I definitely won’t ignore the other problems in the game. Last night I played Sombra and her hack kept switching to different targets on it’s own. Sombra is one of top played heroes so it’s super frustrating. Torb needs that rework to minimize the trolling, I agree on that too. Mercy definitely needs to be up there on priority though.
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As long as Mercy can’t resurrect her whole team, killing her isn’t that important: she won’t be able to stop your ult stack.
Mercy typically needs to be one of the first enemies to die because her healing negates so much damage. For example, Winston has 60 dps and Mercy has 60 hps. Making Winston useless if he doesn’t focus the Mercy. I play a decent amount of Winston too, and the cat and mouse game is super fun. However, if she gets any harder to kill, I just don’t see how Winston can counter her effectively anymore.
The ability to make a target invulnerable is far to strong even for a short time like that and without a cleanse it would just feel Inconsistent.
Also, this is a utility ability. Utility abilities empower Mercy too much as well as:
healing, personal boost, movement and Aoe abilites.
As i said the window is very small.
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That’s one of the things I appreciated and observed happening more often when Mercy was capable of resurrecting an entire team, ultimate ability economy. Something that’s not seen often these days, I usually observe my team or the enemy team using multiple ultimate abilities all at once unnecessarily.
Well, let’s go point by point.
First of all, single rez is extremely powerful as an ultimate, of course. However, as an ultimate it wouldn’t be so good because of many different reasons.
1- You wouldn’t be able to really change the game
2- You wouldn’t counter anything, so ult combo metas would be uncounterable still.
3- It would still encourage primadonnas, so it would have a lot of toxicity.
4- It would have a lot of bugs yet, like the one that happens when different characters die in the same pixel. When that happens, the roulette starts. Were you trying to rez Rein? Sorry, now you rezzed Widow.
5- It would loose a lot of decision making. One of the best things with mass rez was precisely deciding what was the best moment for rezzing someone. Having just one would encourage to use it as most as you can, usually on your tanks or the other support, depending of the player’s importance to your team. Anyway, the result would be like pocketrezzing the most important player of your team. Furthermore, if you reduce the charge, you would turn Mercy into a rezbot, and that’s not good. Resurrection should be the part of Mercy’s kit that requires more skill to use it the best, next to her bunny hop, which is the only rework’s straight success.
6- As someone said, single rez is way less epic than mass rez.
7- When rez was made an E ability, it was made single because it needed to sacrifice a lot of power for being a simple and normal ability (and yet it wasn’t enough). Being an ultimate, being single it would surely be really underpowered, specially in comparison with any damage ult in the game.
About how to balance mass rez, we have to consider different points. First of all, the game is not the same as before. One of the most common complains about mass rez was a lack of evident counters to it. Now that’s different, because Blizz has created a character whose ultimate could be a hard counter to mass rez, even as it was. Of course, I’m talking about Hammond. Secondly, other changes should be needed, and the most popular by now are LoS and a little cast time. That would add counterplay while stopping rezzes through walls. After that, maybe some other changes should be added to stop hide and rez, that was the main mass rez’s problem. However, I would discard one thing, and that’s slow down. Why? Because Mercy is by definition a mobile support, so immobility has no placement in her kit. That being said, every change to her mass rez should be directed to avoid hide and rez and make it harder to use, and the main excuse for these changes would be the addition of an E ability which would bring her that needed mid game utility.
For that E ability, there are quite a lot of good suggestions. Mini valk is very discussed, but I would discard the chained beams immediately, because that’s what makes Mercy so easy to play now. As its duration would be drastically reduced, her mobility would require a wiser use. Enhanced beams are another option. Other things we have been suggesting are some type of cleanse ability or something like damage reduction used against an enemy character (he would make less damage), something between Sym’s orb and Zen’s discord. We are still working on that idea because by now, it’s possibly the best one we have.
Finally, yes, I’m not a valk’s fan at all. However, that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t consider the idea of moving that ability to another position where it could fit better, and/or where it could make her other abilities fit better, like the rez’s case. If the original Blizz’s rework would have been just some minor nerfs to mass rez and some kind of valkirie on her E, I would have been fine with that.
The point is that giving aoe healing to Mercy and guaranteed survivality with valk has made her good for all situations and too good. Having rez attached to valk would not fix this problem. Yes, she would need to spend a few time with her team for that rez, but that’s all. Also, Blizz said that they don’t want rez and valkirie working together because that causes valkirie to be used only because of the rez.
Finally, giving aoe healing to Mercy, and indeed, similar to Lucio’s is messing that character too, because she can do the same Lucio can, but she has guaranteed survivality because she can be far away of the fight, while Lucio needs to engage with the team.
1- Won’t solve a thing.
2- Okay, so you will have a new support being mandatory, leading us to more complains, nerfs and finally, a situation with two supports almost hitting the mandatory spot. Not the best solution.
3- Makes no sense. Blizz won’t do that.
Yes, it’s true that Mercy is good for every meta, and that’s because her current design is made for that, so her problem is beyond balance. I’ll give you the solution:
4- Rework her in a way that she has weaknesses again and she is not so easy to play now as before the rework. That means removing valk or turning it into her E, moving rez to her ult (with changes) and working on a new E ability if valk has been removed. The rest of her kit stays the same.
Rez makes Mercy powerful, but valk makes her too easy to play and good for any situation because it removes all her weaknesses. Also, rez can’t be removed, as it is 1/3 Mercy’s identity, 100% her signature together with its “Heroes never die!” voice line that doesn’t fit with valk, and has a lot of her lore, sprays, poses, potgs and even real statues around it. That leave us in a place where the only solution is to place it as her ult again. Valk is just an ez mode, so it should be replaced or removed.
Nerfs didn’t solve anything and won’t solve anything. Mercy’s basics and her GA are fine, the main problem she has are valk giving all her hard work for free while having guaranteed survivality and E rez being unbalanceable and bad for everyone, Mercy included. By nerfing her more and more and more, you would only achieve two things: nothing or making her suddenly trash, because she won’t be good at healing nor boosting nor surviving unless she has her ez mode ready.
Please, no more stupid and pointless nerfs. When the problem is the design being so bad that it’s unbalanceable because it’s good for every situation with no drawbacks, the only realistic solution is to rework it. Mercy doesn’t needs to be crushed and crushed until she is irrelevant AND useless. She needs her weaknesses back.
I’m sorry, but when you balance a hero, you must be careful with what you are doing, because if you destroy a character, then complains will be made and people will leave the game. Nerfing her more won’t solve anything, maybe will even enworse the situation, because a lot of people are tired of Mercy receiving nerf after nerf when it’s clear that the rework was a failure and doesn’t need more chances. They have already give it more than 10 between direct and indirect nerfs. I think is high time to do the right things and stop trying to balance the unbalanceable.
Mercy’s boost is not a problem. Hanzo’s ridiculous damage is the problem. There are also quite a lot of things in the game that can burst down a character without boosting, but Hanzo’s damage is ridiculously high. Also, if Mercy hadn’t valk as her ult she could only target one hero at the same time. Giving aoe beams to Mercy was a mistake from the beginning. She was fine being a single target support. That was her main strenght and weakness.
Tbh, that doesn’t change a thing, and indeed, it’s a harsh nerf to Ana, because her nano boost was used mostly with ulting characters. If she can’t boost them, her ult is near to pointless now, unless you target Rein or something similar.
Tbh, she was. During seasons 2 and 3 she had pickrates below 5% with Pharah in her highests since forever and Ana and Lucio around 85%. That’s being trash pick.
That’s because her design was changed, and the rework made her good for every situation by design, so the only solution for this situation is to change her design again. She needs some weaknesses back, as before the rework. I’ve already told you what that means.
You don’t have an idea of how common it is… This one is like the 9th or 10th Mercy megathread, with countless thousands of posts behind (I already lost the count). Imagine this situation for 10 months. So sad.
Definitely not. Just imagine this nightmare. An immune ulting Reaper or Genji or Mccree or Pharah. Beware of giving immunity to your allies.
Thanks for your good replies, Brawl. You came first this time xD.
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Man, I wish Mercy had burst healing ability since she is designed to be a 1 target healer, but not this aoe healing ultimate, which is just the improved version of her, well, primary ability. Yes, there a lot of boring ults such as Orisa’s or Ana’s, but at least they are unique and can change the fight dramatically. After all, why would I want to have an ability to fly, when my pistol is only able to kill non-suspecting Widows and surprised Pharahs?
i dont see why a semi offensive ability would not work
its defensive and offensive and i have mentionned it a few times but i’ll paste it again
As i see it mercy is the center around her is her range
The rez should START from the center
people closest to her get rezzed first
people farthest get rezzed later
she has cast time while this happens
She has damage reduction when this happens but no invincibility (the rate can be discussed she is quite squishy)
If she gets killed before the further people are reached over a span of maybe 2-3 seconds the rez interrupts.
THis can mean a couple of things
A) the rez is incomplete the furthest people dont get rezzed
or
B) The rez is incomplete the furthest people have half health
and then there are some other things that could be tweaked or added to how it works
but this seems fair to me
E ability->
Mercy uses a certain DEFENSIVE STANCE with her staff where she absorbs bullets for a while like a zarya bubble (but only from the front like genji’s deflect)
but still take (reduced) damage for 2 seconds
then she can unleash the stored damage when she needs it with reload button where she does an OFFENSIVE STANCE with her staff ,maybe as a sweeping motion with her staff
It could be either damage or pushback.
The damage or strength of the pushback will have decay so she cant have it indefinitly
Can also be used to propel herself 1-2 meters in the air when using angelic descent
I would rather have it res or no res at all…
But the thing is… it would be a bit weird… it would something like 15 metre radius, slow ring effect expanding out to 15 metre.
Extremely long cast time for possibility of killing her, no invincible just damage reduction to allow her to be countered… and no mobility.
Once triggered, you are committed and it is do or die.
the ring has to envelop the entire soul and they are immediately revived.
This means on average only 2 or 3 people is revived at the expense of Mercy who is a free kill during 2 or 3 seconds of frozen mobility.
The revived will be same as usual 1.25 seconds where they cannot shoot and are immune to damage.
i think it can be faster but generally needs a bit of cast time
the full ca-st time is only if they are at the outer ring
if they are close trogether they all benefit from th e short casttime
The problem with making it faster, it would kill the relevance of Expanding Area of Effect…
Example if if takes 1 second to hit 15 metres (original range of mass res), like the original cast time it would take 1 metre per 0.06 second recurring to hit people meaning it is more or less instant.
3 seconds is enough to kill Mercy… but it would be 0.2 seconds per metre to hit people, meaning 1 seconds means everyone within 5 metres, 2 seconds everyone in 10 metres and 3 seconds everyone in 15 metres.
This is actually a reasonable speed
Mercy herself will be locked for 3 seconds, paralysis will last 1.25 seconds upon revival meaning the whole ult would last 4.25 seconds (including the paralysis of the last revived player)
why would mercy be locked?
ii never said she should be slowed down
She already died so much during ult before,she should not be slowed
It would be better to freeze her in place during cast time then having her erratically moving about during casting.
- It allows counterplay
- It prevents accidental misses where she moves about too much, yes the range is big, but the idea of being unable to move/slowed down isn’t new, plus it prevents her shifting the Area Effect that could be used to cover people who was originally out of range.
- Our DPS community is going to whine if she has movable instant cast res… The effects would be fixed back to ‘Occur at Start’ as oppose to ‘Occur at end’ for better results, meaning moment Effect Range covers you, you are back up rather than waiting for the whole thing to complete.
- Mercy dying during the original release version was arguably the only beneficial counter. It sucks, but we have to argue the fact (as we have done so in the past 7 months) that Mercy dying on res was a price to be paid, it was better than Mercy coming out unscratched because it means there is a 3rd, 4th, 5th chance of mistakes being undone because Mass Res Mercy was alive and Ult farming. The original release allowed the opposing team to kill Mercy meaning teams had a 2nd and final chance to clutch the match but at the expense of losing Mercy, arguably for a powerful ability like Res, it is a fair price to pay.
edit: Basically before 1.0 (Invulnerable Mercy) Mercy had the risk of dying, but that was Olay, because it was a Occur at Start Effect.
Meaning Moment she hit Q, at the start of the 1 second cast time, everyone was up. Mercy herself would take damage during the 2.25 seconds of ultimate time as Team mates are immobile during 2.25 seconds.
Which made it virtually instant, meaning her death was usually the price to pay, which was arguably reasonable for Instant Res.
But Blizzard didn’t like that, they said we shouldn’t be dying like that and I agree, but back then and now… I sometimes question was making her invulnerable to make her survive the process of Res, such a good idea.
It takes away the concept of Res Penalty. Ironically version 3.1 (current Version) is a Res Occurs at End of casting (like the Beta version they tested and instantly reverted) and a Res and die ability meaning they reverted her in a sense.
So much for we will never revert… Because they themselves delivered the philosophy that we shouldn’t die for Res. Because we are the support and we should be supporting the team.
But it was changed to try and encourage people to play Mercy in Major leagues… the element of her dying just stopped pro’s running her, opting to only Phamercy or run Lucio, ana and Zenyatta during 2016 and early 2017…
It wasn’t until OP Mercy where she became fully viable but too op
the counter play is already the things i described
mercy only needed to be frozen because rez now is a free ability every 30 seconds
this was not the case for an ult ,she received invincibility because she died so much
i think the range change to rez +cast time is already counterplay enough
and slowing down feels so bad as ability rez but its needed because itrs a free a bility
no slow.
That sounds more like a Genji Deflect, but with burst potential. And burst potential really shouldn’t be in Mercy’s base kit.
It sounds very strange, to be honest.
its not burst
at the most its a “boop” with a bit of damage
but with defence possibilites
its genji deflect + zarya bubble decay ,with a bit of knockback
I have never stated it would be much damage
It would give her more defence capabilities
when she is jumped on she can push people away and run.
maaaybe potential for environment kill but the “boop” will only be farther at highest charge
and she cant have it always
it will decay
so she wont have it offensivly usually
Right your idea is actually good but unrefined… it ignores every potential scenario which is the same mistake Blizzard made.
Being a Game Designer graduate myself and knowing a fair bit about designing a game… I would have to raise some questions if you were the principle designer…
- Do you want the effect of Res Occur at Start or Occur at End?
- At Start = As the effect range cast out, it means people will be instantly resurrected the moment it hits.
- At End = The entire casting Animation has to complete in order for the full effects of Resurrect to take place.
-
How long do you want the Resurrect Casting to last? Like the original Res, 1 second casting, full duration 2.25 seconds or 1.75 seconds for a full duration of 2.25 seconds or a longer casting time than 1.75 seconds
-
If we allow Damage Reduction, how much damage should Mercy take? Should it be like the effects of Bastion Iron Clad which reduces damage by 20% or like Ana’s Nano Boost with 50% reduction or more?
-
Should Mercy be able to Move during Ultimate Duration or Slowed or completely locked in place?
Then here are the highlighted scenario issues…
If we grant Mercy full mobility with Damage Reduction, it means she can move around and change the range of the casting as it expands to better resurrect people.
This isn’t a fun to play against ability… say like if enemy team expended an ult or completed and engagement and begin reloading.
Moment Q is press and example, if casting last 3 seconds, anyone in 5 metres will be brought back the moment the ring hits them within range of Mercy during 1 second duration. anyone within 10 metres of Mercy as she moving about during 2 second duration of casting is instantly revived… at the end of 3 seconds anyone within 15 metres of Mercy final position, is revived.
Also during these 3 seconds, Mercy is fully under the effect of damage reduction, in 1.25 seconds, teammates are able to attack meaning the first to be spawned back players can immediately moved.
Also if Team dies during a Zarya Hanzo combo, it means Mercy can immediate resurrect everyone in 1 second due to 5 metre radius of immediate casting and for next 2 seconds, she still immune to damage.
There is also the sense of play frustration as Mercy slowly brings people back to life as you are torn between the decision to hit a Damage Reduction Mercy with fully mobility or the revived players that may have ult and you only have so long to burst them down.
There has to be a compromise somewhere for this to work… if duration of casting is too short, it may as well be release or 1.0 instant mass res…
If duration is too long and she has free mobility, then she is a walking area effect resurrect machine, bringing player frustration.
Also
That change was already a mistake in itself, because the current iteration contradicts their original intentions to stop Mercy dying by adding in invincibility… as I have mentioned many months ago.
Was 1.0 Invulnerable Res really right choice to make in the first place?
If it was, then why have we reverted back to a Mercy that can die on Resurrect?
It is a contradiction.
i’m not going in the nitty gritty , its unlikely to see the day so i keep it like i describe because its short and sweet and to me seems interesting.
Numbers can be tweaked and discussed but its the concept of the ult and ability that i talk about not the numbers,i dont care about the numbers at this point.
This isn’t a fun to play against ability… say like if enemy team expended an ult or completed and engagement and begin reloading.
Show me one ult that is fun to play against.
That change was already a mistake in itself, because the current iteration contradicts their original intentions to stop Mercy dying by adding in invincibility… as I have mentioned many months ago.
Was 1.0 Invulnerable Res really right choice to make in the first place?
Yes it was maybe too much
its why i say damage reduction rather then invincibility.
The numbers dont matter at this point
but substantial enough not to die every time
and not enough so burst damage cant kill her.
She should die to widow headhshots maybe or other good focus fire.
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Yeah but I rather see a bulk res than a gradually reviving one by one trickle res because it will be like a OH MY GOD THEY ARE COMING BACK!!!
…
OH GOD I NEED TO SHOOT HER!!!
Finally, someone understands.