Overwatch 2 Season 12 is underway and Blizzard has posted the patch notes for the update. Apart from bringing the new season's content, the update implements base health changes to quite a few damage and support heroes along with other adjustments.
While you queue for your game of the season or before your first play session, here is everything you need to know about the changes.
Release date
Overwatch 2 Season 12 is set to begin on Tuesday, August 20 at 11:00 am PT (7:00 pm BST). PC and PlayStation players can preload the update to have it downloaded beforehand and jump straight into the action.
Patch notes
Here are the complete patch notes for Overwatch 2 Season 12 that were posted on the game's official website:
General Updates
Avoid as Teammate
The Avoid List has been updated with the following new features:
- Players now have 15 avoid slots divided into 3 Pinned slots and 12 Recent slots.
- Pinned Avoid slots guarantee that these players will never be in your matches and unlike our old Avoid slots, they never time out.
- The new Recent Avoid slots do time out after 7 days like the old Avoid slots, and they only prioritize constructing teams without these players on them.
- The player with the lowest time remaining in the Recent list is removed from the list if a new player is avoided when the list is full.
- Time Remaining for an avoided player in the Recent list can be refreshed by using the Reset Avoid Expiration feature.
- The Avoid List is now its own tab in the Social menu (which still only appears when at least 1 player is avoided).
- Any players that were avoided when Season 11 ended will be removed from the avoided list due to the aforementioned updates to the system.
Spawn System Changes
- Group Respawn is replaced by Wave Respawn for all non-Competitive modes.
- Wave Respawn is added to Competitive Play.
- Default respawn time increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
- Overtime respawn time increased from 13 to 14 seconds.
- Wave Respawn is disabled in Overtime.
- Overtime respawn time is not increased in Flashpoint.
- Wave Respawn is disabled when the Payload is near the end of the track in Escort and Hybrid game modes (the same time the existing Anti-Stall system activates).
- When the first hero on a team dies, they start a new Wave for their team.
- Any hero that dies within 6 seconds of a Wave starting automatically joins that Wave.
- A hero joining a Wave will respawn at the exact same time as the hero that started the Wave. This means that the respawn time of heroes joining the wave can be as long as 12 seconds if they died at the same time as the first hero or as short as 6 seconds if they catch the end of the Wave.
- If a hero starts a Wave and no other hero joins the Wave they will respawn 2 seconds faster. This hero will respawn in 10 seconds (the default respawn time before Season 12).
Shop Updates
- You can now try out all skins in the practice range from the Hero Gallery or the Premium Shop.
Competitive Play Updates
Mid-Year Rank Reset
- Competitive skill ranks for all players have been reset for Season 12.
- Players will need to complete ten placement matches for each role to be ranked and start climbing on the leaderboard.
Predicted Rank
- The Predicted Rank that was displayed to players in Placements at the end of each match is now displayed in all locations that rank is displayed for individual players.
- Predicted Rank is only displayed to players viewing their own Rank (other players can't see this information).
- Predicted Rank is now used to determine whether a group is Wide or Narrow, meaning that Placements are no longer automatically considered Wide.
- This will allow players to get much faster queues in many scenarios after their Rank has been reset.
Hero Updates
Tank
D.Va
- Defense Matrix
- Maximum duration reduced from 3.5 to 3 seconds.
Orisa
- Energy Javelin
- Impact damage increased from 60 to 80.
Zarya
- Particle Cannon
- Secondary fire minimum damage increased from 47 to 55.
- Secondary fire maximum damage increased from 95 to 110.
Damage
Echo
- Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
Hanzo
- Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
Junkrat
- Projectile size is now reduced by half after the second ricochet.
- Projectiles preserve slightly more velocity on ricochet.
Sojourn
- Railgun
- Primary fire weapon spread reduced from 2 to 1.6 degrees.
- Critical hits now grant 10 energy.
- Energy degeneration rate reduced from 33 to 15 per second after 7 seconds.
Sombra
- Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
- Virus
- Impact damage increased from 25 to 35.
- Stealth
- Bonus movement speed increased from 45 to 60%.
Torbjörn
- Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
- Base armor increased from 50 to 75.
Support
Illari
- Solar Rifle
- Maximum ammo reduced from 16 to 14.
- Captive Sun
- Projectile environment collision size reduced from 0.15 to 0 meters.
Juno
- Juno has been added to the lineup.
- Juno is now eligible for Competitive Play.
- Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
- Mediblaster
- Burst projectile volley rate of fire reduced from 34 to 28 shots per second.
- Pulsar Torpedoes
- Damage and Healing impact increased from 75 to 85.
- Heal-over-time reduced from 60 to 50 health.
- Hyper Ring
- Deploy range increased by 3.5 meters.
- Cooldown reduced from 16 to 14 seconds.
- Orbital Ray
- Beam travel speed increased from 1.9 to 2.25 meters per second.
Kiriko
- Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
- Kunai
- Critical multiplier reduced from 2.5 to 2x.
- Damage increased from 45 to 60.
- Recovery time increased from 0.5 to 0.55 seconds.
Lifeweaver
- Healing Blossom
- Healing progress can now charge passively at a reduced rate.
- No longer reduces movement speed when holding a full charge.
- Petal Platform
- Duration only counts down while the platform is raised.
- Platform now resets if no one is standing on it for 2 seconds.
- Duration increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
- Health reduced from 400 to 300.
- Rejuvenating Dash
- Healing reduced from 60 to 45.
Mercy
- Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
- Caduceus Staff
- Primary fire healing increased from 55 to 60 health per second.
- Secondary fire damage boost increased from 25% to 30%.
Moira
- Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
- Biotic Grasp
- Secondary fire damage increased from 60 to 65 damage per second.
Lúcio
- Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
- Sonic Amplifier
- Primary fire damage increased from 18 to 22.
Hero Quality of Life Updates
Support
Juno
- Mediblaster
- The weapon model visuals and firing sounds were updated to indicate when the weapon is at low ammo.
- The heal sounds that play locally to the Juno player were updated to be more noticeable when healing allies closer to full health.
- Pulsar Torpedoes
- The cooldown when the ability is canceled after no successful lock-ons has been reduced from 5 seconds to 2 seconds.
- Line of Sight checks were improved to better find targets with hitboxes in view.
- Added range forgiveness of an extra 5 meters on current targets that might move beyond the max 40 meters range.
- The local cancel sound was increased in volume to be more noticeable for the Juno player.
- The ally and enemy impact sounds were updated to be more noticeable for the Juno player.
- Healing torpedoes have new impact visuals when hitting enemy barriers and when clipping near walls.
- Glide Boost
- Now adjusts Juno better when she hits level architecture such as doorways.
- Hyper Ring
- Juno players will now hear the initial Hyper Ring apply sound when entering their own ring for the first time.
- The sound when re-entering the Hyper Ring was updated to be more noticeable.
- Orbital Ray
- The Ultimate enemy voice line was updated in tone to better contrast the ally version.
- The enemy version of the ray's start sound was updated to be more noticeable.
Map Updates
Flashpoint
- Passing through the spawn door barrier of your own spawn will apply a temporary speed boost to get to the capture point faster.
- The speed boost is removed when taking or dealing damage.
- The speed boost is applied by both the default and forward spawns.
- The speed boost counts toward the existing movement speed bonus cap of 75%.
Push
- The Push bot collision has been updated so players cannot contest from certain high ground positions.
General map and Mode Updates
- Updates to our map recency system to increase the frequency of new maps and modes at the start of each season.
- Capture point outlines can now be seen through walls on Clash and Flashpoint when the capture point is unlocked.
- Lighting scenarios are now randomized in Quick Play and Competitive Game Mode.
Bug Fixes
General
- Fixed a bug where the Gotcha achievement was not awarding properly.
- Fixed a bug where weapon skins were not showing in the weapon variant menu.
- Fixed a bug where first-time users could not skirmish which waiting for a game.
Heroes
Ashe
- Fixed a bug where some of the effects would not trigger with the Ashe mythic skin equipped on Steam.
Illari
- Fixed a bug with Illari's Solar Rifle secondary fire healing beam impacting the environment instead of players when aiming near edges of collision.
Juno
- Cleaned up some of the effects of Juno's Pulsars torpedoes when they landed as D.Va was re-entering her mech.
You can check out our tier list if you want to see which heroes are currently dominating the meta and also visit this other article to read about all the major additions coming this season.
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