Overwatch PTR Update Turns Mercy Into An Overpowered Monster

If you were worried that Mercy had been nerfed with today's Overwatch PTR update, fear not. While she might not be able to resurrect her entire team in one go anymore, she can do something better: Wreck the entire enemy team.

Yes, Mercy, who was a relatively harmless Support previously, can now do some serious damage. Today's patch replaced her Ultimate with Valkyrie, a new ability that buffs all of her other abilities for 20 seconds. It also provides her weapon with unlimited ammo and increases both its damage and fire for the duration. Combined with her ability to fly freely, she can be a real monster, particularly when she's under the effects of Ana's Nano Boost Ultimate. Sights like the one below (via Reddit user Blue-Cloud) are now possible.

This is not a one-off, either; you can see this Twitch clip (with some NSFW language) from Gale_Adelade that shows a similar scene. After being Nano Boosted, the super-mobile Mercy can take to the air and rip through an enemy team.

As always when major changes are made, time is needed to adjust and develop new strategies. Other times, things are simply taken too far--and Blizzard has already admitted as much.

"Her gun while using Valkyrie is a bit too strong at the moment," principal designer Geoff Goodman wrote on Blizzard's forums. "The idea is for it to have some extra juice to be able to use it in more niche situations. Right now, it is strong enough that it is feeling like the primary way to use the Ultimate, which isn't intended. There is likely to be a good amount of tuning happening throughout this PTR cycle to iron this kind of stuff out."

In other words, enjoy this while you can, Mercy mains. It isn't likely to last for long.