The Overwatch 2 patch notes for January 5 introduce a round of buffs as part of the midseason update, giving a much-needed bump to several underpowered heroes. These arrive alongside the reveal of Overwatch 2 god abilities in Battle for Olympus, which gives several characters new thematic powers to match their deific designs in a special event mode for the Blizzard FPS game.
Game director Aaron Keller notes that the balance patch is “a bit lighter than usual because some of its planned changes were pulled forward to the mid December patch,” which included heavy Doomfist nerfs and the promise of a soft Roadhog rework. There’s a small but notable health increase for Brig’s shield, improved energy retention for Zarya’s charged energy, and a tweak for Moira allowing her Biotic Orb to restore some Biotic Energy when it deals damage, which should help her keep her healing resources topped up.
The biggest winner, however, is Junker Queen. Her passive lifesteal from wounds now heals remaining damage if an affected enemy dies, giving her a bit more sustain. In addition, some of the impact damage from directly landing her thrown Jagged Blade is now applied as a wound, which stacks with wounds from the blade recall and her quick melee. Finally, her Carnage axe now gets two seconds of cooldown reduction for each enemy hit.
All of these changes should help the abdominally gifted Aussie tank sustain her health in brawls – her Carnage also applies wounds, so hitting several people with it at once and getting it back even faster should really help to keep topped up. Her passive was buffed a little while back, improving the self-healing from wounds to 125% of the damage dealt, so expect to see her become slightly more survivable with the new update.
Whether that’ll be enough to help her stain alongside the likes of Roadhog, Orisa, and Ramattra, who are all looking rather dominant at the moment, remains to be seen. Keller also adds that the planned initial Roadhog changes, which lead hero designer Alec Dawson suggested would focus on a nerf to his one-shot capability, are currently “slated for mid to late January.”
Overwatch 2 patch notes – January 5
General Updates
- Game Reports for completed matches in the history tab will stay persistent across sessions and reset between patches rather than every session.
- The 2023 season of Competitive Capture the Flag begins on January 10 and can be found in the Competitive Play menu.
- The Competitive Play loading screen has been updated.
Junker Queen (buffed)
- Adrenaline Rush (passive): Now heals for the remaining wound damage when an enemy dies with wounds on them.
- Carnage: Cooldown is now reduced by 2 seconds for each enemy it impacts.
- Jagged Blade: Thrown impact damage reduced from 80 to 50.
- Jagged Blade: Thrown direct impacts now add a 30 damage wound to the stuck target. Stacks with wounds caused by Quick Melee or returning Jagged Blade hits.
Zarya (buffed)
- Energy degeneration reduced from 2.2 to 2 per second.
- Delay before energy degeneration begins after gaining energy increased from 1 to 2 seconds.
Brigitte (buffed)
- Barrier Shield: Health increased from 250 to 300.
Moira (buffed)
- Biotic Orb: Dealing damage with Biotic Orb now restores a small amount of Biotic Energy.
For the extended patch notes, including a full list of bug fixes, you can check the full post on the Blizzard forums.
These changes may mean shakeups to our Overwatch 2 tier list, where you’ll find the best characters to use in the multiplayer game right now. We’ve also got a comprehensive guide to the best Overwatch 2 settings to ensure peak performance, along with an explanation of all the Overwatch 2 maps and game modes if you’re still finding your way around the hero shooter.