‘Overwatch 2’ Season 8 Patch Notes: Mauga, Balance Changes, Weapon Skins, MMR Decay And Much More

Mauga will officially join the Overwatch 2 roster when Season 8 goes live. It’s just about time for Season 8 of to get underway. Just ahead of Season 8 (a.

k. a. ) going live, Blizzard has revealed all the major changes that are coming to the game when it flips the switch on December 5.

. The new member of the tank lineup is very fun to play. However, it quickly emerged during his free trial weekend that Mauga was both underpowered and easy to take down (his large hitbox didn’t help).

So, he’s getting more sustainability as Blizzard has swapped out some of his health for armor and made his head hitbox smaller. His weapons have been buffed too. Elsewhere, Doomfist, Junker Queen, Ramattra, Winston, Torbjorn, Tracer and Kiriko have all received buffs.

Those on the losing end of the balance changes are Sigma, Mei, Soldier: 76, Baptiste and Brigitte, who have all been nerfed. As for Sombra, the reduced damage and longer ability lockout of EMP balance each other out, though I’d say it’s slightly more of a buff. As a regular Mei and Kiriko player, my bias will always show through when I argue that Mei nerfs are bad and Kiriko buffs (the reduction in Protection Suzu invulnerability time is relatively small) are good.

Meanwhile, ranked players may be pleased to hear that MMR decay will only come into effect at the start of each Competitive Play season. Reducing the maximum Ultimate charge players keep when swapping heroes from 25% to 15% could discourage swapping somewhat. The change will have an impact on Mystery Heroes as well — I’ll certainly be more likely to hit Q as soon as my Ult’s ready in that mode.

Also, I’m very happy that it’ll be easier to keep my level 5 endorsement ranking. Winter Wonderland is always a fun event and the new limited-time Battle of the Beasts mode seems intriguing too. I won’t get into the new Hero Mastery missions much here, since those won’t go live until next month.

Elsewhere, the introduction of weapon skins is definitely interesting. I’ll have more to say about that in another post, because we’ve got a ton of patch notes to go over and this intro’s getting pretty long. Here are the full patch notes for ), including Blizzard’s developer comments.

These updates will apply when Season 8 goes live on December 5: Mauga Introducing Mauga, a long-awaited tank hero who comes with a rapid-fire personality, massive stature, and brawl-centric abilities Incendiary Chaingun (Primary Fire) Volatile Chaingun (Secondary Fire) Overrun (Ability 1) Cardiac Overdrive (Ability 2) Cage Fight (Ultimate) Berserker (Passive) Battle of the Beasts Fight in a powerful brawl with epic and powerful Grand Beasts in a fun 4v4 PvPvE game mode: The Battle of the Beasts. In a clash of Grand Beasts, protect yours while coordinating with your team to defeat the enemy beast. You’ll be able to play Mauga for free as the only tank to play in this mode, or try your hand as one of many other hunter-themed heroes and tear through the Grand Beast’s health while trying to avoid powerful abilities.

May the best hunters win. Winter Wonderland 2023 Ring in the holidays with the Winter Wonderland event! Check out our heroes celebrating in style with all-new Holiday skins. Beat challenges and unlock one free legendary skin of your choice – choose from the stylish Formalwear skins for Cassidy or Baptiste, or the cozy Winter Jammies Illari skin.

Dive into the action with returning fan-favorite event modes like Mei’s Snowball Offensive and Yeti Hunt, with new challenges and rewards. Winter Wonderland launches on Tuesday, December 19. Introducing Weapon Skins Introducing Weapon Skins – a new way to customize your heroes.

We’re kicking things off with the Hard Light theme for Rein, Reaper, and Mercy. These sleek designs with custom visual and sound effects can be equipped with any of these heroes’ skins. Look out for other Weapon Skins coming in future seasons.

We’re excited about weapon customization, and this is just the first step. As we create more Weapon Skins, we want to hear about what you love about the skins. Your feedback is key as we evolve Weapon Skins and introduce new looks and more ways to customize your heroes.

General Updates Next wave of Hero Mastery courses will launch starting on January 2, 2024, in a five-week event featuring a new course each week with new challenges and cosmetic rewards to earn. An exciting new way to view Hero Mastery replays is now available, Replay Bookmarks! Extra reticle settings have been added for specific Heroes with multiple Weapon Modes. Players can now customize the modes separately or keep them in sync.

The following Heroes have access to the new options: A new option for the Reticle’s Outline Color has been added, and the Outline Opacity has been separated from the main Opacity. Players who have previously hidden their Dot by setting its Opacity to zero will now need to set the Dot’s Size to zero instead. In a further effort to discourage players from repeatedly leaving games and impacting the experience for others, we are increasing the suspension times for leaving too many matches from Unranked modes.

These suspension thresholds only occur when you leave multiple games among your most recent games played. We know this may impact those who are having issues with their connection when playing , and would encourage testing your connection in custom games or the Practice Range as you troubleshoot your connection prior to playing modes that involve other players. Troubleshooting your connection to can be found in .

Competitive Play Updates General Hero Updates Tank Updates Meteor Strike Scattergun Base health reduced from 500 to 350. Incendiary and Volatile Chainguns Overrun Cardiac Overdrive Berserker (Passive) Void Accelerator Experimental Barrier Tesla Cannon Damage Heroes Endothermic Blaster Biotic Field EMP Overload The health decrease on Overload severely impacted Torbjorn’s overall effectiveness so we’re reverting that change. Pulse Pistols Support Heroes Biotic Launcher Whip Shot Healing Ofuda Protection Suzu Valkyrie Maps Updates New Holiday decorations added to the following maps! New Lighting Scenarios Bug Fixes Hero Mastery Story Missions Other Fixes Busan Horizon Lunar Colony Nepal Samoa Cassidy Echo Hanzo Illari Lifeweaver Mauga Orisa Roadhog Sombra.