Overwatch Patch Notes (Aug 11, 2026): what changed

Map Reworks: Paraíso, Eichenwalde, Busan

Choose your path through the Battle Pass. You no longer need to unlock every reward in a fixed linear order. You can choose which rewards you want to pursue first and can change tracks anytime after completion of the Intro track.

• Swap for a skin you want more. Once per Battle Pass, swap one Battle Pass skin for a curated skin from the seasonal Swap Pool.

Tune into Shooting Star: My MEKA Mania and make your vote count from August 11–31!

Team Status Indicator: A new counter above the Kill Feed shows how many teammates and enemies are alive on the battlefield. For allies, a progress bar shows when they are respawning after being eliminated. This feature can be disabled under Gameplay -> HUD -> Show Team Status Indicator. This feature also has an experimental setting that's set to "Respawn Time" by default called "Walkback Calculation Progress Bar". If you're feeling adventurous, try changing this setting to "Dynamic", which includes an estimate of how long it will take your allies to get back to the fight. Be sure to let us know what you think!

New Stat - Protects: Added a new stat to the game similar to Saves which tracks when a player has mitigated significant damage near allies. Players will be notified with a new Activity Feed callout when they successfully Protect (or are Protected by) a teammate. Additionally, there will be a new Daily Challenge centered around Protects.

Healing and Status HUD visual updates: Made some improvements to how healing and player status are displayed on the HUD. Improved VFX for healing, status effect icons, and critical damage will give players a much clearer indication of when their health is being affected by healing and abilities. Improved health bar VFX for supports will give them a better indication of how their healing and abilities are aiding allies.

Multi-Kill celebration: Added new callouts and new VO to celebrate when anyone scores a multi-kill (from 2x upwards). New icons will display in the Activity Feed and in the Kill Feed.

Percentage Damage Dealt: Brought back an indicator on the Activity Feed which tells you what % of the damage you contributed to an elimination.

The ping system has undergone a major technical refactor under the hood that makes the system approximately 1.5x more efficient on average, but up to 30x more efficient in some edge cases, while also using considerably less memory.

The requirements for the Daily Challenge "Untouchable" have been reduced to 5 eliminations instead of 10.

Various movie players (including the narrative viewer) now have the ability to seek.

With a mouse, you can seek to any point in a movie, and with controller/keyboard you can skip +- 10s.

Many movie players will also now remember your progress after leaving and returning to the same video.

A new Rank has been added between Platinum and Diamond called Emerald. As we've shown in the past, the majority of our players are in Gold and Platinum, so adding a new Rank closer to the middle of the skill curve gives many players a better sense of Rank identity, a new goal to achieve, and increases fidelity in assessing skill for many players.

Titles and Weapon Charms for Emerald have been added.

This Rank Redistribution primarily focuses on moving players that were Platinum and Diamond into Emerald, but the highest Divisions of Champion will now also be more exclusive.

A new UI element has been added to the Competitive Overview that shows how your Rank compares to all other players in a given queue.

Like Drives, Team Drives are limited-time events that award Competitive Points and a unique new visual reward! Unlike Drives, any time you win a match in a Team Drive, you'll be automatically grouped with all winning players. Why stay chained to the other gladiators and not just leave the group? Because each consecutive win as a team grants a big increasing bonus to Fame (similar to Drive Score) that will launch you through the Gladiator Ranks toward completion. You'll keep your individual bonus if you leave the group to queue again solo, but you won't benefit from the bonuses of all the other winners you just played with. You can also create your own full stacks and play only with friends if you want. There's also an option found under Social → General → Groups called "Enable Auto-Grouping on Team Drive Wins" that you can turn Off if you prefer to avoid grouping altogether, but the event will be much harder to complete solo since you won't benefit from other winners nearly as often.

While Gladiator Ranks are very similar to Checkpoints from Drives, a Team Drive can only be completed by passing The Trail, requiring players to win 3 out of their last 4 matches.

Instead of awarding Signatures that attach to your name plate, Team Drives award Player Card Frames that are visible where your Player Card is visible.

The first 10,000 players to complete the Team Drive by finishing The Trial will unlock a temporary dynamic title showing the order that they completed the event in. Can your stack be the #1 Gladiators? These titles will be unlocked at the end of the Team Drive.

The first Team Drive will take place September 4th 11 AM PT - September 7th 11 AM PT, in the days leading up to the mid-season patch.

Grandmaster 2 - Increased from 175 to 200

Grandmaster 1 - Increased from 200 to 250

Champion 5 - Increased from 250 to 350

Champion 4 - Increased from 300 to 450

Champion 3 - Increased from 400 to 550

Champion 2 - Increased from 550 to 700

Champion 1- Increased from 700 to 900

Added D.Mon to the Tank roster (Subrole: Stalwart).

Additional healing from health packs reduced from 75 to 50.

Barrier health increased from 450 to 500.

Damage increased from 50 to 60.

Ultimate cost increased by 7%.

Reduced the number of Bonespur hits required from 14 to 12.

Overhealth gained per shot increased from 3 to 4.

Cooldown increased from 5 to 6 seconds. (5v5)

Charged Javelin – Major Perk

• Removed.

Heavy Javelin - Major Perk

• New
• Energy Javelin's knockback is increased by 25% and its wall impact damage is increased by 15.

Ultimate cost reduced by 6%.

Healing increased from 30 to 35.

Even the Odds – Minor Perk

• Removed.

Giddy Up - Minor Perk

• New
• After using Combat Roll, Cassidy gains a 60% movement speed boost that decays over 1.5 seconds.

Aerial Munitions - Minor Perk

• New
• Echo has infinite ammo during Flight.

High Beams – Major Perk

• Removed.

Moved from Minor to Major Perk.

Focusing Beam's range is increased by 8 meters and movement speed is increased by 25% when active.

Range increased from 6 to 8 meters.

Movement speed increased from 15% to 25%.

Ultimate cost reduced by 6%.

Slow duration increased from 1 to 1.5 seconds.

Ultimate cost reduced by 6%.

Cooldown increased from 7 to 8 seconds.

Ground launch detection radius reduced from 1.5 to 1 meter.

Chronal Dash – Minor Perk

• Removed.

Temporal Regen - Minor Perk

• New
• Passive health regeneration triggers 50% faster.

Cooldown reduced from 13 to 12 seconds.

Cooldown on spawn reduced from 7 to 3 seconds.

Ultimate cost reduced by 8%.

Drill Dash distance is increased from 50% to 75%.

Total amount of shields gained increased from 30 to 40.

Ultimate cost increased by 7%.

Base movement speed increased from 5.5 to 6 meters per second.

Air acceleration increased from 7.7 to 9.5.

Headbutt – Major Perk

• Removed.

Purrfect Form - Major Perk

• New
• Each pulse of Purr contains 3 waves.

Movement speed bonus reduced from 40% to 30%.

Target lock on minimum time reduced from 0.5 to 0.35 seconds.

Can now be manually cancelled with the Jump input after 0.6 seconds.

Base pull speed reduced from 30 to 25 meters per second.

Targets pulled from further than 15 meters move slower and accelerate over time.

New general hero setting added for disabling Life Grip cancel controls.

Movement speed gained reduced from 25% to 20%.

Projectile size reduced from 0.35 to 0.3.

Cooldown increased from 11 to 12 seconds.

Maximum degrees increased from 10 to 15 degrees.

Lifesteal increased from 10 to 15%.

Reworked from "[Defense Matrix] heals you for 30% of the damage it blocks" to "When you mitigate 150 damage with [Defense Matrix], heal yourself for 15% of that damage and all other allies within 6m for 25% of that damage".

Added "when dealing Weapon damage to enemies beyond 8m, [Defense Matrix] recovers 33% faster".

Damage reduced to 40 (Down from 60).

Duration reduced to 2s (Down from 3s).

MEKA Evac Shield - Power

• New
• "+50% [Call Mech] Radius. When ejecting or re-entering your [Mech], grant Overhealth equal to 20% of Max Life for 5s".

Reworked from Express Detonation.

Changed from "+50% [Call Mech] Radius. [Self-Destruct] explodes 15% faster" to "[Self-Destruct] explodes 25% faster and costs 50% less Ultimate Charge but deals 75% reduced damage and only grants 75% Ultimate Charge after detonation".

Changed from "During the first 2s of [Boosters], [Defense Matrix] recovers 125% faster" to "[Boosters] damage grants 0.5s [Booster] Duration and restores 5% [Defense Matrix] Resource and heals 5% Max Life".

Now scales from Max Life instead of Max Shields and Armor.

Scaling reduced to 15% (Down from 25%).

Now counts as [Boosters] damage.

Matrix Empowerment - Epic Weapon Hero Item

• New
• 10% Attack Speed
• "When you mitigate 150 damage with [Defense Matrix], deal 20% increased Weapon Damage for 3s".

Vesuvius Protocol - Rare Ability Hero Item

• Removed.

Reworked from Dae-Hyun's Detonator.

Changed from "If your [Mech] detonates while mid-air, increase [Self-Destruct] explosion damage and range by 100%" to "During [Self-Destruct], if your [Mech] detonates while mid-air or deals [Boosters] damage, [Self-Destruct] explodes 100% larger and causes enemies to take 50% more damage for 5s".

Robo-Bowling - Epic Ability Hero Item

• New
• 25 Armor.
• 15% Ability Power.
• During [Self-Destruct], [Boosters] move 50% faster, deal 300% bonus damage, and knock up enemies.

Solo Spec - Rare Survival Hero Item

• Removed.

Reworked from Busan Blaster.

Changed from "Ability: Use [Secondary Fire] while de-meched to fire an explosive piercing shot that deals 80 damage" to "While ejected from your [Mech], hold [Jump] to fly and hold [Secondary Fire] to fire an explosive shot that deals up to 80 damage and slows enemies by 30% for 3s".

Critical damage increased to 100% (Up from 75%).

Reworked to Power.

Now increases Weapon Damage instead of granting Weapon Power.

Max Damage reduced to 30% (Down from 40%).

Reworked to Item.

Added 15% Weapon Lifesteal.

Attack Speed during Fortify increased to 15% (Up from 10%).

Added 10000 Cost.

Added "[Energy Javelin] critical hits reduce an additional 1.5s".

Detonation bonus damage reduced to 25 (Down from 50).

Ravenous Vortex bonus damage reduced to 15% (Down from 30%).

Cost increased to 9000 (Up from 3750).

Ultimate Cost reduction increased to 60% (Up from 50%).

Bingo - Epic Weapon Hero Item.

• New
• 10% Weapon Power
• "[Frag Launcher] Direct Hits without bouncing reduce cooldown of all abilities by 20%".
• 11000 Cost.

Added "Landing a scoped [Sleep Dart] reduces its cooldown by 5s".

75 base damage now only applies to scoped [Sleep Dart].

Increased base damage now works with Comfy Cloud.

Max Life heal increased to 20% (Up from 15%).

Increased duration for each Purr target reduced to 10% (Down from 15%).

Max increased duration reduced to 50% (Down from 75%).

Now triggers off of any damage instead of just Ability damage.

Added 20% [Purr] Cooldown Reduction.

Cost increased to 11000 (Up from 10000).

Cost reduced to 5000 (Down from 10000).

Added "cooldown is reduced by 20% when used without a target".

Empowered shots increased to 5 (Up from 3).

Cooldown refund increased to 25% (Up from 20%).

Duration increased to 5s (Up from 4s).

Empowered shots increased to 3 (Up from 2).

Damage per extra Orb increased to 30% (Up from 20%).

Cost reduced to 10000 (Down from 12000).

Cost increased to 11000 (Up from 10000).

Added 10% Ability Power.

Cooldown reduction every 1s increased to 0.5s (Up from 0.3s).

Cost increased to 12000 (Up from 10000).

Weapon Power increased to 20% (Up from 10%).

Hydro Mender - Rare Survival Hero Item

• Removed.

Cost reduced to 3750 (Down from 4000).

Hydration Break - Epic Survival Hero Item

• New.
• 50 Shields.
• "When you use [Rushing Torrent], place Passive [Restorative Stream] on yourself with 25% reduced healing".
• 9000 Cost.

Fixed an issue where Brigitte's Inspiring Strike perk failed to provide its intended instant healing effect.

Fixed an issue that caused Mizuki's Katashiro's Return to not trigger when the return point was positioned too close to the payload.

Fixed an issue preventing Execution from appearing as a toggleable option in Custom Game settings.

Fixed an issue where the challenge "A Wee Minidin" had become unintentionally difficult to complete.

Fixed an issue that prevented Reaper from queueing a reload while actively firing Dire Triggers.

Fixed an issue where the Survivor sub‑role incorrectly triggered its passive healing effect without a corresponding movement ability.

Fixed an issue where Doomfist's Survival of the Fittest perk was not granting the correct amount of Max Overhealth.

Fixed an issue with Hanzo's Frost Arrow Perk that would occur when activated on a controller.

In a previous update, fixed an issue where Vortex Vial didn't grant the proper amount of Health.

In a previous update, fixed an issue where Three Tap Tommygun didn't work properly on D.Va.

In a previous update, fixed an issue where Friendly Fissure with Asteroid Smash wouldn't have any falloff damage.

In a previous update, fixed an issue where Lucio's Nano Boop item combined with Reverb was dealing more damage than intended.

Fixed an issue where D.Va could reset her boosters cooldown by destroying barriers and deployable when using MEKA Punch.

Fixed an issue where Junkrat's Bango Power would override the burn from Lithium Alloy.

Fixed an issue where Junkrat's Refreshing Radiation item removed the cooldown reduction from Successful Heist.

Fixed an issue where Skyline Nanite wasn't working properly with DOTs.