Overwatch 2 season 6 mid-cycle patch notes: All hero balance changes and Hero Mastery

Overwatch 2’s mid-cycle patch for season six might not have quite as much content packed into it as the initial season six patch, but as far as mid-cycle patches are concerned, this is one of the more jam-packed updates you’ll find.

Along with hero balance changes to eight different heroes, Blizzard has finally introduced the Hero Mastery system that allows players to work on their hero-specific mechanics for a few of the game’s most popular heroes.

While this is just a mid-cycle update, the notes here are a bit beefier than what we’re used to. So let’s jump straight into it with the season six mid-cycle patch notes.

Overwatch 2 season six mid-cycle patch notes: Hero Mastery

Blizzard has finally added Hero Mastery to Overwatch 2 with three heroes available in the single-player mode—Reinhard, Tracer, and Mercy. The game mode has courses that are customized for the specific hero you select, and the mode has a scoring system that allows you to work toward achieving high scores on a global leaderboard.

The mode has three different difficulties, and while there are just three heroes you can play for now, Blizzard announced today that it will be adding Sojourn as an option on Sept. 12 and Winston on Sept. 19.

Overwatch 2 season six mid-cycle hero balance changes

Support heroes

• Duration until support role passive activates has been increased to two seconds, up from 1.5.

Blizzard commented that these changes were made to account for general survivability adjustments that the team made to individual support heroes that make them “quite strong overall.”

Junker Queen

• Jagged Blade Impact damage increased to 65, up from 50.

There isn’t much to say about this one. Players who are accurate with their Jagged Blade will be rewarded for their projectile prowess. And if you get caught out by a Junker Queen, you’ll feel that much more silly for being caught out in the open by the enemy tank.

Orisa

• Fortify cooldown begins when the ability is activated, not when it ends. Cooldown increased to 16.5 seconds, up from 12. Overhealth bonus decreased to 100, down from 125.

These changes largely make it so that you’ll still have about the same amount of downtime, but it will incentivize Orisa players to not prematurely cancel their Fortify. Blizzard’s notes suggest this will make Orisa “more susceptible to counterplay.”

Zarya

• Projected Barrier health increased to 225, up from 200, and cooldown decreased to eight seconds, down from 10. Barrier size increased 15 percent.

This is only for her Projected Barrier, not her personal Barrier, but it very well might be the most notable buff any hero received in this patch. I think you might start seeing more Zarya players in your ranked games as a result.

Ashe 

• Viper reload time decreased to 0.2 seconds, down from 0.25.

Ashe has the longest reload time in the game because of her ability to stop mid-reload to shoot. But if you’ve spent any amount of time playing her, you know just how gruelingly long a full reload takes. This is definitely a small buff, but it’s more of a quality-of-life improvement than anything.

Bastion

• A-36 Tactical Grenade impact damage decreased to 15, down from 30.
• Configuration: Artillery can no longer deal crits.

Being able to crit with Bastion’s Artillery ultimate kind of always felt a little bit weird. Additionally, the damage reduction to his Tactical Grenade comes after a larger rework that buffed it to start season six. This is just Blizzard reeling those buffs in a little bit.

Mei

• Endothermic Blaster damage increased to 70 per second, up from 65. Duration before slow falls off between primary fire hits upped to 0.6 seconds, from 0.5.
• Deep Chill bonus damage can be triggered with Mei’s melee.

Blizzard admitted Mei is “underperforming” following her most recent changes. Ever since the reintroduction of a slow on her Endothermic Blaster, the team has seemed to have a difficult time finding the right tuning for her kit. Don’t be surprised if she gets tweaked again in a month with the start of season seven.

Baptiste

• Regenerative Burst instant healing and heal over time each decreased to 40, down from 50. 

Blizzard’s notes suggest this ability has been “too effective after gaining the bonus instant heal for low-health allies.” In any situation, being able to quickly heal half your health as a support is a powerful survivability tool, so it shouldn’t be surprising that it’s been dropped just a smidge.

Kiriko

• Protection Suzu now passes through enemies.

The justification for this is that it doesn’t knock back enemies anymore, so it effectively just becomes a nice little quality-of-life improvement for Kiriko. And let’s be real, after all the bugs she’s had to deal with, she deserves it.