Overwatch 2 balance patch buffs unselfish Zaryas, slightly nerfs Orisa

Blizzard Entertainment rolled out a new update for Overwatch 2 on Thursday, a mid-season patch that tweaks heroes like Zarya, Junker Queen, Orisa, Bastion, and Mei. The latest balance patch arrives alongside the debut of Overwatch 2’s Hero Mastery mode, a single-player mode that will let players hone their skills with a handful of heroes.

Overwatch 2’s latest balance patch doesn’t severely nerf anyone in particular, but it does make Orisa slightly less of a threat and gives Zarya more incentive to project her barrier onto teammates. Mei is getting a slight boost to her blaster, while Ashe’s reload time has been shortened. Bastion may get the most impactful nerfs in the mid-season 6 update, but the bot’s still a threat.

Read on for the latest changes coming to Overwatch 2’s hero roster on Sept. 7.

Zarya

Projected Barrier

• Health increased from 200 to 225
• Cooldown decreased from 10 to 8 seconds
• Size increased 15%

Developer Comment: Zarya often spends both barrier charges on herself as it is usually more consistent for building energy. The change to Projected Barrier incentivizes using the barrier for her allies more often.

Junker Queen

Jagged Blade

• Impact damage increased from 50 to 65

Developer Comment: This change rewards throwing accuracy with the Jagged Blade without directly affecting Junker Queen’s self-healing.

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

Developer Comment: The Fortify cooldown has been adjusted so that the effective uptime remains the same. However, Orisa is no longer incentivized to cancel the ability early to begin the cooldown immediately, which makes the interval between uses consistent and more susceptible to counterplay.

Ashe

The Viper

• Reload time decreased from .25 to .2 seconds

Developer Comment: Ashe has the longest total reload time of all heroes to balance out the advantage of being able to shoot after a partial reload. However, we are shortening it slightly to make the full reload from empty less punishing.

Bastion

A-36 Tactical Grenade

• Impact damage decreased from 30 to 15

Configuration Artillery

• Can no longer deal critical hits

Developer Comment: The A-36 Tactical Grenade is now more reliable after having its projectile size increased recently, so it doesn’t need to be quite as damaging. The change to Configuration Artillery is a bug fix from what was intended for the ultimate, and we’ll monitor to see how this impacts Bastion’s performance.

Mei

Endothermic Blaster

• Damage increased from 65 to 70 per second
• Duration before slow falls off 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

Developer Comment: Mei is still underperforming after her last set of changes, so we are increasing the effectiveness of primary fire and improving the quality of life to Deep Chill.

Baptiste

Regenerative Burst

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

Developer Comment: Regenerative Burst’s overall healing output has been too effective after gaining the bonus instant heal for low-health allies, so we are reducing its total healing slightly.

Kiriko

Protection Suzu

• Now passes through enemy heroes.

Developer Comment: The Protection Suzu no longer knocks back enemy heroes, so the projectile doesn’t need to impact them either. This quality-of-life change prevents accidental activations when thrown into groups with both enemies and allies.

Support Passive

Duration until support passive activates increased from 1.5 to 2 seconds

Developer Comment: Support heroes have received individual improvements to their survivability and are quite strong overall, so we’re reducing the impact of the role-wide passive.