Overwatch 2 Season 4 is upon us and we’ve got a rundown on everything included in the full patch notes. From an assortment of balance changes to new competitive system tweaks, here’s all you need to know.
It might be hard to believe but Overwatch 2 is already barrelling toward its fourth season. Just months after launch and Blizzard is set to keep the momentum rolling with another major update, one containing a brand new hero, dazzling events, and even some fan-made content.
While the spotlight is obviously on shiny new content, however, there’s still plenty coming under the hood to alter the moment-to-moment experience across the board. Balance changes, bug fixes, and core system adjustments are just the tip of the iceberg.
So, without further ado, let’s look at the full Season 4 patch notes.
New hero Lifeweaver debuts in Overwatch 2 Season 4
Headlining the Season 4 patch is the arrival of a brand-new support hero in Lifeweaver. This charming addition to the roster drops in with a broad array of unique abilities, most of which are unlike anything else in the game today.
From his Petal Platform, a unique placeable skill that creates a springboard for players to leap skyward with, to his already divisive Life Grip ability, encasing allies in a protective bubble and pulling them toward your location, Lifeweaver is certainly an intriguing hero.
The new character is the main focus of the Season 4 patch notes and you can get the full rundown on his lore, kit, and everything in between with our full Lifeweaver guide right here.
Competitive changes arriving in Season 4
Now getting into the nitty gritty of the Season 4 patch notes, long-awaited competitive changes are finally upon us. For starters, those looking for a spot on the Top 500 Leaderboard will now have to win 25 games in total, rather than simply completing 25 games, in order to be eligible.
Competitive Point rewards for wins on the ranked ladder are more plentiful as well. Rather than the previous 15 points for a win, players now receive 25 points towards the next rank. Additionally, players should find their rank reset between seasons to be a bit less punishing too, as far more Competitive Points are awarded based on your rank, and Seasonal Rank Decay is now gone as well. “A player’s skill tier and division at the beginning of Season 4 will now closely match the matchmaker’s estimate of your current skill,” Blizzard explained.
As previously teased weeks prior, loading screens will now show an average rank of both teams before competitive games begin. While each player’s specific rank remains a mystery, this should help clarify matchmaking and ensure games are balanced where possible.
Season 4 balance changes in Overwatch 2
Eight heroes in total have been adjusted to some degree in the Season 4 balance patch. A handful from each role have been nerfed or buffed to various degrees in order to freshen things up and keep the meta in a state of flux.
Among the most notable tweaks, however, Cassidy has actually been nerfed, with a reduction to his base health and even a hit to the damage of his Magnetic Grenade.
Conversely, in terms of buffs, Moira is set to blossom in Season 4 thanks to a key change to her Fade ability, now allowing players to activate it during her Coalescence Ultimate.
Arguably the most significant overhauls, however, target both Mercy and Brigitte, as the two Supports have been drastically changed heading into Season 4.
Full Overwatch 2 Season 4 patch notes
Below you can find the full Overwatch 2 Season 4 patch notes courtesy of Blizzard.
INTRODUCING LIFEWEAVER
Scientist, artist, and activist: Overwatch 2’s latest hero entwines the beauty of nature with the practicality of science. He dreams of healing the world.
Lifeweaver
Lifeweaver has been added to the line-up.
Healing Blossom
- Hold to charge a healing burst. Release to heal a targeted ally.
Thorn Volley
- Rapidly fire a spread of projectiles.
Petal Platform
- Throw a platform that springs upwards when stepped on.
Rejuvenating Dash
- Dash toward your traveling direction and lightly heal yourself.
Life Grip
- Pull an ally to your location, protecting them as they travel.
Tree of Life
- Place a tree that instantly heals allies upon sprouting and continues healing periodically as it lives.
Parting Gift (Passive)
- On death, drop a gift that heals the first enemy or ally to pick it up.
GENERAL UPDATES
Accessibility
Added a setting to select custom colors for health, armor, shields, and overhealth in health bars. Improved preview feature for custom color settings with different preview backgrounds.
Stranded Spawn System
Regrouping with your team after getting stranded in a spawn room has never been easier! Spawn rooms that shut down due to capturing or losing an objective will now remain partially active for 7 seconds. While you still can’t change heroes in these spawn rooms, other new features have been activated. In these “stranded spawns,” the doors remain locked to the opposing team, the healing field remains active, and you can now use the Interact key to instantly teleport to the new active spawn room.
Matchmaking
Backfilling players in Unranked modes will now prioritize finding players closer to the skill level of the other players in the match. Minor optimizations for large groups improving matchmaking quality.
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
Top 500 Leaderboard Eligibility
Players will now be required to win 25 Competitive matches before being eligible to enter the Top 500 leaderboard for a specific role, queue, or region.
Developer comments: Previously, we only required 25 games to be completed regardless of winning prior to becoming eligible for the Top 500 leaderboards; however, this change should help make sure that players are consistently pushing toward winning matches, which should help ensure the leaderboards have the best players in each region.
Competitive Leaver Penalty Changes
Matches left in different Competitive queues are still considered separate for purposes of determining the lengths of suspensions or receiving a seasonal ban from Competitive Play.
The start of a new Competitive season also no longer fully resets the severity of these suspensions and bans. This should hopefully prevent players from leaving Competitive games at the end of a season without facing meaningful consequences at the start of the next.
Matches left in Competitive Play will also have a more negative effect on a player’s Skill Tier and Division after a 5-win Competitive Update.
Competitive Point Reward Changes
The number of Competitive Points (CP) rewarded for a win in Competitive Play has been changed from 15 to 25.
The number of Competitive Points earned from seasonal challenges based on your final seasonal rank has also been updated. Games played after your last Competitive Update during a season will still count towards your final seasonal rank. You must still compete in the season’s Competitive Play Qualification challenge to receive bonus Competitive Points.
- Ending in Bronze will now earn 300 Competitive Points (previously 65)
- Ending in Silver will now earn 450 Competitive Points (previously 125)
- Ending in Gold will now earn 600 Competitive Points (previously 250)
- Ending in Platinum will now earn 800 Competitive Points (previously 500)
- Ending in Diamond will now earn 1000 Competitive Points (previously 750)
- Ending in Masters will now earn 1200 Competitive Points (previously 1250)
- Ending in Grand Masters will now earn 1500 Competitive Points (previously 1750)
Competitive Challenge Titles
Seasonal Competitive titles earned from challenges now distinguish between whether they are earned in Open Queue or Role Queue. For example:
- Ending in Diamond rank in Open Queue will earn the “Diamond Open Challenger” Title
- Ending in Diamond rank in Role Queue will earn the “Diamond Role Challenger” Title
Developer Comments: The goal of these changes is to prevent confusion about a player’s rank from the previous season if they participate in multiple Competitive queues.
Competitive Match Rank
The initial loading screen that shows all the participants of Competitive matches will now show an icon at the top of the screen representing the average Skill Tier and Division of all players in that match. This should provide players with a better comparison of their own rank to other players in the match.
Seasonal Rank Decay Removed
Starting with Season Four, a player’s Competitive Play rank will no longer be reduced at the beginning of a season. Furthermore, the effects of this reduction of rank from previous seasons will also be removed. Depending on how many games they played during the previous season, most players will see their skill tier and division increase. A player’s skill tier and division at the beginning of Season 4 will now closely match the matchmaker’s estimate of your current skill.
Developer Comments: The previous seasonal rank decay was causing considerable confusion for players, who would see players in their Competitive games who did not appear to be of a similar rank. Often these players were actually of similar skill, but they had not played enough games during the season to compensate for the initial decay.
Competitive Skill Update and Progression
Both the Competitive progress and Competitive update screens will now include information about a player’s losses and ties as well as their wins.
The Competitive Update screen will also now provide players with an indication of their current percentage progress within a skill division. This will hopefully make it more clear how the results of games played during the update affect a player’s Skill Tier and Division.
It is possible for players to have a positive win/loss record, but not go up a skill division because the progress occurs entirely within a single division. This new message will allow players to see that they did in fact make positive progress, just not enough to reach a new skill tier or division.
There is also a similar message with Competitive Updates for players who are Grandmaster 1, but not yet on the Top 500 leaderboard. This should provide those players with feedback about their progress towards earning a spot on the Top 500 leaderboard.
HERO UPDATES
TANK
Reinhardt
- Armor health reduced from 300 to 250
- Base health increased from 175 to 200
Developer Comment: Reinhardt has been overperforming after the recent increases to his offensive capabilities. Those changes have been playing well, so to adjust his overall power, we’re reducing his overall health through this armor reduction.
Sigma
Accretion
- Impact damage reduced from 60 to 40 (80 damage total with explosion)
- Knockdown duration increased from 0.8 to 1.1 seconds
Developer Comment: Like Roadhog’s Chain Hook, Sigma’s Accretion and primary fire combo can be highly lethal and can feel like a guaranteed kill against 200 health targets. We’re reducing the damage slightly to require an additional volley of primary fire but are also increasing the stun duration to provide allies with more opportunity to follow up on successful impacts.
DAMAGE
Cassidy
- Base health reduced from 225 to 200
Magnetic Grenade
- Damage reduced from 131 to 120
Developer Comment: Magnetic Grenade only requiring one additional primary fire shot after sticking to a target was too reliable to execute on, even though it only works at close range. We’re reducing the total damage on Magnetic Grenade, evenly split between the direct target damage and explosion. The reduced falloff-damage buff his primary fire received recently enables Cassidy to play from safer engagement ranges now, so we’re reducing his health back to 200.
Sombra
- EMP can now disable Blizzard
Developer Comment: We are expanding what Sombra’s EMP turns off to keep it consistent with how it affects other device-controlled ultimates.
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SUPPORT
Ana
Sleep Dart
- Maximum duration on Tank heroes reduced 30%, from 5 to 3.5 seconds
Developer Comments: We’ve been watching how effective Sleep Dart has been in 5v5 gameplay. It hasn’t been overly disruptive as a whole, but since it is significantly more reliable to land against Tank heroes due to their large hit boxes and even more valuable to do so with only one tank on the field, we’re reducing its maximum duration against those targets.
Brigitte
Rally
- Brigitte now gains 100 restorable armor health pool for the duration of Rally
- Brigitte no longer gradually builds temporary health like her nearby allies
- Rally now upgrades her Barrier Shield, increasing both its size and health
- Barrier health increased from 300 to 750 during the ultimate
- During Rally, Shield Bash now impacts multiple enemies and briefly stuns them
- Bonus movement speed reduced from 30 to 15%
Repair Pack
- Range reduced from 30 to 25 meters
Developer Comments: Rally lost some of its power with the change from granting allies additional armor to temporary health, and overall took a relatively long time to build up its defensive benefits. This rework is intended to keep it as a defensive ultimate ability but with a more immediate impact due to gaining an increased armor health pool upfront and the enhanced barrier, which can be utilized to block for teammates while their temporary health builds or interrupt enemies with the stun.
Mercy
Caduceus Staff
- Healing-per-second increased from 45 to 55
- Healing is no longer increased for allies under half health
Guardian Angel
- Cooldown reduced from 2.5 to 1.5 seconds
- Jump and Crouch cancel active ability state duration increased from 1.0 to 1.5 seconds
- The Jump and Crouch cancel active ability state can no longer be manually interrupted to begin the cooldown early
Valkyrie
- Support role passive healing is now active for the duration of Valkyrie
Developer Comment: The recent increase to Guardian Angel’s jump-cancel mobility still needs to be kept in check in some way, but while the last iteration was simple, it also had some unintended effects, such as not being ready to use GA again after flying in and using Resurrect. This revision provides more flexibility, and allows Mercy to opt into an additional 1.5 second cooldown when using the increased mobility from the jump/crouch cancel options or otherwise waiting for the base cooldown time.
The increased healing multiplier condition on Caduceus Staff was intended to help Mercy players feel more agency in trying to save critical-health allies and to add depth to the healing mechanic without changing the total time to heal to full health. However, the overall rebalance of the healing values received significant negative feedback, both from those playing as Mercy and those playing against it. There wasn’t a satisfying middle ground where we could reduce the potency of this effect while still having it feel impactful, so we’re reverting it.
Moira
Fade
- Can now be activated during Coalescence
Coalescence
- Bonus movement speed reduced from 50 to 40%
Biotic Grasp
- Lingering heal duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds
Developer Comments: Being able to use Fade during her Coalescence ultimate gives Moira more playmaking ability by being able to reposition even more quickly and avoid potential threats with quick reactions. Due to the more spread-out playstyle of 5v5, we’re increasing the lingering heal duration from her primary fire, meaning it will heal more in total.
MAP UPDATES
General Updates
Map Pools have been disabled, all maps are now in rotation
New Arcade Map: Talantis
You designed it, we built it: an underwater Talon base with jump pads, pit traps, giant fish, and waterfalls.
Talantis will be playable for a limited time from April 25th through May 1st.
Season 4 Map Lighting
Push
- New Queen Street – Dawn (New)
- Colosseo – Morning
- Esperança – Morning
Hybrid
- Blizzard World – Morning
- Eichenwalde – Morning
- Hollywood – Night (New)
- King’s Row – Evening
- Midtown – Morning
- Numbani – Morning
- Paraíso – Morning
Escort
- Dorado – Night
- Havana – Night
- Watchpoint: Gibraltar – Evening
- Junkertown – Morning
- Circuit royal – Morning
- Rialto – Morning
- Route 66 – Morning
- Shambali Monastery – Night
Control
- Antarctic Peninsula – Night
- Busan – Morning
- Ilios – Morning
- Lijiang Tower – Night
- Nepal – Morning
- Oasis – Evening
WORKSHOP UPDATES
Introducing Workshop Projectiles
There are three new Workshop actions allowing you to create either a fully functioning projectile or a cosmetic projectile effect:
- Create Projectile
- Create Homing Projectile
- Create Projectile Effect
Additionally, there is a corresponding workshop extension that enables 19 projectile visual effects.
BUG FIXES
GENERAL
- Fixed a bug in Competitive Modes that resulted in the rank-up animation playing when a player was actually ranking down
- Fixed a bug where Relative Aim Sensitivity was unable to be set to a value of 0%
- Fixed a bug where Hero Options could become unresponsive if modified during the respawn period
- Fixed an issue where some map preview images were missing from Game Reports and Replays
- Fixed Streamer Mode failing to obfuscate BattleTags in some cases
- Fixed an issue with Custom Game Browser sorting by decreasing ping by default
- Fixed an issue where the round transition screen in Competitive could break when played on 21:9
- Fixed a bug with the Round Transition screen being significantly darker if you had colorblind options enabled
- Fixed a bug that could cause the camera to become displaced if you used a Souvenir as you loaded into the map
- Fixed a bug that prevented you from navigating the Endorsement UI while on the Challenge Progress Screen
- Fixed a controller/gamepad issue that prevented players from accessing the While you Wait menu unless the middle card on screen was highlighted first
MAPS
Circuit Royale
- Fixed multiple lighting issues in Circuit Royale
Hanamura
- Fixed multiple cases of lighting and geometry
Ilios
- Fixed areas in Ilios where players could become stuck
New Queen Street
- Fixed multiple cases of lighting an geometry in Toronto
Oasis
- Fixed areas in Oasis that blocked players and gameplay
Shambali Monastery
- Fixed areas in Shambali Monastery that allowed players to stand in unintended locations
HEROES
Ashe
- The Raijin skin has been adjusted so that Ashe’s Viper no longer takes up a large amount of screen space when scoped in
- Fixed a bug that allowed Ashe to gain Ultimate while B.O.B was active
Bastion
- Fixed a bug where some abilities were able to interact with Artillery’s targeting reticle
- Fixed a bug where Bastion’s attack animations could appear sped up (though they actually weren’t) after the effects of Kitsune Rush expired
Cassidy
- Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a bug with Cassidy’s Deadeye not taking armor mitigation into account which resulted in a Killing Blow before the enemy was marked with a skull
- Fixed in a previous update – Fixed a bug where the damage from Deadeye could be multiplied by reacquiring the same target before Deadeye completed
Doomfist
- Fixed an issue with Seismic Slam not always registering when used on uneven surfaces
Echo
- Fixed an issue with Echo’s Duplicate sometimes failing when duplicating a D.Va as she casts Self-Destruct
Genji
- Fixed an issue where some abilities did not function correctly after being Deflected by Genji
Kiriko
- Fixed an issue where in some cases Swift Step would fail to teleport the player
- Fixed an issue with Kitsune Rush appearing orange to enemies if Kiriko had ‘Terrible Tornado’ equipped
- Fixed invisible entities within Kiriko’s ultimate Kitsune Rush being pingable for a brief duration
Mercy
- Fixed a bug that allowed Mercy, when using Valkyrie to clip for extended periods into the environment and prevent critical shots
- Fixed an issue where Mercy could negate the effects of Rocket Punch in some cases
- Fixed an issue with Mercy’s footsteps being extra quiet while crouched
Moira
- Fixed an issue with Moira’s hand animations breaking during gameplay
Orisa
- Fixed a bug with the art on Orisa’s Forest Spirit Spear
Pharah
- Fixed an issue with the Barrage play of the game not using custom rockets from the selected skin
Roadhog
- Fixed an interaction with Whole Hog and Hook where the hook would clip into the camera of the hook’s target
Sigma
- Fixed a bug with Gravitic Flux picking up reviving heroes just before the Revive completes
- Fixed a typo in Kinetic Grasp’s tooltip. It now correctly states it grants ‘extra health’
Sombra
- Fixed a bug with Sombra’s footsteps remaining silent to players who had detected her
Torbjorn
- Fixed a bug where Molten Core projectiles could become stuck in the air if deflected with Orisa’s spear
Tracer
- Fixed a bug where in some cases Tracer would not get all her Blink charges back upon respawn
Widowmaker
- Fixed a bug where Venom Mine would be missing a team color if Widowmaker was wearing an Away OWL Skin
Zarya
- Fixed an issue where Zarya would not receive charge from Brigitte’s Shield Bash
Zenyatta
- Fixed an issue where Zenyatta’s ability prompts on target characters being reversed when using a gamepad/controller
- Fixed an issue where Orb of Discord could appear team-colored Blue when applied to an enemy
