Blizzard devs reveal possible Mercy and Zenyatta Overwatch 2 nerfs

With Overwatch 2 in development and set to go live in some form by April of 2022, the developers have given players some teases as to what changes will be coming — with the latest being for both Zenyaytta and Mercy.

Overwatch Community Manager AndyB has been active on the official Blizzard forums, revealing all sorts of possible changes to tanks, DPS heroes, and supports.

While he touched specifically on Brigitte’s Shield Bash stun being removed as well as a global healing nerf for the sequel, there are some other heroes that could be seeing their abilities tuned down as well.

Speaking specifically about Zenyatta’s Discord Orb, Andy explained that the change to 5v5 from 6v6 has seemingly made the ability weaker as there is one less teammate to take advantage of the 25% debuff to enemy health.

However, speaking about Mercy’s Damage Boost, he noted that so far in playtests, it “hasn’t shown any major issues.” This is likely because outside of her ultimate, Mercy can only Damage Boost one teammate at a time.

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Surprisingly, both damage-buffing abilities could be in the crosshairs of devs and may not be as powerful in Overwatch 2 as they are in the original game.

“That said, there’s still a chance we end up tuning both Discord and Damage Boost down, if we see they’re causing issues in further testing,” Andy revealed.

It’s unclear to what extent the abilities could be nerfed, especially as according to Andy, Discord is weaker in the 5v5 version of the game.

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Still, it’s good to see that the devs are willing to make big changes to abilities if they negatively impact the game, a welcome design change over the first Overwatch that saw Brigitte dominate the meta for a… long time.

We can’t wait to see what else the devs have up their sleeves, especially with Dexerto sources indicating that the plan is to have the game released before Summer 2022, with the Overwatch League beginning on an early build of OW2 in April.