Secret Mercy ability buff discovered after Overwatch July 15 update
BlizzardMercy has received some unintended changes in Overwatch. A secret buff to her Guardian Angel was shipped in the July 15 PTR update, and it’s got fans of the Swiss medic hyped if they hit live.
Mercy has struggled to find a place in the Overwatch meta recently. While she’s been helped out by Hero Pools at the top level to fit in when Ana, Brigitte, Baptiste, or Lucio were rotated out, she still hasn’t really found a place.
However, with some dive compositions potentially coming back, Mercy could make a gracious return to the Overwatch battlefield. If that wasn’t enough, she could be getting a nice little buff.
The July 15 PTR patch was mostly system changes, as well as some updates to the Workshop and bugfixes. Mercy wasn’t even touched in the notes. However, a secret change has been uncovered that has got mains of the Swiss medic excited.
The change seems pretty simple. It’s just a buff to her Guardian Angel movement speed while she’s using Valkyrie. However, for Mercy players, this small change has a big impact.
https://twitter.com/Aqua_Boost/status/1283803283744849920
The increased movement speed on Guardian Angel makes it a lot easier to dart around the battlefield from ally to ally. Not only that, but you can get some real distance if you complete a “super jump.”
It’s also a revert of a previous nerf. When Valkyrie was reworked in September 2017, Guardian Angel had increased range and movement speed. Blizzard removed the extra speed in January 2018, but kept the range. Now, both are back in tandem.
The change could be unintended for now, and only made its way onto the PTR by accident. It could potentially be rolled into one of the new experimental cards Team 4 are looking at shipping to Overwatch players as a tester.
Because it’s on the PTR, there’s no guarantee that it’ll hit live servers either. However, Mercy mains should be crossing their fingers and hoping it does.