In Overwatch 2, Mercy is the most notable support hero, both in and outside of the FPS game. However, this notoriety is more like infamy for many players who see Mercy as a broken mechanic.
Being one of the oldest heroes on the roster Mercy has undergone many changes throughout her time in Overwatch; it seems like only yesterday that Mercy’s ultimate involved resurrecting her entire team in one go.
However, in Overwatch 2, Mercy is a somewhat different beast now. No longer obsessed with going for big plays, her character does best hiding in the bushes and quietly keeping her team alive.
Overwatch 2 Mercy
Overwatch 2 Mercy: story and background
In Overwatch 2, Mercy is wise beyond her years and more intelligent than some of the brightest scientists this world has ever seen.
With this intelligence came big responsibility as she decided to dedicate her life to researching nanobiology, something that would allow this young scientist the opportunity to heal the world of its illnesses and wounds.
Despite being opposed to military intervention after her parents died in the Omnic War, Mercy joined Overwatch to further her research. Unfortunately, her doubts were realized after members of the stealth organization Blackwatch (namely Reaper and Moira) betrayed the heroic team and went off on their own.
After many years of traveling the world and saving people on her own, Mercy has decided to return to Overwatch, answering Winston and Tracer's call.
Overwatch 2 Mercy: abilities breakdown
Primary Weapon: Caduceus Staff
Description: A weapon that can latch on to allies and either heal or damage boost them.
Mercy’s Staff is one of the most reliable ways of healing allies in Overwatch 2. Dishing out 45 health per second if a teammate is above 50% of their HP or 67.5 per second if they are below this, Mercy is one of the best support heroes for a reason.
This weapon can also switch from healing to damage-boosting an ally. Mercy can boost an ally's damage by 30%, which is quite a terrifying statistic for more damage-heavy heroes like Soldier 76, Reaper, and Sojourn.
Some tips and tricks for this weapon:
- Mercy can gain ultimate charge equal to the damage she amplifies.
Secondary Weapon: Caduceus Blaster
Description: An automatic pistol.
In Overwatch 2, Mercy only has one way of defending herself: this Blaster. While you shouldn’t fall into the trap of becoming a frowned upon ‘battle Mercy,’ this Blaster is a good last option for defending yourself.
This weapon is most useful when Mercy is in her Ultimate form when her mobility is maximized, and she is harder to hit.
Some tips and tricks for this weapon:
- The Blaster will automatically reload if not equipped for 1.4 seconds.
- There is a 0.51-second recovery when Mercy cannot use her gun after switching weapons.
Ability: Guardian Angel
Description: Fly towards the selected ally.
This ability is the root of Mercy’s mobility. With the ability to move 17 meters per second over a range of 30 meters, Guardian Angel has the power to get Mercy out of some very sticky situations.
This ability also has some extras for those who want to maximize Mercy’s mobility. Pressing space while using Guardian Angel will propel Mercy forward, while hitting the back key will force her back from the target, and finally, using crouch will launch Mercy vertically into the sky. These moves make Mercy hard to kill and are the secret to any great Mercy main.
Some tips and tricks for this ability:
- Mercy can use this ability on both living and dead allies.
- Mercy can cancel it mid-flight by activating the power again.
Ability: Resurrect
Description: Revive a dead teammate
In Overwatch 2, Mercy’s Resurrect is one of the more controversial abilities. Stemming from Mercy’s original ultimate that saw her reviving her entire team, Blizzard broke down this ability to make her character less frustrating to play against.
While this ability is nowhere near as annoying as Mercy’s old ultimate, it is still relatively overpowered. With a cooldown of 30 seconds, if you time it right, Mercy can single-handedly prevent any of her teammates from ending up back in spawn.
Some tips and tricks for this ability:
- Line of sight with the target does not need to be maintained when reviving them.
- Once resurrected, Mercy’s target gains 2.25 seconds of invulnerability.
- Mercy slows down by 75%, so this ability puts her in great danger, so it’s best to Resurrect players from behind barriers or obstacles.
Passive Ability: Angelic Descent
Description: Mercy falls very slowly.
Mercy can fall very slowly to the ground by holding the jump key. This is a great tool when trying to stay out of reach of the enemy team and buying Mercy more time to look around and fly off to a distant teammate who is out of harm's way.
Some tips and tricks for this passive ability:
- As this is a passive ability, it does not have a cooldown.
Passive Ability: Sympathetic Recovery
Description: Healing allies with Caduceus Staff heals your wounds as well.
In Overwatch 2, Mercy does not share the automatic self-heal ability seen in all other support heroes. Instead, this medic heals herself when helping her teammates with her Staff. This ability allows Mercy to heal herself with 25% of the healing she bestows to others.
Some tricks and tips for this passive ability:
- As this is a passive ability, the play doesn’t have to do anything for it to work.
Ultimate: Valkyrie
Description: Gain the ability to fly and heal all allies within a radius.
Mercy’s ultimate allows her to chain heal her allies, meaning that while she directly heals one hero, others surrounding said character are healed by proxy. However, if an ally breaks the chain by going behind a wall, it can no longer be cured.
This ultimate also dramatically increases the strength of Mercy’s other abilities. If this is engaged, Mercy can heal 60 health per second, with an omnidirectional movement speed of 9 meters per second and 25 meters per second when using Guardian Angel.
Some tips and tricks for this ultimate:
- Mercy passively generates a 1% ultimate charge every 3.64 seconds.
- Mercy can gain vision of enemy health bars if they have been damaged, even if it wasn’t Mercy who harmed them.
Overwatch 2 Mercy: gameplay breakdown
In Overwatch 2, Mercy is one of the more proficient support heroes, with many seeing this hero as so broken that she’ll win almost every fight she’s in. Of course, Mercy isn’t the one fighting; instead, she can damage, boost and heal her teammates so much it’s almost impossible to counter it without the enemy team also picking Mercy.
In this sense, Mercy is the best support when it comes to just aiding her team. Her damage boost ability is so powerful that this alone can turn a mediocre teammate into a terrifying force of nature. Unfortunately, this power is also why there are so many frustrations against this medic, with many seeing her power as too strong for anyone’s good.
The other way to make the enemy team want to uninstall Overwatch 2 is by using her resurrection power. This relatively short cooldown can undo a significant kill in an instant. There’s nothing more demoralizing than seeing Mercy resurrect your kill in the kill feed.
