[Feedback Thread Continued] Mercy Updates - Jan 30, 2018

[Huxide-2693]

@RevertMercy-1818

-Her Ultimate. It’s widely known that her ultimate is the main source of discussion when talks about her nerfs being “too harsh” arise. Let’s not forget, even the pros who initially wanted Mercy removed from the game are also the ones who agreed that “Though Mercy is balanced, she was nerfed a little too much.” I believe part of this reason stems from her resurrection ability and Ultimate.

most of the claims i’ve heard that mercy’s nerfs were too harsh were before either before the nerfs were implemented or shortly after. i wouldn’t base my arguments on knee-jerk reaction if i thought i’m defending a meritable position

@RevertMercy-1818

-A res on a 30 second cooldown is not rewarding. No matter how critics would like to argue, they can’t deny the fact that having one of the most powerful abilities in the game on a fixed cooldown not only gives players an artificial sense of accomplishment (verses building it in Ult form), but it also blurs the line between Low and high ranking Mercy mains who were punished for improper resurrections at incorrect timings. With a static cooldown, those mistakes are largely irrelevant with a hard reset on the ability every 30 seconds - no matter how well or badly you do. Overall the decision to have res on a cooldown was and is a bad sense of design, even from a mechanical standpoint.

simply having the skill on the cooldown is not rewarding, obviously. pulling it off (either with teamwork or with clutch plays) is the rewarding part, especially when you’re rezzing a valuable member of the team and that rez changes the course of the fight.
i dont get why you’d say it “blurs the line between low and high ranking mercy mains who were punished for improper resurrections at incorrect timings”, because it’s the absolute opposite. your ability to pull off a rez (in a middle of a fight) and being able to compensate for the healing time you lost while rezzing is now one of the most obvious indicators of a mercy player’s skill. the static, long cooldown is exactly why it’s important you use it well, because it’s high impact and either you pull it off, you dont, or you die trying and probably lose due to it.

@RevertMercy-1818

-Her Ultimate healing ability having the res slow her down to a crawl, counteracting her own kit, is still one of the most contradictory parts of her playstyle. A playstyle that thrives on movement and strategy, positioning and placement. If in ultimate form her abilities are to be “supposedly improved”, it makes little sense that one of her own abilities cripples her more than helps her during the ult.

while rezzing with valk activated you can rez while above enemies (obviously this will work less and less the more you go up the ladder, but then pulling it off is more and more skillful). if it was an instant rez or no speed reduction it’d be even strategic or position-reliant, the reward would be high and the risk would be low (thus making it OP). “crippling” her is required to keep it balanced because a rez is so valuable.

@RevertMercy-1818

-Lack of improved healing impact on her healing during the Ult. With the exception of Ana and Symmetra, Every healer has an Ultimate that greatly boosts their team’s health pools. What Mercy is given is essentially three staffs and flight for her ultimate - nothing more, nothing less. She maintains the same healing, damage boosting, and speed in ultimate form. But hey, she has spectator mode, and of course, those lovely infinite bullets, because Much impact, very Ultimate. Magical Wow.

“greatly boosts their team’s health pools” is not the only way to make a support ult, and there is not only one way to do that. mercy arguably does it better than brigitte and moira (which is a support you didnt include in the “every healer” exclusions btw) because of the range she needs to be at, the range that she affects targets at, her ability to adapt to the tides of battle during it, etc.

the “spectator mode” flight is an amazing thing, imagine any other hero having it and it’d be ridiculous levels of OP. valk is basically a support-oriented self-nano, but it charges so fast that it’s twice as valuable.

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there’s no point in responding to the next paragraphs because they’re basically conjecture, but if you think there are other points that are “often not talked about”…

-hux, a fellow mercy main