Overwatch 2 Season 9 is launching in less than a week, and Blizzard has just spilled the beans on all the major changes arriving with it. Chief among these is a brand-new progression system for Competitive modes and some quality-of-life adjustments to projectiles, health pools, and more.
You can watch a trailer for the new season below:
Blizzard also shared a lengthy blog post breaking down most of the new season’s changes, so we’re going to dive right into those. Let’s get started:
Overwatch 2 Season 9 Update Details:
Competitive Changes
Overwatch 2 now displays a Rank Progress bar in the middle of your competitive matches. There are a handful of modifiers that can affect how much progress you gain or lose towards your next rank, such as win and loss streaks, whether or not a match is considered an uphill battle, and more. These modifiers are displayed below your rank bar each match and help clarify why your progress might have moved the way it did in the match prior.
As part of the overhaul, everyone’s ranks will be reset. After 10 Placement Matches, players will be placed into the proper ranks, and after each match they can see a predicted starting rank. There’s also a new Champion rank, which sits above Grandmaster.
Jade Weapon Rewards
Jade weapon skins will now be unlocked after earning 3,000 competitive points on any given Hero. These points are easier to obtain than Champion rank, and you’ll gain them even during losses, so through enough playtime, these weapons can be yours.
For those concerned about working towards Golden Weapons, worry not. Through the end of Season 8, players can still earn Competitive Points toward unlocking Golden Weapon Variants. When Season 9 starts, your previously earned Competitive Points will be converted to Legacy Competitive Points.
You’ll still be able to use Legacy Competitive Points to unlock the Golden Weapon Variants, but the way you receive Legacy Competitive Points will change. Once the 2024 Competitive Year closes, any leftover 2024 Competitive Points will automatically be converted and added to your Legacy Competitive Points, which can be used to unlock Golden Weapon Variants.
Core Gameplay Changes
The team is also implementing some changes to make the game feel better to play overall. They’re adjusting the majority of projectile sizes to make them larger and more consistent to hit. For example, bullets from Tracer’s Pulse Pistols and Reaper’s Hellfire Shotguns have had increased in size by 0.05 meters, while Pharah’s rockets have increased by 0.15 meters. This is to make shooting feel more consistent and satisfying.
Health pool changes have also been made. Heroes with 150-175 HP have received a 25 HP increase, 200-300 HP Heroes are increased by 50 HP, and 300+ HP Tanks are increased by 75-100 HP. This is to balance out the increase in accuracy for most Heroes and prevent players from feeling like they’re dying too quickly.
To make sure these changes don’t affect Support and Damage roles, each have received slight buffs. To make healing easier, each player now regenerates 20 HP/sec after 5 seconds of not taking damage. Support characters heal begins after 2.5 seconds. On the other hand, Damage roles have a new passive that causes targets they damage to receive a 20% reduction to any healing.
Overwatch 2 Season 9 launches on February 13. We’ll be sure to post the patch notes when they drop.
Source: Blizzard
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