Overwatch 2 patch notes (April 30): Venture and Orisa nerf, bug fixes, and more

A series of new Overwatch 2 patch notes are here, and it is making waves among the community - and not in a good way. The April 30, 2024 update nerfs a couple of characters and also features handy bug fixes. However, to many fans' dismay, it further aggravates one of the more controversial balance changes made to the 5v5 hero shooter game in recent memory.

Players are not happy with these Overwatch 2 patch notes. So let's dive into the details and see all the changes for ourselves and how they may affect the game. Here are the complete patch notes for those interested in keeping up with the game's meta.

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Full Overwatch 2 patch notes (April 30) detailed

Hero Updates:

• Damage role passive healing reduction increased from 15% to 20%

Tank:

Orisa:

• Fortify: Duration reduced from 4.5 to 3.5 seconds. Orisa now moves 20% slower while fortified.
• Javelin Spin: Cooldown increased from 7 to 9 seconds.

Damage:

Venture:

• SMART Excavator: Maximum explosion damage decreased from 45 to 40.
• Drill Dash: Initial impact damage decreased from 40 to 30.
• Tectonic Shock: Ultimate charge cost increased by 10%.

Only two heroes get any tweaks for this mid-season patch — the Tank Orisa and the newcomer DPS Venture. The former boasts excellent sustainability, perhaps the best among its category and these changes aim to lower the chances of Orisa bullying opponents on the battlefield by abusing their cooldowns.

As for Venture, they are an agile yet powerful menace in combat with the former bolstered by high mobility abilities and the latter impacted by splash damage. Reduction to overall damage as well as increased time before Ult gain should help reign in Venture to make things fairer for players, such as Ana users, who are often a sitting duck against the rock-munching archeologist.

The key change however is the DPS role passive being buffed to 20% from 15%. In case players are unaware, one of the new changes to the DPS role was introduced to curb overhealing. It ensured that taking damage from DPS characters made the target gain reduced healing for a short while. Increasing this by five percent has annoyed the Support player base as they will struggle further to heal now.

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Bug Fixes

Besides balance changes, general stability fixes and improvements are also added as per the Overwatch 2 patch notes.

General:

• Names will no longer be revealed when blocking someone with Streamer Mode enabled.
• Fixed a bug that allowed non-leader players to select the Requeue button.
• Fixed a lighting issue that caused several sprays to look oversaturated.

Maps:

• Hanamura:
• We have fixed an issue with the lighting on Hanamura (Assault). This map is now available to play in the Assault Arcade mode and in Custom Games.

Heroes:

• D.Va:
• Fixed a bug that caused some pings from D.Va to enter several 0s into the chat.
• Venture:
• Fixed an issue with Drill Dash that could occur when interacting with Doomfist's Rocket Punch or Orisa's Energy Javelin, sending Venture flying back at a great speed.

This is all players need to know about the Overwatch 2 patch notes for April 2024.