While the Mercy rework has made her a much more interesting and proactive character, it has also catapulted her power level straight into the stratosphere. The end result, as you would expect, was Mercy being pretty much mandatory in every single game, be it a standard competitive match or the professional Overwatch League. Not exactly ideal!
As such, I am very glad to say that the long-awaited Mercy nerfs have now finally arrived to the live servers along with a minor nerf to Junkrat. The patch notes are fairly small, so if you're interested in all of the details you'll find them right below:
Junkrat
• Concussion Mine
- Now will deal less damage to targets farther away from the explosion’s center
Developer Comments: Junkrat has been enjoying the flexibility his double-charge Concussion Mine provides, but it has become a bit too easy to throw out huge bursts of damage in a large area. With this change he can still dish out similar damage but he must now be more accurate with his tosses.
Mercy
• Valkyrie
- No longer makes Resurrect instant
- No longer grants a bonus Resurrect charge
- The speed bonus Guardian Angel receives when activating Valkyrie has been decreased by 50%
- Duration reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds
Developer Comments: Mercy’s recent Resurrect changes have helped in allowing enemies to have more counter play in dealing with her, but she was able to use Resurrect through Valkyrie enough to largely mitigate the impact of the previous changes. Additionally, we’re toning back the amount of mobility Valkyrie provides through Guardian Angel and reducing its duration to overall reduce the power of this ability.
The damage drop-off on Junkrat's mine is fairly significant, especially when you look at the outer edges of the explosion, but overall it's still a minor nerf given that it can be offset completely through a little bit of careful aiming. Personally I feel his ultimate is still too fast to reliably counter, but there are and always will be plenty of ways to kill Junkrat himself, so I can't say I'm displeased with his current state in the game.
As for Mercy, I feel the changes are on point. The nerfs might seem overly harsh when you look at the previous incarnation of Valkyrie, but when compared to the most powerful ultimate Overwatch has ever seen pretty much everything is going to seem useless in comparison. That said, a bit of adjustment is going to be needed. Not in the ultimate, mind you, but rather in the players themselves. Valkyrie is no longer a reactive ultimate you pop when you're losing a fight in order to instantly turn it around, but rather something you use to help your team push forward or just top everyone off. It's a bit of a new role for Mercy who has historically always been reactive, but it's something you should be able to easily adjust to.
The matches for the next week or so are going to be incredibly volatile as players will have to relearn how to properly position, but once the turmoil is over I think Overwatch is going to be in a much better place. How long that will actually last, you can never really tell, so my suggestion would be to enjoy the chaos while you still can.