Overwatch fans discover a secret Torbjörn buff and Mercy nerf

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Torbjörn and Mercy received major changes to their ultimate abilities that weren’t mentioned in the recent Overwatch Patch 1.40 or any previous patch notes, according to a Reddit user. 

Mercy’s ultimate ability, Valkyrie, previously allowed her to chain damage boost to her teammates, which results in an ultimate charge that’s 30 percent of the teammate’s damage to enemies. If Mercy damage boosted Lúcio while he booped Roadhog off the map using his Sonic amplifier, for example, Mercy would receive 30 percent of Roadhog’s health points as an ultimate charge. 

But now, Mercy only gains ultimate charge if she amplifies any damage. So if Lúcio was to boop an enemy off the map, Mercy would receive ultimate charge from the Soundwave damage. 

This change to Mercy could have come from Patch 1.34, which introduced the combat medic Baptise to the game. But this wasn’t mentioned in those patch notes, either.

Damage boosting is a core element to Mercy’s gameplay and allows her to end teamfights quickly. This nerf severely reduces the impact of this ability and could hinder high-level competition. 

Torbjörn, on the other hand, received a secret buff to his ultimate ability, Molten Core. His ultimate does extra damage to armored opponents like Orisa, Reinhardt, and Winston. His ultimate previously dealt 130 damage per second (DPS) to unarmored opponents and 190 DPS to armored opponents. But now, the DPS toward armored targets has been significantly increased to 250 DPS.

This Torbjörn buff could be well received by fans of the hero since Molten Core was relatively weak in the past. 

Secret changes to Overwatch heroes could be a temporary issue, such as a bug or glitch. If this is the case, then these changes could be fixed soon.