Overwatch 2 November 17 update fixes ranked matchmaking, nerfs Zarya & more: Patch notes

The Overwatch 2 mid-season patch notes are out, bringing in some anticipated nerfs to the game’s most powerful heroes and changes to matchmaking.

At long last, the mid-season Overwatch 2 patch is finally here after a series of delays, ushering in a series of changes that players have been waiting for such as nerfs to meta tanks D.Va and Zarya alongside stealth DPS character Sombra.

In addition to the balance changes, the devs have also fixed some bugs with Mei and the ice hero has been reenabled in the game.

Plus, there have been some major changes to competitive matchmaking to ensure that players are put in quality matches without getting teammates and opponents of completely different skill tiers.

Blizzard says these changes will be even more apparent at the start of Season 2 on December 6 – an update that will also see the introduction of the new hero Ramattra.

Finally, aim assist will now be added in crossplay, meaning that console players will have a chance against PC rivals in quick play only. However, the devs say they’re going to be monitoring this change closely.

You can find the latest Overwatch 2 full patch notes here:

Overwatch 2 general updates

GENERAL UPDATES

Competitive Play and Matchmaking

We’re continuing to monitor the health of competitive play and matchmaking across Overwatch 2, both for returning and new players. We’ve made numerous tuning adjustments on the server for both the initial and continued determination of a player’s skill tier and division, many of which will become even more noticeable at the start of Season 2.

We’ve increased the precision of our queue time estimates for each individual role in role queue.

The audio transcription feature has been added with a limited rollout for PC players in select countries. As a piece of our Defense Matrix initiative, audio transcriptions allow us to analyze a transcript from a temporary voice chat recording of a reported player. Players will now see a notification when entering voice chat for the first time during a play session indicating that voice chat may be recorded. Make sure you report as close to when disruptive behavior occurred to maximize this feature’s effectiveness. Once reported, a temporary audio recording will be used to make a text file transcript through speech-to-text programs. No one listens to the temporary audio recording, which is quickly deleted after being transcribed. Transcriptions are only made for reports of disruptive behavior in public voice channels, which includes team and match chat—group “party” chat is excluded. Crossplay and Aim Assist

We made a change to Aim Assist in Crossplay (PC+ Console) lobbies. If you play in a Crossplay game now, Aim Assist is enabled in all matches except Competitive.

In our data, we found many groups were crossplay groups between PC and console players. This meant if you were playing on console and grouping with players on PC, you were opting into a bad experience for yourself to play with your friends. Also, if you had a group that was primarily console, but one of your friends was a PC player, you had to leave the PC player out to have a good experience.

We’d like to reiterate—at this point Aim Assist exists only on console platforms.

We’ll be monitoring the deployment of this change carefully and making changes quickly if needed.

Overwatch 2 hero updates

Tanks

D.Va

• Spread increased from 3.5 to 3.75
• Boosters impact damage reduced from 25 to 15
• Call Mech ultimate cost reduced by 12%

Zarya

Particle Barrier

• Duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 seconds
• Cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds

Projected Barrier

• Duration reduced from 2.5 to 2 seconds
• Cooldown increased from 10 to 11 seconds

Damage

Genji

Shuriken

• Maximum ammo reduced from 30 to 24
• Damage reduced from 29 to 27

Junkrat

Steel Trap

• Arming time increased from 0.5 to 0.75 seconds
• Trapped duration reduced from 3 to 2.5 seconds

Sombra

Hack

• Ability lockout duration reduced from 1.75 to 1.5 seconds
• Hacked enemies are no longer valid targets for hacking for the duration of the 8-second effect
• Hacked enemy damage multiplier reduced from 40 to 25%

Support

Kiriko

Swift Step

• Invulnerability duration reduced from 0.4 to 0.25 seconds

Overwatch 2 bug fixes

General

• PC Only – The Default setting for audio mix has been changed to “studio reference”
• Resolved an issue where some players could be stuck in Bronze 5 even after several rank updates
• Console Only – Fixed an issue where the PC interface was being forced on for some console players
• Console Only – Fixed a bug on console where your game could freeze if you opened and closed a Hero cinematic
• Console Only – Fixed an issue where ‘Capture Highlight’ could not be unbound from Left D-Pad
• Addressed multiple leaderboard issues causing inaccurate placement and ordering
• Players who getting healed will no longer see the healing status effect on their screen while they’re full health
• Fixed an issue where players would sometimes be placed into an empty game
• Resolved a bug that prevented players from rejoining their competitive game after being disconnected
• Fixed a bug where typing in chat could purchase an item from the Hero Gallery
• The ‘No Name Card’ selection in the Name Card interface is now selectable
• Fixed a display issue where players were shown the incorrect amount of Overwatch League tokens, which made them unable to purchase items. The display now shows the correct amount of tokens a player owns
• The ‘Avoid Teammates’ button is no longer hiding behind the Recent Players list
• Fixed an issue with the Challenge ‘Farsighted’ not correctly tracking and/or completing
• Fixed an issue with the Challenge ‘Damage Sponge’ not correctly tracking and/or completing
• Resolved instances of the player’s screen becoming blurry/out of focus
• Fixed an issue where some players were missing the Noire Widowmaker skin
• Various visual improvements to the First Time User Experience
• Fixed in last update – Practice bots now show up through walls correctly when you play a healer

Maps

Junkertown

• Fixed additional areas in the map that were causing performance issues in some cases

Heroes

Brigitte

• Fixed a bug where Brigitte’s shield could become invulnerable under certain conditions

Cassidy

• Cassidy now correctly drops the flag during Combat Roll in the Capture the Flag game mode

Doomfist

• Fixed in last update – Fixed a bug with Seismic Slam being stopped early by obstructions
• Fixed in last update – Fixed a bug with being able to jump during Seismic Slam

Genji

• Fixed an issue with the Genji Mythic Skin’s hit volumes
• Fixed in last update – Fixed an issue where players could get infinite Dragonblade Custom Games

Hanzo

• Fixed in last update – Jump/wall climb no longer destroys breakables

Junker Queen

• Commanding Shout and Rampage now correctly drop the flag in the Capture the Flag game mode

Kiriko

• Fixed an issue where Kiriko could escape map boundaries using Swift Step

Mei

• Has been added back to the line-up
• Fixed several issues with Mei’s Ice Wall that allowed players and projectiles to occasionally pass through it or slip off it

Mercy

• Audio made a change to the sound of Mercy’s first-person glide to address frequencies that some players found uncomfortable

Reinhardt

• Fixed in last update – Fixed an issue where quick melee did not swing Reinhardt’s hammer

Sojourn

• Sojourn can no longer pick up the flag in Capture the Flag when using Power Slide

Sombra

• Fixed in last update – EMP can no longer be damage boosted

Torbjorn

• Fixed in last update – Fixed an issue where quick melee did not swing Torbjorn’s hammer

Wrecking Ball

• Fixed an issue with Adaptive Shield that could cause you to lose health in some cases