Since I know a lot of people who enjoy playing mercy have had to repeat themselves a lot the past two days, I’m going to explain why the GA change is so detrimental to her kit as simply as I can. Let’s get a few things out of the way first though.
I think the passive is an interesting choice, and love the new healing, it was the right move to take for the character, but unfortunately the GA cool-down messes with everything else so much, as well as the ability to do the new fun things, it makes the buff’s kind of null. And before there are “pick a different character” replies, I do, but just because there are other options doesn’t mean the balance team shouldn’t fix what they kinda broke. I’m not saying they can’t nerf a character I like, I’m just saying you shouldn’t change something about that character when everything else they do relies on it. MOVING ON-
Explanation: Everything in her kit, revolved around the original GA cooldown. There’s a reason beam lingered for the amount of time that it did behind corners and from a distance, and there’s a reason resurrect took as long as it did. Said reason is that by the time these things are done (beam no longer lingers on a target that’s not in sight or is too far, or res has occurred) your GA cooldown would refresh so you can fly somewhere else to engage again, or disengage dependant on the situation. Making the cooldown as long as it is currently has created downtime between the things I’ve mentioned, which is not what you want from a “triage burst healer” and damage booster.
Res example (I know people don’t like res but it’s just an example idc if they nerf it): A teammate dies in a somewhat risky area, you GA to res them. The res occurs, but with the new cool down you are not only vulnerable while resurrecting, but now have to wait for the cooldown to end so you can fly to safety. Let’s be realistic, mercy’s pistol has never been her defense, it’s a last resort. Res’ing leaves you vulnerable for a long period already, and not being able to GA away after makes it so that it’s almost never worth it if you are just going to be killed immediately. Maybe that makes some happy because there will be less res’ing, but unfortunately, it’s part of her kit that was nulled because of the change. This also applies when a res is disrupted or lucio booped. Because mercy heals herself by healing others now, and the cooldown is increased, there is downtime between the disruption and when you can GA again where she’s just taking damage. This leaves her defenseless, and even though it’s only a second longer than what it would’ve been, that’s absolutely enough time for her to get killed.
Pocketing isn’t actually stronger: It has become way harder to keep up with mobile dps for pockets, borderline impossible if they’re not actively thinking about the fact mercy needs a sightline to ga. Honestly, that was always the case, but at least before it wasn’t too hard to redirect and return to the rest of the team. Now if they leave sightline last second she’s stranded, or if they die and she’s been using GA consistently as it comes back to keep up, again stranded or creating downtime where she’s not really doing much.
Beam: Staying in cover while healing or damage boosting was a staple of mercy’s kit, since for short periods you don’t need line of sight. GA cooldown again has f’d with that, repositioning when teammates become out of sightline has become harder, and if mercy’s should be saving their GA’s to escape someone pushing her, again, downtime or dead.
GA to GA: Another common practice was to GA to a teammate, get height/reposition, and then GA to another teammate originally out of sightline who needs healing or has a good sightline to pocket. Again, a second might not seem that long but on some maps, I just can’t get to teammates quickly enough anymore, even after super jumping (which ya know is already a bit of a risk).
If you like other examples or elaborations that can be done, just please keep it respectful. The nerf’s don’t just make it harder to do the job they’re trying to encourage mercy players to do, it messes with her kit synergy and creates this weird in-between where before should would’ve been enabling or healing her team before, and now she’s stuck. Having a character that entirely relies on the position of her team is already dicey, but not giving her the tools to fend for herself has been the most frustrating part about all of this.
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