It takes about a day to register. At least, it did with me.
I’d say once Plarpoon reaches lvl 3 they can do it. Let’s be careful about what we post, cap point is approaching.
edit: if it takes a day maybe get someone w lvl 3 to do it?
Hang on. I have an idea to “soften” the potential backlash. I could post the thread here first. I could then post it again outside the thread.
1 Like
well… no one is stopping us from creating a new mercy megathread which the mods will have to join to the new part IV once it will be created
You right… you right…
Hello. I am stubborn.
Welcome to part four of a series codenamed “Titanium has way too much spare time”! In this episode, I do exactly what I’ve done the past three episodes but with some new and improved features such as:
- The same message, but somewhat reworded so it’s not as boring after reading the other three threads.
- More words I had to break the post in two because I exceeded the character limit (pls fix the dumb limits, blizz).
- I am now Trust level 3. Enjoy slightly more interactive links and 600% more memes.
- A pinch more of sarcasm.
- Probably nothing else.
Don’t like these threads? Great! I’m tired of making them. Let’s make a bargain: You all (forumers, Blizzard, etc.) stop giving me a reason to create these threads, and I’ll stop making them! How does that sound?
…I usually hate making introductions, but that one was actually a lot of fun to type. Maybe I should try being obnoxious more often.
Have some links:
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Anyway…
Resurrect
Welcome to hell.
Functionality:
As you probably know, Resurrect used to be Mercy’s ultimate. When her rework went live back in September of 2017, her kit was reorganized, and Resurrect was reforged as a basic ability on a 30 second cooldown. There were exceptions to this cooldown within her new ultimate ability, Valkyrie, including a reduction of Resurrect’s cooldown to 10 seconds for Valkyrie’s duration and an instantly-available use of Resurrect. This was all fine except for one small problem:
Resurrect was absurdly, brokenly, overpowered.
To fix this, the developers quickly took slightly over a month to remove Resurrect’s cooldown reduction in Valkyrie. The playerbase then played the game that day to find:
Resurrect was still overpowered.
To fix this, the developers once again reacted quickly by taking a little under month to impose a cast time and movement penalty on Resurrect. The playerbase then played the game that day to find:
Resurrect was still overpowered.
How was this possible after two harsh nerfs?
Perhaps one should consider what Resurrect actually is: an ultimate. Not just any ultimate, but one that is among the most powerful ultimates in the game.
Trying to balance it as basic ability is like trying to balance Rocket Barrage, Transcendence, and Graviton Surge as basic abilities. Sure, it’s possible, but why the hell would you try doing that considering the repercussions and limitations that must be placed on the ability when attempting to do so? Resurrect was not meant to be a basic ability; it needs to be an ultimate.
Today, here are the limitations on Resurrect:
- 30 second cooldown, no exceptions.
- 1.75 second cast time.
- Line of sight must be established and held for the entire cast time. Ability cancels if this rule is violated.
- Mercy must be within 5 meters of the target for the entire cast time. Ability cancels if this rule is violated.
- 75% movement speed reduction while casting.
- Inability to use any attacks or abilities while casting.
- There is no way to cancel a use of Resurrect once initiated.
Yet, despite coming with a two second self-incapacitation and having the longest static cooldown in the game, Resurrect is still the most powerful ability in Mercy’s kit. Why?
Because it’s the only real ultimate in her kit.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Valkyrie isn’t supposed to be here for another 34 pages!
As a result of these nerfs (specifically the cast time), Resurrect isn’t an ability a player would enjoy using, but rather an ability the player would use out of necessity, because using it is objectively the best way to play her. Resurrect is the only basic ability in the game that features uncancelable self-inflicted penalties (the exception to this is Reaper’s Shadowstep, but that ability is flaming garbage anyway), rivaling or exceeding the penalties inflicted by the use of ultimates:
- Resurrect: 1.75 second cast time, 75% movement speed reduction, all attacks and abilities disabled, you-must-stay-in-this-circle requirement.
- Rocket Barrage: 3 second duration, 100% movement speed reduction (including vertical movement), attacks and abilities replaced by a 1200 damage/second barrage of rockets.
- Earthshatter: .6 second cast time, inability to use attacks and abilities while casting.
- Dragonblade: 1 second cast time, inability to use attacks and abilities while casting.
- Configuration: Tank: 1.5 second cast time, 100% movement speed reduction, inability to use attacks or abilities while casting.
- Deadeye: 1 second cast time for every 250 damage (to each target within line of sight), inability to use attacks and abilities while casting, 65% movement speed reduction while casting, can be cancelled.
- DragonStrike: 1.4 second cast time, 100% movement speed reduction, inability to use attacks and abilities while casting.
When a basic ability starts self-imposing penalties in the name of “balance” that exceed those of which that are imposed by ultimates, it’s pretty obvious that the ability in question needs to be an ultimate.
But it isn’t, which is part of why I’m typing this post up again.
Mercy’s kit is built around mobility. When looking at old footage of my gameplay as Mercy when I was new to her, the very first thing I notice that I’m doing wrong is that I’m not moving enough. Mercy should never be standing still, even if it seems safe to do so.
You can probably see where I’m going with this. If Mercy is supposed to be heavily based around mobility, then why does one of her basic abilities interrupt that with a near-freeze mechanic for two seconds? Resurrect as it currently stands contradicts the rest of Mercy’s kit.
The other issue is that during the cast time, the fate of the Mercy player isn’t in their own hands; it is instead placed in everyone else’s hands, and the Mercy is left hoping for their own team’s coordination and the enemy team’s incompetence. As one can probably imagine, this is pretty frustrating. Don’t like Sombra’s hack as it currently stands? See how you like it when it turns you into a stone for two seconds instead.
The opportunity to use, or the successful use of Resurrect doesn’t thrill the player or pull them into the game as most abilities do; instead, it drives the player out. The act of using it feels similar to having the screen going dark for two seconds.
Because I can already smell the “But this is a team game” remarks, I think I’ll address those now. It also helps to drive a point home.
“Teamwork” usually implies that a group of people are all contributing to the same cause. The key word here is “contributing”, if the italics didn’t give it away. The problem is that Mercy player cannot contribute during this cast time; Mercy is unable to use attacks or abilities while casting. The player may as well take their hands off of their keyboard/controller, because again, the only thing they can do is hope. Pressing a key and then doing nothing else for the next 2 seconds isn’t “teamwork”. That’s becoming dead weight.
If a team wins a game despite having an inactive player sitting in spawn, did that inactive player exercise teamwork with their team?
…That is supposed to be a rhetorical question, but I want to make sure that this is crystal clear; the answer is no, they didn’t exercise teamwork with their team. They got their sorry rear carried by their teammates against a likely-incompetent opponent.
…Sounds a lot like what a Mercy is hoping for upon using Resurrect.
Cooldown vs. Charged:
Prior to the rework, Resurrect was in a form that fit it comfortably: an ultimate. I am confident that anyone reading this is well aware that ultimates have charge rates largely based upon the player’s damage/healing/amplification output, unlike basic abilities.
As Resurrect was the most feasible way to change the outcome of a fight as Mercy and by far her most powerful ability, the player naturally wanted to have it available as often as possible. If a teamfight was about the commence, the Mercy player would often rush to fill the missing ultimate charge so they could use it in the incoming engagement. This need to charge Resurrect was further reinforced by the fact that it was often the only, or one of two support ultimates meant to counter three to five enemy offensive ultimates; thus rendering it as an already-scarce resource.
In the stages leading up to a teamfight, the teams would often face off at a choke point and poke at each other, searching each other for weaknesses to focus or mistakes to exploit. Both teams were tense, ready to pounce at the first flaw in the enemy. In these scenarios, damage was more difficult to deal and was therefore not dealt as frequently. However, when more than a little chip damage was dealt, it was dealt very liberally and in a very short period of time. The vast majority of these damage surges were caused by a player placing themselves in a risky situation for an opportunity to press on or find a weakness in the enemy. Basically, a player pokes too hard and gets punished for it.
Poking too hard often involved exposing oneself too much to the enemy, meaning the player is already in a bad position. In most team compositions, this scenario often leads to the position of the player in question getting progressively worse, whether that is from the player being pushed/pulled to the enemy or the enemy suddenly moving toward the player.
It was also during these periods that the Mercy player was the most (misspelled that as “moist” initially 
) desperate for ultimate charge if Resurrect was not already primed. Remember, damage is not dealt in a constant stream in these situations and was most heavily distributed to and by allies that are in places that cause risk for a Mercy attempting to heal/amplify them. As a result, the Mercy player is given a choice:
- Play safe now, continue without Resurrect for the incoming teamfight, and have one big risk to deal with later: the risk of losing the fight.
Or
- Build more insurance of victory in the foreseeable battle by taking more risks now: risks that are more controllable.
In the these situations, the latter of these two options was usually the best, unless the Mercy was aware that their team already had a large advantage in ultimates over the enemy.
When executing the second option, the Mercy would follow exposed allies to heal or amplify them, usually leading to her own vulnerability. Under normal circumstances, the targets she places her beams on now would be considered too risky or too impractical to try saving, as it could potentially lead to the death of both herself and her patient. However, a Mercy picking the second option already understands this risk and knows that it is a lesser risk than continuing without Resurrect. The act of flying to the ally to heal them wasn’t necessarily about trying to save that ally, but about making an investment to keep the team as a whole safer in the long run.
If no allies needed healing or presented amplification opportunities (which was rare), the next best option was to take matters into their own hands by laying down some of their own fire. Of course, being able to shoot at enemies means being able to be shot, and considering how badly each team wants the opposition’s healers dead, a little exposure can be a big risk; especially since it’s Mercy we’re talking about.
When any of these maneuvers were executed poorly or too heavily committed to, the result usually was the death of the Mercy; a worse outcome than continuing without Resurrect by playing safe. However, when executed properly, the player walked away with additional ultimate charge, a feeling of accomplishment, and a post-rush excitement that I imagine is similar to what flankers get when they successfully pick off a target and escape. This game of balancing risk and reward to maximize ultimate charge made Mercy’s base kit that much more engaging; rather than playing safely in the team’s backline the entire game, Mercy had a reason to play aggressively.
Looking at this from a skill perspective, inexperienced or ineffective Mercy players would not know their boundaries as well as experienced and skilled players would. Consequently, these players would miss opportunities to gain more ultimate charge or would overstep their boundaries and get themselves killed. Sometimes these players missed the importance in charging Resurrect entirely, staying in the backline when they should be playing aggressively. On the other hand, the experienced Mercy players would play at the very edge of their safety without crossing the line.
There was a very clear difference between good and bad Mercys based upon how well they played in this risk/return game, and therefore how often they had Resurrect. Good players were like bluejays; they were aggressive and easy to spot, yet agile and hard to catch. Their movements had a clear and intentional direction. Bad players were like fireflies at night; they were either invisible or past their boundaries, and they had indecision or aimlessness to their movement. This game added another layer to Mercy’s skill ceiling, allowing great Mercy players to set themselves apart from other Mercy players.
Pan and zoom to Valkyrie. I’m not going to get into the details of this ability just yet, but it’s pretty obvious that this ability cannot protect a team during a teamfight like Resurrect (ult form), Sound Barrier, or Transcendence.
When the “oomph” in Mercy’s ultimate vanished, so did the pursuit of ultimate charge. There is no urgency in building Valkyrie. Valkyrie is now a “meh” ultimate, so the attitude towards rushing one is “meh”.
With that, the reason for playing aggressively and taking risks has been removed; there isn’t anything to gain anymore, but there are still things to lose. If a Mercy plays in this manner, they are only risking their own death, potentially crippling their team from the loss of a main healer.
Why take risks that are no longer necessary? Risks that do not provide rewards of any value?
If there is reason to not do something but no reason to do that same something, the wise and obvious choice is always to not do that something. Therefore, that game of balancing risk and reward has been completely removed from her kit, tossing a layer of engagement out the window. Mercy isn’t about balancing risk and reward anymore; she’s about minimizing risk whenever and wherever she can, removing herself from the fight as much as possible without fully abandoning her team.
When that mind game left her kit, so did a chunk of her skill ceiling.
The difference between good Mercys and bad Mercys now is that the bad Mercys are occasionally exposed to the enemy, while good Mercys are invisible unless they are reviving an ally. There’s nothing impressive or engaging about choosing the path of lowest risk. Unfortunately, in Mercy’s current state, taking the path of lowest risk is the best path to choose in most circumstances.
I find it pathetic that the only noticeable difference between a great and a mediocre Mercy is that the great Mercy’s skill isn’t noticeable because they avert themselves from any opportunity to show it.
There goes a dimension of her kit. Could it be worse?
Yes. I’m not done yet. I’ve spent a lot of time dwelling on what is gone and the fallout from its removal, but I haven’t discussed the direct consequences of Mercy’s greatest asset being on a static cooldown.
First, it is upsetting to need Resurrect a second time in a fight and know that there is absolutely no way that Mercy can use it again. The Mercy could be completely on top of things for the entire fight after she reversed the first pick, she could be on fire (which I hear is difficult currently), and she could be operating at the absolute maximum capacity that a Mercy can operate at. Until, that is, another ally is killed in an instant: a death that no Mercy, regardless of skill, would be able to prevent.
That Mercy that was an ace before the ally’s death? She won’t have Resurrect. The player is powerless to manipulate the availability of their most powerful asset, unlike every other hero in the game.
Second, when that ability does come off cooldown, there’s no pride taken in it. With mass-rez, the player could be proud of how often they had Resurrect available. Today, the Mercy player can take pride in… the fact that literally every other Mercy player would have Resurrect again at the same time in that same scenario; that’s including the ones that would find a way to die twice in that duration.
“What’s wrong with having a low skill floor”, you might ask? There’s nothing wrong with having a low skill floor; the thing that is wrong is that the skill ceiling in this area is the skill floor.
Shall I construct another analogy?
It’s like the teacher walking into the classroom on the first day and kicking off the school year by saying “This class will teach you nothing; everything I assign is busy work. Also, no matter how much you excel or fail in the coursework, your grade will be a D.”
The class (which is substituting in for Resurrect) is a restrictive participation award. Anyone who performs poorly still manages to pass; anyone who excels is unable to earn a better result.
Thought Process/Usage Reward:
This is probably going to be the first section in which I choose to copy/paste from some of my older posts because…
Looks at the corresponding section in Part 3.
…I’m not typing all of that again. I’ll type some of this from scratch, but there are a few parts that I won’t be rewriting.
Anyway… (this is my go-to method for redirecting the post, in case you haven’t noticed)
Contrary to the “Now Mercy players will have to think before using Resurrect” proclamations, the current Resurrect doesn’t require much thought to use. I’ve used this analogy many times before, but picture you (hi!) are at one side of the street in a suburban neighborhood. You want to get to the other side of the street. First, you must look left. Then, you must look right. Are the any cars coming? If the answer is no, you may cross. If the answer is yes, you may not cross.
Capable of following those steps on a consistent basis? Great! You’re now an expert on using the current iteration of Resurrect. Shall we compare this and the version of Resurrect prior to the rework?
Before Resurrect’s change to a basic ability, here are the things that needed to be considered in preparation for a use of Resurrect:
- How many enemies are alive.
- How many allies are alive.
- Of those living enemies, who has their ultimate, and which ultimates those are.
- Of those living allies, who has their ultimate, and which ultimates those are.
- Locations of every enemy, and where the unseen ones might be.
- Allied locations, potential GA targets when things get hot.
- The engagement style of the enemy team (pop ults early vs. pick and then engage).
- Respawn timers.
- Hypothetical Resurrect location relative to both the map and the opposing team.
- Proximity of allied death locations and Resurrect prioritization.
- Positions that allow A) Mercy to heal her team, B) a quick escape route, C) an advantageous fighting position, and D) limits the enemy’s ability to see Mercy.
- Risk/reward for healing rather than using Resurrect.
- Benefits of a tempo-resurrection vs a mass-resurrection.
Yes, that bit was a copy/paste.
Meanwhile, here is the list of things a player must consider when using Resurrect in its current state:
- Personal safety while using Resurrect.
- Nothing else.
Why is this difference so huge?
For one thing, Resurrect now has a set numerical value. No matter how the player chooses to use it, it will always only revive one player. Already it is significantly less complex; there are six possible combinations of targets to revive with the current Resurrect, and there were thirty-one possible combinations of targets to revive when Resurrect was an ultimate. Looking at the variation of the numerical value between the two versions alone already reveals that the old version of Resurrect was over five times as complex as the current version.
“But the value of Resurrections aren’t determined by only their numerical value; numerical value is only a small part of the equation,”
I am so glad you brought that up, imaginary disembodied voice that doesn’t actually exist!
The value of Resurrect is also determined by the situation in which it is used and how both teams respond to it. This fact could be a good counterargument to the difference in complexity shown by the variation in numerical value, except for two problems:
- Mass-Resurrect never had a moment within a teamfight in which it was always the most effective; its value at the same stage within a set of fights varied depending upon the specifics of each individual fight.
- The above cannot be said for the current version of Resurrect. There is always a single best time to use it.
I am sure that some of you reading this (assuming anyone is reading this, I’d be too lazy to read it myself [I say before I inevitably read the entire post multiple times during the editing phase]) are raising an eyebrow at your computer screen because of that second bullet point, possibly thinking to yourself:
“Hmm”
To which I would reply with:
“Hmmmmm”
To which you might reply with:
Can you tell that I’m bored? I should probably stop typing for now before this turns into turn into a train wreck of a post.
Okay, I’m back.
As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by my own stupidity, there currently is a single optimal time to use Resurrect. That optimal time is as early as safely possible when the first ally has been killed prior to a teamfight; that phase when both teams are probing each other for weaknesses.
Think about it. Mercy has a cast time, a self-inflicted incapacitation, and a 5 meter range on Resurrect. If she’s going to use Resurrect in areas that allow for even the slightest hazard, she’s going to need as many people as she can get to babysit her. The more teammates there are alive, the higher chance she has of successfully reviving the downed ally. If she waits to use Resurrect, more allies might be dead because the scales have been tipped in the enemy’s favor, dampening her chance of success in the first place.
Not only that, but consider how teams snowball against each other. The teams start off as six players against six players, and then drop to 5v6 when one team manages to get a pick. This is typically followed by a full engage, pushing the scales further with a 4v6. By this point, Mercy cannot compensate for her team’s disadvantage with Resurrect, assuming she could pull a Resurrection off at all. It is far better to prevent the enemy from getting a leg up at all than to try to force their leg back down after it is already up. Therefore, reversing the first pick as soon as possible is universally the best way to use Resurrect.
As though the difference in numerical possibilities and the fact that one has an unchanging optimal time of use weren’t enough to show that these two abilities are on completely different levels of strategy, there’s also the fact that E-rez has a 100% certainty to be available 30 seconds after its previous use while the availability of mass-rez has no certainty to it at all. When using the current version of Resurrect to reverse a pick, the player doesn’t need to ask themselves whether or not the hypothetical Resurrect will be worth the ability’s cooldown; it will be available by the next engagement regardless as to how well her and her team perform in the current fight. Needless to say, mass-Resurrect is the opposite of the above sentence. There was no guarantee that the Mercy would have Resurrect again by the next fight. If Mercy died after her use of Resurrect, it was very likely that she wouldn’t have it the next time she needed it. If she used Resurrect and her team eliminated the enemy too quickly, she wouldn’t have any ultimate charge for her next Resurrect, and would walk into the next fight with 50%, if that. Even if the current battle provided Mercy with the best-case scenario for charging Resurrect, there still was a chance that the Mercy wouldn’t be on top of their game in their pursuit for Resurrect in the next poking phase, leaving them without it in the following teamfight.
Blizzard has taken Resurrect and removed every reason for the player to truly consider how they use it.
- The variation in player value is less than a fifth of what it used to be.
- The best-case scenario is consistent and easy to achieve.
- Availability is consistent. The player doesn’t need to worry about missing the above best-case scenario in the next fight.
What’s left?
- “Will doing this get me killed?”
A check for a few specific parameters. If those parameters are true, the player can and should use Resurrect. If they are false, the player cannot use Resurrect. The most difficult part about using Resurrect to its greatest potential isn’t the process of actually thinking about how to use it; it’s remembering to think about it… just like crossing that street.
The issue with these changes is that the mind game that came with mass-Resurrect accounted for 1/4th to 1/3rd of her player engagement. Shall I illustrate how through a massive copy/paste?
Click me if you dare.
I am going to construct a hypothetical yet likely situation to give an idea of the factors considered when deciding how to use Resurrect in its ultimate form.
Defense on the first point of Hanamura. Enemy team is grouping for a push. Resurrect is fully charged.
- What ultimates do the enemies have? What synergies do those ultimates have with each other?
- Of those ultimates they have, which will they expend first? Will they wait until they have a pick to start using them, or will they use them as soon as they arrive for more shock value?
- Where can I position myself that will allow me to both heal my team and quickly find cover? Is there a location I can reach that will provide an advantageous fighting position for me if the need arises?
- What ultimates do we have? What are their synergies with each other and will they save us from the enemy’s ultimates without Resurrect?
- Are all of the enemies accounted for? If not, do the missing enemies have ultimates and will they flank to use them? How can I evade them if they come for me?
- Is my entire team alive? If not, can I/should I revive the fallen ally so we are a full team for the next fight, or can we stall the enemy until they return?
A single ally is killed.
- Does that ally have their ultimate up? Who are they and what ultimate do they have?
- Is the enemy pushing in? Have they started using ultimates yet?
- Where is that dead ally positioned relative to the enemy team? Would a solo-rez put that ally in a good position to kill enemies, or weaken them enough that my other allies can press the advantage? Would a solo-rez discourage the enemy from pushing in if they haven’t already?
- Can my allies push the enemy back with their remaining ultimates? If I do solo-rez, will the other support be able to use their ultimate and keep the team alive through the following fight?
- Is the enemy firing ultimates yet? Is it time for me to withdraw to a safer location, or can I get my team to bait more ultimates without risking myself?
Assuming the player chooses not to use Resurrect…
Two more allies die. A third is at half health. The enemy uses two ultimates, which are both still active.
- How many enemies are still alive?
- Of those living enemies, who still has their ultimate ready?
- Should I revive my teammates now, or wait for more to die? If I choose to ult now, will that ally at half health survive post-resurrection?
- Who on my team has what ultimates? Have any been expended so far?
- Is the enemy aware that I’m still alive? Will they be hunting me, or will they prepare to counter my Resurrection with remaining ultimates? If so, can our other support help with their ultimate?
- Where are all of my allies? Are they close enough to all be caught in a Resurrection? Is there a specific angle I will need to fly in from in order to revive all of them?
- How far apart in time have all of my allies died so far? How long will it take the last one to die, and will I be able to rez all of them without worrying about the respawn timer? If I have to choose between reviving different players because of either space or time differences, who would be the best candidates?
- Is this Resurrection going to be useful at all, or are my allies too poorly positioned? Will it cause a snowball effect in the enemy’s favor if I choose to carry on?
Even more thorough:
Click me if you REALLY dare.
Let’s construct ourselves a situation.
Defense rotation on Kings Row between the second and third checkpoints.
The enemy team is comprised of a Soldier:76, a Zarya, a Reinhardt, a McCree, a Symmetra, and an Ana. Mercy’s team is comprised of a Soldier:76, a McCree, a Reinhardt, an Ana, a Winston, and a Mercy (herself). From this point on, I will be narrating the fight from the point of view of the Mercy.
We need to pull back from the second objective and regroup.
The enemy team recently used Tactical Visor and Nano-Boost the last teamfight that lead to them capturing the previous objective. It’s very unlikely that they will have those two ultimates for the next fight unless we spend a lot of time trickling or poking.
The entire enemy team is alive and on the payload. I need to keep my living allies topped off until everyone is here.
Winston is far from the rest of us, possibly looking for a good opening or trying to bait the enemy. Our Soldier:76 is moving away from Winston towards the rest of the team. I need to give him a little healing to cover his escape. Winston is staying within line of sight for now, which means Ana can keep him alive as long as I can keep the rest of my team alive. In a 1v1 fight against an enemy, he should have the advantage.
Ana and McCree are right in front of me. We’re still waiting on our Reinhardt to join us.
The enemy Reinhardt just charged away from his team towards our Winston. His team wasn’t right behind him, which is typically a good reason to not charge at an enemy, even if it seems appealing to do so. He’s probably playing more aggressively because he has Earthshatter. He hasn’t used Earthshatter recently either, so he definitely has it with the delay and his abnormal behavior. Reinhardt didn’t manage to pin Winston, but now Winston is taking a little fire. I’ll move up a little to cover his escape.
Zarya just rounded the corner looking for trouble without the rest of her team before backing off shortly after while Winston was jumping back towards us. She is also playing dangerously; if we had good focus fire there, they would be down a tank. Being that it’s been a while since she has used Graviton Surge, they likely have that too. I need to keep my distance from the team.
The enemy Symmetra just placed a Shield Generator, meaning there’s only one enemy ultimate I have not yet accounted for: Deadeye. The enemy McCree hasn’t used it in a while so I suspect that he has it. He will almost certainly use it to combo with Earthshatter or Graviton Surge.
That’s three enemy offensive ultimates for one allied defensive ultimate. Our Ana has Nano-boost, but that’s not going to help much against the ultimates we are up against.
What other ultimates do we have? Our McCree was just playing Genji so he probably isn’t close to having Deadeye. Our Winston was just playing Roadhog, so he also doesn’t have much of his ultimate, not that it would help a whole lot unless he gets himself and the enemy in just the perfect position. Our Reinhardt has Earthshatter, and our Soldier:76 used Tactical Visor in the previous engagement. He might have it up soon, but I shouldn’t count on it.
So, we have Resurrect, Nano-boost, and Earthshatter.
The location of the engagement will be just ahead. Our Reinhardt will be back any second and we will be ready to contest the payload. With that in mind…
The enemy has no flankers, so finding an advantageous fighting position shouldn’t be necessary so long as I position myself so that the enemy needs to go through my team and then a little distance to get to me. That position is directly behind me, an elevated platform slightly higher than the ground before it. It has cover, so I have a place to duck behind when things get hot. I should be able to heal my team from a safe distance there, and I have a clear sight line to fire down with my pistol if my allies push too far ahead.
Reinhardt’s back.
Our Soldier:76 just died a few paces from Reinhardt. Perfect.
I have two options now; I could either revive that Soldier:76 to have an even teamfight but have our chances of success dropped due to an ultimate disadvantage (3 offensive ultimates against 2 offensive ultimates in a 6v6), or I could hold onto Resurrect for longer hoping that the enemy will use their ultimates regardless of our disadvantage.
Soldier:76 doesn’t have his ultimate up and isn’t in a very advantageous place to swing the tides of the fight. I’m going to wait and see what the enemy does before deciding…
The enemy has not capitalized on their advantage, and Soldier:76 is about to respawn. The spawn location isn’t too far from us and he can quickly close that distance with his Sprint ability. We can collapse back towards him if we need to.
I’m going to save Resurrect.
Our Winston just engaged by leaping towards the enemy team. Why he’s doing that when we’re down a player, I don’t know.
Our Ana just called out that the enemy’s Zarya is asleep. That’s my team’s cue to full engage and my cue to get to that safer position before resuming.
I reached that safer position just a few paces away. “Hammer down” is heard as I am approaching it and three of my allies are in critical condition. Two are dead when I hear “It’s high noon”. I have not attached my beam to any targets; however, they still might know my location, indicated by a Biotic Grenade being tossed my way.
The living allies are still between myself and the enemy, and they are at low health. Trying to save them would be pointless now. When they die, I will Resurrect them. The enemy still has Graviton Surge, but we will have some protection with Winston’s bubble and Reinhardt’s barrier. Nano can help an ally live through it and retake control along with Earthshatter.
The last two allies are dead. Soldier:76 is back from spawn and within sight. All dead allies are within range of Resurrect from my current position.
Q. The team is back up.
Zarya ulted, as expected, but died shortly afterwards before being able to capitalize on it. Our Ana Nano-Boosted our Reinhardt, who pushed the enemy back while Winston and Ana were protected by Winston’s barrier despite being caught inside Graviton Surge. The enemy Symmetra flanked and killed our McCree and our Soldier:76, but our tanks pushed the enemy back for now.
And with that, we conclude our first scenario.
Let’s make another.
Eichenwalde offense rotation between the second and third objectives.
The defending team has a Tracer, Widowmaker, Genji, Mei, McCree, and Mercy. The attacking team has a McCree, Soldier:76, Tracer, D.Va, Genji, and Mercy (herself). Standard Quickplay lineup.
Now we return to the perspective of the Mercy.
The enemy Tracer just used Pulse Bomb and killed nobody with it. Our D.Va is out of her MEKA and at least four of my allies are at critical health. We’re not directly engaged with the enemy save for that one Tracer who is in the room off to my left, so there’s no reason to withdraw in preparation to revive anyone. It would be better to heal everyone instead.
McCree killed that Tracer. I need to finish topping every one off before the next engagement. There’s 40 seconds left on the timer; either we win this fight or we lose the match.
Time to start taking inventory.
We’ll have no sustain going into this next fight unless D.Va gets inside her mech soon. We have only Resurrect going into the next fight unless someone pops off and charges another ultimate.
Being that I have Resurrect and it has been a while since the enemy Mercy has used her Resurrect, it’s safe to assume that she has it too. We have two flankers, though, so they can probably kill her before she’s able to use it.
By that same token, the enemy also has two flankers. It’s very unlikely that the enemy Tracer will have Pulse Bomb up again, being that she just used it. The enemy Genji might have Dragonblade. I need to stay close to my McCree around the last corner to the objective so he can help if I get attacked. There aren’t any particularly good flanking routes in this area, but better to be safe than dead.
I need to keep an eye on that flanking route to my left. The enemy Tracer might decide to sneak through it. I can see the beginning of it from where I’m standing, so I’ll have some time to reposition if she goes through there. I might actually be able to use that route to my advantage…
Scratch that. The enemy Widowmaker has good aim and just shot our McCree from a good distance away. It wasn’t a headshot, but I don’t want to risk the next shot on me being one. Her current position will allow her to shoot at me if I walk towards that doorway to my left, and a little repositioning on her part will allow her to suppress me when I reach the other end.
I need to stay around this corner from the enemy team. I can still heal my team a bit from here.
Our McCree is moving towards the other side of the battlefield, likely trying to take the high ground over there. My current position is more vulnerable because of this, but it will also provide a good escape route of I get attacked. He doesn’t have Deadeye yet, though. Maybe he’s close?
Speaking of Deadeye, the enemy McCree definitely has that too. Their Mei certainly has Blizzard.
Our D.Va is back in her MEKA. She might be able to DM Blizzard or Deadeye. Either way, the enemy is going to use ultimates very soon now that they have more to shoot at.
Our Genji just got a pick on the enemy McCree. Now he’s ulting. Two more kills with his ultimate, one on their Genji and one on their Mei. Mei managed to fire her ultimate before being killed though. The enemy Mercy is still alive and has a golden opportunity to give her team an advantage, as that Blizzard is going to deal some damage as long as there is followup.
Yep. Three-man Resurrect. The enemy might have Dragonblade at this point, and Genji was just revived. Their McCree was also revived, and he has Deadeye.
Our Genji and D.Va are caught in Blizzard.
McCree has the high ground right now, so I can fly to him if I need to. I’m only going to do so if I absolutely have to, as the enemy has that area locked down with Widowmaker and Deadeye. I don’t seem to be under threat of attack from flankers.
Our McCree killed the enemy Mercy and then was shot by the enemy McCree who was telling the time. If I can reset my team’s numbers, we’ll have an advantage in the following fight.
Tracer just got headshot by the enemy Mei. Nothing I could do there.
Our Genji, Tracer, and McCree are dead. Soldier:76 and D.Va, who is now outside of her MEKA, are both in critical condition. Time to break line of sight so the enemy doesn’t come looking for me.
Soldier:76 is dead. D.Va has very little health left. I’m flying in. By the time I’m there, she’ll be dead.
Oh look, a “X5”! Q.
That was a close shot on the part of the enemy Widowmaker. Glad I chose to stay behind that corner until flying in.
Our D.Va managed to kill the enemy Genji before dying, surprisingly. That means we don’t need to worry about Dragonblade immediately.
We have the clear advantage here; it’s a 6v4. I think I’ll press that advantage with a few shots from my pistol on the enemy Mei. Their only healer is down, so any damage counts.
No more ultimates are left. Just killing things is all that matters and the objective will be ours.
4 seconds remaining when the payload reached its destination.
End of our second scenario.
Another one?
3rd round on Hollywood. Defense rotation between 1st and 2nd objective.
The game is in overtime. The defending team is comprised of a Tracer, Reinhardt, McCree, Roadhog, Zenyatta, and Mercy (herself). The attacking team has a Reinhardt, Pharah, Roadhog, Genji, Ana, and Zenyatta.
And now we return to the perspective of the Mercy.
Our Reinhardt has Earthshatter. Our Tracer should have Pulse Bomb soon because I haven’t seen her use it yet. McCree recently used Deadeye before dying, so it’s very unlikely that he will have it again before this next teamfight. I don’t know about Roadhog and Zenyatta. I would assume that at least Zenyatta is close, as his utlimate charges about as fast as mine.
The enemy Pharah is pushing pretty far ahead of her team. No doubt she’s looking for someone to barrage. I need to keep an eye out for her and stay beneath low ceilings when possible.
My team is spread pretty far out. Rocket Barrage won’t kill many of us like this, but our team doesn’t have a solid defense like this either.
The enemy will not have Nano-boost because they used it in the last fight, but they probably have Transcendence, they might have Earthshatter, and they definitely have Dragonblade. Our team is way too spread to take out an ulting Genji. I need to stay back a bit. If I cling to the left external wall beneath the roof, I should be relatively safe from Pharah while simultaneously placing myself further away from Genji if he uses Dragonblade. Zenyatta will be my escape route in the event that Genji goes straight for me.
The game is in overtime; if we can get them off the payload for just a second, this round will end.
The enemy just used Whole Hog. I didn’t anticipate that. I need to pull back.
Pharah is using Rocket Barrage and was killed in the process. So far only our Reinhardt is down. The enemy Genji is currently inside the room to my left.
Genji is down. It’s a 5v4, and they only have Earthshatter and Transcendence available this fight. We’re loaded with ultimates. I could press this advantage by reviving our Reinhardt, who has Earthshatter, but some of my allies are at low health and might need it instead.
Scratch that, Tracer just rewound and our Roadhog just vaped. I’m reviving our Reinhardt to secure the fight.
The enemy is using Transcendence because they probably knew they were about to be swamped. Our Zenyatta replied with a Transcendence of his own. Our Roadhog is pushing the enemy Reinhardt away with Whole Hog. Oh look, our Reinhardt put his hammer down… now he’s charging the enemy Reinhardt. Have a damage boost.
The enemy healers are in my face, the enemy Transcendence has ended, and I’m feeling aggressive. Pew, pew pew.
The enemy is off the payload. Overtime is over.
Angry Japanese screaming from the enemy spawn
A bit late.
End of Scenario 3.
Now that I have given you these three “hypothetical” scenarios, you might be interested in knowing that not one of them is hypothetical. All of them actually happened, the perspective of the Mercy in question being my own at the time.
Don’t believe me? Good. That means there was a good reason for me to dig through my some of my old recordings:
Scenario 1: Scenario 1 - YouTube
Scenario 2: Scenario 2 - YouTube
Scenario 3: Scenario 3 - YouTube
Each video clip begins a little before the narratives begin to provide additional context.
Scenario 1 was recorded in early season 4, scenario 2 was a Quickplay match before the end of season 5 (it was also the last five-man Resurrect I ever got; I had a grand total of 8 of them, at least 2 of them ending in a second wipe), and scenario 3 was recorded in early-mid season 4.
As a result of this mind game, the player gained an immense feeling of accomplishment when a use of Resurrect resulted in a victorious fight. They charged Resurrect, they examined the situation, they survived the enemy onslaught, they chose how and when they were going to use it, and they executed it properly. Resurrect’s activation animation and voice line in itself was empowering, further adding to the effect. While this was happening, the Mercy was often listening to the cheers and/or praise of her teammates while preparing to play in what was sure to be another intense battle. A feeling of defiance was rising within them.
“I brought my team back from the brink of defeat in one decisive maneuver. We’re not done yet.”
A use of Resurrect was empowering in every sense of the word. It brought the chance of victory back up from zero. It raised team morale. The Mercy player was completely immersed in the game, spurred on by the comments of their teammates. Resurrect felt amazing to use.
Hello, E-rez.
There isn’t a whole lot to say here. Resurrect is currently none of the the above. Becoming immobile and helpless for two seconds to revive one target directly in front of your face isn’t empowering.
“I turned into a stone before reversing someone’s pick…”
The death of allies in during Mercy’s 1.x versions drew the player in; they created a problem in the form of a puzzle that the Mercy must solve. A death increased the depth of Mercy’s gameplay, as they would worry about how to best use Resurrect, if at all.
The death of an ally today leads to the incapacitation of the Mercy, interrupting and removing any depth remaining in Mercy’s kit.
The puzzle and its mind game are gone. The only thing left is remembering to look both ways before crossing.
Valkyrie
Functionality:
I hate this ability.
Well… maybe I should clarify. The ability itself isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but why the ever-loving [REDACTED] is this thing an ultimate?
Let’s backtrack so we can identify what Valkyrie is. Valkyrie does the following:
- Allows Mercy to fly freely at a speed of 9 meters/second.
- Extends Mercy’s beam range to 30 meters.
- Extends the range of Guardian Angel to 50 (I think?) meters.
- Allows Mercy’s beams to split and affect allies up to 10 meters from the primary target.
- Removes the cooldown on Mercy’s passive regeneration, providing a constant healing rate of 20 health/second to Mercy.
- Increases the flight speed of Guardian Angel.
Simplifying this to the parts that actually have any impact on the fight, we get:
- Ability to heal/amplify multiple targets at once.
Sure, she can fly, but what good is flying if it doesn’t help to further the player’s objectives? Lucio could have Mercy’s free flight as an ultimate, but it wouldn’t really help him; he’s already one of the most mobile heroes in the game. Mercy is also one of the most mobile heroes in the game, making Valkyrie’s free flight redundant while causing other problems (which I will get to soon™).
The only change for Mercy in regards to affecting the battle itself is her chain beams, meaning the maximum impact of the ability is a 30% damage amplification or 60 health/second for 5 players.
Take the above, give it a 3 second duration, and place it behind a 10-12 second cooldown; we now have a nice basic ability. You know, the thing Mercy players wanted for a while.
Of course, that’s not the path the developers decided to take. They instead elected to apply it as an ultimate, giving us the opposite problem we have with Resurrect; we have a basic ability forced into the spot of an ultimate.
Let’s compare this to some existing basic abilities:
- Biotic Grenade: 100 burst healing for all allies/60 damage to all enemies within its 4 meter radius. Increases the healing rate of affected allies by 50% and nullifies all healing to enemies for 4 seconds after the initial detonation.
- Discord Orb: Increases all damage taken by the targeted enemy by 30%. Only affects one enemy, but all 6 of the team members (including Zenyatta) can capitalize on the damage amplification. Can be switched at will if given LoS and a distance of 30 meters or less.
- Amp it Up (healing aura): 46.8 health/second to all allies within 10 meters of Lucio for 3 seconds. Lucio receives 35.1 health/second rather than 46.8.
These abilities are very similar in impact to what a 3-second Valkyrie would be.
Biotic Grenade can simultaneously heal allies and damage enemies, leaving lingering benefits or penalties to those affected. It has wider variation in impact thanks to the fact that it can be blocked by barriers and only has a 4 meter radius, but surpassing the impact of a 3-second-Valkyrie wouldn’t be difficult. Ana also isn’t actively channeling the lingering effects, so she isn’t limited to only the impact of that grenade for the next few seconds. The same cannot be said for Valkyrie.
Discord Orb allows for the full effects of Valkyrie’s damage amplification but for 6 players rather than 5 (Mercy can’t shoot while using her beams). The catch is that it only works against one enemy at a time, but that is more than compensated by the fact that it has no cooldown and an endless duration as long as LoS is held. Place it on an exposed enemy, and the team will kill that player faster than they would if they had Valkyrie’s effects.
Amp it Up seems weaker than Valkyrie due to its lower healing output over the same duration, but one also needs to consider that Lucio can still shoot while using it. Again, unlike Mercy.
A Valkyrie with a duration of 3 seconds is right on par with the abilities possessed by other healers… and somehow the developers needed to make it worthy of being an ultimate. How did they do this?
They started out by septupling its duration…
What a surprise; it’s still a basic ability. On top of doing pretty much nothing to solve the problem, they introduced other problems. For example, the ability was now boring to use; instead of a short-lived buff that the Mercy player could draw upon in a pinch, Valkyrie was now a long-term easy-mode that featured spectator mechanics for the player’s enjoyment- or lack thereof.
Probably realizing how garbage this “ultimate” was during internal testing, or rather back when they previously decided to remove it from the game before Overwatch was announced (citation: - YouTube ), they decided to add Resurrect bonuses to Valkyrie. This time, they were successful in making Valkyrie worthy of holding the place of an ultimate because…
Resurrect is an ultimate. An ultimate and a basic ability combined returns an ultimate.
Except we had that “little problem” mentioned in the Resurrect section:
Resurrect was absurdly, brokenly, overpowered.
Mercy effectively had two ultimates before she was nerfed repeatedly: Resurrect and Valkyrie. Rephrasing that while sustaining the meaning: Resurrect and more Resurrect.
In later patches, the Resurrect bonuses were removed and Valkyrie’s duration was reduced to only five times what it should be. This made Mercy less oppressive in regards to balance, but she’s still sitting with her ultimate on E and a basic ability on Q.
Risk/Reward:
If you haven’t read Part 3 of this thread or are otherwise unfamiliar with my position on this ability, you might be expecting me to complain about the risk/reward ratio that comes with Valkyrie.
You’re… half right…
There isn’t really a risk/reward ratio to complain about. Regardless as to how much is risk taken, the reward is going to remain the same. This would mean that our hypothetical risk/reward ratio would be x/0, which, if the fact that x is being divided by zero didn’t give it away, is a division by zero. Valkyrie doesn’t have a risk/reward ratio to complain about.
…Which is what I’m here to complain about.
Let’s construct two scenarios to analyze. Both of these scenarios are centered around Mercys that are using Valkyrie. Both situations are perfect copies of each other except for one difference: In the first scenario, the Mercy is close to the fight, hovering just above and behind her allies. In the second scenario, the Mercy is taking advantage of the full length of Valkyrie’s beam range, placing herself as far from the fight as possible while still maintaining beam connection to her team. For these scenarios, let’s ask ourselves two questions:
- Is one Mercy at a greater risk of death than the other? If so, whom?
- Is one Mercy benefiting their team more than the other? If so, whom?
For the first question, the answer is clearly the first scenario. Staying closer to the fight means staying much closer to the enemy, therefore exposing the player to enemy fire. It makes the Mercy an easier target for enemy hitscan/fast projectile heroes, especially if they use auto-aim ultimates. Placing 30 meters between themselves and their own team like the Mercy in scenario 2 is doing puts about 40 meters between themselves and any targets that would normally be able to hit them. This distance is far beyond the effective range of most attacks in the game. The only 3 abilities attacks/abilities that would be capable of dealing more damage than Mercy could mitigate with her own self-regeneration at this range are Widowmaker’s sniper rifle, Soldier:76’s Tactical Visor, and McCree’s Deadeye. However, the danger presented by even these attacks is dulled by the distance. Very few Widowmakers are good enough to hit a small target with omnidirectional movement at 9 meters/second from 40 meters away. At 40 meters, Tactical Visor would feel the effects of damage falloff. Deadeye isn’t directly affected by the distance, but 40 meters of distance means 40 meters of objects or walls to obscure sight lines with, further reducing the risk of all three of the aforementioned abilities.
The answer to the second question is neither. They’re both affecting the same number of allies, and the potency of the beam isn’t dependent upon the distance between the source and the receiver. The allies in both situations are receiving the same benefits.
One could argue that the first scenario allows the Mercy to revive an ally that has been killed if they have Resurrect available; to which I would reply with “And so could the second Mercy”. Sure, there’s 30 meters to cover before using Resurrect, but might I remind you that Guardian Angel is a thing? And that its flight speed and range are increased during Valkyrie? Mercy can cover more than that distance without any problem.
The first scenario is higher in risk than the second scenario, it but provides no benefit for taking such a risk. This begs a third question: Why would anyone in their right mind follow the actions of the Mercy in the first scenario over the actions of the Mercy in the second scenario? There’s nothing to gain from it, but there is something to lose.
To answer this question, we look at the same principle mentioned when I went over Resurrect:
If there is reason to not do something but no reason to do that same something, the wise and obvious choice is always to not do that something.
At this point, the answer to the third question is clear; because the player isn’t thinking. No Mercy player with the intention of winning should be playing that close to the fight in Valkyrie.
This seems to be a theme for the rework. Times in which the player would normally be balancing risk/reward are now replaced with times in which the player actively avoids all risk. As I stated when discussing Resurrect, there’s nothing exciting or impressive about taking the safest path.
29 meters is the optimal distance from the team while in Valkyrie.
The fact that Valkyrie discourages approaching the battle and therefore discourages direct engagement with is one of three reasons why many (often former) Mercy players see Valkyrie as a glorified spectator mode. Shall we go over the other two?
Skill Ceiling:
The skill floor and skill ceiling in Mercy’s base kit are derived from five main “skills”:
Healing Prioritization. How good the Mercy player is at keeping her team alive through sustained damage. If she needs to choose between two or more allies to save, who she chooses and whether or not it is the “correct” choice. Pre-healing allies who are about to take heavy damage to help them survive through it. Juggling healthbars to maintain the team’s overall momentum.
A Mercy with good healing prioritization may choose to heal a low-health main tank that is holding the frontline rather than a critical health DPS that is behind cover, and then provide healing to the DPS when that tank is more stable; even if it requires several flicks between the DPS and the tank. The reason for this is that the DPS isn’t in the direct line of fire, and is less likely to be killed than the tank if Mercy doesn’t heal them.
However, if it is an off-tank, Roadhog for example, the Mercy may choose to heal the DPS before the Roadhog. This is because the Roadhog has his own healing ability, and they likely have another tank to cover for them while they recover. Furthermore, healing Roadhog may deprive him of the ultimate charge that he gains from self-healing for 300 HP. Healing the DPS helps to put them back into the fight quicker, taking some of the pressure off the remaining tank while Roadhog vapes.
Damage Boost Utilization. If and how the player uses damage boost to maximize their team’s output. Who the Mercy places their amplification beams on when they use them, and how quick they are to amplify a target that is about to deal significant damage. If multiple good options are available, which one would be the most beneficial to amplify.
For example, a Mercy that knows how to use Damage boost will amplify a Roadhog when he hooks a target to increase the chance of a kill; however, they will wait until the last second to do so to maximize the amount of healing done without sacrificing any damage. Likewise, the same Mercy will amplify a Soldier:76 shooting a Helix Rocket or a Reinhardt using Firestrike starting when they think the projectile will hit an enemy rather than immediately after they make the attack. Again, this leads to more healing dealt.
Guardian Angel Discipline. How well the Mercy can manage Guardian Angel and Angelic Descent to land exactly where they want to, while making a (mostly) linear ability unpredictable to the enemy. The player’s ability to escape bad situations. How quickly the Mercy can find and execute alternate routes to immediately-unreachable targets by chaining GA uses. Knowing the exact distance of Mercy’s beams to enter their range while still putting distance between themselves and the enemy.
A Mercy with good GA discipline will be able to move from position to position seemingly independent from her GA targets. They can quickly reach places that are unreachable by taking a direct route. For example:
It’s old, but the same skill still applies.
Positioning. Pretty self-explanatory. How well the player positions themselves to minimize risk and maximize impact. Players with good positioning make it difficult for the enemy to hit them and force pursuing enemies into locations that are advantageous to the Mercy. A Mercy with good positioning is less dependent upon GA Discipline and vice-versa, but both are still very necessary.
Awareness. Also self-explanatory. Awareness is how aware the player is of their surroundings and how thoroughly they know their own assets and the enemy’s assets. How quickly they can identify options for every situation, assuming there are any feasible options in the first place. Awareness allows the player to use the above skills; if the player isn’t aware of their surroundings, they won’t know which allies need healing the most, who to amplify, who to fly to, and what positions are safe. A Mercy player that has no awareness is easy prey to her enemies, as she fails to detect threats before it is too late. However, when used and combined with other skills, it allows for some unique interactions. For example, here’s what a combination of GA Discipline and Awareness looks like:
Also an old clip, but it still applies as well.
The five main skills that Mercy has in her basic kit are Healing Prioritization, Damage Boost Utilization, GA Discipline, Positioning, and Awareness. There are other minor skills like Pistol Usage, but they aren’t central to the Mercy’s main objectives:
- Stay alive.
- Empower/sustain the team.
The average Mercy doesn’t even deal 500 damage every game (which is a bit low if you ask me, although I tended to be an “assertive” Mercy).
Now let us consider what Valkyrie does (again):
- 30 meter primary beam range.
- Chain beams.
- Uninterrupted self-regeneration.
- Free omnidirectional flight at 9 m/s.
I’m going to stop the list right there, as the remaining element (GA range extension) isn’t relevant. With the above list, we heavily reduced or completely removed the need for the aforementioned skills.
Chain beams remove the need to switch between targets unless the team splits up a lot, thus removing the need for healing prioritization and most of Damage Boost Utilization. The deepest into Damage Boost Utilization the player gets in Valkyrie is “Should I use Damage Boost now?”.
Positioning is practically removed because the best position is up and away from the fight. Remember, there is no reason to stick around because the player has the same impact either way, and they have 30 meters at their disposal. Staying safe when the leeway is an omnidirectional 30 meters from their own team that doesn’t require LoS with the enemy isn’t exactly difficult. Slap the uninterrupted self-healing on there and positioning was not only tossed out the window, but it was fired out of the window using railgun.
GA Discipline is removed because there is rarely a reason to use Guardian Angel. There are only a few specific threats to worry about, and those can be evaded with Mercy’s free flight or by breaking LoS. GA is also used to get to a desired location, but the only desirable location in Valkyrie is up and away; a location reached by pressing S and Space for 2-3 seconds after activating Valkyrie. GA is typically only used in emergencies (which are extremely rare for a Mercy in Valkyrie), and it is never used in chains like it is outside of Valkyrie.
The need for anything beyond the most basic awareness has evaporated because the vast majority of threats have vanished along with the need for the above skills.
Valkyrie removes any benefit from having the skills required for Mercy’s base kit. Its skill ceiling is lower than the skill floor of Mercy’s base kit. The skill floor in Valkyrie is staying far away and placing a beam on an ally in the center of the team. If the player does that for the next 15 seconds, they have achieved the maximum capacity of Valkyrie and therefore the skill ceiling of Valkyrie. Not even timing is a realistic concern, as Valkyrie has such a stupidly long duration that activating it vaguely around the beginning of the fight means the ability will last for at least the majority of the battle.
Valkyrie takes the “Easy mode” feel of other ultimates, drops the skill ceiling below the normal baseline, reduces engagement to near zero, and then exaggerates the duration well beyond comfortable levels. The player isn’t limited by their own mechanical or mental capacity, but by the ability itself. What could be worse?
Being Helpless:
Yeah. That.
Compared to most ultimates, Valkyrie sacrifices impact and potency for duration… That, and the ability to fly the [REDACTED] away. This makes Valkyrie geared less towards decisive action, and more towards a battle of attrition.
Aside from the other problems that we’ve already gone over, the problem with Valkyrie favoring a war of attrition is that the rest of the game favors decisive action; namely, the offensive, or proactive abilities. Proactive abilities (anything from D.Va’s Fusion Cannons to Rocket Barrage) are what prompt the use of reactive abilities (anything from Moira’s Healing Orbs to Transcendence); reactive abilities are designed to mitigate the effects of proactive abilities. Because reactive abilities exist to counteract proactive abilities and not vice versa, proactive abilities are the pacemakers of the two. Whatever the proactive, or offensive ability is designed to do, the defensive, or reactive ability needs to be capable of undoing or heavily dampening to counter the proactive ability.
This is where the (new) problem of Valkyrie being diluted comes in. It is a reactive ability, but it cannot keep pace with the pacesetters. There is too much damage to be dealt, too little health to burn through, and too low of a healing output on the beams for Valkyrie to compensate. Basic focus fire alone is enough to tear through the healing provided by Valkyrie without even considering the high-burst damage abilities and kill combos (Chain Hook, Rocket Punch, sniper headshots, Storm Arrows, Charge, Helix Rocket, Flashbang + whatever, anything Junkrat, etc.) on every other hero, even less the ultimates possessed by those same heroes.
As a consequence, Valkyrie’s healing beams aren’t any more useful in full-on teamfights than Symmetra’s Shield Generator, but now the uselessness is more personal because Mercy is the “Shield Generator”. Unlike Symmetra, Mercy cannot participate in other ways while still applying buffs to her team, making whatever beams she’s using at the moment her maximum output for that moment; none of the power is placed in her own hands. Despite this, Valkyrie is far from enough to protect the team.
The result? Mercy is left floating in the sky while she watches her team get massacred below her, knowing she had absolutely no power in stopping it; her “ultimate” would not let her.
The convenient (yet somehow still infuriating) part about Valkyrie is that it typically leaves the player with enough duration for them to fly back to the spawn location to regroup with their team; they’re halfway there already.
“You’re supposed to use Valkyrie as an engagement ultimate by amplifying the team rather than healing”, I hear someone furiously typing. To which I ask: You do realize that it doesn’t take 15 seconds to engage into a fight if one team initiates, correct? You’ll have about 2-4 seconds of damage amplification on before your team starts taking a lot of damage and you realize that you are the team’s main healer. You will then switch to healing beams to help mitigate some of the damage, at which point the enemy Pharah will proceed to barrage your team anyway, assuming they haven’t already.
Aside from being killed by the same flanker a dozen times, nothing is more frustrating for a support player than the feeling of being powerless to help or save their team in situations in which doing so should be entirely possible.
I’m going to sum up Valkyrie in a paragraph. Valkyrie is a basic ability that was forced into the slot of an ultimate by exaggerating its duration beyond that which is tolerable. The player has no reason to take risks while using an ability that practically functions on its own, removing any reason to stay engaged with the game while this “ultimate” is active. The player feels idle while using it. Valkyrie limits the Mercy to the ability’s capacity rather than their own capacity; if the player tries to perform better, they hit their head on the insanely low skill ceiling. The capacity allowed by the ability itself is insufficient for saving or recovering the team from the enemy, compounding a feeling of uselessness, helplessness, and frustration on top of their boredom from being idle. There is no playmaking ability in Valkyrie. It is a glorified spectator mode, and it does a very poor job of hiding that.
The fact that this flaming piece of garbage still occupies the spot that once belonged to Resurrect is insulting.
Developer Comments
Not much has changed since I made the corresponding section in the last post, so much of what follows is a copy/paste. There have been a few changes here and there, but for the most part, it’s the same as what it was in Part 3. After the big copy/paste, I’ll add an update to it on the latest developer developments pertaining to Mercy (is it bad that crap the developers say is more entertaining than the looking at the patch notes nowadays? I haven’t even bothered to educate myself about Brigitte’s abilities, but I’m all over the “Dev Tracker” section on the forums).
Reasons for the Rework:
When Mercy’s rework was introduced to the PTR, a Developer Update was released with it:
Developer Update | Hero Balance Updates | Overwatch - YouTube
Between 0:39 and 2:12 in that video, we are given two reasons for the rework which come down to “hide and rez” and “it wasn’t fun to play against”. Let’s start with the “hide and rez” assertion.
There are two ways to interpret what Jeff Kaplan said in that video regarding “hide and rez”. One way is that he is suggesting that Mercy players were routinely hiding as soon as they had their ultimate fully charged, which he disliked. The other interpretation is that Jeff didn’t want a main healer to “stop healing for some period of time”. Both interpretations are poorly thought out, and that lack of thoroughness has led to both concepts reappearing through the successive patches to Mercy following the rework.
Addressing the first one… Partially because I am feeling a little bit lazy at this time, partially because I stated it beautifully back on August 12th, 2017, I am going to quote myself from the old forums when I discussed “hide and rez”:
“It’s just hide and rez.”
This quote illustrates that the person saying it has no idea what they are talking about. No, it’s not an oversimplification; it’s just plain wrong.
“Hide and rez” is a great strategy… assuming your goal is to get wiped after the resurrection. Hiding turns the fight into a 5v6 with a main healer down. Any competent team would be able to walk through your team without expending ultimates, except to counter any ultimates expended by your team. The enemy team already has the positioning advantage and the first shot after the resurrection. “Hide and rez” would also give them the advantage of more ultimate abilities. Doing so sets your team up for failure.
A good Mercy sustains her team until they can no longer be sustained, or until she can no longer do so safely. By doing this, she allows the team to bait more ultimates before dying, giving your team the ultimate ability advantage after the resurrection.
A team playing against a hiding Mercy would have a significantly easier time dealing with the opposing team, as Mercy is putting her own team at a disadvantage. It wouldn’t even come down to being aware enough to consciously notice the 5v6 (although most players should be able to recognize a 5v6 when they see one), but a matter of knowing how much force the team needs to apply to overcome a given resistance; if the enemy is crumbling, don’t expend limited resources to push a structure that will fall on its own.
Because the opposing team is already at a numbers disadvantage in the initial fight, pushing into them without using any ultimates, except to counter ultimates expended by the enemy, will be sufficient for eliminating the opposition. This further leads to more loaded ultimates, as killing 4-5 enemies in a 2-2-2 composition is roughly equivalent to 1500 charge in HP. That is also excluding additional charge gained through allied healing and allied damage through enemy healing. Combine this with the absence of a need to expend ultimates, and the team with the hiding Mercy is revived looking down the barrel of an incredibly large gun, has no time to draw their own, and is in a poor position to capitalize on it even if they did have the time to draw their own.
As a result, hiding prematurely was detrimental to the team’s chances of winning the fight in the long term, even if it was more risky in the short term. It was a misuse of an ultimate.
To add some perspective to this, using “hide and rez” as a reason to remove Resurrect as an ultimate is about the same as using the fact that some Pharah players Barrage themselves on occasion as a reason to remove Rocket Barrage.
By this interpretation of Jeff Kaplan’s words, Blizzard’s intent was to prevent Mercy from leaving the fight, keeping her engaged. Rather than giving more reason to stay in the fight through modifications to Resurrect as an ultimate and the introduction of a decent E ability, the balance team decided to remove Resurrect as an ultimate entirely, and here we are.
Did someone say Valkyrie?
If the intention was to keep Mercy in the fight, why was her ultimate, which punished hiding prematurely and rewarded active play, replaced with an ultimate that rewards staying as far from the battle as possible?
According to this interpretation of Jeff’s words, the developers’ statement is, “We didn’t like how some Mercy players would leave the fight before using their ultimate…”. This statement is then finished by the patch history with, “…so we replaced the previous ultimate with one that is best utilized by leaving the fight”.
Let’s examine the second interpretation.
“We think it’s wrong to tell a main-healing character to go off and hide somewhere and stop healing for some period of time.”
1:32 - 1:42 of that same developer update.
The bold section is the one I am focusing on. Let’s pretend that the first interpretation is incorrect, and assume that Jeff Kaplan doesn’t want a hero to stop doing their main job for any period of time. In this case, the assertion may have some merit to it, as there was often a 3-5 second break in healing before Resurrections. This happened for two reasons, both of which came down to practicality:
- 60 health/second will not save the team from the incoming enemy ultimates.
- Mercy’s healing/amplification beams are obvious, and will lead the enemy straight towards her.
This would often result in the Mercy player staying further back or taking cover, possibly substituting healing/amplifying with whatever damage they could deal with their pistol. She would then use Resurrect and finish off or severely weaken a target they shot at before the Resurrection. In these scenarios, there is a short duration in which not doing Mercy’s primary job was the best way to use her.
That’s how it looks in a vacuum.
Look beyond just Mercy, and most heroes often perform very similar maneuvers to reach the same goal. Some examples of this are Rocket Barrage and Death Blossom, in which the player stops shooting at the enemy (their primary job) to reposition, obscure their position, and gain the advantage of surprise when they use their ultimate. This then begs the question: Why weren’t these ultimates changed for the same reason Mercy’s was changed?
The stupidity doesn’t stop there. We once again have a statement that identifies a perceived problem and proceeds to contradict itself through the actions of the developers:
Developers: “We didn’t like how Mercy would stop healing for a short duration before using Resurrect…”
Patch notes: “…so we removed Mercy’s ability to heal for an additional 1.75 seconds leading up to Resurrect’s activation.”
If the developers wanted Mercy players to heal more leading up to a Resurrection, why did they make it physically impossible for her to do so?
One interpretation of this argument brings us an assertion built on ineffective use of an ultimate as a reason to change the ability; an assertion that appears to have been said once and then disregarded with the following patches. The other interpretation yields an assertion that is a double-standard that has also been disregarded in the following patches.
Let’s look at the second provided reason for the rework.
“…it’s pretty disheartening to have Mercy just erase that moment with a full-team rez.”
Yeah, I get that it can be disheartening to have a near teamwipe negated, but do you know what else sucks? Getting wiped.
That’s how PvP games work; if one side is feeling pretty good, chances are that the other side is feeling pretty bad. Removing any one ability because “it was disheartening to play against” is as illogical as removing any or every ability because “it was disheartening to play against”.
If it is not a legitimate balance concern, meaning it is not oppressively powerful (which Mercy and Resurrect were not), then how it feels to play against is irrelevant, as that is treading into territory that is clearly a double standard.
How do you react when your team gets wiped by a Dragonblade? Earthshatter? Tactical Visor? Death Blossom? Rocket Barrage? Rip-Tire? Self-Destruct? Graviton Surge?
Do you squeal with joy? Do you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Do you attain a sense of accomplishment?
No. For all of these scenarios, you likely feel disappointed, or possibly even angry at yourself or your team for how the fight went. The same emotions are felt by the attacking team when support ultimates are used to negate these same plays; Resurrect was no exception to this pool of ultimates, nor was it exceptionally potent in arising these emotions.
If it is fine for Resurrect to be removed as an ultimate because of this reason, what reason is there to rationalize the existence of any other impactful ultimate? Those are also disheartening to play against.
Post-Reveal Contradictions, Disconnects, and Failures:
I’m going to pick apart some of the other developer comments on Mercy to show just how far the developers backtracked from their original claims.
Developer Comments: September 19th, 2017 (initial rework release):
… This version turns Resurrect into a single target ability. It’s still an important part of Mercy’s kit, but plays much better for both Mercy players and her enemies. Valkyrie, her new Ultimate, gives her the opportunity for big game-making plays and opens a number of new options for her.
The bold parts are the important parts. Looking at the first section of bold text made me want to both laugh and cry at the same time, so I just kind of stared at it awkwardly for about 5 seconds before I resumed typing.
Would I rather have Resurrect as a chargeable, instant-cast, AoE multi-target ability, or would I rather have Resurrect on a static cooldown with a cast time and lockdown movement, further combined with a shorter range and single-target capacity?
This question is the equivalent to asking:
Would I rather immerse myself in an ongoing mind game for both charging and using Resurrect with huge variation in impact, have the capacity to swing the tide of the fight, and have a feeling of self-accomplishment when I use Resurrect well; or would I rather know if/how to use Resurrect by glancing at the situation, be constantly annoyed by the availability of an ability with the longest unchanging cooldown in the game, be subject to becoming a stationary, helpless target every time I activate the ability, and be utterly underwhelmed when I successfully pull of a Resurrection?
That’s a lot of text for a single question, so let’s simplify that:
Would I rather enjoy using Resurrect, or would I rather not?
The answer should be pretty clear. An ability that is comparably less powerful, unengaging, and inflicts negative status effects on the player upon use is far worse for the player than one that is or does none of those things, even if the alternative has a lower uptime.
Resurrect does not play better for the Mercy player. It only plays better for her enemies… and when looking around at the forums, it appears as though more people are starting to disagree with the latter of those two statements as well.
“Valkyrie, her new Ultimate, gives her the opportunity for big game-making plays and opens a number of new options for her.”
I am going to leave this quote for a second, as I want to take these contradictions and failures in chronological order.
On November 3rd, Jeff Kaplan was interviewed on the topics of Moira, Mercy, and in-game toxicity:
Overwatch lead Jeff Kaplan on Moira, Mercy's troubles, and fixing toxicity | VentureBeat
In that interview, he said the following:
“We want the top two things you notice about Mercy to be, “Oh my God, she’s an amazing throughput healer,” and “Wow, look at that mobility, she’s just flowing back and forth through the map.” And we don’t want her to be the resurrect bot that’s just erasing kills.”
That same month, Mercy received a cast time on Resurrect with a 75% movement speed penalty and an inability use to attacks or abilities, including Guardian Angel.
If you wanted Mercy to be about mobility, why was your first order of business after saying that to apply a standstill function to one of her basic abilities?
Let’s see how the healing part played out…
Average healing/game as of June 28th, 2017 (pre-rework): 11905.
Average healing/game as of August 12, 2017 (pre-rework): 11912.
Average healing/game as of March 21st, 2018 (post-rework): 11926.
Average healing/game as of May 31st, 2018 (post-rework): 11603.
Mercy’s average healing output has remained fairly constant through this rework. This begs the question: How does that happen when Mercy now has an ultimate that quintuples her healing output?
Could it be because the developers also failed to provide a reason for the Mercy to stay in fights she no longer has any influence in? The same reason Mercy players took cover for the handful of seconds leading up to a Resurrection, but now there is no Resurrection to use? So they just walk away?
As for the “And we don’t want her to be the resurrect bot that’s just erasing kills” part, you have done exactly that with the current Mercy by removing any variety in the value or availability of Resurrect. She exists to erase picks, and the lack of thought or variation in Resurrect usage screams “bot”.
Returning to that earlier quote from the patch of September 19th, 2017:
“Valkyrie, her new Ultimate, gives her the opportunity for big game-making plays and opens a number of new options for her.”
This quote seemed to be further reinforced in the developer comments of the November 16th patch:
“We feel that Mercy’s recent rework has been successful, but her Resurrect ability still feels too strong and frustrating to play against. Now that it has a cast time, enemies are more able to counter the ability. However, Resurrect will cast instantly when Valkyrie is active. This should make her feel powerful when she transforms on the battlefield.”
According to these developer notes, the balancing team seemed interested in at least keeping a little bit of playmaking capacity in Valkyrie.
Haha, nope.
January 30th, 2018:
- Valkyrie no longer provides a charge of Resurrect upon activation.
- Valkyrie no longer removes Resurrect’s cast time.
- Valkyrie’s duration reduced by 15 seconds.
- Speed increase from Guardian Angel while in Valkyrie decreased by 50%.
Developer comments:
“Mercy’s recent Resurrect changes have helped in allowing enemies to have more counter play in dealing with her, but she was able to use Resurrect through Valkyrie enough to largely mitigate the impact of the previous changes. Additionally, we’re toning back the amount of mobility Valkyrie provides through Guardian Angel and reducing its duration to overall reduce the power of this ability.”
So… When you say she was mitigating the impact of the previous changes, do you mean that Mercy players were still making plays with her?
You know, the thing you supposedly wanted Valkyrie to be capable of? And now you’re removing it.
Let’s revisit those two other quotes.
“Valkyrie, her new Ultimate, gives her the opportunity for big game-making plays and opens a number of new options for her.”
“This should make her feel powerful when she transforms on the battlefield.”
Is she capable of making game-making plays with Valkyrie? No.
Does she have a number of new options? Sure, but one is clearly better than the rest; fly away and utilize the maximum range of her beams. If one option is always better than the other ones, there’s not much point in even considering the other possibilities as “options”.
Does she feel powerful when she transforms? Powerful enough to watch her team die from the skybox. No.
January 25th, 2017:
After months of negative feedback on the Overwatch Forums and at least 6 megathreads on the topic of Mercy, we received a developer update, some of which addressed Mercy:
Developer Update | Popular Community Topics | Overwatch - YouTube
Jeff Kaplan spends his time addressing Mercy by looking at only how “balanced” she is, ignoring what most of the feedback was complaining about in the first place.
“If we tone her down too much, we will bring her back”
6:39 - 6:43
We don’t care about being “meta”. We care about the fact that you have taken Mercy from us, and replaced her with something that isn’t Mercy. I would be content with being in F-tier so long as I enjoy playing my favorite character. If Mercy is brokenly overpowered but not at all engaging or entertaining to play, I won’t play her because I won’t enjoy doing so.
Mercy’s balance state means little to me in comparison to how fun Mercy is to play.
On February 1st, 2018, Jeff Kaplan commented in the existing Mercy megathread by saying the following:
“Thanks to everyone for taking the time to write up thoughtful feedback here. We’re reading the responses daily.”
This raised hopes. Maybe Blizzard would actually acknowledge the concerns we have, something they have failed to do so far?
Nope.
One week later, Jeff Kaplan appeared in some other thread (rather than the megathread, which would have made sense) to say this:
"We have no plans to revert Mercy. We also feel like she’s not in a horrible place or unplayable.
It’s still to be determined if she is exactly where she should be because it has been too soon and the dust needs to settle. Her playtime in QP and Comp is still incredibly high. Her winrate is still above 50% but more in line with what we’d expect.
But I’d like to put the notion that Mercy is going to be reverted to rest.
Also, we don’t agree with the statement that all supports are weak. Support heroes are extremely powerful and impactful in OW."
It’s not the fact that he basically said “We don’t want to revert Mercy”, that pisses me off, it’s that fact that once again, despite them “reading the responses daily”, they still refuse to acknowledge what our concerns are (or maybe they still have no idea what they are), and proceed to pretend that it is purely a balance issue. It is either ignorance or arrogance, and neither seems to be curable.
And now we have radio silence from the developers on this topic and another megathread that is sure to be ignored, like the past 7+ megathreads.
So that was the end of the copy paste. Shall we get on with the latest garbage?
This was in the original post in the latest Mercy megathread (megathread number 10, I think):
Of course, we (the players/former players who are still at this) are used to these kinds of meaningless messages, and many of us expected it to result in another disappointing half-[REDACTED]ed response from a clueless developer. Of course, that would be assuming that anything would come from it at all.
For example, this exchange occurred between two of us in the megathread:
We were not disappointed in expecting disappointment.
About a week after the above exchange played out, Jeff Kaplan entered a thread that was not the megathread (the most sensible place to put announcements on Mercy) to talk about Mercy:
Did Jeff acknowledge our concerns?
Were over half a year in and the developers still have no idea that our concerns are not ones of balance.
12 Likes
Potential Solutions
Get ready for another copy/paste of a section that was also a copy/paste!
3… 2… 1…
Build 1:
Resurrect: Removed as a usable ability unless Valkyrie is active. One again sets Guardian Angel’s cooldown to 0 upon use. Does not have a cast time.
Resurrect needs to be locked behind an ultimate if it is not an ultimate by itself. It is impossible to balance Resurrect and simultaneously make it feel good to use if it is locked behind a basic cooldown.
Double Jump: By pressing the jump key twice in rapid succession, the player gains extra lift, the animation showing Mercy’s wings activating to give her an altitude boost. This can be used to establish LoS to targets on high ground, or get a better view of allies who are currently obscured by closer allies. It cannot be used more than once since touching the ground.
This is mainly out of preference, but Mercy would feel better if she wasn’t 100% dependant on allies to not be a sitting duck.
Valkyrie 2.0:
- Duration reduced to 8 seconds.
- Free flight removed.
- Current beam setup removed.
- Regeneration passive during Valkyrie removed.
- GA range during Valkyrie reduced from 50 meters to 35 meters (30 is normal GA range).
- Resurrect becomes available when Valkyrie is activated. Upon using it, it has a 3 second cooldown, and will continue to run on 3 second cooldowns for the rest of the ultimate.
- Once the ultimate ends, if Resurrect is not on cooldown, the player has 6 seconds to use it before it is no longer usable. If it is on cooldown, the ability completes its cooldown and then has 5 seconds to be used before becoming unavailable.
- New passive while Valkyrie is active- Angelic Presence: All allies within 8 meters of Mercy including herself receive an uninterrupted 10 health per second.
- Mercy no longer points her staff at her allies and engages a healing stream, she now swings her staff in an upward arc at a rate of once per second whilst using one of her streams (damage boost or healing). Each swing causes an eight-meter cone AoE effect of the current beam, but amplified because this is an ultimate.
- If Mercy’s healing stream is activated when she swings, all allies within the AoE receive a burst 100 HP. If her damage stream is activated when she swings, all allies within the AoE receive a 60% increase in damage for 1 second.
- Pistol damage during Valkyrie increased from 20 to 25.
- Mercy’s base movement speed and Angelic Descent horizontal speed increased by 0.6 to 6.1 (5.5 is the base movement speed for all heroes except Genji and Tracer, 7.1 is Lucio’s speed aura).
This forces Mercy to be in the fight, as Mercy has neither the free flight, nor a 30 meter beam range. Being this close to the fight will jeopardize the player, yet it still open lots of opportunities for the player to feel heroic. The reduced duration and increased stats makes Valkyrie more potent but for a shorter duration and less annoying to play against, as Mercy is now directly in the fight rather than 30 meters away. Because Mercy is now forced to be in the fight, commitment is required to use Valkyrie, and the player must use it carefully because of the reduced range and duration. Target prioritization will need to be considered in the event that not all players can be healed in a single arc of Mercy’s staff.
Variant 1:
Rather than a Double Jump ability, 3 seconds of free flight at base movement speed are granted to the player upon hitting the jump key twice in rapid succession. This ability has a 7 second cooldown, which begins once its 3 second duration has ended. This results in a maximum uptime of 30%. Can be used in Valkyrie.
This is mainly to appease the players who enjoyed the free flight granted by Valkyrie and want to keep it to some degree. Note that none of the other bonuses from the current version of Valkyrie (chain beams, range increase, etc.) apply to this ability.
Variant 2:
Free flight is added to Valkyrie.
This variant was created for the same reason Variant 1 was created; to appease the players who enjoyed free flight. I, personally, would not prefer this variant, but it would still be miles better than Mercy’s current iteration.
Build 2:
Valkyrie:
- Duration reduced to 10 seconds.
- All outputs (healing, damage amplification, pistol damage) increased by 50%, Meaning: Healing -> 90 HPS, damage boost -> 45% increase, pistol -> 30 damage.
- Primary beam range reduced from 30 meters to 20 meters.
This makes Valkyrie more potent with a shorter duration, making it feel more impactful. The reduced beam range is to prevent players from spending the entire fight in the skybox, and makes it feel a little more fair to play against.
Resurrect:
- Players can now reduce the cooldown time for Resurrect by healing/dealing damage/amplifying damage.
- Cooldown is doubled or tripled.
- Movement penalty upon activation reduced from 75% to 50%.
- Mercy can now heal, damage boost, and shoot while reviving.
If this change is executed properly, this could overall be a cooldown nerf to Resurrect without feeling like it. The cast time was modified in order to make Mercy feel less helpless upon using Resurrect.
Variant 1:
Duration of Valkyrie reduced to 8 seconds, outputs increased by 60%: 96 HPS, 48% amplification, 32 pistol damage.
This is basically the same as the above version but even shorter and more potent.
Variant 2:
Valkyrie has a 10 second duration, primary beam target receives 120 HPS/60% damage increase, secondary beams apply 80 HPS/40% damage increase.
The goal for this was to create a need to prioritize targets. To do this, the strength of the primary beam was increased while the strength of the secondary beams were decreased.
Variant 3:
Valkyrie has an 8 second duration, primary beam target receives 128 HPS/64% damage increase, secondary beams apply 85 HPS/43% damage increase. Mercy’s blaster deals 32 damage.
Variants 1 and 2 mixed together.
Build 3:
- Mercy reverted to 1.x.
Guardian Angel:
- GA modifications from Mercy 2.x applied.
Resurrect:
- Range reduced to from 15 meters to 10 meters.
- Line of sight requirement added.
Valkyrie:
- Added as an E ability.
- 4 second duration, 12 second cooldown. Cooldown begins once the ability’s duration has been exhausted, allowing for a 25% uptime at the very most.
- Primary beam range only extends to 20 meters, down from 30.
- Movement speed reduced from 9 meters/second to 6.5 meters/second.
- Guardian Angel range is not extended when Valkyrie is active.
- Passive self-regeneration is no longer constant.
A revert is the most definite fix. The line of sight requirement and range decrease were applied to Resurrect for two reasons; one, to compensate for Valkyrie becoming an E ability, and two, to incentivise tempo-resurrections without forcing them. Note that the charge requirement was not increased for the latter of those two reasons.
Variant 1:
Resurrect has a 15 meter range and no line of sight requirement, but can Resurrect a maximum of 3 players at once. If more than 3 players are within range, the 3 closest players to Mercy are revived.
Just an idea. There really isn’t any justification for this idea, and there doesn’t really need to be.
Variant 2:
Valkyrie no longer grants free flight, GA range is once again extended, beam range is again set to 30 meters. A double jump ability is added to Mercy’s kit.
This allows Valkyrie to be used to heal allies that are otherwise unreachable, but does not make Mercy herself unreachable. The double-jump was added to provide Mercy with a little independant mobility.
Variant 3:
Valkyrie’s primary beam applies 80 HPS/40% damage increase, secondary beams apply 53 HPS/27% damage increase.
Valkyrie but with the added requirement of healing prioritization.
Variant 4:
Any combination of Variants 1, 2, and 3.
Have fun.
Build 4:
A build I stole from ReinStein (with permission, so i didn’t actually steal it) and then modified:
Valkyrie:
- Removed.
Resurrect:
- Is once again Mercy’s ultimate.
- Now uses a charge/stack-based system, stores a maximum of 3 stacks. 1320 ultimate charge is required to gain a single stack of Resurrect.
- Cast time removed.
- Resets GA cooldown upon use.
- Otherwise functions like Resurrect does currently.
This fixes the issue that Resurrect is not earned and adds variation to its availability. I didn’t just pull 1320 charge out of my butt; I took the amount of ultimate charge the average competitive Mercy player was earning every game by healing/damaging/amplifying (11562.4), added the passive ultimate gain from existing for 10 minutes (3000 charge) to total 14562.4, and decided I wanted the average Mercy to earn 11 Resurrect charges/game. 14562.4/11 ~ 1320 (rounding to the nearest ten). For reference, Resurrect from Mercy 1.x required 1625 ultimate charge.
New E ability: Alter Stream
- Pressing E activates Mercy’s chain beams, which function as they currently do in Valkyrie but without the primary beam range increase. Pressing E again returns the beams to normal.
- The strength of Mercy’s beams is decreased, reducing her damage boost amplification to only 10% and her healing to only 20 HPS.
- This ability has no cooldown.
This adds more depth to Mercy’s allied prioritization, allowing her to choose between affecting one ally with a potent beam or multiple with weaker beams.
Changes to damage boost in relation to ultimate charge:
- Ultimate charge is no longer generated based on how much damage a target amplified by Mercy is dealing, but by how much damage is amplified.
- For every 2 damage amplified, Mercy gains 5 ultimate charge points.
There’s a reason for this change. If you are not interested in watching me crunch numbers, I suggest you skip over this part. If you enjoy math like I occasionally do, feel free to stick around.
Currently, the amount of charge Mercy gains from amplifying teammates is determined by the total amount of damage the ally in question is dealing to enemies. Note that this is not the base damage, but the amount of damage the ally is dealing total, after Mercy’s 30% damage increase is factored in. This is then fed through a 2/3 conversion ratio before giving us the final amount of ultimate charge gained through damage amplification. In other words…
If [player currently being amplified by Mercy] deals 200 base damage to [enemy], Mercy’s 30% amplification increases that damage by 60, resulting in a total of 260 damage dealt. This number is then multiplied by 2 and divided by 3 (because reasons, the developers slapped a random conversion ratio on top of this), resulting in a grand total of 173.3333… ultimate charge gained from this endeavor. 60 damage amplified resulted in 173.3333… charge points.
Why the developers made this conversion so unnecessarily complicated is beyond me, but I digress. The reason this is no longer an effective system is because of the proposed E. Why? Let’s compare Mercy’s normal damage boost to the suggested chain boost:
For Mercy’s normal boost, she gains 173.3 charge for 60 damage.
For Mercy’s group boost, let’s assume she is increasing the damage output of three allies, all of whom are dealing 200 damage. With Mercy’s 10% increase, she is increasing the damage of each ally by 20, for a total of 60 damage amplified. However, the targets she is boosting are dealing a total of 660 damage. If we slap this into the same conversions currently in place for Mercy’s damage stream, we get 440 ultimate charge gained; here lies the issue.
Normal: 60 damage amplified = 173.3 charge.
Chained to three allies: 60 damage amplified = 440 charge.
The amount of charge gained is not consistent with the amount of impact Mercy is creating; this is why I very strongly suggest that Mercy’s charge gain from damage boost is determined by how much damage is amplified rather than how much damage the affected allies are dealing.
If we want the current charge rate for Mercy’s beam to remain unchanged while solving the issue, we simply divide the amount of charge gained from the normal scenario by the amount of damage amplified in that same scenario:
173.33…/60 = 2.88…
So, for every 1 damage amplified, Mercy receives 2.88… ult charge. Because Mercy has the potential to gain ult at a faster rate by amplifying/healing more than three targets, however, I figured it would be better for Mercy to gain 2.5 charge/1 damage amplified to counterbalance. Hence the 5 charge for every 2 damage amplified.
Variant 1:
Resurrect stores up to five stacks. The range of Resurrect is increased to 15 meters and all allies within the radius (and within LoS) are Resurrected upon a single use of Resurrect. Mercy receives one second of invulnerability upon using Resurrect, and she can only use Resurrect once every ten seconds. If she uses her ultimate, it is put on a ten second cooldown.
This makes Resurrect feel more epic to use, but still actively incentivizes tempo-resurrections rather than mass-resurrections because of the line-of-sight requirement and limited invulnerability. The cooldown upon using Resurrect is inflicted for two reasons; One, to prevent Mercy players from abusing the invulnerability by chaining Resurrections, and two, to make the Mercy player think carefully about how they use Resurrect. Ten seconds is the same time it takes a player to respawn after death, so a Mercy must consider how they use Resurrect if multiple allies are down at once and some are not reachable.
Anticipated Responses
There are several reasons for this section. First, I want to see just how well I know the forums. If the anticipated responses listed in here appear in the replies, I get a point (which have absolutely no value whatsoever). Second, I get to prepare my counterarguments ahead of time, because I’ll have two days or less to respond before this thread gets locked and tossed into the oversaturated garbage pit. It’s also more convenient for me to type stuff up now than it is to bring it up for probably the 20th time. Third, this is a test to see if the person replying has actually read the post. If they make one of the statements listed in this section without addressing the counterarguments made here, I will know that they haven’t actually read the post… at which point, I will be justified in the fourth reason for me making this section. The fourth reason is that I get to be condescending and laugh at those who pretended to read the post but didn’t really.
Shall we begin?
"Just play a different hero."
There are so many things wrong with this statement. First, there’s the fact that I have refused to play Overwatch since October 21st, cutting off the statement entirely. The statement assumes I’m willing to play Overwatch at all.
Second, the solution to a single issue or multitude of issues isn’t to “play someone else”. That doesn’t make the problems go away. It abandons and ignores them, leaving them to fester for longer.
Third, sure! I would play a different hero. I would play Mercy… but she got removed and replaced with something else through the rework. The hero I would play doesn’t exist anymore.
I wouldn’t have a problem with the current “Mercy” existing if the old one still existed as well.
"Mercy’s playstyle hasn’t changed."
Well, I can already tell that you didn’t read the post… or maybe you did, but you didn’t process the information from it. One of the main purposes of this post was to show how Mercy’s playstyle has changed in a negative way. Shall I make a brief list?
- Movement penalties in Resurrect disrupt and contradict Mercy’s normally-fluid gameplay.
- The game of balancing risk and reward to maximize ultimate charge gains is gone thanks to Resurrect being on a static cooldown, removing a layer of complexity and engagement in Mercy’s kit. Rather than playing in the fight, the best choice is to play far off to the side of it.
- Resurrect is now a constant trickle of annoyance and frustration for the player that has a skill ceiling at the skill floor. It is no longer rewarded through performance; it is given regardless. It no longer feels like a privilege to use; it incapacitates the player. It is a restrictive participation award.
- The mind game of using Resurrect is gone, removing 1/4th of Mercy’s engagement. This mind game was then replaced by a question with a clear yes/no answer.
- Mercy no longer has the capacity to change the tide of a teamfight. She functions against the opposing team like radiation poisoning rather than sudden impact (unlike every other hero in the game).
- Valkyrie drops the skill ceiling of Mercy’s kit below the normal skill floor. It completes all of the player’s tasks for them.
- Valkyrie removes any remaining engagement for 15 seconds as the player enters a glorified spectator mode.
- Valkyrie is an “ultimate”, but not really. It doesn’t have enough impact to be considered an ultimate, especially being that it’s a channeled ability.
The parts of Mercy’s kit that weren’t removed entirely by the rework are now dotted with intermittent disruptions and contradictions.
"Mercy doesn’t need buffs."
Uh… Congratulations? You missed the point of the entire post, if you read it at all (which I will bet money that you didn’t). I don’t want Mercy buffed. I would be happy if she were reverted, which would be a net nerf. Your assertion isn’t helpful here, as you’re trying to argue with someone that’s on the same page.
…Unless of course you have specific concerns regarding what I posted in the “Potential Solutions” section. In that case, please, voice them.
TL:DRs
Terms and Conditions:
I’m being a nice person in typing up this section. Normally, I would make you read all 107,500+ characters above this section to not only get the gist, but to understand the assertions thoroughly. However, because I have spare time at school and nothing better to do, I decided to add this section again. These are your taxes at work. Pay your taxes, people; you’ll get TL:DR versions.
However, this TL:DR comes with Terms of Service. By using this section, you agree to the following terms and conditions:
- You recognize that the TL:DR fails to thoroughly cover the subjects and leaves out important details.
- You will not base counterarguments off of this section, nor will you quote or reference it in creating counterarguments.
- You will not attempt to criticize relevant subsequent arguments or counterarguments from other posters without first reading the relevant section(s).
I can be an insurance company when I grow up!
Resurrect/Valkyrie:
- We have an ultimate on a cooldown and a basic ability on an ultimate. Each had to be mutilated to be forced into its respective place.
- Resurrect’s mutilation destroyed the player’s enjoyment of using it by applying a slow/disable to the ability. Obviously, a 2 second incapacitation isn’t exciting or engaging.
- The cast time penalty for Resurrect rivals or exceeds those of other ultimates (I wonder why?
). It also interrupts and contradicts the rest of her kit. - Resurrect is no longer earned, removing the reason to play aggressively and instead incentivizing cutting risk whenever possible. The problem is that taking the safest path is neither exciting nor impressive.
- The mind game of maximizing the value of Resurrect is gone, replaced with a simple “if” question rather than a more complex “if and if so, how and when” question. The decision has come down to checking for a specific set of parameters that are trivial at most to identify.
- The skill floor of using Resurrect is the skill ceiling in both availability and utilization.
- Resurrect no longer passes a rewarding feeling onto the player. “I became a stone for two seconds before reversing someone’s pick”.
- Valkyrie’s mutilation made an otherwise decent ability absurdly long and obnoxious to use. 15 seconds is triple to quintuple that of an acceptable duration for Valkyrie.
- Mercy’s “ultimate” offers no reward for any additional risk taken. The optimal distance from the team is 29 meters while in Valkyrie, driving the player out of the fight.
- Valkyrie completes Mercy’s tasks for her, taking an already-fractured kit and removing any remaining engagement from it.
- Valkyrie’s low impact in contrast to other ultimates renders it useless in teamfights when other ultimates are present. Combine this with how low its skill ceiling is, and the player feels helpless and useless as they watch their team get massacred from 29 meters away.
- Valkyrie is a glorified spectator mode.
Developer Comments:
- Hide and rez was a bad strategy, often leading to a second wipe. Changing Resurrect because of poor play is equivalent to changing Rocket Barrage because Pharah’s occasionally kill themselves.
- “We didn’t like hide and rez. Now go hide in the skybox with Valkyrie.”
- Disengaging for a short duration in preparation for ultimate usage is something most heroes do at some point.
- “Mercy should never stop healing. This is why she cannot heal while using Resurrect now.”
- “It’s not fun to play against.” Well, I just love being killed by a literal aimbot. Or… you know… anything, really.
- “Resurrect now plays better for Mercy players”, except it doesn’t.
- “Mercy should be about mobility and healing. This is why she can no longer move while using Resurrect. This is also why her healing numbers have barely risen since before the rework.”
- “We don’t want Mercy to be a rez-bot. This is why she is now brain-dead when it comes to using Resurrect.”
- “Valkyrie should be a game-making ability.” Present day Valkyrie says hello.
- Developers are ignoring the feedback. “We’re reading responses daily… Don’t worry, we have no idea what the problem is.”
- The latest update: “We still have no idea what the problem is.”
Potential Solutions:
- Build 1: Resurrect is only available in Valkyrie. Valkyrie gets overhauled.
- Build 2: Resurrect is a mini-ult. Valkyrie is shorter and more potent.
- Build 3: Revert Mercy to 1.x, add a modified Valkyrie as an E, do some other things.
- Build 4: Resurrect is a single-target ult with multiple stacks. E is a toggle weak chain beams button with no cooldown.
Anticipated Responses:
I had some fun.
TL:DRs
This is a check to see how awake you are. Here, hold this:
And with that, I conclude my massive post. For those of you who are curious, this post contains 112,864 characters.
11 Likes
last 10 slots in here, who wants to create the new megathread?
Dunno if I trust myself enough… 
then i’ll create it
Dont worry the mods will do it for us.
Shall I post this on the front page? I have Absql added so I can tell them if I get suspended again.
1 Like
But not right away… and I like the megathreads, theyre like a lil hub.
Go for it ![:smiley:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=5" ":smiley:")
Good luck!
I can post it as well for you if you want.
Do you have a backup account? I don’t.
Nope but I dont care much about bans or anything.
Can we still post here wth?
My wig fell off… we can still post? Is it 20k cap?
They expanded it…