Overwatch 2 devs reveal Pink Mercy skin has skyrocketed hero’s pick rate

Overwatch 2 devs have revealed the Pink Mercy skin has caused the hero’s pick rate to skyrocket, all without getting any actual buffs.

One of the headliners of Season 11 was the return of Pink Mercy after years of begging from the community. It returns in 2024 as part of another fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

As players flock to the returning skin, you may have noticed you’ve been seeing a lot more Mercy than normal, and that is no coincidence. One of Overwatch 2’s devs has now confirmed the skin is so popular it has skyrocketed the hero’s pick rate.

In an interview with Overwatch 2 streamer and coach Spilo, Lead Gameplay designer Alec Dawson talked about hero balances and how it has changed pick rates, remarking how surprising it was to see Mercy’s pick rates rise in all the game modes of late.

“There’s been the ‘return of the Pink Mercy’ effect, even in ranked,” Dawson said to the laughter of Spilo. “You start to see that like, ‘Oh ok there’s a lot more Mercy’s even in comp’… So it’s not just about Quick Play, they also want to play Mercy in Competitive.”

Although Dawson didn’t give out any numbers of Mercy’s pick rates, we can already see the significant jump in Overwatch 2 stat trackers like Overbuff.

In comparison to the last quarterly window, Mercy’s pick rate rose from 5.66% to a jaw-dropping 12.47% in Ranked on PC. This makes her the most popular hero by far, even above meta supports like Kiriko or Lucio.

Even in high Elo ranks we are seeing the Pink Mercy effect. Mercy’s pick rates in Master rose from 5.70% to 16.31% in comparison to the last quarterly period.

It’s not just the in-game pick rate being topped by Mercy by the way, the skin is so popular that it even put Overwatch 2 on Steam’s top sellers list.