Blizzard has introduced changes to the Experimental Card's version of Overwatch's character Mercy. While only available in the Experimental mode so far, the Mercy changes have some players hoping they're made permanent.
Implemented in a recent Experimental patch, Blizzard altered several elements about Overwatch healer character Mercy. One of the most discussed was the return of Mercy's team resurrection. However, another change has got fans excited, and it's to do with Mercy's primary healing beam.
In a Reddit post, a clip demonstrated how Mercy's healing beam no longer breaks as she casts her ultimate Valkyrie. This change isn't implemented in the live game, and it's a more impactful difference than it seems. Valkyrie's cast time is around one second, which equates to a lot of healing output. Blizzard is tinkering with several healer characters, including Experimental Card changes for Brigitte, so altering the importance of healing output appears to be top of Blizzard's to-do list.
Mercy's healing beam has undergone a few changes in Experimental, and this may be responsible for the disjunction between experimental and live. The live patch has Mercy's Valkyrie beam changing to a multi-person link, enabling her to heal multiple allies at once. Perhaps the difference in coding is the cause of the issue. However, when Marcy's ultimate ends, her Valkyrie healing beam instantly returns to a single target primary, without interrupting the flow of healing. Valkyrie ends without a casting animation, so there may be another cause there. Blizzard is likely to address the issue quickly as there are rumors that the Overwatch 2 Beta could be happening soon, and developers will have to turn their focus to the new project.
Mercy has received other changes to her abilities in recent months. Previously, if a teammate died over a death pit, their resurrect marker would fall into the pit. Now, Mercy can see the resurrect marker and attempt to revive teammates who die over environmental death pits. Blizzard will keep shaking up Overwatch regularly through the Experimental patches, introducing new concepts for a number of characters, for example the previous Experimental patch introduced big tank changes.
Regardless of which Mercy updates carry over to live it seems players are keen for differences in Mercy's beam to be resolved, and for that change to be made permanent.
Overwatch is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
