Talents

Talents were a planned gameplay feature of Overwatch 2. They were special augmentations on the abilities of heroes to be used in the Hero Missions and Story Experience modes of the game.^[1]^[2]

Development[ | ]

The feature was announced during Blizzcon 2019, and as of mid-2022, there were about 40-50 talents per hero, split along three trees^[3] (e.g. Reinhardt's trees are Crusader, Juggernaut, and Guardian) with a number of talents they can spend within said trees.^[4] A few talents were said to be on the same level as an outright hero ability.^[3]

On May 16, 2023, it was announced that the original plan for a major PvE release has been scrapped and smaller batches of PvE content would be featured as part of seasonal content instead. In the process, various progression features, including talent trees, were cut from development.^[2]

Overview[ | ]

Tracertalents-1024x576 — Tracer's Talents, as seen during Blizzcon 2019

A hero's level determined which Talents they could potentially take. Each hero appeared to have 6 Talents, split amongst 3 tiers. The player began with the first tier unlocked at Level 1, and unlocked the other two tiers at Level 10 and 20, respectively. Each tier contained 2 Talents, and a player could only select 1 Talent from each tier. At the beginning of a mission, after choosing their hero, a player was able to choose 1 Talent from each tier they have unlocked with that hero's level.

List of showcased talents[ | ]

Following is a list of all known talents prior to the system's cancellation. Talents of unknown level have only been seen in promotional material, and have no indication of their level.

Hero	Level 1 Talents	Level 10 Talents	Level 20 Talents	Talents of Unknown Level
Genji				Dragon's Breath While using Dragonblade, your slashes create a large piercing projectile.
Hanzo				Sojiro's Guidance Any arrow that hits an enemy detected by Sonic Arrow will seek and pierce other detected enemies.
Lúcio	Healing Wave Soundwave heals allies for 25% of their maximum health. Mashup Both songs play when using Amp it Up.	Beatmatching Damage dealt while using Speed Boost adds bonus healing to Healing Boost. Fortississimo Each enemy hit by Soundwave adds additional projectiles to your next Sonic Amplifier volley.	Accelerando Critical hits reduce the cooldown of Amp it Up by 0.5 seconds. Power Skating Soundwave's damage and knockback scale up based on your forward speed.
Mei	Shatter Frozen enemies shatter upon death, dealing damage to enemies around them. Cold Snap When Cryo-Freeze ends, nearby enemies are instantly frozen.	Hypothermia Blizzard instantly kills frozen enemies under 200 health. Snowball Effect Continue to move after using Cryo-Freeze, knocking down enemies.	Frostbite Frozen enemies take more damage. Polar Vortex Blizzard covers a huge area and ignores line of sight.
Reinhardt	Fire Burst Fire Strike explodes every time it deals damage, lighting nearby enemies on fire. Frenzy Rocket Hammer swings faster after consecutive hits.	Impact Converter Rocket Hammer damage recharges your Barrier Field. Amplification Field Barrier Field increases damage of friendly projectiles passing through it.	Balderich's Stand Gain armour and damage when your barrier breaks. Fault Line Earthshatter does more damage in a narrower cone.	Epicenter Earthshatter travels in all directions.
Torbjörn				Flame Thrower* Turrets have a flamethrower instead of a minigun. My Babies* Torbjörn can place up to 3 mini turrets instead of 1 regular turret.
Tracer	Adaptive Reload Pulse Pistols reload when using any ability. Chain Reaction Pulse Bomb causes secondary explosions on enemies that are damaged by it.	Flash Blinking through enemies damages them. Hindsight Recall causes damage to all recently damaged enemies.	Vortex Enemies are pulled towards the point of Recall and snared. Speed Kills Killing blows speed up your cooldowns.