My main goal with these changes is to increase Mercy’s survivability and play-making potential. With the change to 5v5, the Tank reworks, and the removal of most CC, the in-game environment in OW2 is drastically different from OW1. It encourages playing more spread out and places higher value on an individual’s skill rather than their ability to coordinate with their team. The playstyle of a lot of characters has shifted as well; flanking or brawling is now the norm. Considering that Mercy is heavily team dependent, this puts her in an uncomfortable position. To continue fulfilling her role as a pocket healer who gains the most value from boosting dps, she has to either follow them into a dangerous head-on fight, or separate from her tank and second support to flank with her pocket. This means she generally has fewer options for escape, more dangers to face, and less backup. It can be hard to keep herself and her pocket alive in these situations, as her kit is more suited to the OW1 environment. And if she can’t do that, she’s getting no value.
Caduceus Staff:
- Base 55 healing/s.
- Base 30% damage increase.
- Now as Mercy’s staff is active, a meter will begin charging on the right side of the screen(similar to Moira’s resource bar). For every second of staff uptime(actively healing or boosting your teammates), Mercy will gain ~6.7% charge; meaning it will take 15 seconds of staff uptime to fill the meter. Once the meter is full, Mercy can press her reload key while wielding her staff to activate an “Overcharged” mode that lasts for 5 seconds.
- If she’s beaming an ally upon activation of this ability, 25% of their health will be restored instantly regardless of what beam mode is active.
- When her staff is “Overcharged”, Mercy’s healing/s increases to 60, and damage boost increases to 35% damage amplified.
- The increased healing/s from being “Overcharged” stacks with the healing buff from Valkyrie, resulting in a temporary 65 healing/s.
Caduceus Blaster:
- Damage: 20
- Spread Angle: Pinpoint
- Projectile Speed: 50 meters/s
- Rate of Fire: 5 rounds/s
- Ammo: Increased to 25 from 20.
- Reload time: 1.4 seconds
- Headshot: ✓
Regeneration:
- 20 health/s after 1 second of not taking damage. (no change from OW1)
Angelic Descent:
- Move. speed: Vertical: 2 m/s (no change from OW1)
Guardian Angel:
- Move. speed: 17 meters per second
- Max. range: 30 meters
- Cooldown: 1.5 seconds
- After activating GA, pressing jump at any point in conjunction with movement keys(WASD) will change the direction of your flight. Pressing W(forward movement key) will simply extend the jump forwards like a normal slingshot. The length of the altered flight path is determined by how long you hold jump. Max travel distance of 15 meters from point of jump activation.
- Alternatively, pressing crouch at any point after activating GA will result in an extended vertical movement(superjump). The trajectory can be affected by movement keys, otherwise, you will shoot up in a straight line. The height of the verticle boost is determined by how long you hold crouch. Max travel distance of 15 meters(vertically) from point of crouch activation.
Angelic Blessing:
- Replaces Resurrect on E.
- Max. cast range: 15 meters
- Casting time: Instant
- Duration: 4 seconds
- Cooldown: 20 seconds
- Mercy places a blessing on an ally. While active, if the target takes lethal damage they will be prevented from dying and their health will be reset to 50%.
- If the target doesn’t take lethal damage while the ability is active, they will be healed for 25% of their full health once the duration is over.
- If not targeting an ally with the ability, Mercy can cast it on herself.
- Awards ult charge equal to 30% of the damage mitigated.
Valkyrie:
- Damage: Chain-damage boost (30% per target)
- Healing: 20 HP/s (Mercy) 60 HP/s per target (Allies)
- Move. speed: Increased to 11 m/s from 9 m/s (omni-directional flight).
- 25 m/s (Guardian Angel)
- Projectile speed: 100 m/s (Blaster)
- Max. range: 10 meters (chain healing)
- +100% range (Guardian Angel, Caduceus Staff)
- Ammo: ∞ (Blaster)
- Casting time: Instant + 0.5 s. recovery
- Duration: 15 seconds
- Ultimate cost: Increased to 2400 points from 1820 points.
- Beam no longer disconnects upon activation.
- Can now be canceled manually by pressing the ultimate key(Q) a second time.
- While in Valkyrie, Angelic Blessing becomes Resurrect.
Resurrect:
- Only available during Valkyrie; Mercy gains 2 charges of “Resurrect” upon activation of her ultimate.
- Healing: Restores full health to a fallen ally.
- Move. speed: -75% penalty
- Max. range: 5 meters upon activation, 7 meters afterward.
- Casting time: 0.5 seconds
- Rezed allies can now begin moving and using abilities after 0.5 seconds instead of 1.5, meaning they will not be animation locked for as long. Invulnerability is also reduced to 0.5 seconds.
- Rezed allies gain a 35% damage resistance buff for 4 seconds after being revived.
These changes give Mercy a lot more options in any given situation and raise her skill ceiling by rewarding players for good ability management. Through “Overcharging” her staff, Mercy’s that have high beam uptime will consistently be able to keep their allies alive in a pinch with a burst of healing or help them secure kills with the increased damage boost. “Angelic Blessing” will be more effective than “Resurrect” in various situations. It will allow her to keep allies alive while they are ulting instead of them dying halfway through, and then having to rez them. The larger range will also keep her safer, as she doesn’t have to get as close to her ally(and potentially enemies) to activate it. This encourages correct Mercy positioning: playing farther back from your team and peeking in and out of cover to maintain beam attachment. The GA changes combine the best aspects of all the variations of GA/superjump we’ve seen so far: Good height, easy activation, and directional control. It will allow her to more easily escape dangerous situations regardless of how her allies are positioned. The changes to Valk/Rez make it far more impactful than it is currently, and it encourages careful ult usage now that it’s more valuable and slower charging. Overall, I think these changes or something similar would make Mercy more impactful and more fun to play in OW2.