Blizzard recently gave Overwatch hero Mercy a huge rework that completely changed the support character's abilities, including her ultimate. While the change went down well with Mercy players who said that the character was made stronger, Blizzard has now announced plans to nerf her.

In the latest patch notes for the Overwatch PTR (Public Test Region) on PC, Blizzard has made significant tweaks to Mercy to make her weaker. This includes increasing the Resurrect cast time from zero seconds to 1.75 seconds as well as reducing the character's movement speed by 75% when she is casting the ability. Mercy's Resurrect can also be interrupted when she is knocked back, stunned, or hacked, making Doomfist, McCree and Sombra good counters for the support character.

Blizzard also explains that when Valkyrie (Mercy's ultimate) is activated, there will be no cast time on Resurrect. This change to Valkyrie follows another recent set of Mercy changes which made it easier to use Resurrect during her ultimate.

In addition to these Mercy nerfs, fellow support hero Ana has received a slight buff as her Biotic Rifle now does 70 damage up from 60. It's a small change but it means that characters with 200 HP can be killed in just three shots, instead of four. Blizzard explains that "boosting her damage will help her defend herself and make her more threatening to the enemy team."

This fresh round of buffs and nerfs for the Overwatch characters will be welcomed by some. Undoubtedly, Mercy is OP (overpowered) right now and Blizzard acknowledges that, saying, "We feel that Mercy’s recent rework has been successful, but her Resurrect ability still feels too strong and frustrating to play against."

However, fans may counter that argument by saying that it's unfair for Blizzard to nerf Mercy while leaving most of the other support characters untouched. Overwatch players aren't necessarily picking Mercy so much because she's OP, but it's because the other healers in the game (Ana, Zenyatta, and Lucio) feel so underpowered in comparison. Most Overwatch players will agree that Mercy is now a mandatory pick on any team that hopes to win.

The point of the Overwatch PTR is that it allows Blizzard to figure out how these changes work before rolling them out to everybody. As such, the developer could potentially make further changes to Mercy and the other supports to make Overwatch feel more balanced. These latest Mercy tweaks could prove to be incredibly divisive, so fingers crossed Blizzard is keeping a close eye on things.

Overwatch is out now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Source: Blizzard