Art and character Mercy was one of the first twelve
Overwatch characters introduced at Blizzard's
BlizzCon 2014 event. A
Polygon story covering the event noted Mercy was equipped with feathery wings, a healing stream, and a pistol. In concept art for
Overwatch, prior to her final design, Mercy had been represented as a
black man with white hair and a broad build, but otherwise having similar outfits and abilities as the released version. The character was originally named "Angelica", with "Mercy" being the name of the character now known as "
Pharah". Confusion among the game's beta testers arose, which involved players switching to Angelica when requested to switch to Mercy. As a result, Blizzard renamed Mercy as "Rocket Dude", before the character became known as Pharah, while simultaneously, Angelica was renamed Mercy. During May 2018, Blizzard partnered with the
Breast Cancer Research Foundation to offer a limited-time "Pink Mercy" skin that can be purchased by players, as well as a corresponding tee shirt with all proceeds going to the charity to support
breast cancer awareness (akin to the
pink ribbon). Blizzard reported that the charity sale raised over , the largest single-year donation that the Breast Cancer Research Foundation had seen. On
Overwatchs accompanying website, Blizzard published a fictional biography for Mercy, listing her real name, age, and base of operations: Angela Ziegler, 37, and
Zürich,
Switzerland, respectively. and operating as a
field medic and
first responder while with them. Although she disagreed with the militaristic methods implemented by Overwatch, she used their resources to develop her winged Valkyrie swift–response suit. Mercy is also mentioned in
Genji's fictional biography, with one line stating, "
Hanzo believed that he had killed his brother, but Genji was rescued by Overwatch and the intervention of Dr. Angela Ziegler." In a fictional news report published by Blizzard, Mercy is quoted as commenting on the end of the Overwatch organization, describing the growing negative relationship between
Soldier: 76 (Jack Morrison) and
Reaper (Gabriel Reyes): "after Morrison's promotion to strike commander, his relationship with Reyes changed, the tension became more pronounced as time went on. I tried to mend things. We all did. Sometimes when the closest bonds break, all you can do is pray you stay out of the cross fire."
Gameplay design While Blizzard has made various changes to all of the heroes since the game's release, Mercy has seen very significant changes, including a complete rework of her skill kit, maintain to address how her ability to resurrect downed team members has impacted the game. At release, Mercy's ultimate ability was "Resurrect", which revived any recently eliminated teammates within a certain range, granting them full health and a brief invulnerability. Blizzard's developer notes on their July 21, 2016, patch for
Overwatch referred to Resurrect as "one of the most powerful abilities in the game." Timely and strategic use of Mercy's Resurrect ability was considered by players to be a game changer, either saving a defending team from a defeat, or allowing an attacking team to continue an offensive push despite several eliminations. In August 2016, Blizzard added a buff to Mercy's "Resurrect" ability, as well as her general healing abilities, in order "to solidify her role as a strong, single-target healer." Prior to a patch in September 2016, post-match Plays of the Games in competitive play were frequently dominated by a Mercy player using the Resurrect ability, requiring Blizzard to rework how the game selected Plays of the Game to reduce this frequency. Blizzard found that Mercy players overemphasised the "Resurrect" ability, as "it incentivized Mercy players to hide away from important battles, instead of taking part in them". With a September 2017 update, Mercy's "Resurrect" was moved out from being an ultimate ability to a standard skill with a long cooldown. Blizzard introduced her new ultimate, "Valkyrie", which significantly buffs all of Mercy's abilities and reduces cooldowns for fifteen seconds. Blizzard felt by keeping the Resurrect as a skill and adding the new Valkyrie ultimate, it "gives her the opportunity to make big game-making plays and opens a number of new options for her". Even with her kit change, Blizzard has continued to fine-tune the abilities within the public test servers to try to achieve a proper
balance. Jeff Kaplan said that Blizzard continued to find that with the new kit, Mercy players still kept out of battle save to use Resurrect, when they want the character to be treated as great healer for all team members. A further adjustment was made to Mercy in a January 2018 patch; whereas the Valkyrie ultimate originally had reset the Resurrect cooldown and provided a second Resurrect that could be used immediately, the patch eliminated the reset and second Resurrect. The
Overwatch developers stated that they found that many Mercy players were still holding back and using the immediate Resurrects granted by Valkyrie to swing control of the game and which was difficult for opposing teams to counter. Developers noticed if made to jump during this ability at a specific time, Mercy would be launched into the air, and noted that many players were incorporating this into their gameplay. with some players calling Mercy more clunky and awkward to play. In response to the player feedback, Blizzard stated that Mercy launching into the air was a bug and further tweaked the ability in a subsequent patch, reworking it so that a jumping mechanism would be included as a feature. Players voiced further discontent with these changes, causing Blizzard to rollback the removal of Mercy's "super jump". ==Appearances==