Being physically unable to use your ult unless a very specific condition is met (death of an ally) automatically makes the ability niche, and incentivizes whatever playstyle is necessary to reliably meet the requirements needed to use it (aka hide n rez).
Further thoughts on the problem (and possible solutions):
"Rezzing" the living
Ult rez should have affected living allies, too. It could be a burst heal, or/and even the same 2 seconds of invincibility that her reviving allies get… but once Mercy got rez, she should have been able to activate it at any time. The added effect for living allies would make the hiding needed for “huge rez” redundant - using rez to keep allies alive is just as good as using it to bring them back from the dead.
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Killing hide n rez permanently
Three things that would have further banished hide n rez:
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LoS check (obviously, so people don’t hide underneath the point or other shenanigans)
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Cast time (but without any restricted movement, or a minimal slow that can still be used during GA)
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Total range remains the same, but Mercy must activate it right next to a soul (like the current E rez range) to raise allies
This forces Mercy to either already be in the fight or fly all the way in to use rez on dead teammates. This gives the enemy plenty of reaction time to shut it down, and makes “hide n rez” much harder to pull off.
If Mercy’s going to abandon her team to die, raising them would require her to put herself in danger much longer (through the added distance to fly+cast time). With no living allies during hide n rez to pull focus away from Mercy/protect her during the cast time, it would be far more sensible to just stay with the team and use rez while people are in the process of going down, not after.
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Alleviating the over-reliance on rez
It also didn’t help that Mercy never had any independence in her base kit. The mechanics of Guardian Angel incentivizes staying on the fringes of the fight so you can get more distance with it, and if you want to swing the fight on your own (not by proxy, aka using the beams), you only have two options: battle Mercy, or rez* (*see the first paragraph for why that was an issue).
Having a character rely entirely on their ult to swing a fight (the beams are valuable, but consistent is the opposite of burst impact) was poor design. Mercy was the only hero without an E ability, and not being able to rely on a “pop” of impact every now and then (such as Lucio’s amp it up, Ana’s nade, Brigitte’s boop) cascaded into relying much more on the only burst impact in Mercy’s kit: Rez.
If Mercy could engage/disengage on her own, she wouldn’t have to keep such distance (sometimes even hiding around corners) from the action. If she had some kind of burst utility to contribute in her base kit, Mercy wouldn’t be cornered into playing for rez just to try and swing a fight back in her team’s favor.
This is exactly why one of the most common topics prior to the rework were pleas for Mercy to get an E ability - the most common requests were for either a mid-fight utility, or some independent mobility.
An overhaul of mass rez (codenamed “heroic will”):
Limitations
- LoS limited
- Blockable by barriers
- 15 meter range
- 1.2 second cast time (no movement penalty, and can be used during movement abilities)
Note: If you’re concerned that this version of rez makes it a suicide mission (and not even a successful one) to fly in after everyone’s dead to get a huge rez: that’s the point. This version of rez is designed to make hide n rez redundant (and provide a healthy alternative). The ult is going to have the most valuable effect on living teammates, and is going to be at its best during a fight, not after it.
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Advantages
Living allies in Mercy’s ult radius get a 2 second invulnerability period (identical to what revived allies get). Dead allies in the radius get revived.
While bringing allies back from the dead is still possible, it’s much more valuable to use Mercy’s new ult to prevent them from dying in the first place.
Mercy won’t have to seperate herself from her team in order to effectively use rez anymore, since she can use it on the battlefield while people are in the process of being wiped instead of after everything is said and done. “Heroic Will” is very much an ult designed to keep the momentum of the fight going strong (similar to how active Mercies used tempo rez).
An ally with a short window of invulnerability and the ability to shoot/use abilities at the same time is much stronger than an ally who has to wait for the glow to wear off to do so (aka being brought back from the dead). If the Mercy times it right, she can counter enemy ults as they happen (like Lucio can do with his sound barrier) and even facilitate pushes.
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An idea for a rework of Valkyrie as an E abillity:
Valkyrie summary
Valkyrie (E ability): Mercy gains free flight for a few seconds, and her beams become empowered. Healing during Valkyrie reduces enemy debuff timers, while damage boost enhances move speed.
Cooldown details
Duration: 3 seconds
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Cooldown does not start until ability is finished
Note: the low uptime is to balance out how powerfully versatile Valkyrie is - only matched by Ana’s grenade. It can be used both proactively and reactively, either to sustain the momentum of the mid-fight or to sustain Mercy’s own life. She’ll only be able to use it on average up to three times per fight, so she must choose how she uses it wisely.
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Beam empowerment
Healing: reduces debuff timers by 50%
Damage boost: increases movement speed by 15%
Notes: Because the uptime is so low, Mercy’s window of opportunity with Valkyire is narrow - she’ll need a keen eye and good judgement not to miss it. Mercy can choose to either:
- neutralize cc (which is on the rise in this game, and zarya alone can’t hard counter it), or
- empower her teammate’s movement speed (which has both defensive and offensive applications).
The duration isn’t long enough to use both at once effectively, so if Mercy is using valk for the buffs she must choose one and commit to it.
Buffing teammates is a very “pure support” thing to do, and Mercy needs some sort of burst impact in her base kit that isn’t healing or rezzing. As a bonus, it bring the strategy and risk/reward planning that people loved so much about mass rez into Mercy’s base kit.
Misc. change ideas
- Add a “hybrid” option for Guardian Angel prefers beam target: on/off. It’s set to “on” if Mercy has no target in her crosshairs, and automatically turns “off” while she does. Both targeting settings have their own unique advantages, but once you get used to one of them the other feels like an entirely different ability. With a hybrid option, Mercy can easily keep up with her teammates by flying to them around corners, and focus heal a single teammate while still flying around the area.
. - A duplicate of Hanzo’s lunge ability. Mercy would be able to flap her wings and almost double her jump height by holding down the jump key, on a 4-5 second cooldown. This would let Mercy use her glide to cross much farther gaps than just the ones that are either extremely close together or have a drastic difference in elevation. It would also let Mercy get LoS to allies backed up on ledges.
. - All this extra mobility would definitely require a compensation nerf to balance it out. Maybe a 2 second delay on Mercy’s regen instead of one?