Blizzard’s radically changing Overwatch’s Mercy

Overwatch healer Mercy is getting a massive overhaul, game director Jeff Kaplan revealed today in a developer update video. The most radical change — “and it’s going to seem a little bit shocking at first,” Kaplan said — is that Mercy’s ultimate ability will no longer be Resurrect.

Instead, Resurrect will now be a secondary common ability for Mercy, Kaplan said, explaining that she’ll no longer have the ability to resurrect multiple teammates at once as part of her revision. Resurrect is now single target only ability, Kaplan said, and will be on a “rather long cooldown” so you won’t see Mercy players constantly reviving their teammates.

Mercy’s new ultimate ability is called Valkyrie, and when she uses it she’ll have the ability to fly. Like, really fly, Kaplan said.

“She can fly, and I don’t mean that she can Pharah-boost in the air briefly, I mean she can fly,” he said. “And it’s super fun. You have complete control of your character. After all, Mercy has those wings we might as well put them to real use. I mean, Guardian Angel’s pretty good, but imagine flying with Mercy, how much fun it could be.”

Valkyrie will also boost Mercy’s other abilities, giving her a shorter Resurrection cooldown and making her more powerful in “Battle Mercy” mode. Her attack weapon will fire faster and do more damage when Valkyrie is in effect, making her much deadlier in combat situations. Guardian Angel will go much further with Valkyrie active, giving Mercy better mobility. And her healing and damage boost beams will similarly extend further and target multiple teammates at once.

Here are the changes to Mercy as specified in the game’s latest patch notes:

Valkyrie (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

Those proposed Mercy changes will be going onto Overwatch’s public test region (PTR) servers. Kaplan said the team will be experimenting with different versions of Resurrect and how it works with Valkyrie, so don’t consider any of these changes set in stone just yet.

Check out the rest of today’s Overwatch developer update for some additional information on changes coming to D.Va, which you can read more about at Heroes Never Die.