Overwatch
came out over a year ago, but Blizzard isn’t giving up on its hit FPS. It’s constantly updating with new maps and heroes, and there’s big changes coming to some of the game’s most iconic characters. Mercy, the OG healer, is getting a new ultimate ability and changes to her resurrection; D.Va is losing some of her defense matrix but gaining rockets; and there’s tweaks coming to Doomfist, Junkrat, and Reinhart.
The Mercy changes were the focus of a new video put out today by Jeff Kaplan and the Overwatch team. In short, res is now part of Mercy’s kit, rather than her ultimate ability. It’s on a 30-second cooldown, and it only resurrects one character. The range is also much shorter. It’s meant to keep Mercy constantly healing, rather than the current situation in which she runs away, hides, and then flies back in to res.
As a result of these changes, Mercy needed a new ultimate. It’s called Valkyrie, and it’s basically a 20-second conversion into way OP Mercy. She can fly completely independently like a quadcopter, with unlimited hover and up and down movement. Her beams travel further than before and can latch onto multiple people at a time. Her res goes onto a 10-second cooldown rather than 30, and her gun is more powerful and has unlimited ammo.
“We feel like Mercy will feel a lot more engaging to play than standing around the corner, hiding and waiting for that moment to press the ultimate,” Kaplan said in the video.
As it currently stands, the changes are likely a little over-the-top and will be toned down. Videos have already popped up from the PTR of a nano-boosted Mercy wrecking havoc on the enemy team, which probably will need to be fixed.
The changes to D.Va are in line with what was publicly announced a little while ago: her defense matrix duration is cut in half to two seconds, from four, but she’s got new long-range missiles. It makes D.Va more of an attack tank that will be scary to supports, but big fodder for a DPS.
All the changes are currently live on the Public Test Region (PTR) on PC, where you can go experiment with them. There’s also two new maps on the PTR, as well as changes to Junkrat, Reinhart, and Doomfist.
