Overwatch 2 season 6 early patch notes: All hero balance changes, new hero, and more

Overwatch 2: Invasion is less than a week away, and with its own special name, season six is poised to provide more new content than any other since the game’s launch last fall.

Along with the highly-anticipated addition of PvE Story Missions, the game will also receive two new maps that are a part of a new permanent gamemode called Flashpoint. Oh, and did we forget to mention that a new support hero is on the way too?

There’s going to be a lot to digest when season six starts on Thursday Aug. 10, and as game director Aaron Keller pointed out in a Dev Take post on Friday, hero balance changes are on the way for “nearly half” the game’s roster of close to 40 playable characters.

Blizzard hasn’t posted official patch notes for the season yet, but they’ve given us enough teasers and previews that there’s plenty of information to help us mentally prepare. Without further adieu, here are our early patch notes for Overwatch 2 season six.

Overwatch 2 season 6: All Invasion patch notes so far

PvE Story Missions

Players have been waiting for this day since Blizzard announced Overwatch 2 at BlizzCon 2019, and while it won’t be exactly what Blizzard promised, there’s still plenty to take in when it comes to Story Missions.

The Overwatch 2: Invasion Story Missions will include three missions that take place in Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, and Gothenburg. Each will have its own distinct map that players haven’t yet explored. Players will be able to gain access to these missions for $15, but the bundle for them will also include 1,000 OW coins as well as a new Legendary Sojourn skin.

Additionally, Blizzard is giving players a bonus co-op mission in an area of King’s Row that players haven’t yet had a chance to visit called the “Omnic Underworld.”

Many players took issue with needing to pay for PvE in Overwatch 2, but as soon as I saw the goodies that you get from the bundle, it immediately made me feel better about shelling out a few bucks. I enjoy adding Legendary skins to my hero gallery as much as I do winning comp matches, and having an extra 1,000 coins to throw at a new Zenyatta or Sombra skin at some point makes the $15 investment well worth it for me.

Flashpoint

Flashpoint is the first new permanent game mode to be added since Push, when Overwatch 2 released last October. The new game mode is effectively Control Point, but on a much larger scale.

Players will fight for a control point that unlocks shortly after the match begins, but once a team wins that point, the game doesn’t pause. Instead, a new control point will unlock somewhere else on these vast maps, and players will continue the fight as they head to a new location. The first team to win three control points wins that match.

To account for how many points there are on these maps, five, Blizzard intentionally made the two Flashpoint maps, Suravasa (India) and New Junk City (Australia) absolutely massive.

New support hero

Blizzard started teasing a new hero coming for season six in June during a trailer for Overwatch 2: Invasion, and since then the teasing has only amplified.

Along with Internet sleuths deducing that our new support hero would likely be from Peru, game director Aaron Keller admitted that much of what players have speculated is true, and he even teased us with an image that confirmed speculation that our new support hero gets whatever powers she has from the sun.

Related: Who could be the new Overwatch 2 support hero?

Meanwhile, Keller said in his final Dev Take blog post before the start of season six that the team learned a “lesson” from their previous hero release. After Lifeweaver needed numerous buffs to be any semblance of playable, Keller insinuated that the upcoming hero might be a bit overpowered to start.

As a support main myself who isn’t having too much fun using Ana whenever I have to be a main healer, I’m here for it. Please, give us a new hero that can pump some massive HPS so we don’t need to spam the same heroes we’ve always been pigeonholed into playing.

Hero balance changes

Keller shared a number of upcoming hero balance changes coming in season six, but despite mentioning more than 10 heroes by name, he barely seemed to scratch the surface of the changes to come that will completely shake up the game’s meta.

Here is a list of all heroes that Keller directly mentioned will receive nerfs or buffs on Aug. 10: 

• Cassidy
• Torbjörn
• Soldier: 76
• Orisa
• Lifeweaver
• Kiriko
• Mercy
• Ramattra
• Doomfist
• Sombra
• Bastion

Cassidy will get a much-needed nerf to the range on his Magnetic Grenade with a reduction on its max travel time dropping to 1.5 seconds. Meanwhile, he will get a health buff and changes to damage falloff.

Torbjörn’s primary fire is getting a damage and fire rate buff. He will also get a weapon swap buff.

Soldier: 76’s mid-cycle season five buff is getting scaled back slightly. While Keller said that while the team doesn’t consider him to be “oppressive,” many players considered him to be especially irritating to play against follow the patch. His Helix Rocket damage is set to be nerfed, and his Ultimate cost is going to increase.

Orisa is getting a 125 health bonus added to her Fortify ability, and her primary fire damage falloff is getting “slightly extended.”

Lifeweaver is receiving yet another buff to add to his collection. This time his Tree of Life Ultimate ability is getting boosted to now provide up to 100 overhealth. Additionally, his Rejuvenating Dash is getting a bump in how much it heals. The team is also converting some of his health to regenerating shields.

Kiriko’s Protection Suzu is getting a swathe of changes including it healing less unless it’s cleansing a negative effect. In those cases it will do an additional burst heal. The Suzu’s knockback is getting removed as well. 

Mercy’s damage boost is getting reduced to 25 percent, down from 30 percent. This comes after many DPS players noted on social media that damage heroes often get a bad reputation as being too powerful at times when it’s actually Mercy’s damage boost that’s making them seem that way.

Sombra will get “a few small changes,” but Keller didn’t specify what that entailed. The move makes sense though because she has a significantly larger rework coming in season seven, which Keller said will include a new ability.

Ramattra and Doomfist’s blocks will reduce stuck damage, and Bastion’s kit is getting tweaked to “help him feel more fluid.”

With such a wide array of changes, it’s tough to see how things will shake out as far as the meta is concerned. Especially when considering how a new powerful hero could impact things, I truly have no way of guessing what’s in store for us. I just plan on getting into some games and feeling it out before making any bold statements about the state of the season six meta.

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