Overwatch 2 Season 10 Patch Notes: All Hero Buffs & Nerfs

Venture into the next new Overwatch 2 Season 10 as it goes live tomorrow, April 16, 2024. Some massive changes are coming to Blizzard Entertainment's popular hero shooter, including a brand-new Battle Pass, a new DPS hero, changes to Competitive Play grouping, and even some much-needed QoL updates to the Avoid as Teammate feature.

As always, there will also be changes to some unbalanced heroes, including Wrecking Ball and Tracer (who has been virtually untouched since OW2's launch), as Blizzard wants Tracer players to require more precision when gunning down their enemies.

Without further ado, here is what you can expect from the live patch notes for Overwatch 2 Season 10, including all hero changes taken straight from the live PTR experimental beta server.

*These patch notes represent general changes that will be made to the live version of Overwatch 2 Season 10. The balance changes listed affect Quick Play, Competitive Play, Arcade, and Custom Games.*

Overwatch 2 Season 10: Release Date

Overwatch 2 Season 10, titled Venture Forth in honor of the newest hero Venture, will go live on Tuesday, April 16, after an initial delay to the Season 9 Battle Pass.

All the exact release times are below.

• 10 AM PT
• 6 PM BST
• 7 PM CET
• 2 PM ET

As the new patch notes become live across all worldwide servers, Overwatch 2 and all in-game queues will be disabled to allow the changes to take effect. Players must download any new updates for Overwatch 2 through the Battle.net launcher.

Overwatch 2 Season 10: Hero Balance Changes

Tank Hero Changes

Doomfist

Rocket Punch

• Empowered punch no longer consumed when the windup is canceled by using Seismic Slam or Power Block

Junker Queen

Carnage

• Impact damage increased from 90 to 105

Reinhardt

Earthshatter

• Knockdown duration increased from 2.75 to 3 seconds
• Shockwave range increased from 20 to 25 meters

Sigma

Experimental Barrier

• Movement speed increased from 16.5 to 20 meters per second.

Wrecking Ball

Grappling Claw

• Reduced cooldown when not entering ramming speed, now to one second

Adaptive Shields

• After using Adaptive Shields, Wrecking Ball can reactivate the ability to transfer up to 300 overhealth to nearby allies
• Enemy and ally detection radius increased from 10 to 13 meters

Minefield

• Health increased from 50 to 60.

Damage Hero Changes

Sombra

Virus

Since Sombra's virus deals more contact damage, her overall ability damage is getting nerfed

• Damage-over-time reduced from 100 to 90

Tracer

Recall

• Cooldown increased from 12 to 13 seconds

Pulse Bomb

• Base projectile size decreased from 0.2 to 0.1 meters
• Total projectile size is now 0.25 meters

Venture

Drill Dash

• Impact damage decreased from 60 to 40
• Damage-over-time increased from 40 to 60

Clobber

• Impact damage decreased from 40 to 30
• Damage-over-time increased from 30 to 40

Tectonic Shock

• Vertical knockback decreased by 30%

Support Hero Changes

Illari

Primary Fire (Damage)

• Recovery time reduced from 0.2 seconds to 0.25 seconds

Secondary Fire (Healing)

• Healing-per-second increased from 105 to 115

Lucio

Sonic Amplifier

• Damage per projectile decreased from 20 to 18

Sound Wave

• Damage increased from 35 to 45

Lifeweaver

Rejuvenating Dash

• Self-heal increased from 50 to 60

Tree of Life

• Pulse healing increased from 75 to 90

Moira

Biotic Grasp

• Damage per second decreased from 65 to 60

Coalescence

• Self-heal per second increased from 50 to 55

Overwatch 2 Season 10: New Hero Venture

You can't spell "Adventure" without "Venture!" New Overwatch 2 hero Venture will be a milestone character as the 40th to be added to the game's evergrowing roster. A unique fusion between DPS and bruiser, Venture, as the newest DPS hero, will be a welcome addition to the game, providing unique gameplay strategies by burrowing underground.

Unlike previous new heroes that were unlocked via the Battle Pass or gameplay challenges, Venture will become immediately available to all players upon Season 10's launch. This is a step in the right direction for Overwatch 2's future, allowing more heroes to become immediately accessible for free.

Here is the complete list of Venture's abilities. If you want a more detailed rundown of each ability, check out this article.

• (Passive) Explorer's Resolve
• (Passive) Clobber
• (Primary Fire) Smart Excavator
• Drill Dash
• Burrow
• (Ultimate) Tectonic Shock

Overwatch 2 Season 10: Quality of Life Updates

Wide Groups in Competitive Play

Right off the bat with OW2 Season 10, Blizzard Entertainment will be introducing "Wider Groups," especially for Competitive Play. Previously, players could only group up with others of a similar rank or skill division. With this new change, friends can now always group and play ranked modes together, regardless of their individual rank.

Whether this change will be good or bad in the long run remains to be seen. On the one hand, it will improve the player experience by letting players enjoy Overwatch 2 competitive modes with their friends. On the other hand, it could lead to immense player boosting, unevenly matched teams, and longer queue times.

Avoid as Teammate Increases

Players have long complained about the Avoid as Teammate feature in Overwatch2. This feature only lets you avoid three players at a time. In contrast, players typically want to avoid the entirety of their own team after a bad match.

Blizzard has heard the players' cries and, as of the Season 10 update, will let you avoid ten players at a time.

If all 10 spots are filled, the Avoided player on the list the longest will be removed to free up a spare place. However, if there are some players you never want to see again, you can pin them, ensuring they remain on your Avoid list, regardless of how long they have been there.

Punishing Leavers

Overwatch 2 has recently seen an influx of players leaving Quick Play and Competitive Mode games. To combat this, Blizzard Entertainment will punish habitual leavers more harshly to prevent them from doing it repeatedly.

Unranked Leavers

• Leaving 2 of the last 20 games played: Match cooldown for 5 minutes 
• Leaving 4 of the last 20 games played: Match queue cooldown for 20 minutes
• Leaving 6 of the last 20 games played: Match queue cooldown for 6 hours
• Leaving 10 of the last 20 games played: Match queue cooldown for 48 hours

Competitive Leavers

The punishments for competitive leavers are much more severe: players who leave more than ten matches throughout a season will automatically be banned. 

Both deliberate leaves and ones due to hardware or connection issues will be counted in the tally, so only queue up for competitive games if you're confident in your broadband connection and gaming platform. These leaves are tallied across the whole season, regardless of frequency.

Overwatch 2 Season 10: Battle Pass

In Overwatch 2 Season 10's Battle Pass, it's out with the old and in with the new! There are over 80 tiers of rewards to grind towards and unlock, including the customizable Vengeance Mythic Mercy skin.

The Premium Battle Pass will be available for 1,000 Overwatch Coins, so grab it as soon as Season 10 is live to start unlocking tiers!

If that's not enough, players can unlock previously missed Mythic skins from previous seasons, including Ancient Caller Moira from Season 9, using Mythic Prisms.

Final Thoughts

That was all our information on the upcoming patch notes for Overwatch 2 Season 10, launching tomorrow, April 16. With all these changes and quality-of-life updates, Overwatch 2 Season 10 is already shaping up to be one of the biggest since the game's initial launch. That's not all, though - we'll add any extra updates and changes to this article, so bookmark this page!

Want more Overwatch 2 content? We've got you covered! Check out our guide to the best OW2 crosshairs, every OW2 character's age/birthday, the rarest skins, how to play cross-platform, and more on Rivalry's website and blog page!