Brainstorming Mercy - ideas for changes

General Discussion
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Oh boy, I can’t believe I’m making a topic like this knowing how it will be received, but here goes nothing! I’ll cut straight to the point; I want changes for Mercy, and based on what I’ve seen I’m not alone in this. I’ll start by quickly outlining some of her history and issues, continue with her current situation, and then finish with a suggestion of my own. If you don’t want to read the small essay you can just scroll down until you see the suggested changes.

First off I will start by saying that Mercy 1.0 was in no way without issues - having a very basic kit combined with an ult that could either turn the whole game around or result in another wipe is problematic. Before given invulnerability when rezzing it was common for the Mercy to die shortly after performing the rez because she would be the prime target of the enemies’ hate while her team was still in reanimation (hence the buff). The buff, however, resulted in more Mercy players being able to rez with no punishment for waiting out the “Mass Rez” rather than tempo-rezzing. In higher tiers this was more an annoyance than an actual threat - people would be aware of the strategy and save a Barrage/Nuke/Death Blossom for the poor souls who couldn’t walk away from it. In lower tiers things were different, making Mercy’s ult extremely strong against those who did not have the means to counter it. The forgiving conditions, such as no LoS, made this easier (hence why Mercy player were told to hide).

Now for the rework. The rework was not anchored in the Mercy community at all, and rushed out with very little playtesting resulting in a very broken state. This Mercy was a “Jack of all trades” because even if her healing wasn’t supreme it didn’t really matter since she could just rez any kill confirmed. This proved the strength of tempo-rezzing. Since then we’ve seen many nerfs, and from what was promised in this video there remains precious little.

So what kind of Mercy do we have now? In some ways she’s very similar to her original form - consistent but not amazing single target healing, a team-reliant damage boost, a rez that is very useful if not particularly fun to play/watch (that animation is just terrible hah) and greatly improved mobility. Her ult is a “more of the same” kind of ult reminiscent of Tac-Visor in the sense that it makes the job easier for the player without necessarily being the most fun and flashy ult in the game. If we compare Mercy 1.0 with current Mercy the most noticeable shift is from her ult to her base kit, a change that is actually fine and probably would be a healthy change for more characters if implemented.

The crux of the matter though is, Mercy has lost a lot of her spark. Valkyrie doesn’t engage or feel as good to use as much as other support ults - who doesn’t love saving your team with a great Transcendence or Sound Barrier? But Mercy is a main support, that’s not her role anymore! True. But the other supports have more “saving” potential in their main kit than Mercy does; Ana can Nade her own team and the enemy and sleep ultimates. Baptiste can put down an Immortality Field for everyone to rake refuge. Moira’s base AoE heal is enough to often save many critical teammates. Mercy lacks this, and I think this is what stings the most to many because Mercy is the ultimate I’m giving up all dps to help you guys out. It’s natural to want to do this well.

The question is, can this be a thing without making Mercy unbalanced? The crux of the matter is as always her rez - it’s what slows her down and eats up a lot of her power supply. As a part of her base kit it can’t really be buffed anymore unless we accept a nerf somewhere else, and I think nerfing her healing more would result in riots. Removing rez, however, is very problematic as it’s seen as such a core part of the character. Which begs the question, can it be moved back to Q without having the same issues as the old version?

This is a sketch of an idea. I’m well aware they have no plans on touching her in any way, so this is just a thought experiment which is the result of reading many posts on the subject.

Passives
Regeneration - 20 hp after not taking damage for 1,5 seconds (nerfed from 1 second).
Angelic Descent - Slow descent from falling

Caduceus Staff
Healing - 55 hps
Damage boost - 30%

New ability - Injection
Cooldown - 15 seconds
Green beam
Properties - temporarily increases Mercy’s healing to 65 hps or damage boost to 35% for a duration of 4 seconds. CD starts after the completion of the ability.

Caduceus Blaster
Same as current, 20 dmg per shot

Guardian Angel
Cooldown - 1,5 seconds
Range - 30 meters
Slingshot - Same as current version
Superjump - now part of Mercy’s kit but with an internal CD of 5 seconds

New ability - Damage Reduction
Cooldown - 10 seconds
Projectile - A golden sphere about the size of a full Sym orb. Like all projectiles can be eaten/deflected
Speed - 20 meters/second
Properties - Reduces damage done by a single target for 50%, duration 4 seconds

Ultimate - Rez
Ultimate cost - 1 400
Cast-time - 0,7 seconds
Range - 5 meters
Movement penalty - None
Single target
Can be interrupted with stuns or boops

The idea is to let Mercy keep rez as it’s an iconic part of her character while still keeping it from giving the same kind of PTSD a lot of people seem to still be suffering from remembering the original version. Instead I’ve added a new ability, inspired a lot from Brawl, that will allow Mercy to reduce damage from an enemy. This will allow her more playmaking as a good use of this ability can neuter a damage ult enough for her teammates to survive.

The other added ability, Injection, will hopefully mitigate some of the issues of Mercy only having 50 hps without making her overall too strong. The high CD is to reduce spamming the ability and to save it for critical situations or to give an extra boost to a friendly ultimate.

I’m open for tuning all of these with regards to cooldowns, durations, charges etc. Please be civil, this is a topic that tends to be controversial but I’d like for it to be constructive for once. And because I’m me I will finish with this:

20 Likes
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insert popcorn moira here

3

that rez and injection are just bad period

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Quizzy has been a busy bunny.

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I’m open to suggestions y’know. :wink:

That’s usually better than just… saying it’s bad.

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I think changing the colour would cause a lot of problems with consistency in terms of the colour system of Overwatch. Yellow has always been healing. :man_shrugging:t4: Then there’s the colour blind system. This would surely cause problems. I’d suggest just making it a brighter yellow or changing the way the beam looks (not spaghetti).

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The base Problem with Mercy is they designed and balanced her entire kit around an unbalance-able Ability: Resurrection. Personally I think take Res away all together, and replace it with chain heal as a CD and buff her healing and she’d be an amazing Support with tremendous utility alongside strong heals.

I’d also say another buff for valkyrie with res gone would be chain heal also dmg boosts while ulting so you don’t have to choose which one. Thus making the ult stronger too.

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ok, first ill elaborate why than ill propose what would be better.

Injection last 4 seconds for just a +10 hps and having a 15 second cooldown is literally a worse amp it up, a 12 second cooldown for 5-6 seconds would be much nicer.
Making the damage boost increased to 40% during injection wouldn’t hurt anyone.

also that other new ability iirc wouldn’t fit on a console controller.

She doesn’t need 55 hps, she’s an off-healer.

A single target rez on ultimate would never work, especially since it’s the same thing as E rez but faster. If it had a burst heal of 100 after casting it would probably be a gopd idea.

IMO E Rez could work but just not a cooldown. Make it like Torb scrap packs, make you have to boodt and heal for a certain point system and you get an instant rez.

Overall I thought it was nice just a tad undertuned.

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True, I just wanted it to be obvious when she’s using it.

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Yeah, I’m just more inclined to start off undertuned rather than overtuned because… well, previous trauma.

I’m aware of the console issue as I’m playing there too, I’ll see if I can suggest a resolution.

Thank you for the feedback!

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I don’t think we can actually say whether it’s fast or not because it would depend on a variety of situations.

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I’m on board with most of the Rez ult stats, but I really think it should be an AoE.

Rez going from an AoE to a single-target ability sucked nearly all the complexity out of it, and left the game without a counter to ult spam. For the health of the game, it needs to come back.

Yeah, bringing back multirez will have a lot of players throwing tantrums over “she stole my kewl multikill!” all over again, but that’s because the game has gone without a “gamesense skill-check” hero for far too long… Letting bad habits and poor target prioritization flourish in it’s wake.

As long as it’s not actually overpowered, complaints about multirez can be written off the same way complaints about “bastion is op, plz nerf!” are dismissed as CoD kiddies just needing to L2P.

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Single rez ult. Yea, no… like, big fat no, ever, ever ever ever ever. This sounds like the most unfun version of Mercy yet, try again.

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The actual issue with multires was and still is the main strategy is for mercy to literally disappear and then the team risks everything in her making it back in time to res the whole team up. Now yes if the team clumps up for the mass res it’s fine and mercy and literally just poke out and tap Q for it.

The next issue was the Mercy players themselves. I remember greatly how much half if not all the team would constantly harass and beret our mercy for not running away and hiding as soon as they got res and the enemy was pushing in, or something similar to encounters like that. It’s pretty awful to hear your whole team attack another member just for playing the game, I can’t imagine being the one playing mercy on the receiving end either.

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How would you prefer it? Is the issue just the ult or the other abilities as well?

Unlike Blizzard I don’t work with “unfun”. :wink:

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Just to clarify in general - I don’t find single-target rez the most fun idea for an ultimate, but like I said if the alternative is keeping a neutered version pulling down her main kit I prefer to have her like this. At least this way she has means of actually doing things to help her team rather than hope they can do something.

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I agree with a lot of what you said actually. In fact I made my own post a while back that still stands since no major changes to Mercy have been made since then.

Heres a link if you want to check it out:

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/yet-another-mercy-thread/355676

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That would break a lot of one hit threshold points and was mentioned by the devs as a reason why they havent buffed damage boost.

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1: “hide n rez” was a suicide strat before the immortality buff, and still a throw strat after it. If it weren’t for the SR exploit, the strat would have died off on its own.

Wanting to delete rez for that is like asking to delete Pharah’s barrage because some players use it too close to the wall and get themselves killed.

2: teammates trying to backseat drive for you has a simple solution: mute them, or leave the chat altogether.

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Good post. I appreciate well-thought-out arguments being shared along with proposed changes instead of just a list of demands.

I’ll always be an outspoken supporter of Valkyrie, though. I understand what you mean about Mercy’s ult being different than the other supports, though. It does have less immediate and definite impact, but it trades that for incredible flexibility and that’s what I love about it. Valkyrie is contradictory to the rest of Mercy’s kit, which is much more straight-forward and centered around consistent healing, but I also love that about it. I love taking a break from Mercy’s normal role and having fifteen seconds to take on whatever role I want/the team needs. Valkyrie has hella impact potential, but it has a MUCH higher skill floor and ceiling than other support ults and the vast majority of players are usually not going to achieve its full impact. For instance, floating and holding M1 is almost NEVER the right way to use Valkyrie. Mercy needs to be using all of her abilities during Valk whenever possible (including shooting people) and that ability to mix and match from second to second, which opens up the opportunity for creativity and different types of skill, is my favorite thing about it.

I would also appreciate another ability that helps keep my team alive. Green beam is a solid idea but I don’t think a straight healing boost is the way to go. I’d prefer something like a damage reduction on a teammate. Damage reduction on the other team is an interesting idea, too. Somebody is going to get that ability eventually, so it might as well be Mercy.