Ever since Mercy got buffed as a part of Overwatch's Season 2 patch she has suddenly become almost as popular as she was back in the Pharmercy days of early Season 1. While I certainly appreciate having more healers around, especially ones that can turn the entire course of a battle on their own, her dominance over the Play of the Game system has become downright annoying. Over the past two weeks I have seen exactly one game where a non-Mercy character got POTG, and it only required them to get five solo kills as a nano-booster Reinhardt!
Thankfully, the latest Overwatch patch (1.3.0.3) seems to have corrected this problem and once again brought balance to the POTG system. Oh, and there's also a whole bunch of important bug fixes in there as well, especially for Junkrat as his RIP-Tire should no fail to award him kills and assists! Here are the full patch notes:
GENERAL:
• Players should now see fewer Plays of the Game featuring Mercy’s Resurrection ability
• Increased payload speed on Eichenwalde
USER INTERFACE:
• A new Competitive Tier legend has been added to the Competitive Play info screen
• A new Match Complete splash screen has replaced the former Round Complete splash screen in competitive matches
BUG FIXES:
• Fixed a bug which prevented the Triple Kill announcement from being played after a kill streak of 3 or more
• Fixed several issues causing some players obtain a skill rating that's higher than their actual rating
* Note: A very small number of people were affected by these issues, but those who were affected will have their skill rating adjusted appropriately
• Fixed a bug causing the wrong arrow to be shown on Hanzo's bow, or disappear entirely (the correct arrow would still be fired)
• Fixed a bug preventing Junkrat’s RIP-Tire from receiving credit for kills, achievements, and other stats
• Fixed a bug allowing Reaper to Shadow Step to unintended locations on Hollywood
As you can see, this is not a massive patch, but it does bring with it some important changes. For example, Hanzo's magical disappearing arrow has been a reoccurring issue for me the past few days. You can't even begin to imagine how relieved I am to once again be able to tell what in the world I'm even shooting! At least some of the other players got to have a nice laugh at the random Hanzo that kept shooting the ground wondering why the Scatter Arrow no longer works...
Sad Hanzos aside, this update is already live on both PC and consoles, so give it a try and see if you can finally break Mercy's choke-hold on the POTG system!