The second beta of Overwatch 2 is live on Tuesday, with the patch notes going over changes from the previous beta, including the game’s newest hero, Junker Queen.
Almost every hero in the game got at least one change from the previous beta. On top of other recently announced changes, like how Payload and Hybrid maps will have both teams play offense and defense, Overwatch 2’s second beta brings a lot of changes.
Incoming!#Overwatch2 Beta access will now begin rolling out to select participants throughout the day.
👑 Junker Queen
✨ New Hero looks
🇧🇷 New Map: Paraíso [Hybrid]
🆚 5v5, Hero Reworks, Push & more pic.twitter.com/yUypfEzKpf— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) June 28, 2022
Junker Queen leads the patch notes
Of course, the biggest announcement out of this second beta is the new tank hero Junker Queen. She uses a shotgun as her primary fire, and her secondary fire is a throwing knife. The knife can be recalled with a re-activation, pulling the enemy towards you and wounding them with damage over time.
She also has a shout, which increases health and movement speed for nearby teammates for a short time. Her second ability involves swinging her axe, wounding all enemies in front of her, doing that same damage over time as her knife. Her passive ability Adrenaline Rush gives her passive healing from all damage over time she inflicts by her axe and knife abilities.
Last, but not least, her Rampage ultimate is a charge that wounds all enemies who get hit. It also prevents them from getting healed, like Ana’s Biotic Grenade.
On top of Junker Queen, there also is a new map in rotation. The Hybrid map Paraíso, set in Brazil, will be in the second beta.
Hero changes, from big to small
To begin, many heroes received updated visuals to suit Overwatch 2’s style. This includes Soldier: 76 with his beard, Lucio with his new gear and many more. To choose and swap between the original and new versions of these heroes, you can select Classic and Classic II in the Heroes tab.
As for gameplay, there is a lot of fine tuning changes to almost every hero. Out of all the tanks getting some armor and health changes, the biggest changes are to Orisa. Her Augmented Fusion Driver (primary fire) does more damage and does more critical damage, but has a shorter range and more damage falloff. Orisa’s Fortify no longer slows her, but she is vulnerable to headshots in Fortify now.
Her Javelin spin’s cooldown is down by three seconds and boops people farther, but doesn’t speed her up as much. Her Javelin got nerfed, with a longer cooldown and less impact damage. But, to end it off, her ultimate Terra Surge’s max damage is almost doubled, with damage beginning to ramp after 200 damage.
Damage players get a myriad of changes
Damage heroes received key changes to specific heroes. For example, Cassidy only got one change, but it’s an interesting one for his kit. He now gains 50% damage reduction during while using his roll ability. Junkrat’s trap fully locks movement again and his Frag Launcher has a bigger projectile size. Pharah’s Rocket Launcher now has a faster reload when out of ammo and her Concussive Blast does 30 damage with more knockback on a direct hit.
However, the biggest changes are to Symmetra. Her Photon Projector got a ton of changes, both to its primary and secondary fire. Essentially, she no longer generates ammo on barriers but has more ammo to start with. As for her right click, it’s faster, does less damage and uses more ammo. Her Teleporter is now faster to build, has a 10 second lifespan but has a longer cooldown. The Teleporter itself is also weaker and can’t be placed as far as before.
Along with plenty of bug fixes, a new scoreboard and improvements on the ping system, there are plenty of new changes in the patch notes of the second Overwatch 2 beta.
