Damage modification

Damage modification refers to effects that either increase or reduce the damage dealt or taken by a hero.

Damage amplification

Damage amplification effects increase the damage dealt by the hero or the damage taken by the hero it is applied to.

Abilities that amplify damage dealt

These abilities amplify the damage dealt by the hero it is applied to. Damage amplification effects from different sources generally stack additively with each other.

Hero	Ability	Description	Amount	Duration	Details
Ana	Nano Boost Nano Boost	Increases an ally's damage, while reducing damage taken.	+50% dealt	8 seconds	Some projectiles are amplified as long as the hero was being damage boosted when they were released.
Baptiste	Amplification Matrix Amplification Matrix	Project a matrix that doubles the damage and healing of allied projectiles.	+100% dealt	10 seconds	Affects all damage dealt by the weapon/ability, including on-hit effects, such as splash and DoT, as long as the projectile passes through the matrix.
Juno	Orbital Ray Orbital Ray	Call down a ray that travels forward, healing allies and increasing their damage.	+35% dealt	10 seconds	Affects all damage dealt by the weapon/ability, including on-hit effects, such as splash and DoT, as long as the player is in the radius when the projectile was shot. The effect lingers for 1 second after the attacker leaves the AOE.
Mercy	Caduceus Staff Caduceus Staff	Hold to heal an ally. Hold to increase an ally's damage inflicted.	+30% dealt		Some projectiles are amplified as long as the hero was being damage boosted when they were released.

Abilities that amplify damage taken

These abilities amplify the damage taken by the hero it is applied to. Stacks additively with the target's damage reduction.

Hero	Ability	Description	Amount	Duration	Details
Zenyatta	Orb of Discord Orb of Discord	Launch this orb at an enemy to increase the damage they take.	+25% taken	1.5 seconds (if out of sight)	Cannot be reapplied for 6 seconds once the effect ends.

Abilities that cannot be damage boosted

The following abilities cannot have their damage dealt amplified by damage boosting the hero or when fired through Amplification Matrix. The damage they deal can still be increased when damaging a target affected by Zenyatta's Orb of Discord.

Hero	Ability	Details
Ashe	B.O.B.	B.O.B.'s own damage can be amplified, but amplifying Ashe's damage does not affect B.O.B.
D.Va	Self-Destruct
Hanzo	Dragonstrike	The arrow can be amplified, but the dragons cannot.
Junkrat	Steel Trap
	RIP-Tire
Roadhog	Pig Pen
Sigma	Gravitic Flux	The lift can be amplified, but the slam cannot.
Sombra	EMP	Can no longer be damage boosted as of November 17th, 2022 patch.
Symmetra	Sentry Turret
Torbjörn	Deploy Turret	The turret's own damage can be amplified with Amplification Matrix but amplifying Torbjörn's damage does not affect the turret.
	Molten Core	The impact damage from Molten Core can be amplified, but the damage over time cannot.
Widowmaker	Venom Mine
Wrecking Ball	Minefield
Zarya	Graviton Surge	The impact damage from Graviton Surge can be amplified, but the damage over time cannot.

Critical hits

Main article: Critical hit

Critical hits, most often caused by headshots, are a property most weapons have that increases the damage dealt by the shot based on the weapon's critical hit multiplier when the shot collides with the target's critical hit hitbox (usually their head) or fulfills another specific condition. Critical hits are multiplicative with other damage amplification effects.

Damage reduction

Damage reduction effects reduce the damage taken by the hero it is applied to. Damage reduction effects from different sources generally stack additively with each other, however there is a twofold cap to damage reduction effects: First, the combined total of general damage taken reduction effects is capped at 50%. Second, the final damage after all modifications are applied is also capped at 50% of the damage output by the attacker. Single abilities that grant more than 50% by itself may override these limits.

Abilities that grant damage reduction

Hero	Ability	Description	Amount	Duration	Details
	Role: Tank Role: Tank	Reduces knockbacks and critical damage received. Less ultimate generated by healing and damage received. Increases base health in Role Queue game modes.	-25% taken		Critical hits only, does not affect 1.5x multipliers, Virus and Volatile Chaingun forced criticals.
Ana	Nano Boost Nano Boost	Increases an ally's damage, while reducing damage taken.	-50% taken	8 seconds
Bastion	Ironclad Ironclad	Reduces damage taken while transformed.	-20% taken
Cassidy	Combat Roll Combat Roll	Roll in the direction you're moving to take reduced damage and reload.	-50% taken	0.4 seconds	Damage reduction starts to fade after 2 seconds.
	Deadeye Deadeye	Face off against your enemies. Press Q to lock on, then Q or to fire.	-40% ... 0% taken	7 seconds
Doomfist	Power Block Power Block	Protect yourself from frontal attacks. Blocking heavy damage empowers Rocket Punch.	-80% taken	0.34 seconds (min) 2.5 seconds (max)	Frontal attacks only.
Mauga	Cardiac Overdrive Cardiac Overdrive	Nearby allies take reduced damage and heal by dealing damage.	-40% taken (self) -20% taken (allies)	3 seconds
	Overrun Overrun	Charge forward to stomp and launch enemies. You are unstoppable while charging.	-50% taken	0.32 seconds (charge, min) 2 seconds (charge, max) 0.6 seconds (leap) ~0.5 seconds (knockdown)
Orisa	Fortify Fortify	Gain temporary health, reducing all damage taken and becoming unstoppable. While active, heat generated by your weapon is reduced.	-45% taken	4 seconds
Ramattra	Block Block	Significantly reduces damage taken from the front and reduces movement speed.	-75% taken	0.2 seconds (min)	Frontal attacks only.
Roadhog	Take a Breather Take a Breather	Heal yourself and reduce damage taken.	-40% taken	0.55 seconds (min) 2.5 seconds (max)

Armor

Main article: Armor

Armor is a type of recoverable health that reduces damage taken by that portion of hit points by 7, up to 50% of the incoming damage. Armor is applied separately after calculating general damage reduction effects, but it will count toward the 50% global damage reduction cap.

Damage calculation

In general, effects of the same type stack additively with each other and each category then multiplicatively with each other. The procedure can be simplified to three steps:

1. Calculating the damage output of the attacker
2. Calculating damage received after general damage reductions on the target
3. Armor reduction

Damage output

Damage output is affected by the amplification effects on the attacker and the critical hit modifier of the attack as follows.

damageOut = baseDamage * (1 + sumDamageDealtAmp/100%) * critMultiplier

General damage reductions

The general damage reductions consist of any damage reduction buffs on the target that are not armor, including the critical hit reduction from the tank passive, and any damage taken amplifications. The damage reduction buffs stack additively with each other, up to 50%, unless a single effect provides a greater reduction. Damage taken amplification is also additive with damage reductions, but it is applied after capping the damage reduction buffs.

damageAfterRed = damageOut * (1 - min(0.5, sumDamageTakenRed/100%) + damageTakenAmp/100%)

If a single ability grants a reduction higher than 50%, it overrides the limit and all other damage reduction buffs. In this case, the damage taken after reductions is calculated as follows:

damageAfterRed = damageOut * (1 - greatestDamageRed/100% + damageTakenAmp/100%)

Armor reduction

The armor damage reduction is applied after general reductions. Armor reduces all instances of damage dealt - excluding beam and damage over time effects - by 7, up to 50%. Effectively, this means that any damage instance which damage output is above 14 will receive the flat 7 damage reduction, whereas any instance below 14 will be reduced by 50% instead. The damage of beam effects will instead get reduced by 30% regardless of their damage, and damage over time effects completely ignore armor. In the different cases, armor reduction is calculated as follows:

Non-beam weapons dealing at least 14 damage:

armorRed = 7

Non-beam weapons dealing less than 14 damage:

armorRed = 0.5 * damageOut

Beam weapons:

armorRed = 0.3 * damageOut

The armor reduction amount will then be subtracted from the damage after general reduction:

damageAfterArmor = damageAfterRed - armorRed

Global damage reduction cap

Finally, due to a global 50% damage reduction cap, the damage after armor reduction is compared against the raw damage output of the attack, and the higher of the two will become the final damage:

finalDamage = min(damageAfterArmor, 0.5 * damageOut)

Abilities that grant a reduction higher than 50% will override this cap.

Full calculation

Overall, the damage calculation can be expressed with the following formula:

damage = baseDamage * criticalMultiplier * (1 + sumDamageDealtAmp / 100%) * min( (1 - max(0.5, greatestDamageRed/100%)), (1 - max( greatestDamageRed/100%, min(0.50, sumDamageTakenRed / 100%) ) + damageTakenAmp / 100%) - armorRed)

where

• baseDamage is the unmodified damage of the weapon or ability
• criticalMultiplier is the weapon or ability specific damage multiplier of a critical hit if applicable
• sumDamageDealtAmp is the sum of all damage amplification effects on the attacker
• greatestDamageRed is the greatest single damage reduction effect on the target
• sumDamageTakenRed is the sum of all damage reduction effects on the attacker, including the critical hit reduction from tank role passive if applicable
• damageTakenAmp is the sum of all damage amplification effects on the target. Currently, this only encompasses Orb of Discord
• armorRed is the reduction applied by armor

Trivia

• Mercy gains ultimate charge equal to the damage she amplified.
• Hypothetically, the highest damage dealt value is 280% and the highest damage taken value is 125%. Combined, the maximum damage amplification would be 350%. This can then be further increased with the headshot multiplier. Using Widowmaker's 2.5× headshot multiplier, the absolute highest increase from the original damage would be 875%.
• Healing amplification works the same way as damage amplification, though the only healing dealt amplifier is Amplification Matrix (+100% healing dealt) and the only healing taken amplifier is Biotic Grenade (+50% healing taken). Together, the target would gain 300% of the base healing.
• At the start of Overwatch 2, armor's damage reduction was separate from other damage reduction effects, stacking multiplicatively with them and was not taken into the 50% cap. This was changed in August 10, 2023 Patch, as Tanks with armor were getting difficult to kill when also affected by damage reduction.
  • Later in Season 10, armor reduction was for the most part reverted to the way it was prior to Overwatch 2, with the goal to improve survivability of tank heroes in combination with the critical damage reduction added to the tank role passive.