April Fools’ brings significant temporary hero changes to Overwatch 2

With April Fools’ Day on the horizon and googly eyes set to be plastered on every face in Overwatch 2, Blizzard has updated how each hero plays in a new limited-time Arcade game mode. Fitting for April Fools’ Day, while only for a short time, the heroes have received some massive changes, from being able to fly to using voice lines to heal randomly. 

This comes on top of the classic googly eyes that the Overwatch team introduced in previous years.

These changes only apply to the new Arcade game mode, so you won’t be able to fly with Reinhardt in ranked or quick play.

Temporary hero changes to Overwatch 2

For this Arcade game mode, every single hero in Overwatch 2 is getting changes that fit the April Fools’ Day theme. The term “experimental” might be too simple of a word to describe some of these changes.

Tank changes

• Doomfist: Power Block empowers Seismic Slam, increases damage, and knocks enemies in the air.
• D.Va: After deflecting a projectile with her Defense Matrix, it now does 30 damage to enemies within it for one second, and kills give five percent ult charge.
• Junker Queen: Commanding Shout causes enemies within the radius to bleed.
• Orisa: Javelin Spin pulls Orisa toward the direction it faces in mid-air, and Fortify now increases falling speed and does damage in an area when hitting the ground.
• Ramattra: No more Omnic Form, only Nemesis form. Void Barrier is still available, and Block has a one-second cooldown when not in combat.
• Reinhardt: Charge now can fly. Hold jump to float up and crouch to go down. Steering improved by 33 percent.
• Roadhog: Chain Hook has 50 percent increased range.
• Sigma: Accretion now also makes enemies go into a low gravity state when hit for four seconds, shorter cooldown.
• Winston: Unknown, will update when known.
• Wrecking Ball: Maximum speed increased when bouncing off walls, mines now move slowly toward enemies.

DPS changes

• Ashe: Fire from Dynamite spreads up to four times, to nearby players.
• Bastion: When in turret form, his grenade has a 0.5-second cooldown.
• Cassidy: Combat Roll now uses stamina instead of a cooldown, dodges all damage but only reloads two bullets.
• Echo: Now shoots five shots with her primary fire instead of three, damage per pellet lowered.
• Genji: Now can self-heal randomly when requesting for healing.
• Hanzo: Storm Arrow will always bounce toward where the Sonic Arrow is.
• Junkrat: When jumping with a mine, he drops grenades similar to when he dies.
• Mei: Ice Wall now is bigger and has more configurations.
• Pharah: Rockets don’t deal any self-damage and have increased knockback, including Barrage, which now has self-knockback. Hover Jets are 33 percent cheaper to use.
• Reaper: Movement no longer locked when teleporting.
• Sojourn: Power Slide now does damage to enemies, launching them up and down for 1.5 seconds.
• Solider: 76: Biotic Field now sticks to Solider: 76.
• Sombra: Translocator now does damage when used to teleport. Projectile speed increased, cooldown reduced.
• Symmetra: Turrets now are activated mid-flight and have higher resistance before they land on an object.
• Torbjörn: Overload now allows his gun and hammer to ignite enemies for a short time.
• Tracer: Recall now sucks in enemies when used, Pulse Bomb arming time increased.
• Widowmaker: Critical hits now poison enemies, making them trackable for Widowmaker and doing their damage over time.

Support changes

• Ana: Biotic Rifle can now headshot enemies.
• Baptiste: Exo Boots can now jump higher with longer charge, and holding jump will make Baptiste bounce.
• Brigitte: Whip Shot now pulls Brigitte towards her target.
• Kiriko: Swift Step range increased from 35 feet to 350 feet, with higher cooldown on the ability based on distance traveled with it.
• Lucio: Soundwave now deflects projectiles, cooldown lowered.
• Mercy: Caduceus Blaster has heavily increased damage and projectile speed.
• Moira: Biotic Orb can now stop and start in mid-air when pressing the ability input.
• Zenyatta: When using his kick in mid-air, now launches him in that direction.

On top of the above changes, all heroes have new ultimate voice lines and keep 50 percent of their ultimate charge when swapping. Tank heroes get ultimate charge 10 percent faster, but enemies that get the final blow on tanks get more ultimate charge than normal. 

DPS heroes get 50 health on every elimination they get. Support heroes get increased movement speed when on low health, 30 percent extra movement speed for four seconds. 

Keep in mind, with this focus on April Fools’ Day, only expect this Arcade game mode and these big hero changes for a limited time. The team hinted on Twitter that these might not be all of the hero changes, too.