Overwatch 2 devs make major Mercy changes for Season 3: New Passive ability explained

Overwatch 2 Season 3 is just on the horizon, and alongside all the new content, Mercy will be receiving a brand new passive, as well as changes to her Guardian Angel and Caduceus Staff.

Overwatch 2’s third season is arriving shortly, with a whole bunch of changes to heroes, a new map, and a battle pass to boot.

One of these heroes to see the biggest changes in Season 3 is Mercy, who will be the recipient of major changes to her Caduceus Staff, a nerf to her Guardian Angel, and a rework to her passive.

Mercy has been one of the most contentious heroes in Overwatch 2 in recent weeks, with her beam able to push certain DPS heroes above damage thresholds, creating the “one shot” meta within the game. Blizzard, however, is looking to hone in more on her capabilities as a guardian angel, who is able to save her low-health teammates whilst blitzing around the battlefield.

Mercy’s changes have involved a new passive for the support hero. Blizzard is hoping to set her apart from the rest of the supports, which received a similar passive on Overwatch 2’s launch.

Mercy’s new passive will heal her for 25% of healing done to her allies with her Caduceus staff. Alongside this, Mercy’s old passive, Regeneration will be completely removed to make way for the new one. These are huge changes that should make Mercy a bit more durable, as she’ll be constantly healing throughout the fight.

In order to balance this, Blizzard has knocked down her Guardian Angel to ensure she doesn’t become so durable she’s invincible. Mercy’s Guardian Angel will have its cooldown increased from 1.5 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Superjump (canceling Guardian Angel with Space or Crouch) will be receiving a nerf, when Mercy uses Jump to cancel Guardian Angel she will now move 20% slower.

Finally, Caduceus Staff will be receiving rework to better align with Mercy’s new goals as a healer. Caduceus Staff’s healing will be reduced from 55 to 45 health per second but its healing output will increase by 50% when healing low-health allies. According to Blizzard, the time taken to heal a 200hp hero from 1 health to full is about the same, however.

Overwatch 2 Season 3 Mercy Changelist

Guardian Angel

• Cooldown increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds
• Holding the backwards directional input and canceling the ability with Jump now moves 20% slower

Caduceus Staff

• Healing-per-second reduced from 55 to 45
• Healing is increased by 50% for allies under half health

Regeneration Passive

• “Regeneration” Passive removed

New Passive: “Sympathetic Recovery”

• Mercy heals herself for 25% of healing done with the Caduceus Staff

Developer Comment: Replacing Mercy’s Regeneration passive with a more interesting interaction was something we wanted to do after all support heroes gained a similar version of it through their Role Passive.

For the Caduceus Staff change, this will empower Mercy even more as a triage healer and enable her to more often save low health allies. The overall time it takes to fully heal a 200-health hero from 1 hp is about the same as before.

For Guardian Angel, the cooldown increase is necessary to reduce the greatly increased mobility resulting from the recent rework to the jump cancel. It enabled Mercy to quickly launch herself long distances in any direction and be overly evasive for such a short downtime.