Overwatch 2 Season 12 patch notes: Clash game mode, new Support hero, and more

The Overwatch 2 Season 12 patch notes are here, and they feature a multitude of changes. From the introduction of a Support hero to new game modes and a range of balance changes, the update is going to shake up the meta and bring a wave of freshness to the title's competitive scene.

This article details the Overwatch 2 Season 12 patch notes and all that players can expect from the update.

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Overwatch 2 Season 12 Patch Notes(August 20, 2024)

According to the latest patch notes for Season 12 of Overwatch 2, players are going to get first-hand access to a brand-new Support hero named Juno. They will also get to experience a whole new game mode, Clash, the details of which have been given below.

Check out the Overwatch 2 Season 12 patch notes below:

New Support Hero: Juno

Overwatch 2’s newest Support hero has touched down from Mars! Juno has landed with her versatile Mediblaster and Pulsar Torpedoes providing simultaneous healing and damage.

Plus, Juno's Hyper Ring propels the team into action, boosting movement for faster fights, and her high mobility allows her to swiftly maneuver the battlefield to provide critical support or evade threats effectively.

Juno Teo Minh was born on Mars during Project Red Promise – Lucheng Interstellar’s secret multi-stage initiative to terraform the planet. When dust storms began to ravage the planet, the Red Promise Colony lost contact with Lucheng, throwing the project’s future into jeopardy.

To protect Juno, the Red Promise Team sent her to planet Earth, where she could live her life in safety. Now, Juno is determined to find a way to save her home and family – before time runs out.

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New Core Game Mode: Clash

Get ready to experience Clash, a new core game mode in Overwatch 2! Clash features five capture objectives placed in a linear path on a mirrored map. Only one objective is active at a time, and the match starts with Objective C, the center one. Capture an objective by standing on it uncontested until the capture progress is complete. Teams that capture an objective are awarded one point to their score.

Clash arrives in both Quick Play and Competitive Play with the new Hanaoka and Throne of Anubis maps and a temporary boost in frequency to ensure you get more chances to play. You can also play Clash in the Arcade for a limited time as well.

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General Updates in Overwatch 2 Season 12 Patch Notes

Avoid As Teammate

The Avoid List has been updated with the following new features:

• Players now have 15 avoid slots divided into 3 Pinned slots and 12 Recent slots.
• Pinned Avoid slots guarantee that these players will never be in your matches and unlike our old Avoid slots, they never time out.
• The new Recent Avoid slots do time out after 7 days like the old Avoid slots, and they only prioritize constructing teams without these players on them.
• The player with the lowest time remaining in the Recent list is removed from the list if a new player is avoided when the list is full.
• Time Remaining for an avoided player in the Recent list can be refreshed by using the Reset Avoid Expiration feature as per Overwatch 2 Season 12 Patch Notes.
• The Avoid List is now its own tab in the Social menu (which still only appears when at least 1 player is avoided).
• Any players that were avoided when Season 11 ended will be removed from the avoided list due to the aforementioned updates to the system in Overwatch 2 Season 12 Patch Notes.

Developer Comments: Avoiding other players has been a great way to curate your experience since the system was added, but with these changes we wanted to explore giving players best ways to manage their avoid slots.

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Spawn System Changes

• Group Respawn is replaced by Wave Respawn for all non-Competitive modes.
• Wave Respawn is added to Competitive Play.
• Default respawn time increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
• Overtime respawn time increased from 13 to 14 seconds.
• Wave Respawn is disabled in Overtime.
• Overtime respawn time is not increased in Flashpoint as per the Overwatch 2 Season 12 Patch Notes.

• Wave Respawn is disabled when the Payload is near the end of the track in Escort and Hybrid game modes (the same time the existing Anti-Stall system activates).
• When the first hero on a team dies, they start a new Wave for their team.
• Any hero that dies within 6 seconds of a Wave starting automatically joins that Wave.
• A hero joining a Wave will respawn at the exact same time as the hero that started the Wave. This means that the respawn time of heroes joining the wave can be as long as 12 seconds if they died at the same time as the first hero or as short as 6 seconds if they catch the end of the Wave.
• If a hero starts a Wave and no other hero joins the Wave they will respawn 2 seconds faster. This hero will respawn in 10 seconds (the default respawn time before Overwatch 2 Season 12 Patch Notes).

Developer Comments: These changes are designed to reduce the number of one-sided matches. For an in-depth analysis of our thought process behind the changes to respawning, read the latest Director's Take on PlayOverwatch.com.

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Shop Updates in Overwatch 2 Season 12 Patch Notes

• You can now try out all skins in the practice range from the Hero Gallery or the Premium Shop.

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Competitive Play updates in Overwatch 2 Season 12 Patch Notes

Mid-Year Rank Reset

• Competitive skill ranks for all players have been reset for Season 12.
• Players will need to complete ten placement matches for each role to be ranked and start climbing on the leaderboard.

Developer Comments: Our plan is to reset ranks every 6 months alongside larger updates that shake up the metagame including significant hero balance changes, new heroes like Juno, new game modes like Clash, and changes to core systems like the respawning changes mentioned above.

Predicted Rank

• The Predicted Rank that was displayed to players in Placements at the end of each match is now displayed in all locations that rank is displayed for individual players.
• Predicted Rank is only displayed to players viewing their own Rank (other players can't see this information).
• Predicted Rank is now used to determine whether a group is Wide or Narrow, meaning that Placements are no longer automatically considered Wide.
• This will allow players to get much faster queues in many scenarios after their Rank has been reset.

Check out: What other changes we expect from Overwatch 2 Season 12?

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That's all there is to know about Overwatch 2 Season 12 patch notes.

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