Overwatch 2’s eighth season begins today, and Mauga, the hero shooter’s latest tank, isn’t the only major addition in season eight’s accompanying patch.
The patch notes on the Overwatch 2 website highlight Mauga, including several previously announced changes from feedback after his test period during BlizzCon. Mauga was available to play for a few days in November, and feedback largely centered around his survivability compared to most Overwatch 2 tanks. These characters are all about disruption and defense, and while Mauga had abilities in his kit that could theoretically allow him to inhabit that role, the numbers weren’t where they needed to be to sustain him or his teammates. Now that Mauga is finally in the game, it looks like a lot of care was taken to make him more powerful than a wet napkin, such as giving him armor for a defensive boost and making the hitbox on his head smaller to avoid critical shots.
Beyond Mauga buffs, the patch notes also outline upcoming events, from the Battle of the Beasts PvPvE mode to the upcoming Winter Wonderland. Other updates include the addition of buyable weapon skins, some tweaks to Competitive MMR decay, and a new wave of Hero Mastery courses launching on January 4.
The full patch notes read as follows:
Introducing Mauga, a long-awaited tank hero who comes with a rapid-fire personality, massive stature, and brawl-centric abilities
MAUGA
Fight in a powerful brawl with epic and powerful Grand Beasts in a fun 4v4 PvPvE game mode: The Battle of the Beasts. In a clash of Grand Beasts, protect yours while coordinating with your team to defeat the enemy beast. You’ll be able to play Mauga for free as the only tank to play in this mode, or try your hand as one of many other hunter-themed heroes and tear through the Grand Beast’s health while trying to avoid powerful abilities. May the best hunters win.
Ring in the holidays with the Winter Wonderland event! Check out our heroes celebrating in style with all-new Holiday skins. Beat challenges and unlock one free legendary skin of your choice – choose from the stylish Formalwear skins for Cassidy or Baptiste, or the cozy Winter Jammies Illari skin. Dive into the action with returning fan-favorite event modes like Mei’s Snowball Offensive and Yeti Hunt, with new challenges and rewards. Winter Wonderland launches on Tuesday, December 19.
Introducing Weapon Skins – a new way to customize your heroes. We’re kicking things off with the Hard Light theme for Rein, Reaper, and Mercy. These sleek designs with custom visual and sound effects can be equipped with any of these heroes’ skins. Look out for other Weapon Skins coming in future seasons. We’re excited about weapon customization, and this is just the first step. As we create more Weapon Skins, we want to hear about what you love about the skins. Your feedback is key as we evolve Weapon Skins and introduce new looks and more ways to customize your heroes.
Endorsements
Hero Mastery
Reticle Changes
DOOMFIST
Developer Comments: One of the most effective uses for an ultimate ability like Meteor Strike is to save it as an escape in order to grab a health pack instead of using it against his foes. Doomfist will now recover health during the targeting phase so that it can be used more offensively.
Meteor Strike
JUNKER QUEEN
Developer Comments: Tightening the spread on Junker Queen’s Scattergun will make it more effective at range against small targets and give her slightly more team fight presence before fully committing to getting in close to the enemy team.
Scattergun
MAUGA
Developer Comments: We got a lot of constructive feedback from players when Mauga was available to try during his free preview weekend, so we’ve adjusted his kit for his official launch to give him the ability to last longer in a fight.
Overrun
Cardiac Overdrive
Berserker
RAMATTRA
Developer Comments: Ramattra is quite powerful during his Nemesis Form though his base Omnic Form may be too easy to ignore for a tank hero. We’re adding some power there to even out the tradeoffs between the two forms, with the Omnic Form having even better ranged damage while Nemesis Form’s Pummel can pierce enemy defenses.
Void Accelerator
SIGMA
Developer Comments: Sigma has very effective defensive options between his Experimental Barrier and Kinetic Grasp. The barrier regeneration rate is being reduced in order to create more opportunity to attack Sigma directly.
Experimental Barrier
WINSTON
Tesla Cannon
MEI
Developer Comments: We’re reducing the maximum ammo to limit how long Mei is able to continuously slow an enemy target now that the primary fire deals more damage.
Endothermic Blaster
SOLDIER: 76
Biotic Field
SOMBRA
Developer Comments: The 1.5 second lockout duration didn’t feel impactful enough for an ultimate ability but generally EMP is more interesting and effective when it’s focused on the disabling aspect rather than the damage.
EMP
TORBJÖRN
Developer Comments: The health decrease on Overload severely impacted Torbjorn’s overall effectiveness so we’re reverting that change.
Overload
TRACER
Developer Comments: This damage value has been changed a few times over the course of Overwatch 2 and is now back to Tracer’s original damage. It was previously adjusted due to a couple of bugs with the Pulse Pistol falloff range and spread being much better than they should have.
Pulse Pistols
BAPTISTE
Developer Comments: Baptiste has a high amount of sustained damage in addition to his various survival tools. We would prefer to keep his long cooldown abilities feeling impactful so we’re going to be pulling back on some of his damage potential here.
Biotic Launcher
BRIGITTE
Developer Comments: Brigitte ended up being the best performing support hero in the game by a fair margin since the last patch. It’s likely a result of more than just the damage breakpoint change that she received but it was a significant increase to her offense so we’re reverting it and will continue to evaluate further.
Whip Shot
KIRIKO
Developer Comments: Reducing the Protection Suzu invulnerability time further will help it feel less frustrating to play against but still enable it to have big play making moments although with a stricter timing requirement. To counterbalance that power loss we’re making Kiriko’s healing more reliable.
Healing Ofuda
Protection Suzu
MERCY
Developer Comments: This is just a small quality-of-life improvement to help keep Mercy healing or powering up her allies without penalty for activating her ultimate.
Valkyrie
• Activating Valkyrie no longer disconnects Caduceus Staff from its target.
GENERAL
Hero Mastery
Story Missions
Other Fixes
Busan
Horizon Lunar Colony
Nepal
Samoa
Cassidy
Echo
Hanzo
Illari
Lifeweaver
Mauga
Orisa
Roadhog
Sombra
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