Less hiding, more healing
Mercy is one of the most-played heroes in Overwatch, but Blizzard doesn’t like how people use her. As director Jeff Kaplan points out, Mercy turns into more of a passive experience once her ultimate ability is almost ready. It’s beneficial for her to stop healing and to wait for the right opportunity to resurrect as many of her teammates as possible.
That’s why Blizzard’s reworking her build in a big way. The goal is to keep Mercy players engaged, and that’s why her Resurrect ultimate is being moved to a common ability that’s available on a 30-second cool-down timer. However, Resurrect will only be able to target one person at a time, so it adds a new strategic element of figuring out who’s the best person to bring back to life.
Taking Resurrect’s place is a new ultimate called Valkyrie. The most obvious trait about Valkyrie is that it lets Mercy fly. As Kaplan says “I don’t mean she can Pharah boost in the air briefly, I mean she can fly. It’s super fun and you have complete control of your character. Mercy has those wings, we might as well put them to real use.”
Apart from the flying, here’s everything that Valkyrie does, as listed by Blizzard on the Overwatch site.
Valkyrie 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 10 seconds 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
These balance changes are already live on the Overwatch Public Test Realm, which means that they should be implemented for everyone in the near future. All those Mercy mains are going to have to get used to less hiding and more action.
