In addition to introducing Ana, a new support-sniper character, Blizzard is bringing a series of major changes to existing Overwatch characters, such as Mercy, Zenyatta, and D.Va.

Now that Overwatch's competitive ranked play has been out for a few weeks, players have had more than enough time to work out all the ins and outs regarding how to play each of the game's 21 heroes. While the current status quo may soon change as Blizzard has just revealed the first post-launch character, the support-sniper Ana, the developer is also bringing in a series of major changes to existing characters, something that will undoubtedly cause players have a rethink how to play certain heroes.

Over at Blizzard's official Overwatch website, the developer recently revealed the full patch notes of the upcoming update that's currently available on the game's public testing servers, and major updates are incoming for a number of heroes.

After Blizzard accidentally nerfed Mercy, the developer will soon be introducing a series of proper tweaks. Her Damage Boost now offers a 50% bump rather than 30%, but can no longer be stacked with another Mercy's boost. Mercy will now be able move while activating her Ultimate, and her cooldown on Guardian Angel will be refreshed in doing so, but reviving teammates will now cost 30% more.

Mercy isn't the only existing support character to get tweaks. Following balance concerns over Zenyatta, the upcoming new patch will give the character some substantial changes that will hopefully make him more of a viable support hero. The character will have his shields increased by 50, giving him 50 health and 150 shield; his Orb of Discord and Orb of Harmony will now travel much faster; and his Transcendence ultimate will allow him to move twice as quickly and provide a healing boost from 200 to 300 health per second.

After Blizzard previously mentioned that it may buff D.Va, the new patch will indeed give the character some welcome changes. D.Va's Defense Matrix shield's cooldown will be reduced from 10 seconds to one, and instead of a longer wait, it will now cost a resource to activate. It will take 10 seconds to get a full shield charge, which will allow it to be used for four seconds. However, using the shield will now require players to hold a button, much like Reinhardt's shield. And finally, D.Va's ultimate will cost 15% less, the delay before the explosion is now down from four to three seconds, and the character is no longer hurt by its deployment.

And finally, a series of minor tweaks have been made to those who have self-healing capabilities. The cost of using an Ultimate have been increased by varying amounts for heroes like Lucio, Roadhog, Bastion, and Soldier 76, however, self-healing abilities will now also charge Ultimate abilities, which offsets the additional cost.

It will be very interesting to see how all these character changes will affect Overwatch play, however, it must be noted that while many of these changes will be available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in a future patch, the patch is currently being tested on PC only. As such, not all changes may be present for console versions of Overwatch. 

Overwatch is now available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Source: Blizzard (via GameSpot)