William Warnecke, lead software engineer at Blizzard Entertainment, has confirmed that Stage 2 of the Overwatch League will be played in a new patch. This means that players should expect a new update to arrive by early February.
The "Overwatch" team has always been very good at maintaining communication with their fanbase and this extends to both their official forums as well as the various subreddits that focus on "Overwatch" content. On Jan. 21, Redditor Werewolf_Appears posted a question on the CompetitiveOverwatch subreddit asking if Stage 2 of the League would be played in a new patch. Warnecke replied to the inquiry by saying, "Hey there stage 2 will be on an updated patch that will include whatever hero balance changes make it through to live."
While it is not an exact date, it does give players a brief window of when to expect the next balance patch. The Overwatch League is currently in the middle of Stage 1 and is expected to end on Feb. 10. Stage 2 is then scheduled to start by Feb. 21. Assuming no delays or interruptions take place, that leaves 11 days between the two stages for a new patch to hit servers that, for all intents and purposes, is expected to nerf Mercy to the ground.
As it stands, Mercy is not only the most picked support hero in the League but the most picked hero overall. According to the data collected by Winston's Lab, Mercy is dominating the charts with a 94.40 percent pick rate. This is nearly 20 percent more than the next most picked support, Zenyatta, and more than the total combined percentage of Lucio, Ana, Moira, and Symmetra.
The most recent patch to the Public Test Realm already has a handful of changes for Mercy, most of which revolve around making her ultimate ability, Valkyrie, a lot less effective. Even though it is still uncertain if these will push through to the live servers, such are good indicators of the changes players should expect from the upcoming balance patch.
