As Overwatch 2 prepares for Season 17, significant balance changes are on the horizon, aimed at enhancing the gaming experience through better hero balance.

The new season, launching on June 24, 2025, will introduce a 10% size reduction for the hero Bastion, improving his survivability while maintaining his damage output.

This adjustment to Bastion's size was initially planned to be 15%, but was modified to 10% to address concerns about his appearance while still enhancing his effectiveness in matches.

These changes are designed to encourage more aggressive gameplay from damage heroes and adjust the overall balance between damage and healing.

In addition to Bastion's adjustments, the damage role's passive healing reduction will increase from 25% to 30%, and global health regeneration will now activate after six seconds.

This buff to the DPS Heal Reduction passive aims to allow damage heroes to better compete against the healing output of support characters.

Sombra remains a challenging character to balance due to her high ban rates, prompting discussions about future adjustments, although significant changes are not expected in this season.

Freja, a recent addition to the game, will also face nerfs due to her overwhelming performance, with adjustments including increased cooldowns on her movement abilities.

Additional balance changes will enhance Junker Queen's Commanding Shout for allies and provide quality-of-life improvements for characters like Pharah and Lifeweaver.

Season 17 will also feature a mythic hero skin for D.Va, a mythic weapon skin for Reaper, and the introduction of a new Aatlis map, along with map voting features.

Excitement for the new season is building, with the trailer titled 'Powered Up!' set to release on June 17, 2025, just before the official launch.

Scott 'Custa' Kennedy, associate hero designer, emphasized the importance of player feedback and data in shaping these balance changes in a recent blog post.