Overwatch 2 devs reveal balance changes to Mercy & Kiriko in Season 6 patch

The Overwatch 2 developers have revealed a slew of balance changes coming in the Season 6 patch, including updates to the game’s many support heroes like Mercy.

The next OW2 Season will finally introduce PvE content, a new support hero, and even a core mode in one of the biggest updates the game has ever seen.

Of course, no mammoth update would ever be complete without some balance changes – and that means a series of nerfs and buffs to the game’s roster of heroes.

In a blog update, Game Director Aaron Keller revealed that many supports will be getting some adjustments, underlining Mercy and Kiriko as the ones who will be getting their power decreased.

Mercy & Kiriko nerfs revealed ahead of Overwatch 2 Invasion

According to Aaron Keller, while plenty of supports will be getting tweaks, he wanted to highlight Kiriko and Mercy in particular ahead of time.

For Mercy, the angel’s controversial damage boost ability would be getting a slight reduction, where instead of buffing an ally’s damage by 30%, it will be lowered to 25%.

“At this value, we feel that the ability will still feel effective while giving us room to rein in certain damage spikes,” he explained. “We’re aware this is a contentious topic and are doing our best to be receptive to the various community opinions.”

Furthermore, the lead developer also touched on Kiriko’s Protection Suzu, a powerful ability that can cleanse status effects such as burns. It too will be getting some modifications.

“It will now heal slightly less, but when it cleanses a negative effect, it will do an additional burst of healing,” Keller revealed. “The slight knockback on Suzu is also being removed. We’d like this ability to feel more pointed, we don’t want players to feel like they have to hold it, and would like to reward them more for using it situationally.”

Doing additional healing to an ally with a negative effect is certainly a unique new touch to the ability. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out and how the change is received by players.

Of course, support mains will also have a brand new hero to try out as well, once Season 6 begins on August 10, so there’s definitely going to be a lot to talk about once OW2 Invasion begins.