Overwatch 2 Season 5 Midseason Patch Notes: What's New?

It's finally time for some fun in the sun! The Overwatch 2 Season 5 Midseason patch has finally arrived, bringing some new hero rebalancing, changes, bug fixes, and the annual summer event fans have grown to love.

The Overwatch 2 Summer Games seasonal event has finally launched, bringing with it some new skins, Winston's Beach Volleyball, and event challenges to dive straight into! Let's take a quick look at what the Overwatch 2 Season 5 midseason patch notes have to offer.

Overwatch 2 Summer Games

Starting from July 11 with the launch of the midseason patch notes, players can leap into the annual Summer Games event! With summer-themed skins like the Lifeguard Mercy skin and two game modes, Winston's Beach Volleyball and Lucioball, Overwatch 2 fans have plenty to get stuck into!

Players can earn themselves a free Tropical Doomfist (Epic) skin by completing Summer Games-specific challenges! Be sure not to miss out, as the Summer Games will end on July 25!

Damage Hero Changes

Sojourn

Developer Comments: "We are decreasing the overall spread on the Railgun primary fire to help Sojourn build energy more consistently. The increased shots before reaching maximum spread will give players more direct control over aiming the projectiles when firing in short bursts."

Railgun

• Number of shots to reach maximum spread increased from 8 to 12
• Spread reduced by 12%

Soldier: 76

Developer Comments: "One of Soldier: 76’s strengths is his reliable damage output, but it hasn’t quite been effective enough after his last round of changes. We’re adjusting both primary and secondary fire damage slightly. He will also be able to stay in the fight longer and support his team more effectively with extra healing from the Biotic Field."

Heavy Pulse Rifle

• Damage increased from 18 to 19

Helix Rockets

• Explosion damage increased from 80 to 90

Biotic Field

• Healing per second increased from 35 to 40

Symmetra

Developer Comments: "Symmetra is exceptionally map dependent, to the point where she is oppressive in certain situations yet ineffectual in others. The following changes increase her weapon effectiveness while lessening some of the frustrations caused by her turrets.

The Photon Projector primary fire is now an even more pointed counter against certain heroes due to its conditional shield health regeneration, and the secondary fire now takes one less fully charged projectile to eliminate most heroes."

Photon Projector

• Secondary Fire maximum impact damage increased from 45 to 50
• Secondary Fire maximum explosion damage increased from 45 to 50
• Regenerate up to 30 shield health per second when primary fire deals damage to barriers or enemies with shield health.

Sentry Turret

• Damage per second reduced from 40 to 25
• Turrets now reveal enemy heroes to allies while dealing damage, and for one second afterwards

Torbjörn

Developer Comments: "Torbjörn's Turret has a bit too much impact for little investment, so we are shifting some of its power to the rest of his kit to reward more accurate gunplay."

Rivet Gun

• Secondary Fire spread reduced from 5 to 4.5 degrees

Deploy Turret

• Damage reduced from 14 to 11
• Cooldown increased from 10 to 12 seconds

Overload

• Reloads 6 ammo upon use

Support Hero Changes

Kiriko

Developer Comments: "Originally, we increased the Ofuda recovery time to promote more Kunai usage between healing bursts. Despite that benefit, we are partially reverting that change so the primary fire feels more responsive in situations where Kiriko is pressured to focus on healing."

Healing Ofuda

• Recovery reduced from 1 to 0.9 seconds

Lifeweaver Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug with Lifeweaver's Hero Icon challenges not progressing correctly
• Fixed an issue with Petal Platform preventing the jump boost from being applied
• Fixed a condition that allowed life gripped teammates to die in the boundary of a pitfall
• Fixed issues with teammates like Tracer, Reaper, Symmetra, and Junkrat from interacting with Petal Platform and leaving the playable space

Zenyatta

Developer Comments: "The combination of these changes will make it riskier for Zenyatta to apply Discord and increase counterplay for the affected target."

Orb of Discord

• Maximum range reduced from 40 to 30 meters
• Time for Orb to wear off target when not in line of sight reduced from 2 to 1.5 seconds

Tank Hero Changes

Orisa

Developer Comments: "We are increasing the effectiveness of Fortify to make Orisa a stronger counter against team compositions that lean on crowd control."

Fortify

• Damage reduction increased from 40% to 50%

Ramattra

Developer Comments: "Sometimes, the Ravenous Vortex projectile hits an enemy and bounces off unpredictably, delaying its activation. This quality-of-life change improves the ability's consistency and makes it easier to use against groups of enemies without fear of accidental collisions."

Ravenous Vortex

• Projectile now passes through enemy heroes, but is still blocked by barriers

Reinhardt

Developer Comments: "We are increasing Reinhardt's barrier uptime to help him better protect his allies. We'll be keeping an eye on this, as we want to avoid situations where players feel like they are always shooting at barriers."

Barrier Field

• Maximum health increased from 1,200 to 1,400

Wrecking Ball

Developer Comments: "Wrecking Ball rarely reloads his Quad Cannons manually due to the automatic reload that triggers while transformed into a Ball. This change makes reloading without changing forms a viable option."

Quad Cannons

• Manual reload time reduced from 2 to 1.6 seconds

Overwatch 2 Mid Season 5 Patch Notes: System Updates

On Fire Adjustments

• Fixed a bug that caused players to become "On Fire" at the start of a new round in Competitive Play when playing any game mode, or in Quick Play on Control maps
• "On Fire" and "Blazing" more difficult to obtain early in a round
• "On Fire" cooldown reduced to three seconds
• "On Fire" score decays slightly more quickly when a hero is not "On Fire"
• Maintaining "On Fire" is now more difficult

Competitive Updates - New Team Queue

Team Queue is a new Competitive mode for Overwatch 2, requiring a full squad of five players to queue together. Team Queue has no rank restrictions, and will be playable towards the end of Season 5. Here are some important rules for Team Queue below:

• Team Queue is limited to 1 Tank, 2 Damage, 2 Support, but players do not queue for specific roles, instead choosing when they are in the game
• Platform pool restrictions remain, e.g. console players can only play with fellow console players with no crossplay to PC
• Players can group up, regardless of how far apart they are in ranks

General Bug Fixes

• Fixed training bots blocking the ability to share Ultimate status
• Fixed cases where Junker Queen's knife would remain pingable if she died while the knife was not in her hand.
• Fixed an issue that resulted in the Career Profiles of friends sometimes appearing blank or missing items.
• Fixed an issue with the Questwatch background being incorrectly placed if you entered a match during a conversation.

Maps

• Blizzard World - Fixed lighting
• Circuit Royale - Fixed lighting
• Illios - Fixed lighting
• Numbani - Fixed areas on the map that allowed some heroes to escape the playable area
• Oasis - Fixed gaps in the map that could affect gameplay elements

Heroes

• Ashe - Fixed an issue with aim-down sight animation not matching the firing of her gun when used after melee attack
• Cassidy- Fixed a bug when Magnetic Grenade did not disable Baptiste's Exo Boost and Flight for Mercy's Valkyrie and Digna's Gravitic Flux
• Echo - Fixed a bug when Echo failed to play any voice lines after Duplicating a hero
• Kiriko - Fixed melee animation not playing correctly if used after Protection Suzu
• Orisa - Fixed an issue with overheating effects not playing correctly on some skins
• Ramattra - Fixed a bug where stunning Ramattra and interrupting Ravenous Vortex allowed the ability to be cast again immediately
• Reinhardt - Fixed an issue with Reinhardt's beard looking distorted in Hero Select
• Soldier: 76 - Fixed a bug that caused the animation of Heavy Pulse Rifle to not occur when using Tactical Visor with Kitsune Rush
• Sombra - Fixed an issue with Primary Fire not having priority over a pending Hack while Toggle Hack is enabled
• Tracer - Fixed a bug that caused the Hero Select sound effects of the Mythic Tracer skin to keep playing, even after switching heroes

Final Thoughts

Those are all the midseason Overwatch 2 patch notes for Season 5! Lifeweaver still has a long way to go regarding bug fixes and rebalancing, but hopefully, he will find his place in the meta soon. This is the last significant patch before Overwatch 2 Season 6 launches in mid-August!

Want more Overwatch 2 content? We have articles on the best crosshairs, all maps, hero unlock guides, and more on our blog page!