Season 12 of Overwatch 2, New Frontiers, looks to explore both time and space with a Martian hero and ancient Egyptian theming.
After a playtest in July, Juno launches alongside season 12 as the game’s new support hero with an exciting way to play. But she’s just the beginning, with changes to Competitive play, hero balance, and more on the way.
Here’s everything new and changing in OW2’s season 12, New Frontiers.
Overwatch 2 season 12 patch notes
Read on below for the patch notes for OW2‘s season 12, New Frontiers.
Hero changes
Season 12 brings a bunch of hero balancing updates, including a reduction in health for mobile support and damage heroes, among several other changes to the hero pool.
Health nerfs have come for Juno, Echo, Sombra, Hanzo, Kiriko, Mercy, Moira and Lucio, who have all had their HP dropped from 250 to 225. Blizzard says that “mobility is very powerful and we would like for there to be more of a tradeoff for the flexibility that it brings, especially as we add speed boosting abilities by welcoming Juno to the game.”
Juno received a couple of buffs from her play test period, too, including a higher deploy range and lower cooldown for Hyper Ring, faster travel speed on her Orbital Ray ultimate, and a nerf to her Mediblaster’s rate of fire.
For the full list of patch notes, including slight buffs for Orisa and Zarya, several Lifeweaver changes, and buffs for Mercy’s healing and damage boost, check out the OW2 website.
New support hero: Juno
Juno is OW2’s 11th support hero, and she’s quite a bit of fun with a varied kit. Here are all of her abilities and what they do.
| Ability | Description |
|---|---|
| Mediblaster | Primary fire. Burst fire weapon that heals allies and damages enemies. |
| Pulsar Torpedoes | Secondary fire. Press Secondary Fire to lock on, then Primary Fire to fire homing projectiles. Heals allies over time and damages enemies. |
| Martian Overboots | Passive ability. While airborne, press jump to double jump and hold jump to hover. |
| Glide Boost | Glide horizontally with increased movement speed. |
| Hyper Ring | Deploy a ring that increases movement speed of allies that pass through it. |
| Ultimate: Orbital Ray | Call down a ray that travels forward, healing allies and increasing their damage. |
New mode, new maps
The new mode, Clash, is “an adrenaline-pumping game mode that pits teams against each other in a relentless battle for dominance over multiple capture points” that “guarantees fast-paced, strategic gameplay, offering new challenges and opportunities for glory.” Clash has “dynamic spawns and streamlined map routes” where “heroes can spend more time in the heat of battle and less time running back to the front lines.”
Two new maps, repurposed from older OW1 Assault maps, are being added as part of the addition of Clash. Temple of Anubis is back, and so is Shimada’s Castle from Hanamura in a new map called Hanaoka.
Spawn changes
In both Competitive Play and Quick Play, players will now spawn in “waves,” as opposed to groups. Wave Respawn means the default respawn timer is increased, but a “wave” will begin when the first player on a team dies. If someone else dies within six seconds of a wave beginning will spawn in that same wave, so teams will often spawn together with teammates.
For more on Wave Spawns, check out the OW2 website.
Competitive Play updates
Season 12 Competitive Play changes also includes a rank reset, along with an increase in players you can avoid, changes to how respawning works in all modes, and a new cosmetic frame for BattleTags linked to Competitive Play performance.
New battle pass and skins
This season’s battle pass includes five Legendary skins (Bast Doomfist, Oni Ana, Thoth Illari, Dorothy Ashe, and Captain Sigma) along with a new Mythic Reaper skin, Anubis, and a Mythic weapon skin for Ana, Midnight Sun to come later in the season.
