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OVERWATCH 2, SEASON 3
Drop into season three to explore the depths of the coolest new control map, Antarctic Peninsula. Compete in limited-time in-game events, such as Ultimate Valentine. Customize your heroes with new skins and cosmetics from the Battle Pass and weekly Shop drops. Now earn Credits in the Battle Pass that can be redeemed for over 250 cosmetics from the original Overwatch , and go premium to get exclusive rewards, such as Mythic Amaterasu Kiriko.
NEW MAP: ANTARCTIC PENINSULA
Journey across the frozen Antarctic Peninsula. Discover the abandoned station where the Overwatch Ecopoint team once searched for the source of a dangerous anomaly threatening the world and explore the wreckage of the icebreaker ship that failed to rescue Mei-Ling Zhou and her friends.
NEW FEATURE: STREAMER PROTECT
Players can now activate Streamer Protect options in-game settings. These options will provide players with ways to hide identifying information when livestreaming matches.
GENERAL UPDATES
Accessibility Improvements
Improved Subtitles Options: text scalability, character portrait icons, speaker name, text color, background color, and subtitle preview in the options menu
Added mouse cursor size setting for PC
Added setting to select custom colors for Group and Alert colors in the UI. Preview feature added to preview custom colors in the accessibility options
Challenges
Added challenges to unlock “Silhouette” player icons for all heroes
Added tracking for each of the roles for the Weekly “Role Mastery” challenge
Added Ramattra unlock challenges
Partial progress through the season three Battle Pass is now carried over to the “Wins for Ramattra” challenge
Endorsements
Players can now endorse the opposing team
All players can now be endorsed in Free-For-All game modes
Game Report
Players can view scoreboards from previous matches within the View Game Reports menu found in the History tab of the Career Profile
Mystery Heroes Changes
Mystery heroes now limits each team to a maximum of three of each role.
Example: You are Reinhardt in Mystery Heroes. Your team also includes Mercy, Ana, and Lucio. When you die, you cannot respawn as a Support hero because there are already three Support heroes on your team. You will either be respawned as a Damage or a Tank hero
This new maximum role limit can be changed in Custom Games under Settings > Modes > All > Random Hero Role Limit Per Team,
This setting only functions when the Respawn as Random Hero setting is enabled
Overwatch Credits are back
Overwatch Credits, which were previously labeled “Legacy Credits” and were not earnable in Overwatch 2, can now once again be earned through progressing in the Season 3 Battle Pass
All players can earn up to 1500 credits as free rewards, and another 500 credits are available as premium rewards in the Season 3 Battle Pass
Credits can be spent in the Hero Gallery, which now contains nearly all seasonal Epic and Legendary-tier skins released prior to the launch of Overwatch 2. This includes many skins that were previously only available for purchase with Coins in the “Just for You” section of our Shop
Ping System Update
Pressing Ability 1 or Ability 2 when the ping wheel is open and when these abilities are on cooldown now prints these cooldowns in chat
Example: If Baptiste’s Immortality Field is on cooldown and you press the key/button to activate the ability while the Ping Wheel is open, the cooldown for the ability will be printed in chat
COMPETITIVE PLAY
Season 3 competitive play begins now! Here are some of the latest updates aimed at improving the competitive experience in Overwatch 2:
Skill tiers and divisions will adjust after every 5 wins or 15 losses and ties (formally 7 wins or 20 losses and ties)
Players can select the “View Competitive Progress” button from the Competitive menu to view their progress toward receiving a rank update
WORKSHOP UPDATES
Workshop Editor is back!
Workshop Moderation Tools
We added new menu options when reporting a player. Our goal is to give players more ways to report inappropriate behavior so that we can take action in a timely manner. As a result, you can select the category and sub-category that best explain why you are reporting the player or their custom content. The major categories include:
Inappropriate Communication
Inappropriate Name
Cheating
Gameplay Sabotage
Inappropriate Custom Content
HERO UPDATES
ALL HEROES
Maximum ultimate charge retained when swapping heroes reduced from 30 to 25%
Developer Comment: As part of this patch, there was a tuning pass for how often ultimate abilities are being generated, so expect to see several ultimate cost adjustments across multiple heroes.
TANK ROLE PASSIVE
The health totals for all tank heroes will be lower when playing any game mode that does not have a role queue. Health totals will remain the same for tanks when playing any Role Queue enabled game.
Developer Comment: This change to the tank HP pools helps to address the relative power of those heroes in game modes where there can be multiple of them on the same team.
TANK
D.Va
Mech base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 350
Mech base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 350 to 200
Doomfist
Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 450
Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 450 to 300
Junkerqueen
Base health in Role Queue modes increased to 450
Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 425 to 300
Developer Comment: The overall base health for Junkerqueen is increased by 25 HP.
Orisa
Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 275
Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 275 to 125
Augmented Fusion Driver
Damage falloff range reduced from 25 to 15 meters
Ramattra
Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 450
Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 450 to 300
Annihilation
Damaging enemies with the ultimate now slows the duration timer down instead of pausing it entirely. Lasts up to 20 seconds
Ultimate cost increased 12%
Developer Comment: The idea of an ultimate ability potentially lasting forever is an exciting concept, but the reality is that if it’s too easy to do it causes a lot of frustrations and with Ramattra’s ultimate in particular, an excessive amount of visual noise. We’re limiting the maximum duration to 20 seconds, which is still highly impactful for most team fights, but it guarantees it’ll end in a reasonable amount of time.
Reinhardt
Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 325
Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 325 to 175
Charge
Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 seconds
Fire Strike
Damage increased from 90 to 100
Earthshatter
Direct hit damage reduced from 250 to 170
Knockdown duration increased from 2.5 to 2.75 seconds
Ultimate cost increased 7%
Rocket Hammer
Knockback impulse reduced from 10 to 6
Developer Comment: In similar fashion to Roadhog’s Chain Hook combo changes last season, we’d generally like to avoid heroes in the Tank role from killing enemies in one shot. Earthshatter direct hit damage is being reduced with that goal in mind. In most cases, targets on the receiving end would die anyway during the knockdown stun, but it does open up some potential for their allies to intervene.
For now, we’re fine with Charge pin staying lethal to many characters due to the difficulty and risk involved. The Fire Strike damage increase does mean it could once again one-shot when combined with Baptiste’s Amplification Matrix, but that requires an ultimate combo with another hero. We’ll see how it plays out and adjust if necessary.
The Rocket Hammer knockback reduction sounds like a loss of power though it is actually aiming to reduce the number of times Reinhardt accidentally knocks enemies out of his melee range.
Roadhog
Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 700
Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 700 to 550
Whole Hog
Maximum duration increased from 6 to 8 seconds
Ultimate cost increased 8%
Developer Comment: Allowing Roadhog to use abilities during his ultimate made it much more reliable in a solo tank environment, though doing so was often much like just canceling the ultimate as it ran out of time. We’re adding a couple seconds to the maximum duration to increase the flexibility of player choices during the Whole Hog ultimate, but we’ll keep an eye on if it’s simply too much damage or knockback overall.
Sigma
Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 350
Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 350 to 200
Gravitic Flux
Ultimate cost increased 7%
Winston
Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 350
Base health in none non-Role Queue modes reduced from 350 to 200
Barrier Projector
Health reduced from 700 to 650
Wrecking Ball
Base health in Role Queue modes reduced from 600 to 450
Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 600 to 300
Shield health increased from 0 to 150
Pile Driver
Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds
Minefield
Ultimate cost increased 9%
Arming time reduced from 1.5 to 1 second
Developer Comments: Wrecking Ball received some of the fewest changes in the transition to 5v5 as he proved to be one of the most effective solo tanks in early testing. His extreme mobility and massive health pool enable him to choose when to fight much more freely than other heroes. These changes are aimed at reducing his downtime so he can press that advantage even further. The regenerating shield health pool often leads to not needing to search for as many health packs before getting back in position.
Zarya
Base health in Role Queue modes remains the same at 250
Base health in non-Role Queue modes reduced from 250 to 100
Graviton Surge
Ultimate cost increased 8%
DAMAGE
Cassidy
Combat Roll
Movement is no longer blocked by enemy player collision
Peacekeeper
Primary fire falloff range increased from 20 to 25 meters
Developer Comment: Combat Roll not being blocked by players is mostly a small quality-of-life change to make the ability feel smoother, particularly when rolling in a direction that you’re not facing.
Junkrat
Concussion Mine
Maximum damage reduced from 120 to 100
Developer Comment: As the Concussion Mine already has damage falloff the further from the explosion the enemy player is, lowering the maximum damage will require Junkrat to be slightly more accurate to achieve the same lethality with some of his combos.
Mei
Blizzard
Ultimate cost reduced 5%
Pharah
Barrage
Ultimate cost reduced 5%
Reaper
Death Blossom
Ultimate cost reduced 8%
Soldier:76
Heavy Pulse Rifle
Number of shots to reach maximum recoil increased from 4 to 6
Recoil reduced 12%
Developer Comment: This is more an adjustment for the gun feels rather than strictly trying to add power, but it does have an effect on both. It makes the weapon handle more similar to the original version in that you can burst fire more accurately before the recoil kicks in.
Sombra
Machine Pistol
Damage per projectile increased from 7 to 7.5
Hack
Health pack hacked duration increased from 30 to 45 seconds
Developer Comments: Sombra is underperforming after her last round of changes. While we make progress on a small rework for her abilities, this damage increase will help strengthen Sombra even against targets that aren’t affected by her Hack effect. It’s a small increase per projectile, but it adds up quickly due to her fast fire rate. The health pack duration increase is a minor buff to avoid needing to re-hack them quite so often.
Symmetra
Photon Barrier
Ultimate cost increased 10%
Torbjorn
Deploy Turret
Turret base health reduced from 250 to 225
Developer Comment: With the move to 5v5 and one less player to shoot at it, Torbjorn’s turret tends to survive longer than ever. We’re reducing its health slightly to help it feel less like a sixth player and be easier to deal with once someone turns their attention to it.
Widowmaker
Base health reduced from 200 to 175
Developer Comment: We experimented with Widowmaker at 200 health for a while due to concerns that the increased power of tanks made her too vulnerable to them. Ultimately she gains more advantages from 5v5 than she loses so we’re returning her back to 175 HP to better enable more heroes to contest her lethal ranged capabilities.
SUPPORT
Ana
Biotic Grenade
Effect duration reduced from 4 to 3.5 seconds
Brigitte
Repair Pack
Healing over time reduced from 55 to 50 per second
Applying a Repair Pack now instantly heals for 25 health on impact
Rally
Ultimate cost reduced 10%
Developer Comment: Repair Pack having a small amount of instant healing will help Brigitte have more agency in saving an injured ally and generally makes the ability feel more responsive and impactful.
Lucio
Sound Barrier
Ultimate cost reduced 7%
Mercy
Guardian Angel
Cooldown increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds
Holding the backwards directional input and canceling the ability with Jump now moves 20% slower
Caduceus Staff
Healing-per-second reduced from 55 to 45
Healing is increased by 50% for allies under half health
Regeneration Passive
Regeneration Passive removed
New Passive: “Sympathetic Recovery”
Mercy heals herself for 25% of healing done with the Caduceus Staff
Developer Comment: Replacing Mercy’s Regeneration passive with a more interesting interaction was something we wanted to do after all support heroes gained a similar version of it through their Role Passive.
For the Caduceus Staff change, this will empower Mercy even more as a triage healer and enable her to more often save low health allies. The overall time it takes to fully heal a 200-health hero from 1 hp is about the same as before.
For Guardian Angel, the cooldown increase is necessary to reduce the greatly increased mobility resulting from the recent rework to the jump cancel. It enabled Mercy to quickly launch herself long distances in any direction and be overly evasive for such a short downtime.
Moira
Coalescence
Ultimate cost reduced 5%
Zenyatta
Orb of Destruction
Ammo increased from 20 to 25
Developer Comment: We’ve been discussing options to potentially increase Zenyatta’s survivability. We’ve seen previously in the beta that Zenyatta is on somewhat of a knife’s edge for balance. Even just 25 more shield health pushed him into overpowered-must-pick territory at the pro level. To balance his powerful damage output, the lack of mobility is an intentional disadvantage by design, so we’d prefer not to change that too much. Instead, we’re adding more ammo to lengthen the times between when Zenyatta is most vulnerable, which is when he is reloading.
SEASON 3 MAP POOLS
Push
New Queen Street - Morning
Colosseo - Morning (NEW)
Esperança – Morning
Hybrid
Blizzard World - Morning
King’s Row - Evening
Midtown - Morning
Numbani - Morning
ParaĂso - Morning
Escort
Dorado - Night
Havana - Night (NEW)
Junkertown - Morning
Circuit royal – Morning (NEW)
Rialto - Morning
Shambali Monastery - Night
Control
Antarctic Peninsula - Night (NEW MAP)
Ilios - Morning
Lijiang Tower - Night
Nepal - Evening
Oasis - Evening
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