Blizzard Is Testing Major Mercy And D.Va Changes In Overwatch PTR
Mercy's resurrection is a cool down ability targeting individual characters but her new ult turns her into a healing force to be reckoned with.
A key to Overwatch's success is the regular addition of content and constant balancing updates to the experience. Their upcoming update continues that trend, but will also be changing a couple of their characters in a big way. Now available in the Public Test Region (PTR), Blizzard is testing out a Mercy rebuild with no team resurrect and a more involved build for D.Va.
The official PlayOverwatch YouTube channel shared a hero balance update and it is already creating a bit of a buzz across social media. The changes to D.Va are impactful and will make play a bit more exciting for those that use the character regularly, but the changes being made to Mercy are monumental. Game director Jeff Kaplan says in the video that the development team wasn't a fan of some of the play styles that have grown from the use of Mercy's ult, which resurrects nearby heroes.
Game director Jeff Kaplan says, in the video below, that the development team wasn't a fan of some of the play styles that have grown from the use of Mercy's ult, which resurrects nearby heroes. Now her resurrect is relegated to a special ability operating on a 30-second cooldown and is for one character at a time. Her new ultimate ability changes her into an extremely mobile healing force with the freedom of flight. Full details on the changes coming to the different characters are below:
D.Va
- Micro Missiles (New Ability)
- D.Va fires a barrage of small rockets that detonate on impact, dealing damage in a limited radius around each explosion. These can be fired while D.Va is using any other ability or firing her Fusion Cannons
- Defense Matrix
- Defense Matrix's resource meter will now deplete twice as quickly
- Boosters
- Fusion Cannons can now be fired while flying
Mercy
- Resurrect (Now a cooldown ability)
- Ability now targets a single player, instead of every player within a radius
- Radius reduced to 5 meters
- Ability cooldown is 30 seconds
- Mercy is no longer granted invulnerability while Resurrect is active
- Valkyria (New Ultimate Ability)
- Valkyrie unleashes the full power of Mercy’s Valkyrie Suit, enhancing her weapons and abilities for 20 seconds:
- Caduceus Staff: Mercy’s healing and damage boost beams now affect all allies near the targeted teammate, and the staff’s effective range has been extended
- Caduceus Blaster: Granted infinite ammo, while simultaneously increasing damage and fire rate
- Guardian Angel: Increased range and movement speed
- Resurrect: Cooldown is instantly reset when Valkyrie is activated and reduced to 10s after the initial cast
- Hover: Mercy gains the ability to fly freely, at increased movement speed
- Regeneration (Passive): No longer interrupted when Mercy takes damage
Reinhardt
- Barrier Field
- Holding primary fire while your shield is active now allows you to rotate the camera
There's an additional collection of changes happening that involve the UI, bugs, and matches and you find more information on the Overwatch blog. Is Mercy one of your mains? How do you feel about this huge change to her character? With the recently released short and a new map reveal, it has certainly been an exciting few days for Overwatch fans.
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replyCharles Singletary posted a new article, Blizzard Is Testing Major Mercy And D.Va Changes In Overwatch PTR
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This is pretty nuts. Goodbye to Mercy POTG.
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I like that, makes her more than just a healer really. that's fun.
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That ultimate makes her so deadly. It can't stay 20 seconds long.
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It's actually a good idea. Why shouldn't she also kick ass from time to time?
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Her ordinary pistol is fine, pretty decent damage for self defense or when she has a spare moment. As the purest healing character in the game though, her ult should be for support, and it clearly was meant to be. So it's weird to me that her ult would bake in an element of bonus damage competing for her limited ult time.
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They already commented on it on the forums saying her pistol was too strong in that form. I expect it to take a big damage hit
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oh and she still had 10 seconds left when that clip ended lol
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That's so great and busted.
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It's PTR. They're experimenting.
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I really like this, turns Mercy into a more active character and takes away the known math around her ult (enemy knows when Mercy's old ult is up so its a matter of either killing Mercy first or baiting out a suboptimal res from her while allied team coordinates YOLO suicide pushes around Mercy's ult being up)
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Too many matches were revolving around that ult.
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Target prioritizing isn't a lot of players strong suit.
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Get on the PTR now before that ult is nerfed.
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I feel like Lucio needs something like these tweaks. Lucio is pretty sweet support, but he's just not much fun to play. I feel like he needs an additional active ability.
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I like playing Lucio. Having the passive AOE heal and being able to fight at the same time is pretty fun. Plus being able to boop people off a ledge is great.
I will say that I find his ult to be underwhelming. It's duration is super short and the chances of your entire team being within the radius and still alive are pretty low. I end up using it maybe once a match when timing-wise you can use it at least twice.
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