Overwatch 2 recently saw some changes to Mercy. With noticeable changes to her kit, fans took to a Reddit Q&A to question the game’s hero balance team.
Mercy recently received a movement ability cooldown and healing per second reduction, making her player base a little uncertain (to say the least).
Up until these changes, Mercy’s mobility cooldown was 1.5 seconds but now clocks in at 2.5 seconds. Her healing per second has been reduced down to 45 from 55.
Additionally, her healing has now been increased for teammates sitting at less than 50% health. For Mercy players who like to zip around the map like an annoying mosquito, these changes have taken a bit of getting used to.
Overwatch 2 Q&A
The Overwatch 2 hero balancing team recently took to Reddit and asked fans for their burning questions. One user PuzzleheadedRain8138 had a few questions about the game’s resident healing angel. They wished to know if Mercy’s pick and win rates had been affected by the changes. To which Lead Balance Designer, Josh replied:
“Mercy stayed about the same as before, the changes were mostly neutral in terms of power. Her win rate is still around 51-52%. There was a small drop in pick rate from 9 to 8%. Her ‘damage taken’ stats increased by like 4 or 5% but her average deaths stayed the same.”
The Reddit user also asked if the team had any further plans for Mercy’s Guardian Angel cooldown.
“We don’t have further changes planned for Mercy at the moment. We feel it would be good to let this one settle and see how players adjust to the changes since it can take some time, and then evaluate if more adjustments are necessary.” Josh replies. “The meta is also quite different between the two patches so it’s even more surprising that Mercy wasn’t really impacted overall.”
Overall, Josh mentions both the positive and negative feedback they have received to Mercy’s changes. He also addresses that Mercy players will need time to adjust to her new movement abilities.
Other topics
The Q&A continued and saw the team address questions about balancing, matchmaking and any future changes to heroes. They also touch on everybody’s most feared duo – Pharmercy and hinted at potential Pharah changes.
“We’ve considered potentially reworking Pharah to make her more interactive, but it would be a dicey one since to make big changes there, it would likely mean she has to lose the air time she is capable of.”
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