The recent Overwatch update brought with it a major Mercy rework that made her a lot more proactive and a lot more enjoyable to play. She no longer had to spend extended periods of time hiding and waiting for her team to die, she could actually contribute to the fight directly! Unfortunately, while the idea behind these changes was great, the numbers themselves were so overtuned that Mercy ended up being a mandatory pick across all skill tiers, from Bronze to Grandmaster.
With that in mind, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to hear that Mercy's ultimate has now been significantly nerfed. It no longer resets or lowers the cooldown on Resurrection, but instead it doubles the ability's range, which I must admit is a bit of a strange choice given that you mostly use Guardian Angel to fly to dead teammates.
Besides the Mercy nerf, this PTR update has also brought with it a couple of minor changes and bug fixes that will have a noticeable impact on balance. The official patch notes haven't been released just yet, but if you're interested in all of the details I've compiled a list of everything the community has managed to find so far:
Mercy
- [Balance] Valykrie no longer resets or lowers Ressurection's cooldown. Instead it doubles Ressurection's range.
- [Bug Fix] Guardian Angel no longer allows you to keep your momentum by canceling it early. In other words, you'll no longer be able to fling yourself half-way across the map, and heroes like Winston, Pharah, or Lucio will no longer be able to knock you straight out of this world.
Genji
- [Balance] Getting stunned will no longer prevent Dragonblade from activating. This is a fix that makes his ultimate more consistent with the likes of Soldier and Bastion.
- [Bug] You can now attack with Dragonblade during its wind-up animation. This has been confirmed as a bug and will be fixed before hitting live servers.
D.Va
- [Bug Fix] If you're using the new "hold Boost to fly" option your mech will no longer drop like a rock the moment you activate your ultimate.
Junkrat
- [Unconfirmed] Junkrat's ultimate supposedly moves slower now, though I haven't managed to notice a difference myself. Treat this change as unconfirmed until further notice.
While I despise resurrection as a gameplay mechanic, I think this Mercy nerf might have gone a bit too far. I would've preferred if Blizzard tried increasing Resurrect's cooldown or making Mercy more vulnerable during Valkyrie, but I can definitely see why they are going with these changes. Its incredibly annoying to kill an enemy Winston/Rein, only for them to come back to life four different times throughout a single fight. That said, I'll reserve my judgement until I actually see the new Mercy in a proper game. Who knows, she might end up being just fine after a bit of a playstlye adjustment.