It would appear the devs are trying to balance the game around less barriers. So I can see devs are leaning towards removing some of the instakill power on Widow and Ashe, and other Sniperish heroes.
How about they take that one step further, and change the math on Damage Boosted Headshots.
Right now when you damage boost a Headshot, it increases the damage on both the Base Damage, as well as the Critical Headshot Damage.
So I was thinking how they could change this and came up with this idea:
Damage = (BaseDamage * 1.3) + (CriticalDamage)
In the context of an Ashe Damage Boosted Headshot (with the ExpCard changes) currently that does
208 Damage = (80 * 1.3) + (80 * 1.3)
What I was thinking is the damage should be changed to:
184 Damage = (80 * 1.3) + (80)
For a Damage Boosted Full Charge Widow shot, currently that would be: (Which is nearly enough to ALMOST instakilll a Zarya if she gets sneezed on by any other sort of damage.)
390 Damage = (120 * 1.3) + (120 * 1.5 * 1.3)
With the changes I’m suggesting a Boosted Widow HS would look more like:
336 Damage = (120 * 1.3) + (120 * 1.5)
Notably, Mercy could probably use some buffs if this went through. Probably something like this:
Thats a very interesting idea actually. I had also thought of this before but never got into further detail In how it work. It was a game where you can possess “Damage Boosted” and “Critical Hit Boost”. I think applying that rule to Mercy in her normal state can do wonders in balance. Ultimates like Valkyrie and Supercharger can have a difference in its properties.
This however won’t affect Pharah, as she doesnt possess Critical Hits, but Direct hits as Headshots isn’t possible
Also where did you find this information in the calculations in damage boost? Im actually curious as I always thought the Critical Hit applies first, then gets multiplied by 1.3
The main problem is that boosts stack, so when you add Discord to the mix, people literally evaporate. Without barriers or them not being as present, I think the headshots should be toned down, specially those that even without a boost, do more than 120 damage in 1 hit.
Soldier for example or Reaper or Sombra would be fine since they have to be way more consistent or be more in danger than lets say Mcree, Ashe or Widow.
Well, that is a possibility. Dunno if the devs would be up for it. But it would definitely bring the TTK of the overall game back away from instakill.
Although since we’re mostly talking about Widow they could just slow that charge rate a bit. Since I don’t foresee them ever making Widow not oneshot 200hp heroes.
But by changing the Ashe headshot stuff, it should be significant. Getting it down from Live where it’s at 221 boosted headshot, down to 184 boosted headshot.
Where GM suddenly found a strong desire to have Mercy pocketing Ashe/Widow the entire game.
Dont think the charge rate is the issue itself, but the absurd multiplier. Should she be able to oneshot 200hp heroes? Absolutely. But she should ONLY be able to with 3 charges. The 2 charge “spam” shot is ridiculous. Even with that range “nerf” (because its just a slap in the wrist), the multiplier is insane.
Ashe is a different story, she was way less range and will have less bullets. 12 afaik. They are also planning to reduce his ADS damage too I think? So should be fine. She cant one shot you from that far.
Looking at this video all I can think about is how so many people have voiced concerns that Mercy’s current iteration isn’t engaging but got told that she’s “balanced”. Well, this is the playstyle people wanted for her, hope the same people dismissing the criticism enjoys the playstyles she enables.
The nice part about a nerf like this, is that it would provide “budget” for Mercy buffs. Without really affecting Mercy players who weren’t hard pocketing snipers.
Pretty easy: Range.
Its quite basic. Her range is absolutely NOT the same as Widow and her hitbox is way larger.
She is more “in danger” or less “safe” than widow, therefore her risk is a bit higher, her rewards should be a bit higher or at least remain the same.
She also has spread on his normal shot, so even at medium distances, she is really prone to fail a “spam” from her weapon. Widow has none while zoomed and doesnt need to unzoom to get a ridiculous fire/damage ratio.
Thats 100% a different thing than the numbers we are discussing, which are the main issue.
I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a good compensation buff for Mercy that isn’t going to make other interactions also more frustrating, especially since your proposed change here would absolutely be met with the community saying that “now Mercy has to pocket Pharah, because ____”
I think my core issue with this suggested change is that it’s pretty much just Mercy getting nerfed here, and not just Mercy, but Mercy specifically interacting with a whole host of heroes. This absolutely whacks her knees when boosting McCree, Soldier, Reaper, Hog… any hero that definitely wants juicy headshots to get past a break point. And I don’t think Mercy herself needs to bear the burden here and simply be a less effective hero when interacting with these heroes.
In particular this proposal is pretty much just for the Ashe-Mercy interactions, which I think is a sledgehammer change for a particularly minor problem. I’m not even in a camp where I think Ashe’s current damage output is problematic, especially if that experimental goes through, so I’m already hard-pressed to think that this dynamic needs a specific nerf to itself. Ashe and Mercy working together should be a lethal combo, and in particular it should be headshots that get the most value – it feels a bit backwards to find ways to make headshots less rewarding. There’s other interactions that this does effect, but I’m not especially fond of any of them, I guess I don’t understand why Mercy’s value isn’t allowed to be “she pushes breakpoints in damage thresholds, which can drastically shake up how battles turn out.”
So in general I think this change is pretty weird. As meta as Ashe-Mercy is right now, I think there’s a long list of other reasons as to why they’ve excelled, and it isn’t necessarily the damage itself. An environment with less shields opens up a lot of Ashe potential, and the nature of frequent one-shots gives Resurrect lots of opportunities. I think that even if you did make this change, it wouldn’t change the meta pretty much at all, at best just changing up the hitscan Mercy is boosting and making due with less effective headshots.
Ultimately this feels like a long-term, hard solution completely at the cost of how rewarding Mercy can be to have on your team, in order to solve an especially short-term balance problem.
Well for starters. Pistol swap speed reduced from 1.2sec to 0.2sec.
Then they could shave off some time on Rez a bit, or make Rez faster in Valk.
Although the other limiter on Mercy Buffs is Pharah.
For that, I figure they could create a grounded “Healed Rune” below the healed player, which heals for say 25hps. Then lower Mercy’s base healing down to 45hps. Such that she’s healing at a rate of 70hps on grounded targets, but 45 on airborne.
Which also has the knockon effect of allowing for more Pharah buffs.
Other than that, they could just give her a Heal boost cooldown on Reload button.
_
Or maybe if they are feeling really spicy, give Mercy players what they actually want. (Mostly)
Damage = BaseDamage * (100% + Damage dealt modifiers (so 30% in this case)) * ( 100% + Damage taken modifiers (0% in this case)) * Headshot multiplier
So while technically it is the same thing just in a different format, the game is calculating it differently, so getting rid of the damage boost specifically isn’t so easy.
crit is the headshot multiplier and additive boosts are every damage boost besides discord and headshots afaik
im pretty sure this is how damage is actually calculated ingame. they would have to make the crit multiplier an additive boost to accomplish what you are looking for. would feel odd for the player at first since we’re so used to hs being guaranteed 2x damage but that wouldn’t be the case if it was an additive bonus. I don’t necessarily think its a bad idea though.
