Remember that excitement when you manage to pull out a big, game changing rez during overtime? Or the smaller, more tempo ones? Or that one special rez for player carrying the game? It was fun.
But only for your team. In the next match you haven’t had mercy in your team. The fight was even, but during overtime their Mercy pull out big rez through wall and there was no way to stop or counter her. You could kill her if you know that she was there, but who will leave the point where there is an overtime to search for enemy healer? That was unfun, unfair and frustrating.
So yes, I get why big rez was removed and I kinda agree with that.
But since then I got a feeling that Mercy is lacking something. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still quite fine. The last healing nerf wasn’t nice but you can still pocket and save people in a lot of situations. You still got all the mobility and small rez for tempo picks or reviving key targets like tanks or dps with ready ulti. It’s nice. But Valkyrie isn’t as half as exciting as the old ultimate was. You pop it, usually at the beginning of the fight and fly around trying not to get killed, pressing one button and let the chain healing works. Yeah, sometimes you got nano from Nana and go full battle Mercy to get those pesky, uncontested Widow or Hanzo at the another end of the map, but beside all memes and laughs you don’t feel that you are doing something important. Even when you got play of the game it’s either because you went battle Mercy or was flying for five seconds and rezzed Reaper who had his ulti ready and kill three people rightaway. You don’t feel the impact of your decisions, the thrill, the excitement.
I was thinking is there any way that we could bring back big rez, but without making Mercy OP and mandatory pick, because nobody want to go back to the days when Mercy was in every match, no matter if you were bronze, plat, grandmaster or just were watching OWL.
So bring back the old rez but with line of sight and make it basically work like Lucio’s sound barrier. Dead teammates around? Pop it. Somebody died behind the wall? Sorry, no second chance. We can also discuss if it needs additional restrictions. Can you rezz targets behind enemy shields? Can you rez targets behind Mei’s wall?
About the invulnerability and a cast time: how about merge those two things? You get invulnerability (or maybe just damage reduction like Take a Breather?) during rez, and it has a small cast time like the sound barrier, shatter or dragon blade. You can’t be stunned during it, but you can be booped away like Zen during trans.
But there is more. Back before the Valk, were many posts with the propositions for “E” button ability for Mercy. There were many ideas: aoe healing, aoe or target specific cleansing ability, short invulnerability for specific target. What if we move Valkyrie to the “E” key? Cut out the chain healing, but leave ability to free flying for short period of time like three or four seconds. Just enough to escape if you get caught off guard, but still can be booped and sleep/stunned like D.va during boosters and it immediatly stops Valk. It fits Mercy as a character, who is all about healing, decision making and slippery mobility. It also would be helpful at low elos and qp, where people don’t communicate as much and you can’t tell them to come into range of your guardian angel or you don’t want to force them to leave good position just for you.
TLDR:
The old rez is back
- add los, no more rezzing people behind walls or above you
- small cast time with invurnelanility or received damage reduction
- can’t be stunned but can be booped away
- additionally can’t rez people behind enemy shields
Valk as the “E” ability
- no chain healing, just free flying
- no cast time
- lasts for short time (three/four seconds)
- around 10 sec cooldown
- can be interrupted by stun
- stun immediately ends Valk
