I used to feel bad for mercy mains around 2-3 months after the last of the 9 nerfs mercy got early last year that no pun intended, kinda clipped the gals’ wings although at the time it kinda seemed like a violent mechanical chainsawing of the hero in half.
However over time, as the ex-mercy abusers began to find new heroes, or more likely - new games to play, i realised more and more that these surviving mercy mains tended to be actually quite invaluable to the team.
I’d make light-hearted jokes at the start of matches about mercies throwing by playing mercy, but really i meant it, secretly hoping my joking comment my cause them (without pressuring) to reconsider their pick and go for something a little more meta. In my eyes, the witch was dead and it was time for other supports to finally see the light of day, in comp at least.
Fast-forward a year later and im worshipping every mercy’s feet as i get ressed for the 6th time in a single round after feeding my brains out.
These mercy’s have still got it, all the whiners and #revertmercy activists have either sunk to ranks they probably deserve to be in or adapted and it’s almost like an evolution of the playerbase unfolding as we watch the survival of the fittest as we see the hero demand more of it’s players.
I now actually know what a good mercy player looks like, because she’s not so powerful just by existing regardless of skill or team comp.
I also know what a bad mercy looks like, honestly I feel as if half of mercies back in 16-17 had completely forgot what damage boost was unless they were pocketing a pharah, why?
mercy’s tool box was so overtuned that you didn’t even need her entire kit to win game
Whole abilities like damage boost were completely neglected by some, and at the time that didn’t make you a bad mercy, perfomance-wise, that made you at least average.
Even starter pack heroes need to have appropriate skill floors and out of respect of the mercy mains that have grinded to adapt, I say we don’t re-dumb down the hero.
For most of us, level headed Mercy players, the nerfs were welcome changes. It wasn’t fun being extremely over powered. It wasn’t fun not being able to play ANY other support. Those of us who stuck with her adapted to the changes and embraced them. I now find this Mercy far more enjoyable to play than any of the old ones.
I still dislike playing against mercy, think ill always dislike rez denying a pick, especially in 2cp. But I dont mind having one on my team at all. Id much rather have one now than during seasons 3-5.
I feel like, if your ideal version of overwatch was one in which your main was that uncontested god-queen within her class and you can’t bear to play the game without her, maybe overwatch isn’t for you.
It’s not their fault, they were mislead by poor balance.
Icon checks out. I think this would be the perfect time for quality of life fixes to show Mercy players some love without making her overpowered. I could see other characters needing it more though.
Not everyone who would like to some QOL changes to Mercy is mean. Some are, not all. But after 17 Nerfs (VERY few buffs), and having to basically relearn Mercy every time, Mercy feels a little underwhelming on the Healing part currently (mainly trying to keep team and a Tank or two up).
I agree don’t give her buffs, but at least make her feel better, I love my girl mercy but I feel she could be better to play without buffing her (at least not without compensation nerfs)
Sure… Mercy is balanced ish, so she doesn’t need buffs.
She does however need changes.
The rework and nerfs removed a lot of the agency Mercy could offer players and also turned her kit into an absolute mess of things that don’t make sense together.
No, the rework added agency to Mercy and the nerfs, whether we like them or not, brought her in line with the rest of the supports. Just because you don’t like it (QQ) doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense.
That’s false. The rework and nerfs have robbed Mercy of Agency at nearly every turn. You want a list? Well I have a list.
First up: Heal Beam nerfed from 60 to 50 HPs. This has two problems when it comes to player agency. Let’s say your Reinhardt gets down to 200 out of his 500 HP. The Mercy player decides to top him up. With the old beam, that will take 5 seconds. With the new, 6 seconds. That’s 1 extra second where the Mercy player doesn’t need to decide what to do next. Now that may not seem like a whole lot, but Mercy spends a good 75% or more of the match healing. Over the course of a match that is at minimum 4 minutes… that adds up. The other problem is that Mercy’s healing is pretty good, but it’s not high enough to ensure a teammates survival and she has no way to give more when she needs it. You can make the right call that a particular teammate has gotten themselves in trouble and they need your help… only for that decision to end up not mattering because they died anyway. Mercy has always had this particular problem, but it is worse with the weaker healing beam.
Second Up: Damage Boost applying damage on fire instead of on hit. Now, damage boost has literally never been good from a player agency perspective. Mercy is using all her attention to give one teammate +30% damage. If they don’t shoot or miss, Mercy has accomplished literally nothing. However, this change somehow managed to make it even worse. Mercy can no longer notice that one of her teammates launched a high damage projectile ability and choose to boost it. Instead she has to apply the boost and hope that her teammate chooses to do something with it.
Third Up: Guardian Angel and all the new tech for it. This set of changes actually added more agency to Mercy. This is the one part of the rework that literally everyone likes. Even the people who hate the rework and everything it stands for love the GA changes. Funny how that works out… isn’t it?
Fourth Up: Valkyrie. Mercy does need to decide when she’s going to use it. However, Valkyrie is a long, fast charging, swiss army knife of an ultimate. It is nearly impossible to use it in a way that is flat out wrong. Also, a fairly major part of Mercy’s kit and skill is deciding who needs which beam. With Valkyrie making her beams chain to other teammates, it frequently trivializes the who part of that question. Add in that Valkyrie makes literally anything Mercy does safer… Valkyrie is largely an easy decision that makes every other decision she has to make significantly easier. This ultimate actually hurts the player’s agency in a very real way.
Fifth Up: Resurrect. This one is the big one. Mass Resurrect was the source of most of Mercy’s power and agency. That’s arguably bad game design, but that’s how it was. Whether it was Mercy taking extra risk to try to charge it faster, playing defensively to not die before she could use it, or the exact timing of using it. Literally all of that was in Mercy’s hands and no one elses. After Old Mercy pushed Q, she was solely responsible for whatever happened afterwards, whether good or bad. Now let’s have a quick refresher of what all has changed with it.
Moved to E
Max targets lowered from 5 to 1
Range reduced from 15 meters to 5
Now has a 1.75s cast time
Now has a -75% move speed while casting
Now is on a fixed 30 second cool down instead of a charge system.
Every single one of those changes damages Mercy’s ability to choose when, where, and who to use the Resurrect on. So much so that players frequently feel like getting a Resurrect off is more dependent on either your team covering you or the enemy team being unable to stop you in time.
