Mercy is fine where she is. Her ult should have 60 hp/s but nothing else. The problem is that some of the other healers are still busted. Mercy doesn’t need to be buffed, other supports need to be nerfed.
It’s happening on the PTR, and DPS has been buffed pretty hardcore. Mercy pairs extremely well with DPS, so if they start seeing more use, she’ll become more useful again.
I disagree with the Valk buff, Valk’s currently healing output is ok, but I agree with a revert to 60hp/s…
The difference between 60 hps Mercy and 50 hps Mercy is the difference between a healer who works in every situation and one that works well outside of triple tank metas. I’d rather the latter, because having a single hero be the best at everything isn’t a good idea.
Please keep in mind that the only difference between current Mercy and Must pick Mercy is the 10 less hps.
You’re joking right.
Agreed! The nerf that changed her from 60 to 50 came at a bad time where they were still desperately trying to kick Mercy firmly out of the meta and trying to help make other Support characters more viable. But in all honesty, all they had to do was buff the other Support characters; nerfing Mercy’s healing as well was just pure overkill.
The problem is, at 50 hps, her healing just doesn’t feel relevant enough to keep people from dying, unlike Ana’s grenade, Brigitte’s armor pack, or any of the life saving Ultimates like Transcendence, Sound Barrier, Rally, or even the instant massive healing from Ana’s Nano. Mercy is supposed to be the emergency life saving healer, but she’s completely useless to do anything of the sort. her Ultimate is a joke now.
Valkyrie at this point, has been nerfed so many times that its not even an Ultimate anymore, its basically just Torbjorn’s Overload ability where he gets a bit better stats for a bit.
Remember when Valkyrie let you get off 3 or 4 Instant speed Res’s? I’m not saying it wasn’t busted, cuz it kinda was, but at least it FELT like an Ultimate. I still fail to see the difference between Mercy’s original Valkyrie and Genji’s Dragonblade or every other Ultimate with the potential to kill multiple people, but that’s just me.
There is a very clear, big difference between killing people in an FPS game (which everyone can do), and rezzing multiple people instantly (which only Mercy can do).
If getting kills is the best way to win the game, reversing death is even better. Reversing death multiple times over the course of 15-20 seconds in Valkyrie effectively nullified the enemy’s efforts, especially considering she also pumps out 60 HPS for all 5 of her teammates as well as 30% damage boost during it, while ALSO being almost impossible to kill.
Her ultimate is pretty amazing, actually. Her current ultimate is exactly the same as it was seasons 8-10, and she was still a must pick during those seasons and everyone called Valk too strong. But now it’s “a joke”? I’m confused. Only her base HPS has been nerfed since season 11, her ultimates been in this exact state for 6 seasons straight and has always been good except for the brief period where it only healed 50.
I actually asked Geoff about this last night, and asked if he would ever consider buffing her HPS to 55 for some more healing, or giving her some sort of burst heal boost ability on her reload button for her staff. Here’s what he said in case you didn’t see:
Sounds like an HPS buff is on the table, and he wants to buff damage boost somehow. So good things are coming, I think.
Ok, so I would say 55hps and make the ult do either 70hps or 65hps.
i dont think she needs 60hps back, she just needs a form of burst healing. they can be creative about it (e.g. every 500 heals done she gets a burst heal) or super mundane and just have an ability with a cd that gives her more hps for 4 secs.
Ultimates win fights, that’s the idea, so the argument that it ‘essentially nullifies the enemy team’s effort’ isn’t much of an argument since practically EVERY Ultimate in the game does that, particularly Support characters with their Defensive Ultimates. And to be fair, I’ve been complaining about how weak her Ultimate feels since it was last changed several seasons ago and its the reason I haven’t played Competitive for several seasons.
I’m very hopeful that they might actually give her her healing back, but at this point I think trading her damage boost beam for some kind of shield or armor or burst heal that she could apply on a cooldown would be much better for her. I think 50 HPS would be fine if she had another option for keeping a teammate from dying in the first place. 60 HPS used to be enough to do that, but without it she just feels underwhleming and Res is just a ‘sorry-my-healing-wasn’-t-good-enough’ button. It shares the same problem as Roadhog that you’re still feeding the enemy team Ult-charge to wipe your team off the map again, and your own Ultimate isn’t enough to counter or undo theirs anymore. Its just lose-lose.
Those ults all have counterplay. Trans can be naded, headshot through to one shot people, bursted through by large amounts of damage like Pharah ult or even just focus fire. It can also be blocked by LoS and shields. Lucio’s ult can be EMP’d away, decays rather quickly, can be outdamaged, can be interrupted with CC, and is also blocked by shields and LoS.
Valk with instant rez and 20 sec duration + the insane GA movement speed had little to no counterplay, like, at all, except “just kill the Mercy LuLLL” which is a meme because of how impossible it was.
Well then I guess you just don’t know how to use Valkyrie? It’s not weak at all, Jayne is a pro analyst, caster, and coach and ranks it as one of the best ults in the game. It’s certainly the most versatile, and has pretty guaranteed value and insane levels of sustain for your team.
It’s ok if you find Valkyrie unfun or lackluster to use, but balance wise it’s pretty hard to call it weak.
Omg no, please no. Damage boost is an essential part of Mercy’s kit and role as a pocket support and enabler. Removing it in exchange for ANOTHER defensive ability would be really, really bad for her hero design. I’m glad that Geoff wants to buff damage boost to be more exciting and powerful, and I’m excited to see his ideas.
Yeah, bringing someone back to life at full HP is sooo bad, you’re right.
That’s why I’m glad Geoff said a heal buff or boost is “certainly possible” 
I think Mercy’s 50hp/s healing is fine, considering she doesnt have to reload or drain a bank of healing to do it. People that saying valk is bad now are just using it wrong. I’ve seen people using valkyrie as a defensive ultimate, but it’s an offensive ult now. Pop a valk to engage a fight and you will be in a better position to win that fight, either by damage boosting your team or giving them plenty of pocket healing to push.
Hog wasn’t meta during sniper meta. It was Zarya and Rein and Zen was off support. Snipers were meta because they both got buffs. Hanzo got storm arrow instead of scatter arrow, a leap, and his projectiles became faster. Widow got the 8 second CD on her hook. Mercy could only heal through Winston and Moira damage (Winston at 60dps and Moira at 50dps). Even with Winston, if you were diving correctly more than one person is diving a target so Mercy wouldn’t be able to out heal 2 or 3 peoples damage at once.
If the problem with Valkyrie was that there was no counterplay, THEN ADD COUNTERPLAY, don’t just make it worse. That’s just laziness. It doesn’t solve the problem, it just makes the problem irrelevant.
I respect Jayne very much, but Valk is only versatile because it doesn’t have any sort of intended purpose any more. Its NOT the best Ult in the game, its just not. Not anymore.
Damage boost is all anyone talks about with Mercy anymore. Buffing it would only make Mercy players feel more irrelevant like they’re just glorified accessories for DPS players.
Bringing someone back at full HP is bad if it doesn’t actually win you a fight. You’re just feeding the enemy team more Ult charge and staggering your teams respawns. Not to mention the risk of getting yourself killed with how punishing the movement restriction and cast time is.
Practically every other support has some kind of alternative healing ability or boost to help keep their team alive. Mercy needs something like THAT. I want to see Mercy become more skillful.
Even Mercy’s incredible mobility and evasiveness that are the only skillful parts of her kit feel like they’re becoming increasingly irrelevant against all of the lucky one-shot kills from Widows, Ashe’s, Hanzos and Doomfsits, all of the no-aim-needed heroes like Reinhardt and Brigitte, or all of the no-effort free-value from things like turrets, Moira’s damage orb, or Ashe’s dynamite and fire DoT. Mobility only goes so far.
Or maybe it’s the fact every other healer got buffed in that same patch excluding Brigitte?
I always thought 60 hps was too close to Moira’s output.
Which is good given that Moira does better damage than every healer outside of the hybrids such as Zen and presumably Baptiste (who also has 60 heals per shot). Like, I have no idea why she should have less than Moira. Just for rez? That ability has to be, by far, the most overrated of the entire game. Well… I guess it is soon to be replaced by immortality field.
I actually don’t think its that strong. Discord is better, because its constant. Like Mercy’s healing.
What is overrated is Moira’s damage though. Its pitiful, her reliance on it to heal is as more of a weakness than a strength. Her only outstanding quality is burst healing she needs to be good at it.
Besides, 60 was kind of oppressive to deal with for aim based healers. Not trying to play the “your hero is easy” card (especially since I think Mercy is super hard), but it proved to be too much to ask in most ranks for Anas to match Mercy’s output, and Baptiste would have probably had the same issue.
I have no horse in this race (yet, I plan on one-tricking Baptiste). I do not heal or tank. I am actually not really knowledgeable about this subject at all. I am just relying on common sense. A pure healer should probably heal better than utility or hybrid healers. The AOE nature of Moira puts her well ahead of Mercy as long as your homies are grouped.
The damage is not great. But the finishing potential is highly underrated. Too many Moira try to duel tanks or something. You need to prioritize squishy targets and throw a damage orb every now and again. It can make the difference in teammfights IMO. From when I played her at her launch and my sister mains her. It is just crazy how many final blows you can get that no other healer is really capable of earning.
Dps are basically allergic to getting healed by Moira. Unless its a Reaper or Mei, Moira is significantly worse than the other two main healers at healing dps because her high healing doesn’t really help them and they need to keep coming back for healing.
Mercy’s healing has no restrictions, which is unique to her. All the other main healers need big numbers to compensate for the fact that Mercy has the best tool for the job.
The only thing Moira’s damage is good at is finishing off enemies. Its something, but it doesn’t really compare well to what other healers have, sort of like Roadhog’s barrier breaking capacity. Its nice, but definitely not why you pick the hero.
I understand that, again, I should clarify, I am specifically talking about platinum and below. People undervalue raw numbers and overrate utility such as speed or discord that mean nothing without coordination. Too many low ranked players think they are playing at a higher level. Getting a pick should be the top priority and winning teamfights decisively is the win condition.
At higher levels, I definitely agree with your sentiment. I just believe for the majority of players, Moira is basically Mercy that can shoot at the loss of consistency which you can vaguely spoof (use your orb to heal DPS, stick to tanks with your resource, sprtiz during downtime instead of spraying, save your ultimate for when you are out or need to heal two people who are split, etc.) It just feels off having a character that is all about splitting her time and she pulls better numbers than someone committing to healing.