The battle of the healers is now very much under way
An update has just been applied to the Overwatch PTR test server, and the accompanying patch notes show a slight boost to Ana’s damage output and a couple of significant tweaks to Mercy.
First up, Ana is receiving a boost to her Biotic Rifle which will increase the damage from 60 points to 70. According to the developers, this change has been made due to Ana becoming outclassed by other supports lately. The boost should increase her survivability and make her more of a threat overall.
More significantly, Mercy is being changed yet again. It’s that pesky, overpowered Resurrect ability that continues to cause problems for the team, making her an auto-pick in just about every competitive match. To try and tame her somewhat, a 1.75 second cast time has been added to Resurrect.
Not only that, but Mercy’s movement speed has also been reduced by a whopping 75% for the duration of the Resurrect cast.
This leaves her extremely vulnerable to an intervention by the other team, providing them with a clear window of opportunity to eliminate Mercy before she can actually complete her cast. The ability can also now be interrupted by knocking back Mercy, stunning her, or using a Sombra hack.
If this all sounds like a step too far in terms of re-balancing, Mercy’s new Valkyrie Ultimate ability eliminates the cast time of Resurrect. This allows her to maintain her most powerful influence on the game while her Ultimate is active, which is how most players would agree things should be.
Alongside these more significant hero changes, the team’s used this opportunity to address a couple of bugs. Announcer voice lines should now play correctly in Competitive, Elimination and Capture the Flag modes, while Roadhog’s Chain Hook will now no longer latch onto enemies for longer than intended.
To try out the changes for yourself, make sure you install the PTR version of the game via the PC Battle.net desktop launcher. The test server system is not currently available for PlayStation 4 or Xbox One players.
