Mercy recently received a massive rework in terms of her abilities. Interestingly, it appears that Blizzard is still planning to tweak the new version of the hero. With her new Ultimate, it seems that the “Overwatch” Healer is now much stronger than what Blizzard has in mind.
Latest changes
The newly reworked Mercy is currently live on the “Overwatch” Public Test Realm. Among the recent changes received by the hero includes making her Resurrect a secondary ability and not anymore her Ultimate. It now aims at a single-target with a 30-second cool down.
With this, players will now have to strategically decide on when and who to Resurrect.
In addition, Blizzard gives Mercy a new Ultimate ability called Valkyrie. Her new Ultimate gives her the ability to fly without the use of any booster. In addition, when this new Ultimate ability is activated all of her other abilities get better. Her beams now have farther distances covered and can hit multiple targets. She can also cause more damages from her gun and can even Guardian Angel at farther distances.
Mercy’s new Ultimate also amps her stats. Her Valkyrie grants her infinite ammo and boosts the fire rate and damage. When this is paired with Ana’s Nano Boost, Mercy becomes a scary healer. Popular streamer Gale Adelade tried this strategy, and it seems this is not the way Blizzard intended the Healer to be played.
— techcentrik (@techcentrik) August 25, 2017
Blizzard’s intention
The game’s principal designer Geoff Goodman noticed that Mercy’s gun, while using her new Ultimate, is a bit too strong. The idea is for it to have some extra juice to use it in more particular situations. Goodman says it appears that it is strong enough that the hero’s new Ultimate will become a primary way of playing it — that's not what it’s intended to do.
Goodman did not elaborate on how the Ultimate could be adjusted to address the problem. However, he mentioned that most likely, there will be a significant amount of tuning Mercy’s new Ultimate at the game’s Public Test Realm.
Goodman’s statement is in line with the game director’s reason why they are changing Mercy. In the Developer Update, Jeff Kaplan from “Overwatch” said they are changing the hero because they noticed that her old kit encourages players to stop healing in several instances.
Kaplan added that when the hero’s Resurrect is up, those who are playing Mercy stop the healing and hide in the corner. When this happens, the players appear to have allowed their teammates to die on the point.