Overwatch Season 4 Patch Notes - Balance Changes, Bugfixes

With the launch of Overwatch 2's Season 4 comes the patch notes containing all of the changes, including balance changes and bugfixes.

Here are the patch notes for Overwatch 2's Season 4, including various balance changes, bugfixes, and more.

With Overwatch 2 Season 4 now live on the game, various changes have arrived as listed in the patch notes. These changes range from new Heroes to Hero balance changes, as well as some bug fixes and changes to the map pool. Without further ado, let's dive into the Overwatch 2 Season 4 patch notes.

Overwatch 2 Season 4 Patch Notes

New Hero: Lifeweaver

A new support Hero, Lifeweaver, enters the Overwatch 2 roster. We've already covered his abilities in-depth, but here's a quick rundown of his abilities:

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 (both allies and enemies can trigger this)
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

Hero Updates

Tanks

Reinhardt
- Armor health reduced to 250 from 300
- Base health increased to 200 from 175
Sigma
- Accretion
  - Impact damage reduced to 40 from 60 (80 damage total with explosion)
  - Knockdown duration increased to 1.1 seconds from 0.8 seconds

Damage

Cassidy
- Base health reduced to 200 from 225
- Magnetic Grenade
  - Damage reduced to 120 from 131
Sombra
- EMP
  - Can now disable Blizzard

Support

Ana
- Sleep Dart
  - Maximum duration on Tanks reduced by 30% (now 3.5 seconds from 5 seconds)
Brigitte
- Rally
  - Brigitte gains a 100 restorable armor health pool for Rally's duration
  - Brigitte no longer gradually builds temporary health like her nearby allies
  - Rally upgrades Barrier Shield, increasing its size and health (Health is now 750 from 300)
  - Shield Bast impacts multiple enemies and briefly stuns them when used during Rally
  - Bonus movement speed reduced to 15% from 30%
- Repair Pack
  - Range reduced to 25 meters from 30 meters
Mercy
- Caduceus Staff
  - Healing-per-second increased to 55 from 45
  - Healing is no longer increased for allies under half health
- Guardian Angel
  - Cooldown reduced to 1.5 seconds from 2.5 seconds
  - Jump and Crouc cancel active ability state duration increased to 1.5 seconds from 1 second
  - Jump and Crouch cancel active ability can no longer be manually interrupted to begin cooldown early
- Valkyrie
  - Support role passive healing now active while under the effect of Valkyrie
Moira
- Fade
  - Can now be activated during Coalescence
- Coalescence
  - Bonus movement speed reduced to 40% from 50%
- Biotic Grasp
  - Lingering heal duration increased to 3 seconds from 2 seconds

Map Updates

General

Map Pools disabled. All maps are now in rotation.

New Arcade map

Talantis: An underwater Talon base with jump pads, pit traps, giant fish, and waterfalls

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

General Updates

Accessibility
- Players can now 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 due to capturing or losing an objective remain partially active for 7 seconds.
  - Doors remain locked to the opposing team for the whole duration
  - Healing field remains active for the whole ruration
  - Players can use the interact key to instantly teleport to the new active spawn room
  - Players cannot change heroes in these spawn rooms
Matchmaking
- Backfilling players in Unnranked now prioritizes finding players closer to the skill level of other players in the match.
- Minor optimizations for large groups to improve matchmaking quality

Competitive Updates

Top 500 Leaderboard Eligibility
- Players are now 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
- Leaving matches in different Competitive queues is still considered separate. This helps determine the lengths of suspensions or receiving seasonal bans.
- Competitive Season start no longer fully resets suspension and ban severity
- Leaving matches in competitive play now has a more negative effect on a player's Skill Tier and Division after a 5-win Competitive Update
Competitive Point Reward Changes
- Players will now receive 25 Competitive Points per win in Competitive Play (increased from the previous 15 CP)
- CP earned from seasonal challenges based on your final seasonal rank has been updated
  - Ending in Bronze rewards the player with 300 CP (previously 65)
  - Ending in Silver rewards the player with 450 CP (previously 125)
  - Ending in Gold rewards the player with 600 CP (previously 250)
  - Ending in Platinum rewards the player with 800 CP (previously 500)
  - Ending in Diamond rewards the player with 1000 CP (previously 750)
  - Ending in Masters rewards the player with 1200 CP (previously 1250)
  - Ending in Grand Masters rewards the player with 15500 CP (previously 1750)
- Games played after the last Competitive Update during a season count towards the final seasonal rank
- Players must still complete the season's Competitive Play Qualification challenge to receive bonus CP
Competitive Challenge Titles
- Ending in Diamond Rank in Open Queue will earn the player the title “Diamond Open Challenger”
- Ending in Diamond Rank in Role Queue will earn the player the title “Diamond Role Challenger”
Competitive Match Rank
- The Initial loading screen will now show the average Skill Tier and Division of all players in the match.
Seasonal Rank Decay Removed
Competitive Skill Update and Progression
- The Competitive Update and Competitive Progress screens will now provide additional information about a player's losses, ties, and wins.

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
  - Fixed a bug that could cause Deadeye to miss its targets.
- Doomfist
  - Fixed an issue with Seismic Slam not always registering when used on uneven surface
- 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 Overwatch League 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

That's all the information we have about the Overwatch 2 Season 4 patch notes. Players can also read the official blog post of the Overwatch 2 Season 4 patch notes for an in-depth explanation of various parts like the Competitive Play changes.

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