Overwatch 2‘s Season 10 arrived with a wave of fresh content, including balance adjustments for Orisa and Venture, and a captivating limited-time game mode called Mirrorwatch. The Mirrorwatch is set to conclude on May 14, but the unique hero reworks within this mode have sparked significant interest regarding their impact on the game’s balance. While Blizzard has not confirmed whether any of the reimagined abilities will make their way into the classic game mode, it seems many of them are promising.
One Overwatch 2 hero in particular, Mercy, has found herself in a rather disconcerting spot for the past couple of seasons. As a character who works best when enabling her team, Mercy can have trouble with a team that’s struggling. Interestingly, although Mercy players have been expressing frustration with the hero’s performance since Season 3, Mirrorwatch may have the solution for the support hero.
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Overwatch 2 Already Has The Solution To Its Mercy Problem
Mercy’s Abilities in Mirrorwatch Allow Her To Make Game-Changing Plays
Despite languishing in D-Tier of Overwatch 2 Season 10, Mercy’s saving grace in future seasons could very well be in her abilities from the Mirrorwatch mode. For instance, while she maintains her passive healing, Caduceus Staff, Guardian Angel, and Angelic Descent, the rest of her kit in the game mode is vastly different. Notably, Mercy’s core ability, Resurrect, is no longer viable.
In place of being able to revive an ally, the Swiss medic can now detonate a friendly or enemy player’s soul with a skill called Soul Burn. While exact damage numbers haven’t been released, it seems that a tuned-down version of Soul Burn could find success in the base mode. Interestingly, though Resurrect has always been a part of Mercy’s talents, the consensus seems to be that Mercy’s identity is preserved without the ability.
Mercy’s ultimate ability was initially Resurrect, but it was changed to Valkyrie in a 2017 patch.
Mercy’s new ultimate, called Revenge, bears some resemblance to Valkyrie. Both involve flight, but Revenge prioritizes offensive abilities by granting her deployable rockets. In a meta that appears to favor support characters that can deal more damage, Mercy could flourish with such a change. After all, in the Mirrorwatch mode, it’s not uncommon to see a Mercy player get Play of the Game via their ultimate.
A Mercy Rework Could Be More Likely Than Players Think
Despite retaining her core abilities throughout Overwatch 2, Mercy’s effectiveness has been dampened by nerfs to her Guardian Angel cooldown and healing output. In a patch note from February 21, 2023, Blizzard justified these changes as a way to address her “greatly increased mobility” and “overly evasive” playstyle. However, support players have come to find her less useful compared to other support heroes like Baptiste, Kiriko, and Ana more often than not.
As such, Mercy’s underwhelming performance in Overwatch 2 has fueled speculation about a potential rework. The unique abilities introduced in the Mirrorwatch mode, particularly Bastion’s summoner-like ultimate, have some fans theorizing it might be a testing ground for new hero concepts. This raises the question of whether Mercy’s reworked abilities within Mirrorwatch could also be a way for developers to gauge player interest in potential changes to her kit.
Overwatch 2
Overwatch 2 is Blizzard’s free-to-play team-based first-person shooter. The title features some new heroes like Junker Queen and Sojourn, as well as returning favorites.
- Franchise
- Overwatch
- Released
- October 4, 2022
- Genre(s)
- Shooter
- Platforms That Support Crossplay
- PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S
