Valkyrie Ultimate now longer resets the cooldown on Resurrection.
UPDATE – 06/10/2017
Overwatch’s principal designer Geoff Goodman has entered the discussion about the current Mercy changes being tested on the PTR. Here’s his full quote on the current phase of testing:
“Let me give some extra context for these changes.”
“First off, these changes will not be included with the other changes on the PTR, which will be coming out with the Halloween update. These Mercy changes are purely something that we’re experimenting with, and there will likely be more changes coming to try out.”
“There was a bug where Mercy’s Guardian Angel momentum wasn’t slowed correctly sometimes when canceled. This was intensely frustrating for most Mercy players, but some players enjoyed trying to use this bug to gain extra mobility. This bug is important to fix so it doesn’t feel like Mercy randomly gets out of your control, but we’re looking seeing if there is a way to include some of what people enjoyed about this bug as new functionality for her.”
“To reiterate: These changes aren’t hitting live any time soon. These are just things we want to try out for now, and they are likely to change.”
ORIGINAL STORY – 05/10/2017
A new patch has just hit the Overwatch PTR test server, and it seems as though the recently reworked Mercy is being tuned down a little from her current incarnation in the live game.
Her original Resurrection Ultimate ability, which allowed her to resurrect all of her dead teammates en-masse, was removed last month and turned into a single-target revival ability on a 30-second coolown.
Her new replacement Ultimate ability – Valkyrie -increases her mobility, as well as the strength of her healing and damage-boosting abilities.
On the current PTR Build though, Valkyrie no longer resets the cooldown of Resurrection. Instead, activating this ability now merely doubles the effective range of Resurrection – and only if it’s available to use at the time.
The new and improved Mercy that was recently released onto the live servers is thought by some to be just a little bit too improved, and she’s considered something of an auto-pick in most competitive matches. This might explain Blizzard’s desire to revisit their redesign so shortly after the relaunch of the hero.
Our most popular Overwatch articles:
- 1. Tier List – Overwatch Tier List
- 2. Season 6 – Overwatch: Season 6 guide
- 3. Halloween Terror – Overwatch: Halloween Terror 2017 guide
- 4. World Cup – Overwatch: World Cup 2017 guide
- 5. Beginner’s guide – Overwatch: Beginner’s guide
Mercy isn’t the only character being tweaked on the test servers right now either. Anecdotal evidence from the community suggests that Junkrat’s RIP-Tire now moves more slowly, while stuns no longer stop Genji’s Ultimate ability in its tracks. Sombra’s EMP ability now apparently affects training bots as well, while Lucio’s speed has been nerfed.
As with all things on the PTR, any tweaks being tested right now are by their very nature subject to change. We’ll be keeping close tabs on Mercy’s performance here in the coming weeks though, and will update you with any developments on the matter.
