 0.9 seconds.
- Explosion damage increased from 45 to 75.
- Deadeye
- Ultimate cost reduced 10%.
Hanzo
Developer Comment: This change restores Hanzo’s one hit headshot kill against 250 health heroes, though it will require more accuracy with the smaller projectile size and is now slower to charge shots to reduce the frequency of projectiles being thrown out.
After trying the recent iterations of Hanzo post Season 9, we feel the one-shot capability is too essential to the core gameplay feel of these sniper heroes (similar to Widowmaker) without a much larger rework. Being limited to a smaller range of heroes that could be one shot (225 HP and below) added some texture to the hero matchups but wasn’t a satisfying compromise for either side.
- Storm Bow
- Normal arrows are no longer affected by global projectile size increases.
- Maximum damage increased from 120 to 125.
- Time to fully charge increased from 0.72 to 0.87 seconds.
Venture
Developer Comment: As a highly mobile damage hero, Venture doesn’t need quite as much shield health from their passive as they currently get to be successful. Even though they are a close-range hero, their abilities enable them to close the gap quickly and effectively without taking much damage.
- Explorer’s Resolve
- Shield health gained per ability reduced from 40 to 30.
SUPPORT
Moira
Developer Comment: Moira’s ultimate didn’t feel threatening enough after the health adjustments across the cast and her own lower health value.
- Coalescence
- Damage per second increased from 70 to 85.
Lifeweaver
Developer Comment: The increased firing duration for Thorn Volley will give Lifeweaver more damage presence and it lines up better with his auto-charging heal timing to help that flow nicely.
- Thorn Volley
- Maximum ammo increased from 80 to 100.
Zenyatta
Developer Comment: With the current addition of more speed boosts in the game, Zenyatta (and generally more poke-oriented team compositions by extension) has fallen off a bit due to how immobile and vulnerable he can be. We’ve tried increasing his health in the past but it’s proven problematic, so instead we’re leaning into his glass-cannon nature. We’re improving his damage this time, which should enable new break points in how many shots are required to eliminate an enemy.
- Destruction Orb
- Damage increased from 48 to 50.
- Orb of Discord
- Cooldown per target reduced from 7 to 6 seconds.
Map Updates
CLASH
- Fast Respawn after a point has been captured has been removed from Clash. We’ll be looking to implement an alternate version of it for Clash in the future.
- Respawn times for defenders get reduced by 2 seconds for each segment the attackers secure in the final capture zone.
FLASHPOINT
- The initial boost of speed heroes receive when leaving the spawn has been increased in duration from 1 second to 2 seconds.
- Increased maximum potential duration of the speed boost effect from 5 to 6 seconds.
BUG FIXES
GENERAL
- Fixed an issue where players were not gaining credit when queuing for all roles in challenges and progression stats.
- Fixed an issue where wall climbing heroes could infinitely ledge grab.
HEROES
CASSIDY
- Fixed an issue where Deadeye would incorrectly indicate a killing blow on Ramattra.
D.VA
- Fixed an issue with D.Va’s Boosters movement speed stacking multiplicatively with speed boosting abilities.
LIFEWEAVER
- Fixed an issue that would cause Lifeweaver’s petal platform to continue to rise when interacting with Mei’s Ice effects.
- Fixed an issue where Lifeweavers’s petal platform can move horizontally if placed on a moving object.
SIGMA
- Fixed an issue with Sigma’s Gravitic Flux percentage health damage being affected by damage reduction.
SYMMETRA
- Fixed an issue where audio would remain muffled if you used a teleporter while hindered.
