Overwatch 2 Season 3 Will Change Heroes' Ultimate Charges

Overwatch 2 players got another sneak peek of Season 3 plans this week with the game's executive producer Jared Neuss teasing saying that next season's update will address the ultimate charges players carry over whenever they're swapping to a new hero. Neuss didn't say what, exactly, will be changing, but the Overwatch 2 dev did agree with some sentiments expressed by players in saying that communication about these sorts of things needs to be better with more info on this specific topic perhaps coming before the patch notes themselves.

The comment from Neuss came in response to SVB, an Overwatch 2 content creator who's taken issue previously with the way ultimate charges work in the game. As a refresher, Overwatch 2 currently allows players to retain up to 30% of their ultimate's charge whenever they swap to a new hero. This is an effect which was previously meant to be a passive for the DPS role, but players and eventually Blizzard felt it'd be better that all heroes benefitted from this.

But now, some aren't so sure. The feature effects everyone, but it's a big concern for tanks, too, since that role is more of a rock, paper, scissors battle thanks to the 5v5 format. Tanks can lose a fight against a specific hero, swap to a counterpick, and come back with 30% of their ult charge as well as a hero advantage to sway the fight thus potentially forcing their opponent off of a character the person was already doing well with.

"Changes are coming for this in S3! Details will be in the patch notes, if not earlier," Neuss said in response to SVB's tweet.

Changes are coming for this in S3! Details will be in the patch notes, if not earlier.

The lack of acknowledgement isn't a lack of concern, just to be clear. It's much less interesting than that:

We need better ways to communicate with players about issues like this.

— Jared Neuss (@OhReallyJared) January 21, 2023

It's a tricky situation given that Overwatch 2 by design encourages hero swaps to adapt to different situations, but SVB pointed out in his previous argument, the ult retention can sometimes make it feel like someone's being punished for winning a fight. That's obviously not the case in every instance given that a counterpick doesn't always guarantee a victory, but discussions like these have stuck around long enough and raised enough of a fuss to inspire some sort of change on Blizzard's part.

Neuss said that communications about these plans may come earlier than the Season 3 patch notes, and given how discussions about this topic have been heating up following these tweets, it seems likely that'll be the case.