The Overwatch 2 Season 5 patch notes are here, and there’s quite a few changes to some popular heroes this time. Season 5 introduces a substantial overhaul for Mei and balances Hanzo and Widowmaker a bit more – well, it will once the bugs are worked out. Roadhog won’t rely entirely on his self-healing to stay alive, and Junker Queen won’t heal herself quite so much anymore. Lifeweaver, meanwhile, gets several changes as Blizzard continues trying to make his playstyle unique.
Elsewhere, the update fixes multiple hero bugs, including one that let enemies escape Doomfist’s stun effect and one where Baptiste’s immortality field didn’t show up properly.
Junker Queen nerfs
As Blizzard promised in an earlier update, Junker Queen’s ultimate is getting nerfed so it costs 15 percent more to use. Her Commanding Shout support ability will also add less temporary health – 150, down from 200. She retains the two additional rounds in her shotgun from the mid-season update in Season 4, though.
Roadhog buff
Roadhog’s buff in the new season is a passive one. He gets 50 percent more incoming healing for 2.5 seconds after using Take a Breather now, which Blizzard said should help make him “sturdier” and let his team play a bigger role in keeping him alive.
Cassidy nerfs and buffs
Season 5 brings even more changes to Cassidy’s grenade, and they’re pretty substantial. The magnetic grenade:
- No longer has a maximum range of 10 meters
- It “magnetizes” toward an enemy target from 1.5 meters away and will chase them for 1 second afterward
- Deals 10 impact damage
- Deals 70 explosion damage instead of 120
- Slows affected enemies by 30 percent while the grenade is “stuck” and prevents them from using their movement abilities
So in general, it’s easier to land hits with the grenade, but it’ll deal less damage. Moira and Reaper’s shadow shift abilities won’t dislodge the grenade anymore – since you can’t use them – and presumably the same is true for Sombra’s teleport ability.
Hanzo nerfs
Hanzo’s storm arrow maximum damage is down to 120 instead of 125, and enemies will briefly see and hear his Sonic Arrow for a second after it’s deployed.
Mei nerfs and buffs
Mei’s endothermic blaster gets most of the changes this time. Blizzard nerfed its damage, dropping it to 55 per second instead of 100, but tweaked and slightly buffed its status effect. The slow effect from the blaster is no longer 40 percent all the time. It ranges from 30 percent to 50 percent, and once the effect sticks for 1.5 seconds, it inflicts a 75 percent slowdown effect.
If you land a shot with the blaster’s secondary fire – the icicle shot – then it explodes the slow effect and deals an additional instance of 40 damage.
Reaper nerf
The Reaper nerf that prevents him from using Wraith Shift to escape from Cassidy’s grenade goes a bit further. He also can’t use it to escape from Graviton Surge or Junkrat’s trap.
Tracer buff
The lone Tracer buff is actually a bug fix. Blizzard said a glitch caused her pulse pistols to fire more slowly, so they’ve received a 15 percent speed boost.
Widowmaker nerfs
Widowmaker won’t deal as much damage from further away anymore. Her scoped falloff damage range is down to 40-60 meters instead of 70-100, and the maximum damage falloff scale is up to 50 percent instead of 30 percent.
That’s a lot of numbers without practical context, but Blizzard offered some helpful clarification.
“The average range to still eliminate a 200 health hero at full charge is around 50 meters,” the dev team said in the patch notes. “A fully-charged critical shot will still eliminate 150 health targets regardless of range.”
Lifeweaver buffs and nerfs
The new season brings a suite of changes for Lifeweaver, most of which are designed to amplify his abilities and make them stand out more. The full list is below, but the highlights are more healing, shorter cooldown for Life Grip, and slightly higher damage from his primary attack.
General
- Petal ornaments on his back have had their size and hit volume reduced by 10 percent
Healing Blossom
- Maximum healing increased from 65 to 75
Thorn Volley (primary attack)
- Damage per projectile increased from 5 to 6
- Projectile radius increased from 0.1 to 0.125
- Ammo increased from 60 to 70
Petal Platform
- Walkable area increased by 15 percent
- Area to trigger lift now shrinks from a radius of 2 to 0.75 meters after initial placement.
Life Grip
- Cooldown reduced from 20 to 16 seconds
- Now heals the target ally for 50 health
Tree of Life
- Ultimate cost increased by 8 percent
Moira nerf
Like with Reaper, Moira’s Fade ability won’t let her escape from certain abilities anymore.
Other new changes in Overwatch 2 Season 5
Maps
Rialto and Busan both have one new lighting scheme, while Watchpoint Gibraltar has a fair few changes. These include new routes around the first capture point, new cover and route adjustments to the hangar – which is very welcome – and the final defender spawn area is completely redesigned.
Character bugs
Season 5 fixes a lot of character bugs, but the most notable changes are for Doomfist, Lifeweaver, Ramattra, and Echo.
Lifeweaver
- Life Grip will now correctly nudge targets around payload obstacles.
- Healing Blossom and Life Grip targeting now consider both the head and chest of the target as a valid line of sight, allowing targeting around vertical obstructions, such as payloads, to be more consistent.
- Fixed a bug that prevented Petal Platform from being used if Secondary Fire was set as the confirmation input.
- Fixed a bug with Life Grip not consistently pulling allies onto ledges if Lifeweaver was airborne.
- Fixed an issue where Life Gripped allies falling off the map would still die to the death plane.
- Fixed the issue that resulted in a friend Lifeweaver’s Petal Platform highlighting red when pinged.
- Fixed an issue that prevented Lifeweaver’s footsteps from playing sound when crouched.
- Resolved a bug that prevented the Tree of Life from being placed on an enemy Torbjorn turret (it now destroys the turret).
- Fixed a bug that allowed Tree of Life to be attached to the Pushbot and pulled along.
Doomfist
- Fixed an issue that allowed stunned targets of Rocket Punch to escape the stun early by jumping after being hit.
- Fixed an interaction between Tree of Life and Meteor Strike that allowed Doomfist to be healed while not in the field of play.
- Fixed an interaction that resulted in Doomfist’s Rocket Punch doing no damage to Lifeweaver’s Petal Platform.
- Fixed an issue with Powerblock not reducing the area of effect damage correctly.
- Fixed an issue with Powerblock was being incorrectly applied to Junker Queen’s Bleed.
Echo
- Fixed an interaction with Duplicate destroying the duplicated ultimates when Duplicate ends (Symmetra and Wrecking Ball).
- Healing effects that were started during Echo’s ultimate will now continue to heal Echo after the ultimate has ended.
- Fixed a bug where a duplicated Lifeweaver’s Tree of Life would not heal anyone after Echo’s ultimate had ended.
- Fixed a bug with Sticky Bombs not detonating if used right after Duplicate ends.
Ramattra
- Resolved an interaction with Nemesis Form and Annihilation that sometimes resulted in the ultimate not performing damage and lifesteal.
- Fixed an issue where Block was being incorrectly applied to Junker Queen’s Bleed.
- Fixed a bug with block that prevented it from correctly stacking with Ana’s Nanoboost.
You can check out the full list of the multiplayer game‘s latest patch notes on the Overwatch website if you’re interested.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
