counterpickPerks
Upgrades during the match for every hero: how you unlock them, how you choose and where they apply.
How perks work
Perks came with Season 15; they are active in Quick Play as well as Competitive. Blizzard’s German name is Boni.
Source: Patch notes 18 Feb 2025Every hero has two minor perks for level 2 and two major perks for level 3. At each level you take one of the two.
Source: Hero pages, for example KirikoYou level up by dealing damage, getting eliminations and healing teammates. Progress speeds up over the match, and eliminating an enemy whose perk level is above yours gives extra.
Source: Patch notes 18 Feb 2025A hero you swap to starts at level 1 without progress. The hero you left keeps its level and perks until the round ends.
Source: Patch notes 18 Feb 2025To choose, keep the left Alt key or the d-pad up pressed and point at the perk you want. You can also put each perk on its own key.
Source: Patch notes 18 Feb 2025Stadium plays without perks, and so does Mystery Heroes since it became 6v6.
Source: Patch notes 22 Apr 2025 · Patch notes 14 Apr 2026Blizzard traces perks back to a Quick Play: Hacked of 2024 in which players could pick passives.
Source: Director's Take: Future FormatsAll 53 heroes in our values have 2 minor and 2 major perks; each hero page lists them.
Source: Overwatch fan wiki
Perk changes
| Date | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Perks for all 41 heroes, in place of balance changes that season. | Patch notes 18 Feb 2025 | |
| 9 heroes get new perks. | Patch notes 22 Apr 2025 | |
| Every hero gets one or more new perks. | Patch notes 26 Aug 2025 | |
| Perks that overlapped with the new subrole passives were replaced. | Patch notes 9 Feb 2026 | |
| Several rarely used perks replaced. | Patch notes 11 Aug 2026 |
Sources
- Patch notes
- Blizzard’s patch notes of the days linked at each statement. 18 Feb 2025 · 22 Apr 2025 · 26 Aug 2025 · 9 Feb 2026 · 14 Apr 2026 · 11 Aug 2026
- Blizzard pages
- Hero pages, for example Kiriko (read 24 Sept 2026) · Director's Take: Future Formats (published 15 Jul 2026)
- Hero values
- Overwatch fan wiki , CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 , as of 24 Sept 2026
- Texts
- Our own words. Every statement links the source it is based on; what no source describes stays open.