Overwatch 2 has released a ton of news and updates today, but all anyone is really talking about is a serious Mercy nerf. While some of the support characters including Lucio, Zenyatta, and Brigitte got buffs, Mercy mains everywhere are most certainly crying while reading the contents of these patch notes, which Kotaku received via email.
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Mercy’s Guardian Angel cooldown (an ability that lets her target an ally and quickly fly towards them via her staff), has been increased from 1.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Her movement has been nerfed when using Guardian Angel as well, which will likely make her more difficult for lower-skilled players to learn and master. Mercy’s healing-per-second has also been reduced, though it will be increased for allies under half health. Since all healers now passively regenerate their health (which was once something only Mercy could do), she’s getting a new passive called Sympathetic Recovery, where she’ll heal herself for 25% of healing done to friendly players with her staff.
While I can admit that playing against a really good Sojourn or Pharah getting pocketed by a great Mercy is a nightmare, this is bad news for Mercy mains all around. That the other healers have gotten some form of a buff, whether it’s an increase to Zenyatta’s ammo or Brigitte’s Repair Pack instantly healing 25 health in addition to the healing-over-time feature, makes Mercy’s nerfs even more tough to swallow.
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Luckily, Ramattra is finally getting nerfed after beating the brakes off of me for the last several weeks: his ultimate, a painful AoE attack that continues in perpetuity as long as you’re inside of it, now has a 20-second cap. Reinhardt got a slight nerf, in what is one of many changes Blizzard is making in an attempt to target instant or almost-instant kills—the direct hit damage of his Earshatter ultimate will be reduced from 250 to 170, though his Fire Strike damage will get a little boost.
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Other heroes like Junkrat and Widowmaker got slight nerfs that mirror Blizzard’s attempts to avoid quick kills: Junkrat’s Concussion Mine damage has dropped to hopefully avoid one-shot kills when combined with his grenade, and Widowmaker has less health so she’s more squishy.
And when not in role queue, all tank heroes will have less health, so as to prevent open queue competitive matches and other open matches from having a 5-stack of seemingly indestructible tanks. While a lot of these changes make sense, the Mercy nerf has me scratching my head. Oh well, at least you can date her in the official Overwatch dating sim.