Overwatch 2 Season 4 patch official notes - Competitive changes, Hero reworks, limited time map, and more

Overwatch 2 Season 4 is currently live and has brought a lot of buffs and nerfs to existing Heroes and introduced a brand new Hero known as Lifeweaver. It has also implemented numerous changes to the competitive matchmaking and ranking system. Although Lifeweaver was introduced along with certain buffs before its initial release in the game, certain Heroes from every role have also been reworked with balancing changes. There have also been fixes to a lot of known bugs.

The detailed patch notes can be accessed from Blizzard's official website, while this article will showcase the highlights.

Official notes for the Overwatch 2 Season 4 update

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New Hero: Lifeweaver

Abilities

Healing Blossom: Hold to charge a healing burst. Release to heal a targeted ally.
Thorn Volley: Rapidly fire a spread of projectiles.
Petal Platform: Throw a platform that springs upwards when stepped on.
Rejuvenating Dash: Dash toward your traveling direction and lightly heal yourself.
Life Grip: Pull an ally to your location, protecting them as they travel.
Tree of Life (Ultimate): Place a tree that instantly heals allies upon sprouting and continues healing periodically as it lives.
Parting Gift (Passive): On death, drop a gift that heals the first enemy or ally to pick it up.

General Updates

Accessibility

Added a setting to select custom colors for health, armor, shields, and overhealth in health bars. Improved preview feature for custom color settings with different preview backgrounds.

Stranded Spawn System

Closed spawn rooms after losing an objective will remain active for 7 seconds.
Heroes cannot be changed but new features have been introduced.
The doors remain locked for the opposing team while the healing field remains active.
Interact key can be used to instantly teleport to a new active spawn room.

Matchmaking

Backfilling players in Unranked modes will now prioritize finding players closer to the skill level of the other players in the match. Minor optimizations for large groups improving matchmaking quality.

Competitive Updates

Top 500 Leaderboard Eligibility

Players will now be required to win 25 Competitive matches before being eligible to enter the Top 500 leaderboard for a specific role, queue, or region.

Competitive Leaver Penalty Changes

Matches left in different Competitive queues are still considered separate for purposes of determining the lengths of suspensions or receiving a seasonal ban from Competitive Play.
The start of a new Competitive season also no longer fully resets the severity of these suspensions and bans. This should hopefully prevent players from leaving Competitive games at the end of a season without facing meaningful consequences at the start of the next.
Matches left in Competitive Play will also have a more negative effect on a player’s Skill Tier and Division after a 5-win Competitive Update.

Competitive Point Reward Changes

Competitive Points (CP) has been increased from 15 to 25 for each win in Competitive Play and the points earned from seasonal challenges depending on the final seasonal rank has also been updated. Games played after the last Competitive Update during a season will still count towards the ending seasonal rank.

The changes to the placement and their effects on the Competitive Points are as follows:

Ending in Bronze will now earn 300 Competitive Points (previously 65)
Ending in Silver will now earn 450 Competitive Points (previously 125)
Ending in Gold will now earn 600 Competitive Points (previously 250)
Ending in Platinum will now earn 800 Competitive Points (previously 500)
Ending in Diamond will now earn 1000 Competitive Points (previously 750)
Ending in Masters will now earn 1200 Competitive Points (previously 1250)
Ending in Grand Masters will now earn 1500 Competitive Points (previously 1750)

Competitive Challenge Titles

Seasonal titles earned will now be based upon the victory in Open Queue or Role Queue:

Ending in Diamond rank in Open Queue will earn the “Diamond Open Challenger” Title
Ending in Diamond rank in Role Queue will earn the “Diamond Role Challenger” Title

Competitive Match Rank

The initial loading screen that shows all the participants of Competitive matches will now show an icon at the top of the screen representing the average Skill Tier and Division of all players in that match. This should provide players with a better comparison of their own rank to other players in the match.

Competitive Skill Update and Progression

Both the Competitive progress and Competitive update screens will now include information about a player’s losses and ties as well as their wins.
The Competitive Update screen will also now provide players with an indication of their current percentage progress within a skill division. This will hopefully make it more clear how the results of games played during the update affect a player’s Skill Tier and Division.
It is possible for players to have a positive win/loss record, but not go up a skill division because the progress occurs entirely within a single division. This new message will allow players to see that they did in fact make positive progress, just not enough to reach a new skill tier or division.
There is also a similar message with Competitive Updates for players who are Grandmaster 1, but not yet on the Top 500 leaderboard. This should provide those players with feedback about their progress toward earning a spot on the Top 500 leaderboard.

Hero Updates

Tank

Reinhardt

Armor health reduced from 300 to 250
Base health increased from 175 to 200

Sigma

Accretion:
Impact damage reduced from 60 to 40 (80 damage total with explosion)
Knockdown duration increased from 0.8 to 1.1 seconds

Damage

Cassidy

Base health reduced from 225 to 200
Magnetic Grenade:
Damage reduced from 131 to 120

Sombra

EMP:
Can now disable Blizzard

Support

Ana

Sleep Dart:
Maximum duration on Tank heroes reduced 30%, from 5 to 3.5 seconds

Brigitte

Rally:
Brigitte now gains 100 restorable armor health pool for the duration of Rally
Brigitte no longer gradually builds temporary health like her nearby allies
Rally now upgrades her Barrier Shield, increasing both its size and health
Barrier health increased from 300 to 750 during the ultimate
During Rally, Shield Bash now impacts multiple enemies and briefly stuns them
Bonus movement speed reduced from 30 to 15%
Repair Pack:
Range reduced from 30 to 25 meters

Mercy

Caduceus Staff:
Healing-per-second increased from 45 to 55
Healing is no longer increased for allies under half health
Guardian Angel:
Cooldown reduced from 2.5 to 1.5 seconds
Jump and Crouch cancel active ability state duration increased from 1.0 to 1.5 seconds
The Jump and Crouch cancel active ability state can no longer be manually interrupted to begin the cooldown early
Valkyrie:
Support role passive healing is now active for the duration of Valkyrie

Moira

Fade:
Can now be activated during Coalescence
Coalescence:
Bonus movement speed reduced from 50 to 40%
Biotic Grasp:
Lingering heal duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds

Map Updates

General Updates

Map Pools have been disabled, all maps are now in rotation

New Arcade Map: Talantis

An underwater Talon base with jump pads, pit traps, giant fish, and waterfalls. Talantis will be playable for a limited time from April 25 through May 1.

Season 4 Map Lighting

Push

New Queen Street – Dawn (New)
Colosseo - Morning
Esperança – Morning

Hybrid

Blizzard World – Morning
Eichenwalde – Morning
Hollywood – Night (New)
King’s Row - Evening
Midtown - Morning
Numbani - Morning
Paraíso - Morning

Escort

Dorado - Night
Havana – Night
Watchpoint: Gibraltar - Evening
Junkertown - Morning
Circuit royal – Morning
Rialto – Morning
Route 66 - Morning
Shambali Monastery - Night

Control

Antarctic Peninsula – Night
Busan – Morning
Ilios - Morning
Lijiang Tower - Night
Nepal - Morning
Oasis - Evening

Workshop Updates

Workshop Projectiles

Create Projectile
Create Homing Projectile
Create Projectile Effect

Bug Fixes

General

Fixed a bug in Competitive Modes that resulted in the rank-up animation playing when a player was actually ranking down
Fixed a bug where Relative Aim Sensitivity was unable to be set to a value of 0%
Fixed a bug where Hero Options could become unresponsive if modified during the respawn period
Fixed an issue where some map preview images were missing from Game Reports and Replays
Fixed Streamer Mode failing to obfuscate BattleTags in some cases
Fixed an issue with Custom Game Browser sorting by decreasing ping by default
Fixed an issue where the round transition screen in Competitive could break when played on 21:9
Fixed a bug with the Round Transition screen being significantly darker if you had colorblind options enabled
Fixed a bug that could cause the camera to become displaced if you used a Souvenir as you loaded into the map
Fixed a bug that prevented you from navigating the Endorsement UI while on the Challenge Progress Screen
Fixed a controller/gamepad issue that prevented players from accessing the While you Wait menu unless the middle card on screen was highlighted first

Maps

Circuit Royale

Fixed multiple lighting issues in Circuit Royale

Hanamura

Fixed multiple cases of lighting and geometry

Ilios

Fixed areas in Ilios where players could become stuck

New Queen Street

Fixed multiple cases of lighting an geometry in Toronto

Oasis

Fixed areas in Oasis that blocked players and gameplay

Shambali Monastery

Fixed areas in Shambali Monastery that allowed players to stand in unintended locations

Heroes

Ashe

The Raijin skin has been adjusted so that Ashe's Viper no longer takes up a large amount of screen space when scoped in
Fixed a bug that allowed Ashe to gain Ultimate while B.O.B was active

Bastion

Fixed a bug where some abilities were able to interact with Artillery's targeting reticle
Fixed a bug where Bastion's attack animations could appear sped up (though they actually weren't) after the effects of Kitsune Rush expired

Cassidy

Fixed in a previous update - Fixed a bug with Cassidy's Deadeye not taking armor mitigation into account which resulted in a Killing Blow before the enemy was marked with a skull
Fixed in a previous update - Fixed a bug where the damage from Deadeye could be multiplied by reacquiring the same target before Deadeye completed
Fixed a bug that could cause Deadeye to miss its targets.

Doomfist

Fixed an issue with Seismic Slam not always registering when used on uneven surface

Echo

Fixed an issue with Echo's Duplicate sometimes failing when duplicating a D.Va as she casts Self-Destruct

Genji

Fixed an issue where some abilities did not function correctly after being Deflected by Genji

Kiriko

Fixed an issue where in some cases Swift Step would fail to teleport the player
Fixed an issue with Kitsune Rush appearing orange to enemies if Kiriko had 'Terrible Tornado' equipped
Fixed invisible entities within Kiriko's ultimate Kitsune Rush being pingable for a brief duration

Mercy

Fixed a bug that allowed Mercy, when using Valkyrie to clip for extended periods into the environment and prevent critical shots
Fixed an issue where Mercy could negate the effects of Rocket Punch in some cases
Fixed an issue with Mercy's footsteps being extra quiet while crouched

Moira

Fixed an issue with Moira's hand animations breaking during gameplay

Orisa

Fixed a bug with the art on Orisa's Forest Spirit Spear

Pharah

Fixed an issue with the Barrage play of the game not using custom rockets from the selected skin

Roadhog

Fixed an interaction with Whole Hog and Hook where the hook would clip into the camera of the hook's target

Sigma

Fixed a bug with Gravitic Flux picking up reviving heroes just before the Revive completes
Fixed a typo in Kinetic Grasp's tooltip. It now correctly states it grants 'extra health'

Sombra

Fixed a bug with Sombra's footsteps remaining silent to players who had detected her

Torbjorn

Fixed a bug where Molten Core projectiles could become stuck in the air if deflected with Orisa's spear

Tracer

Fixed a bug where in some cases Tracer would not get all her Blink charges back upon respawn

Widowmaker

Fixed a bug where Venom Mine would be missing a team color if Widowmaker was wearing an Away Overwatch League Skin

Zarya

Fixed an issue where Zarya would not receive charge from Brigitte's Shield Bash

Zenyatta

Fixed an issue where Zenyatta's ability prompts on target characters being reversed when using a gamepad/controller
Fixed an issue where Orb of Discord could appear team-colored Blue when applied to an enemy