Blizzard’s promised Mercy rework arrived in Overwatch season 2, and it was a rough landing. The rework adds Flash Heal, an ability that used to be a perk. It lets Mercy trigger a burst of healing while her staff is attached to an ally, whether she’s using the staff’s damage boost or healing function. The rework also reduced her overall healing output. It’s a bizarre choice for an update meant to make Mercy better, which Blizzard didn’t communicate especially well. But after some extensive testing, the changes do seem like a net win for Mercy and a chance for her to be more useful at last.
Some dedicated folks did the math after Blizzard released the season patch notes and found that, on whole, the kit change is a small nerf. Even with Flash Heal included, Mercy heals 5HP less per second than she did before. That number changes a bit if you pick her Double Dose perk, which adds an extra charge of Flash Heal, but reduces its base healing by 10. Double Dose is a major perk, though, which means it’s out of reach until you’re well into a match.
The response is largely negative, at least online. Several posts on the Overwatch subreddit called Blizzard out for the changes and said Mercy is unplayable now, with dozens of comments echoing the sentiment. On Wednesday, nearly every other post on the Overwatch forum was about Mercy, including one that said she’s basically dead in a ditch now.
“Literally my reaction,” the top-voted comment reads. “She was already the second worst support next to Lifeweaver, so any sort of buff would’ve at least brought her in line with other supports, but with making her single target healing even worse she can’t even keep one target alive against any damage in the game and nerfing her mobility is the cherry on top of this diarrhea sundae they’ve served her.”
Is it really such a lousy dessert, though? The numbers look damning, but I spent the evenings after season 2 launched testing Mercy to see just how these changes played out. At the end of most shorter escort matches, I averaged about 7,000 healing; after a longer control match, it was usually over 10,000. That’s largely the same as my average before the rework, but I did end up with more player saves than usual, something I can easily attribute to Flash Heal’s emergency life support. And whenever a Mercy player (myself or another) appeared in the post-match accolades voting, they’ve almost unanimously been voted MVP.
For context, I’m a Diamond support who plays Mercy and Moira. At the highest levels or for newcomers, perhaps these changes are influential enough to completely throw off someone’s game. But for everyone else, maybe it’ll just take a bit of time to get used to. That’s understandable, since Blizzard’s communication on the subject was far from clear. The team promised “utility” following an entire season of complaints about how Mercy can’t heal enough. Naturally, folks expected “utility” to mean “healing buffs.” It turns out Blizzard really just meant utility, though so far, that’s proving to be exactly what Mercy needed.
I enjoyed the risk-reward of playing Mercy and trying to manage everyone’s health effectively, but she always felt limited compared to other healers. She could only do so much, and even before the healing reduction passive effect Blizzard introduced in season 1, where heroes taking damage receive less healing, it was often a struggle to keep targets alive. That’s not the case anymore.
During one close-quarters encounter on Nepal’s sanctum map, for example, the opposing team trapped mine in the little hallway leading down to the objective point. I managed to fly around and stay out of danger with Guardian Angel, despite the movement nerf, and save three players in as many seconds — two with Flash Heal (thank you, Double Dose perk) and our tank by keeping the healing stream attached. Mercy couldn’t have pulled that off in the previous season.
It gives reckless dive and dive-adjacent tanks a chance to take more risks and smooths over accidental mistakes, like if a Mauga player goes rushing into enemy lines when he really shouldn’t, or when a D.Va player wants to get aggressive with rocket boosters and flies into danger. Keeping damage boost active lets them make the most of these situations. No amount of healing can fix consistently poor decision making, whether it’s 55 HP per second, 65, or 85. Nor should it. But mistakes happen, and Flash Heal gives you a shot at fixing them.
So Mercy’s rework isn’t as bad as the numbers suggest, and she’s more useful than you’d expect if you get all your information from forums. Was her movement nerf necessary? Absolutely not. (Though if we’re talking unnecessary and harmful nerfs, the reduced time on Wuyang’s Rushing Torrent is more egregious; it’s his only self-preservation skill and a major part of his identity as a mobile healer.) But the big takeaway from all this, aside from Mercy being more fun and useful, is Blizzard really needs to work on communicating its intent more clearly when the team overhauls how a character plays. More specific descriptions, some examples, plainspoken rationales — all of this would’ve set clearer expectations and avoided the issue to begin with.
