Tag: Overwatch 2

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The Overwatch 2 Winter Wonderland celebrations are back, with four fan-favorite modes, free skins, and more. This year’s Overwatch 2 Winter Wonderland begins on Dec. 19, 2023, and runs for three weeks, with a new event appearing in the multiplayer game‘s Arcade section every week.

The modes might be familiar, but the Winter Fair Pass is a new addition to Blizzard’s winter festival. Playing matches in any mode earns you event tickets, which you can redeem in the event store for rewards. The Winter Fair Pass mirrors the usual battle pass in that there’s a free track – which costs 500 Overwatch Coins – and a paid track. The paid track includes more rewards, such as a StarCraft-inspired skin for Widowmaker, though you can still get a free legendary skin for Illari (Winter Jammies), Baptiste (Formalwear), or Cassidy (Formalwear) on the free track.

It takes nine matches to earn one ticket, though wins count as two matches, and you can earn tickets until Jan. 9, 2024. The in-game store will also feature fresh skins every week, and any tickets you have leftover after the event ends will convert to Overwatch Coins.

Winter Wonderland’s returning Arcade modes kicks things off with Mei’s Snowball Offensive, a 5v5 deathmatch-style mode where you only have Mei’s ice abilities and some very potent snowballs. After that is Yeti Hunt, a 5v1 mode where five Meis and one overpowered Winston face off to see who can capture whom.

Finally is Flash-Freeze Elimination. Heroes whose HP reaches zero get frozen in this mode, and if you play your cards right, you can unthaw them and get them back in the match. It’s a wild, hectic mode, and playing all three of these earns you extra XP for the Season 8 battle pass.

Speaking of the latest season, if you’re just diving back into Overwatch 2 for the holidays, check out the Overwatch 2 Season 8 patch notes to see what’s changed.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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The Overwatch 2 Season 8 patch notes are here, and while they’re not quite as extensive as past season notes, they do make some important changes to a handful of heroes. These alterations should make tanks easier to play, though DPS and support heroes had a bit of the wind taken from their sails. Soldier 76 can’t heal as effectively, for example, and Baptiste runs out of ammo more quickly. This season also sees some new features introduced, including weapon skins and a fresh PvPvE limited-time mode, along with the brand-new tank Mauga.

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Overwatch 2 Season 8 is just around the corner, and Blizzard outlined some of the broad changes coming to tanks in the multiplayer game. Most of these changes should help some of the game’s struggling heroes perform a little better than usual, though a few alterations seem like change just for the sake of change.

First up is Doomfist, who’s getting a buff of sorts for his ultimate. Blizzard wasn’t happy with players using Doomfist’s ultimate to escape harm and land on health packs, so once Season 8 rolls around, he’ll regain 75 health per second while he’s in the air. Doomfist’s ultimate will also cost more to offset that little boon.

Blizzard says Ramattra in his usual form was too small and “easy to ignore.” Season 8 will transform 100 of his health into armor and make his projectiles bigger, so aim should be less of an issue. The team also wants Winston to have a more competitive edge, so his cannon will ignore all enemy armor damage reductions.

Roadhog will stay the same, at least for the next season while Blizzard evaluates his rework.

These are the major changes, but Blizzard is tweaking a few DPS and support heroes as well. Tracer’s pistol damage is going back up to six HP per shot instead of 5.5, after Blizzard reduced it from its former power of 6.0 HP per shot. Brigitte won’t deal as much damage, as Blizzard said players picked her too often, and Soldier 76’s self-heal cooldown is going up to 18 seconds, as Blizzard said players are using him too effectively.

Season 8 sees more tweaks to Sombra’s kit as well. Her ultimate will deal less damage, but lock enemies out of their abilities for 1.5 seconds longer.

Overwatch 2 Season 8 goes live on Dec. 5, 2023, and new tank Mauga makes his debut then as well.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Blizzard finally gave new Overwatch 2 hero Mauga an official unveiling after first revealing the multiplayer game’s tank hero in 2019. Mauga will headline Overwatch 2 season 8 when it launches on Dec. 5, 2023, but you’ll get a brief chance to try him out during a trial weekend that runs from Nov. 3, 2023, through Nov. 5, 2023 on console and PC.

The Nintendo Switch eShop listing for Overwatch 2 leaked Mauga ahead of his official debut during BlizzCon.

Mauga has a lot going on. He wields two heavy-duty guns he named Gunny, which sets enemies on fire, and Cha-Cha, which has a higher chance of scoring critical hits. Mauga can use these independently or together.

Wonder if anyone saw this coming? 😉

The long-awaited Tank Mauga is the next hero in #Overwatch2 pic.twitter.com/J3duvnTfUr

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) November 3, 2023

His Cardiac Overdrive ability reduces damage for nearby allies and lets them regenerate health when they deal damage, and he also has a crowd control skill called Overrun. Mauga dashes forward knocks back enemies in his way, and he’s invulnerable to effects such as Ana’s sleep dart while the skill is active.

Finally is Mauga’s ultimate, which is sure to get nerfed. He traps nearby enemies in a “cage match” dome of energy, has unlimited ammo, and can just run them all into the ground. No healing or damage can come from outside the dome of energy.

Mauga first showed up in a 2019 Overwatch comic, though Blizzard remained completely silent about the tank through all of Overwatch 2’s pre- and post-launch marketing. He did make a small appearance in the new Control map Samoa, though, or at least his shirt did.

Like with all of Overwatch 2’s new heroes, you’ll either unlock Mauga automatically when you purchase the battle pass, or you can get him for free by completing a lengthy set of unlock challenges.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Blizzard finally announced the long-awaited Overwatch 2 Sombra rework, and despite changing the multiplayer game hero’s kit quite a bit, most fans are actually not furious about it. Well, some of them.

The changes come as part of Blizzard’s ongoing – sometimes, fans say, too frequent – balance changes, where the studio will tweak hero abilities, add and remove features, and then sometimes do both and roll them back completely.

Sombra’s changes will undoubtedly go through that cycle as well, but for now, it seems like she’s in a pretty good place to start with. The biggest change is Sombra’s new Virus skill. She plants a virus into a target, and it deals small amounts of damage over time – more, if she hacks that enemy.

Blizzard also made some substantial changes to her stealth. In the past, Sombra could become invisible by using a skill, and she’d remain that way until an enemy detected her or she broke cover. Stealth is a passive ability now, one that activates automatically when Sombra isn’t taking or dealing damage.

Her translocator instantly teleports her now, and using it shortens Sombra’s stealth cooldown timer.

Some fans on Reddit and the Overwatch forums thought the changes weren’t substantial enough, while others raged about how ineffective it was or how useless the character is. One thread on the Overwatch forums is dedicated to lamenting how bad the changes are for Wrecking Ball in particular.

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Pleased or at least neutral reactions also showed up – for now, at least. 

“I don’t see much difference,” one Redditer said. “She is still going to run around stealth hacking the support characters.”

“That looks alot [sic] more fair than current hack it leaves for good counterplay as well since you can potentially dodge it,” one user said on the Overwatch forums.

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“I’ve been asking for DoT on Sombra for ages,” another said. “It will be much healthier for the game.”

Others expressed concerns over the possibility that Sombra’s new skill would make life too hard for tank mains. Sombra’s Virus skill could wreck tanks too quickly, if it’s combined with other damage-over-time skills or debuffs, like Moira’s orb or Ana’s sleep dart. Even the optimistic commenters qualified their sentiments with a “wait and see.” 

We don’t have long to wait and see, either. The Sombra rework will roll out with Overwatch 2 season 7, which launches on Oct. 10, 2023, with a new Diablo-inspired Halloween event and more.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF