Here’s the list of the 13 nerfs Mercy has been hit with since her rework:
- Pistol damage in Valkyrie reduced from 30 to 20.
- Mercy’s pistol no longer receives an increase in fire rate while in Valkyrie.
- Valkyrie flight speed reduced from 11 meters/second to 9 meters/second.
- Guardian Angel’s cooldown no longer resets upon Resurrect’s activation.
- Valkyrie no longer reduces Resurrect’s cooldown.
- Resurrect now has a 1.75 second cast time unless Valkyrie is active.
- Mercy’s movement speed is reduced by 75% while casting Resurrect.
- Resurrect can now be interrupted through CC, knockback, and death. If interrupted, Resurrect begins its cooldown.
- Mercy is no longer exempt from Resurrect’s cast time while Valkyrie is active.
- Valkyrie no longer grants a charge of Resurrect upon activation.
- Valkyrie’s GA movement speed bonus reduced by 50%.
- Valkyrie’s duration reduced from 20 seconds to 15 seconds.
- Mercy’s primary beam healing output reduced from 60 health/second to 50 health/second.
And, for the sake of fairness, the 1 “buff”:
- 60 HPS again, but only during Valkyrie.
Oh wait they removed that last part…
Are we REALLY going to keep calling the Mercy rework a success? What dos Valkyrie even DO any more? The only thing that made it feel like an Ultimate was its interactions with Resurrect.
The mistake they’ve yet to admit was putting Resurrect on a cooldown in the first place, and the steps they’ve had to take since to counterbalance it have left the character with a lackluster and unimpactful Ultimate that functions more like a cooldown ability.
Meanwhile the back breaking restrictions they’ve placed on Resurrect have limited its use to reversing the first pick of a team fight if its ABSOLUTELY safe, because every other situation becomes far too risky for far too little reward.
And to justify this incredibly niche ability they’ve nerfed her healing as well, so now she’s an off-healer with poor utility, or a main healer without enough healing or a decent Ultimate. Mercy is left with all of the downsides and no upside.
Resurrect should NEVER have been a cooldown. Its an iconic ability of Mercy’s and its ALWAYS going to be a powerful and impactful ability, but its one that she should have to earn and use properly, in other words, an Ultimate.
That being said, I don’t think going back to Mass Res is the way to fix this. Mass Res had its problems, though I’d argue far less than the 13 listed above that the Valkyrie Rework had.
In fact, I think that Valkyrie was actually onto something from the beginning, but the Dev team took the wrong steps towards balancing it, and in doing so, kept shooting themselves in the foot to try and balance for Resurrect on E, when that was the very thing breaking her that they needed to abandon.
What made the OG Valkyrie feel great was that it was an Ultimate you had to earn and choose when to use, you got to fly around and get those 3-4 Res’s one at a time. What broke it though was the lack of a cast time and no counterplay, the same issue Mass Res had.
The free flight, infinite ammo blaster, the chaining beams, the uninterruptible regen, all any of this does is remove the challenge from playing Mercy and locks her into EZ spectator mode, and its all Valkyrie does any more. Get rid of all of it. She doesn’t need it.
What I want is a duration where you get 3 charges of Res, give it about a 1 second cast time and a short cooldown between uses. This gives the enemy team the opportunity to try and counteract Mercy with knocks, stuns, hack, or by killing her. She could gain flight for the duration to help her get to teammates, or forgo it to instead let her rely upon Guardian Angel.
I think 3 charges is a good number. This gives you enough power to swing a fight not a straight 5 person Res. A 5 person full-team Mass Res was never a good idea in the first place. Realistically, you wanted to get 2-4 at most, 3 on average was good value. Having to do them one at a time with a short cooldown in between also gives the enemy the opportunity to simply defeat the Resurrected teammates again before you can regain a numbers advantage.
Remember though, this is the ONLY way Mercy should have to Res anyone. NO Res on E. It’s just dumb and not at all worth it.
This leaves Mercy with no more E ability though. Every other character in the game has abilities that give them temporary boosts in their effectiveness or some sort of utility, and Mercy needs this too.
Straight 60 HPS all the time was potentially problematic, but without any other abilities to help her, 50 HPS just isn’t enough. She needs some other ability to give her a burst of impact, either an AoE heal, or a temporary boost to her HPS, or some kind of healing boost like Ana’s biotic grenade, something.
This gives Mercy more agency besides holding RMB or LMB, and makes her a more skillful character with more room to make an impact if played well, or punishable if played poorly. Beam prioritization without chain beams is still important. Good positioning and Guardian Angel usage is also still important, especially without free flight. Whatever her new E ability would be, it’d be another option for her and another thing to learn to use well and not waste. Most importantly, her Ultimate would make Res fun, fair, and impactful again while still offer some level of counterplay to reward good decisions and gameplay and punish poor choices.
And I can’t stress enough how, right now, Mercy has none of this.
She has no agency and no impact. She’s not fun or engaging, she’s a fashion accessory for pocketing DPS and hoping they can carry you through your game. You have no room to express skill and get value from your gameplay decisions, you are only punished for every mistake you make. Even if you make no mistakes, it may not be good enough to carry your team because of her sheer lack of value and over-reliance on her teammates to get that value for her.
If you want a more in depth look into the problem with Mercy’s post-nerf rework, check out Titanium’s post here.