All Hero buffs & nerfs in Overwatch 2 Season 12

Overwatch 2 Season 12 is here, and it brings a ton of Hero buffs and nerfs to make sure matches feel as balanced as possible.

The update introduces the new Support character Juno, who is likely to be an incredibly popular pick on day one. However, these tweaks to the existing roster will help decide the meta and who the best heroes are.

Blizzard already confirmed to changes to Lifeweaver and more mobile characters, so here are all the Hero buffs and nerfs Overwatch 2 Season 12.

Overwatch 2 Season 12 Hero changes

Tank

D.Va

Developer Comment: The increase in Defense Matrix availability didn’t help D.Va’s overall performance that much compared to the amount of frustration it is causing players on the opposing team, so we’re reverting it to the previous duration.

Defense Matrix

• Maximum duration reduced from 3.5 to 3 seconds.

Orisa

Developer Comment: Orisa is still underperforming so we’re increasing the impact damage of Energy Javelin to better reward accuracy with the ability.

Energy Javelin

• Impact damage increased from 60 to 80.

Zarya

Developer Comment: Zarya’s secondary fire didn’t benefit much from the projectile size changes in Season 9 since it’s mostly aimed at the ground. We’re increasing its damage to keep it feeling effective relative to her primary fire beam.

Particle Cannon

• Secondary fire minimum damage increased from 47 to 55.
• Secondary fire maximum damage increased from 95 to 110.

Damage

Echo

Developer Comment: No additional adjustments to support the reduced health pool as, like Pharah, Echo was one of the top performing Damage heroes recently.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Hanzo

Developer Comment: Hanzo doesn’t quite fit the category of being as highly mobile as the other heroes we’re moving to 225 HP, but like Widowmaker, has the potential long-range lethality merits, as he is now able to one-shot the 225 HP heroes. It’s also nice for the Hanzo mirror match to be more decisive as well.

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Junkrat

Developer Comment: This is mostly a reversion back to how Junkrat’s grenades used to ricochet in early Overwatch, which enables more control over the angle of the bounce and helps the weapon better control spaces with some tricky shots, but the projectile size is now reduced after a couple of bounces so there will be fewer random feeling direct impacts near the end of the projectiles lifetime.

Frag Launcher

• Projectile size is now reduced by half after the second ricochet.
• Projectiles preserve slightly more velocity on ricochet.

Sojourn

Developer Comment: After reducing the maximum damage of the Railgun’s secondary fire, we’re continuing to look at the effectiveness of Sojourn’s primary fire. These changes are to make it more accurate and better reward accuracy by increasing the energy gained from headshots.

Railgun

• Primary fire weapon spread reduced from 2 to 1.6 degrees.
• Critical hits now grant 10 energy.
• Energy degeneration rate reduced from 33 to 15 per second after 7 seconds.

Sombra

Developer Comment: The increased movement speed while in stealth will better enable Sombra to get into advantageous positions or be slightly more evasive with the new lower health.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Virus

Impact damage increased from 25 to 35.

Stealth

Bonus movement speed increased from 45 to 60%.

Torbjörn

Developer Comment: This shift in armor health for Torbjorn is to increase survivability against the heroes which are most affected by armor’s damage reduction, such as Tracer.

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.
• Base armor increased from 50 to 75.

Support

Illari

Developer Comment: Illari can deal a lot of damage over the course of a game but may have too much ammo, given that her projectiles are easier to land hits due to their increased projectile size. We’re also removing the extra environment collision size on her Captive Sun projectile so that it doesn’t accidentally detonate early when firing at nearby walls and such. There is a similar fix to prevent her secondary fire beam from impacting a wall instead of allies near it.

Solar Rifle

• Maximum ammo reduced from 16 to 14.

Captive Sun

• Projectile environment collision size reduced from 0.15 to 0 meters.

Juno

Developer Comment: Community feedback on Juno’s trial was split between over and underpowered. On the stat side, she performed strongly in most every categories but particularly overperformed in healing output over the course of a game. These changes are improving her utility while pulling back lightly on healing throughput, since we’d still like her to launch in a strong state as players grow accustomed to her playstyle. There were also quite a few quality-of-life improvements that are listed elsewhere in the patch notes.

• Juno has been added to the lineup.
• Juno is now eligible for Competitive Play.
• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Mediblaster

• Burst projectile volley rate of fire reduced from 34 to 28 shots per second.

Pulsar Torpedoes

• Damage and Healing impact increased from 75 to 85.
• Heal-over-time reduced from 60 to 50 health.

Hyper Ring

• Deploy range increased by 3.5 meters.
• Cooldown reduced from 16 to 14 seconds.

Orbital Ray

• Beam travel speed increased from 1.9 to 2.25 meters per second.

Kiriko

Developer Comment: Despite the perception of how powerful Kiriko feels to play against, she is a hero that consistently underperforms when it comes to winning games. However, she is a highly evasive hero that makes a lot of sense to be in the 225 health bracket. To help counterbalance the loss of health, we’re smoothing out her damage dealing consistency by increasing the Kunai weapon’s base damage and removing the enhanced critical multiplier.

Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Kunai

• Critical multiplier reduced from 2.5 to 2x.
• Damage increased from 45 to 60.
• Recovery time increased from 0.5 to 0.55 seconds.

Lifeweaver

Developer Comment: The Petal Platform was too easy to waste if a player accidentally ran over it without intending to make use of it. Now it resets back to the ground if no one is standing on it. We’re also reducing its health so that it’s more reasonable counterplay to destroy the platform. Healing Blossom will now passively charge at a slower rate to enable players to swap between weapons without the fear of falling too far behind when swapping back to healing.

Healing Blossom

• Healing progress can now charge passively at a reduced rate.
• No longer reduces movement speed when holding a full charge.

Petal Platform

• Duration only counts down while the platform is raised.
• Platform now resets if no one is standing on it for 2 seconds.
• Duration increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
• Health reduced from 400 to 300.

Rejuvenating Dash

• Healing reduced from 60 to 45.

Mercy

Developer Comment: Mercy’s Guardian Angel movement enables her to be highly evasive and difficult to engage with for many heroes, but is also one of the most fun parts of her ability kit so we’d like to keep that strength, so we’re moving her to 225 HP and increasing the output of her Caduceus Staff beams.

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Caduceus Staff

• Primary fire healing increased from 55 to 60 health per second.
• Secondary fire damage boost increased from 25% to 30%.

Moira

Developer Comment: Moira can be difficult to take down between the low cooldown on her Fade ability and self-healing with the Biotic Orb, so now she has 225 HP and slightly higher damage output to keep an edge to her offensive potential.

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Biotic Grasp

• Secondary fire damage increased from 60 to 65 damage per second.

Lúcio

Developer Comment: Lucio is one of the most mobile heroes and makes his allies faster as well, so we’re moving him into the 225 HP hero category. His playstyle tends to get into closer ranges more often than other heroes in this category, so we’re turning up his Primary fire damage output to increase his effectiveness at range before diving in.

• Base health reduced from 250 to 225.

Sonic Amplifier

Primary fire damage increased from 18 to 22.

Overwatch 2 Season 12 also brings a new Battle Pass with an Egyptian mythology theme, as well as a World of Warcraft crossover.