The Season 3 patch notes for Overwatch 2 are now up for you to see, and Mercy mains will likely not be happy. The game’s easiest pocket potential character is being slowed down to make her a little easier for the other team to hit. Other notes are focused on Ultimate charge and various previously announced changes.
Mercy’s changes include her Guardian Angel ability cooldown being extended to 2.5 seconds from 1.5. With this change, jumping between teammates will be a little slower, which means you need to be very sure about your choice, as you have another second where you can’t escape.
Outside of her escaping enemy fire, her healing is being adjusted heavily too. Her main healing stream is reduced slightly, but when she heals anyone under half health, they will heal 50% faster. This makes her much better at saving teammates who are close to death. When healing herself, her Regenerative passive has been removed and replaced with Sympathetic Recovery. Instead of regaining health over time, she heals herself while healing her teammates.
Related: Overwatch 2’s Season 3 roadmap is jam-packed with new events, including a dating sim
Overall, the Mercy changes will significantly impact her healing and evasiveness on the battlefield but do not address the damage pocketing issues when she is attached to Sojourn, Widowmaker, or Hanzo. Blizzard likely wants to see how she performs with these changes first before addressing that.
Outside of Mercy, the Tank role is changing dramatically outside Role Queue. While they maintain their same stats here, their health will be lowered when you join an Open Queue game or play any Arcade mode with multiple Tanks on a team. This is to prevent the class from being the far and away best pick in these scenarios.
Ultimate charge has been a big topic of discussion since Overwatch 2’s release. Starting in Season 3, when you switch heroes, you will retain up to 25% of your charge, down from 30%. Additionally, a large swath of the hero roster will generate their Ultimate about 5-9% slower. This will lessen the reliance on Ultimates to win battles so frequently. On the same topic, Ramattra’s Ultimate can last only a maximum of 20 seconds rather than forever.
Overall, there are too many patch notes to cover here, but there are some nice additions covered previously, like a new map, the return of Credits, and more.
