When it comes to Mercy in Overwatch 2, it seems like she’s always surrounded in controversy.
Throughout the lifespan of the character, the support hero has seemingly always been either too strong or too weak. Now, after a recent nerf, Mercy mains and OW2 fans are up in arms about her once again. So we decided to ask for the opinion of a very unique source.
Dot Esports asked artificial intelligence ChatGPT to judge the massive nerfs that have been brought down on Mercy in season three’s update. The support hero had some big changes to her Guardian Angel cooldown, Caduceus Staff healing, and the complete removal of her Regeneration passive.
“Based on the changes, it appears that Blizzard is trying to balance Mercy’s healing capabilities while also encouraging players to be more strategic with her abilities,” ChatGPT said. “The increased cooldown on Guardian Angel, slower movement while cancelling the ability, and reduced healing-per-second with Caduceus Staff will likely result in a decrease in Mercy’s overall healing output. However, the increased healing for allies under half health and new Sympathetic Recovery passive will compensate for this reduction, and should incentivize players to focus their healing efforts on allies who need it most.”
Sympathetic Recovery is a new Passive for Mercy, which allows her to heal herself for 25 percent of all healing done with the Caduceus Staff. It basically means she needs to heal others to heal herself, which is a big change from Regeneration, which healed her on its own.
“Overall, these changes are likely to result in a more balanced version of Mercy that requires more careful play, rather than making her weaker or stronger,” ChatGPT said.
We then asked ChatGPT if it agreed with the sentiment that Mercy’s real strength is in her damage boosting beam, and that forcing her to heal more and damage boost less would make her weaker overall.
“Yes, I can see why some players might make that argument,” the AI said. “Mercy’s damage boosting beam has always been a crucial aspect of her kit, and the changes to her healing abilities will likely require players to focus more on healing and less on damage boosting. However, the increased healing for allies under half health, combined with the new Sympathetic Recovery passive, will help offset some of the decrease in her damage output.”
At this point, we began to wonder if ChatGPT was an Ana main in disguise. But it had more to say about the support’s minor rework.
“Additionally, the changes to Mercy’s abilities will likely encourage players to be more strategic in their use of her kit, which could lead to new playstyles and greater overall team coordination,” ChatGPT said. “So while the changes may require players to adjust their playstyle and focus more on healing, I wouldn’t necessarily say that they will make Mercy weaker overall.”
It seems as though ChatGPT’s level-headed super-AI response made some good points. For Mercy fans, however, it probably doesn’t matter much what anyone has to say if they’re not willing to adjust to the change.
