Fine-tuning character reworks is one of the trickiest parts of balancing games like Overwatch 2. And today, Blizzard announced that it is once again planning to make some adjustments to Mercy in season four.
Mercy’s Guardian Angel ability was given a massive rework heading into Overwatch 2, giving players more control over their movement. And while it was a boon for Mercy mains, it made her a little bit too slippery and difficult to play against.
In response, Blizzard nerfed the ability by putting it on a longer cooldown at the beginning of season three in February. But the nerf seemed to baffle and confuse some players who didn’t seem to understand why the developers wanted to nearly double the length of the ability’s cooldown from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds.
Related: Mercy mains baffled by unexpected nerfs to hero in latest Overwatch 2 patch
Now, it appears that another change is on the way for the popular support hero that has become problematic from a balancing perspective. The game’s director, Aaron Keller, indicated that players should expect more changes soon.
“We … added survivability to Support Heroes, buffing their Role Passive as well as making changes to specific Heroes to increase their durability– Changes like Zenyatta’s kick and Brigitte’s shield buff are examples of this working well, while some, like Mercy’s Guardian Angel changes, we believe we overcorrected (something you’ll see addressed in Season 4),” Keller said. “The way we went about these changes was to preserve the play style of Support while still addressing the core issues.”
Season four is expected to begin on April 11. It’s unclear exactly what Blizzard intends to do with Mercy’s Guardian Angel ability, but more than likely there will be some sort of buff to it considering how heavily the ability was nerfed about a month and a half ago.
