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Overwatch 2 Season 4 will add the new Hero, Lifeweaver, but it also brings back some old pains from Overwatch with the Brigitte rework. Check out the Overwatch 2 Season 4 Patch Notes Preview here.
Overwatch 2 Season 4 Patch Notes Preview
Overwatch 2 Season 4 goes live on April 11, 2023, with an all-new Battle Pass, new skins, and perhaps the crown jewel of this update: the new hero Lifeweaver. While his Life Grip skill is already being theorized as a troll ability as it is able to reposition allies unprompted, the Brigitte rework that ships with the update also became something that players pointed out as being similar to the Brigitte when she was released back in Overwatch. This Brigitte rework changes her Rally! skill and turns her into more of a frontliner while it's active, as well as re-adding her stun on the shield bash. Many members of the Overwatch community attribute the decline of the first Overwatch game due to Brigitte's oppressiveness – something that her stun contributed to in no small form.
Note that this is a preview and may not exactly represent the Overwatch 2 Season 4 Patch Notes when it releases.
New Hero – Lifeweaver
Healing Blossom (Primary)
- Hold to charge a healing burst. Release to heal a targeted ally.
Thorn Volley (Primary)
- 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 (Ultimate)
- 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.
Tank Hero Updates
Reinhardt
- Stat Changes:
- Armor health reduced from 300 to 250
- Base health increased from 175 to 200
Sigma
- Accretion
- Impact damage reduced from 60 to 40 (80 damage total with explosion)
- Knockdown duration increased from 0.8 to 1.1 seconds
Damage Hero Updates
Ashe
- Ashe no longer gains Ultimate charge while B.O.B. is active.
- This change is listed as a bug fix, meaning it was never intended to do so.
Cassidy
- Stat Changes:
- Base health reduced from 225 to 200
- Magnetic Grenade
- Damage reduced from 131 to 120
Sombra
- EMP can now disable Blizzard
Support Hero Updates
Ana
- Sleep Dart
- Maximum duration on Tank heroes reduced 30%, from 5 to 3.5 seconds
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
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
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
General Updates
Accessibility
- Players are now able 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
- Spawn rooms that shut down and become inactive due to capturing or losing an objective will now remain (partially) active for 7 seconds.
- These “stranded spawn rooms” will have their doors remain locked to the opposing team, continue to heal players inside, and players are now prompted with 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
There are also numerous bug fixes that ship with this update, which you can read in full on the Blizzard forums.
Overwatch 2 Season 4, along with Lifeweaver and the Brigitte rework, goes live on April 11th, 2023.
