Mercy receives a new set of changes to her reworked kit

UPDATE: These changes have gone live after four days on the PTR. Here are the complete patch notes:

Mercy

Guardian Angel

Players can now glide past a targeted ally using the jump key

Cooldown no longer resets when Resurrect is activated

Valkyrie

No longer resets or reduces Resurrection’s cooldown

Now gives players a bonus resurrection charge

Developer Comments: Valkyrie no longer resets or reduces Resurrect’s cooldown. Instead, it now provides an extra 'charge,' allowing you to revive an ally even if it is still on cooldown. If the bonus charge hasn’t been spent when Valkyrie ends, it will be removed.

This method makes Resurrect more flexible when used with Valkyrie. For example, in the past if you wanted to resurrect two teammates, you had to revive the first target, then activate Valkyrie (causing the Resurrect’s cooldown to reset), and then revive the other target. With this change, you can now activate Valkyrie and fly in quickly to resurrect both targets instantly.

However, this still reduces the overall number of Resurrects that Mercy can provide, since Valkyrie no longer reduces its cooldown.

Mercy’s been at the center of a lot of conversation lately. After her recent rework that removed her multi-man rez, gave her a new ult and gave her a single target rez, she’s become a must-pick hero.

After her pick and win rates shot up, Blizzard began to tinker with her ult and resurrect on the PTR, which caused even more controversy and discussion. It’s been a busy month for Mercy, and there are more tweaks on the PTR that may bring her back into line.

It’s always worth noting that PTR changes are tentative. We did not see the last round of changes go through to live, and these ones might be just as experimental. With that in mind, let’s see what might be happening to our beloved medic, courtesy of Geoff Goodman.

Mercy can now get an unlock boost from her guardian angel by using the jump key. This unlocks you from your target and lets you fly past them for a little bit, and sort of use your target like a slingshot. This somewhat replicates some of the behavior the recent Mercy zero-air resistance bug caused, but in a way that is more consistent and with less buggy side effects.

Valkyrie has also changed a bit, in regards to how it affects Resurrect. It no longer increases the range of res, it now instead gives you one free 'charge' of res that you can use any time during Valkyrie. I do not use this free res, it will be removed when Valkyrie ends. Valkyrie still no longer affects Resurrect's cooldown directly now, but this method preserves some amount of 'burst ressing' when needed, while making it more flexible to use. For example, in the past if you want to res two targets with Valkyrie, you had to first res one target, then ult (causing the cooldown to reset), then res the other target. With this new change you can now hit Valkyrie first, fly in quickly and res two targets instantly.

However, overall this still reduces the overall numbers of Resurrects Mercy can provide since Valkyrie no longer reduces its cooldown.

This gives Mercy a little more flexibility with her mobility, allowing her to launch herself back into a friendly McCree or Widowmaker and to the sweet, sweet refuge of safety where she can regenerate up. She can also throw herself into the fray with more enthusiasm.

Valkyrie now gives you one free single target resurrect, rather than resetting the cooldown. That means instead of a potential three resurrect chain, you’ll be limited to two. Still powerful, but a little less game changing.

There’s one more tweak:

There is one more change to Mercy: Resurrect no longer resets the cooldown of Guardian Angel. This makes Resurrect more reasonable to fight against, since Mercy will now be slightly more vulnerable if she chooses to res someone in a bad position.

If this change goes through, a Mercy who dives into a fight to resurrect a Reinhardt or Reaper is going to be stuck in the fight for a couple of seconds. This should allow an enemy Pharah or Soldier to blow her up and continue the fight.

Once again, all PTR changes are for test purposes and may not be final, so manage your expectations. We may see this Mercy hit live, or she may go back into the shop for another round of changes.