Overwatch update to let Mercy resurrect players as a regular move
But only resuscitate one at a time with a 30 second cooldown.
Blizzard is making colossal changes to how Mercy plays. In fact, she could just as well be an all new character.
Available in the latest update to the Public Test Realm, Mercy's entire moveset has changed. Instead of only being able to resurrect players as her ultimate ability, she can now do this signature move as just a regular ability.
To balance this boost, the Resurrect move has been nerfed. Instead of rejuvenating everyone within a 15-meter radius, she can only resurrect a single target within a 5-meter radius. That's still pretty good, you may think, but it's counteracted by a 30-second cooldown.
Her ultimate has thus been replaced with a 20-second boost called Valkyrie that allows her the ability to fly and buffs her other powers, granting extended range to her Guardian Angel dash and both healing and damage boost beams. Better yet, your beams will chain together, allowing them to hit multiple nearby teammates at once. Even her gun is powered up in Valkyrie mode so she can shoot faster and do more damage. If that wasn't devastating enough, Mercy's Resurrect ability will automatically be charged and granted a scant 10-second cooldown upon activating Valkyrie.
Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan explained Blizzard's motives for the change in a new update video. Basically he didn't want Mercy players with a charged up ultimate to spend time hiding away from the action, waiting for the perfect time to use it. He also found it frustrating when Mercy could undo a particularly devastating attack in one fell swoop by resurrecting an entire team.
Mercy isn't the only character receiving a major update, as Blizzard recently outlined a slew of changes for D.Va.
What do you make of these alterations to Mercy? Does she sound more fun to play as? Do you think she'll be over-powered? Or perhaps not powerful enough? Let us know. Blizzard is open to reversing its decisions if these revisisons don't go over well.