Overwatch 2 Season 6 Mid-Season Patch: Hero Balance Changes, Hero Mastery, More

Overwatch 2 Season 6 has reached its halfway mark since releasing on 10^th August, bringing with it plenty of changes and a new permanent game mode that the community is excited to try out, Hero Mastery Game Mode.

Additionally, multiple Heroes have also undergone a buff or nerf to move a few things around and finally there is the usual set of bug fixes covering all aspects of the game.

Here are the complete Overwatch 2 Season 6 Mid-Season Invasion patch notes which went live on 7^th September.

Overwatch 2 Season 6 Mid-Season Patch: Complete Details

Overwatch 2 Anniversary 2023

Overwatch 2 dropped a surprise along with this update by announcing its plans for the upcoming first anniversary whose celebrations are scheduled to begin from 19^th September onwards.

Community favorite event game modes like Battle for Olympus, Catch-A-Mari, Starwatch, and Mischief and Magic, will be making a return for everyone to enjoy.

Players will be able to participate in certain limited-time event challenges to earn Overwatch Credits as rewards. These can be later spent on various Legendary Skins that wiil also be returning to the Overwatch 2 Shop.

Overwatch 2 Hero Mastery - New Game Mode

Hero Mastery is a new, single-player game mode that allows players to test their skills with individual heroes on custom courses, awarding them a score every time they complete it, and also maintaining a leaderboard.

• Each hero can be played on three unique courses of increasing difficulty.

• Flex your skills and unlock up to five stars on each course.

• Hero Mastery courses are scored on various factors like time, eliminations, heals, and escorts. Each hero also has some individual stats that are tracked as well.

• Make sure to collect all the Mastery Emblems to show off your prowess.

• Hero Mastery is launching with a limited-time event that includes exclusive rewards.

• Courses for Tracer, Reinhardt, and Mercy are currently available, while courses for Sojourn, Winston, and other Heroes will be premiering in the weeks ahead.

Hero Updates

Junker Queen

• Jagged Blade

  • Impact Damage increased from 50 to 65.

Orisa

• Fortify

  • Cooldown begins when the ability is activated instead of when it ends.

  • Cooldown increased from 12 to 16.5 seconds.

  • Overhealth bonus decreased from 125 to 100.

Zarya

• Projected Barrier

  • Health increased from 200 to 225.

  • Cooldown decreased from 10 to 8 seconds.

  • Size increased by 15%.

Ashe

• The Viper

  • Reload Time decreased from 0.25 seconds to 0.20 seconds.

Bastion

• A-36 Tactical Grenade

  • Impact Damage decreased from 30 to 15.

• Configuration: Artillery

  • Can no longer deal critical hits.

Mei

• Endothermic Blaster

  • Damage increased from 65 to 70 per second.

  • Slow Duration between primary fire hits increased from 0.5 to 0.6 seconds.

• Deep Chill

  • Bonus Damage can now also be triggered with Mei's quick melee.

Baptiste

• Regenerative Burst

  • Instant Healing decreased from 50 to 40.

  • Heal over time decreased from 50 over 5 seconds to 40 over 4 seconds.

Kiriko

• Protection Suzu

  • Now passes through enemy heroes.

All Support Heroes

Apart from all the Hero-specific changes, the entire Support category has been handed a significant nerf with their self-healing passive activation time increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds.

Bug Fixes

General

• Fixed an issue with the Daybreak challenge being reset to 0 and not receiving progress after completing games.

• The Save-a-Mari challenge now specifies the difficulty requirements for completion.

• Resolved an issue where the Progression Level badge wasn't promoting. Players who have already reached levels where the badge should now be promoted to the correct badge now.

• Fixed a bug with the Option 'Relative Aim Sensitivity' not accepting a value of 0%.

• Fixed an instance where equipped Competitive Titles would reset after a relog.

• Fixed a bug with Matches Played showing as abandoned for matches played on another platform.

• Fixed gaps and other environment issues in Mischief and Magic.

• Fixed navigation issues that could occur with a controller in Winston's Lab.

• Fixed the missing sound effects for Training Bots respawning.

• Fixed a bug on controller/gamepads that prevented some characters from flying diagonally.

• Resolved a bug with the Overtime bar not burning all the way down in Competitive, making it difficult to tell when the round is over.

• Fixed an issue that prevented players from immediately equipping Golden weapons after purchase.

Maps

• Dorado

  • Fixed a bug in the environment near the final point that sometimes allowed Mei's Blizzard to go through the environment.

• New Junk City

  • Fixed areas on the map that players could become stuck in.

  • Fixed lighting issues in specific areas on the map.

  • Added the intro when loading into the map. You will now be greeted with 'Welcome to New Junk City.'

• Suravasa

  • Fixed some fountains on the map that allowed some turrets to be hidden.

  • Fixed a few areas that did not have correct lighting.

  • Fixed areas on the map that players could become stuck on.

  • Fixed areas on the map that allowed players to stand outside the playable space.

  • Fixed gaps in the geometry in several areas across the map.

Co-Op Missions

• Rio

  • Fixed a bug that could occur after the Artillery lands that resulted in your camera looking at the sky after regaining control of the camera.

• Toronto

  • Fixed an interaction with the train that could force players outside of the map boundaries.

  • Fixed a bug with lighting that could occur on this map when changing graphics settings.

• Gothenburg

  • Fixed a location in spawn where players could become stuck.

Heroes

• Bastion

  • Fixed an error that resulted in the vertical knockback on Bastion's Tactical Grenade being reduced.

• Echo

  • Fixed a bug with Duplicated Illari's displaying the incorrect VFX colors when casting Captive Sun.

  • Fixed an interaction with Duplicated Symmetra turrets persisting through the duration of Duplicate.

• Illari

  • Fixed an interaction with Genji's Deflect and Illari's Healing Pylon. Deflecting the pylon should now correctly heal Genji's allies.

  • Fixed a bug that prevented the Stay Dead voice line from being equipped.

  • Resolved an interaction that allowed Illari to see underneath the map if they were slept by an Ana Sleep Dart while using Captive Sun.

  • Fixed an interaction with Illari's Pylon indicator being disabled if it was Hacked by Sombra.

  • Fixed an interaction with Symmetra's Teleporter that allowed Illari to place a Pylon in mid-air.

  • Fixed several instances that resulted in the Pylon being destroyed instantly after deploying.

• Junker Queen

  • Fixed a bug where Junker Queen recalling Jagged Blade in the same frame as it stuck in an object (by holding Secondary Fire and aiming at an object the same distance away as the Knife's recall range) would cause a pingable knife to be stuck in the world.

• Kiriko

  • Fixed a bug that made it difficult to Swift Step to allies in rooms with low ceilings.

• Lifeweaver

  • Fixed a bug allowing friendly EMPs to destroy your Petal Platform.

• Ramattra

  • Resolved a bug that prevented the damage increase from Zenyatta's Discord from being correctly applied while Ramattra was Blocking.

These are all the changes and features that have been rolled out by the developers as part of Overwatch 2 Season 6 Mid-Season Patch. It will be interesting to see how the meta evolves going forward, community reaction to the new game mode, and a test of patience with the first anniversary right around the corner.