With the recent HPS nerf and other support heroes being in a strong and consistent spot, I do think Mercy could afford a half-decent buff. I’ve been playing in my head two possibilities that I think would open up Mercy’s current limitations a bit.
My first suggestion is extremely easy to implement, but I think people have a bad taste in their mouth preemptively to the idea: Mercy enters an invulnerable state after a successful res. This would be like her old invuln with Mass Resurrect, lasting only as long as the res’d target is invulnerable.
The reason I suggest this is pretty much the same reason it was implemented the first time. Right now, a Resurrect often feels like it comes at the sacrifice of Mercy’s own life. There’s so many times you get a res off, even successfully, only for Mercy to then die. This not only makes successful resses seem like a waste, as if saying the patient’s life is more important than Mercy’s, but it also limits the opportunities Mercy would want to go for a res, knowing that she’ll likely die even if she gets it off.
This change would give Mercy more freedom to pick targets to res, and reward successful resses with a brief window to get back into position. This wouldn’t make res any better for backline resses, which are already safe enough, and Mercy is still just as vulnerable to stuns and being killed during the res cast time. All this does is allow Mercy to live after making a big play, if only for a couple extra seconds.
Alternatively, Mercy could instead just get a full-heal on a successful res, recovering the intense damage she just took while still being open to be killed.
My other suggestion is more difficult to implement as it’s a new ability. This would be an E ability, but Resurrect is not replaced. Resurrect would either only be available as E if in range of a dead body, or it could be moved to F, since that’s a thing now. I don’t have too fancy of a name for this ability but let’s call it something simple: Damage Transfer.
It’s not too complicated. After activating this ability, Mercy’s beam target has all incoming damage transferred to Mercy for five seconds, or until Mercy’s health would go below 100. Mercy can switch who the target of this effect is simply by switching who her beam targets. If Mercy would ever drop below 100 health via Damage Transfer, the ability immediately ends and leaves Mercy with exactly 100 health. Excess damage beyond this point is negated, i.e. a Widowmaker headshot on a Damage Transfer target does not kill Mercy nor the target, it would bring Mercy to 100 health and the rest of the damage is simply ignored. Mercy can also manually deactivate the ability by pressing E again. It cannot be activated while Mercy has 100 health or less. ~12 second cooldown that begins after the ability ends.
What does this do? For one, it gives Mercy an active ability that she can use, expanding her options for when there isn’t a dead teammate. This would also compliment her recent nerf, as people have been saying that it’s difficult to keep your targets healed up against strong focus fire. By activating Damage Transfer, Mercy effectively makes her patient invulnerable to damage, allowing Mercy to heal them up as long as the target doesn’t exceed the damage threshold. It also serves as clutch saves, as Mercy can swoop to a low-health target, ensure their safety, and heal them up.
But I think most importantly is that this doesn’t punish the enemy team too severely. After all, any damage done to the Damage Transfer target is still real damage, that they’re dealing to Mercy no less. They still get ult charge and they’re still being productive, but Mercy is controlling where that damage is going. Also important to note that visual effects would let the enemy know that Mercy is using the ability, as well as who the target of that ability is. Thus, if an enemy doesn’t want to waste time shooting a target that can’t immediately be killed, they’re given the feedback to make that choice.
There’s also some interesting depth to be had here. Afraid of a sniper? Mercy can pop Damage Transfer to effectively negate a headshot, at the cost of her ability being drained immediately and being cut down to half health. Want to keep an ally damage boosted but are afraid some surprise burst damage might take them out unexpectedly? Damage Transfer can let you make that choice more freely. Need to really negate some damage away from a teammate? Stack healing resources on Mercy while she takes the damage – after all, the ability persists through the whole five seconds until she drops to 100 health. This means extra health, health packs, and regular healing sources can extend Damage Transfer’s effect, as long as she doesn’t drop to 100 health.
Considering Mercy’s current spot, I don’t think this would really break her. It’s an ability that comes with some vital costs, but if played well, it’s still an easy-access skill that makes for impact moments – even the damage she eats can easily be recovered due to her self-heal. If mistimed, Mercy can end up halving her health which a flanker would love to see, or she pops the ability to no effect as the enemy team simply finds other targets or forces through the damage threshold, effectively earning them the same value they would have except split across a couple targets.
Just my couple of thoughts. I play a lot of Mercy, both before and after her rework, and I love her as she is now. But, that being said, I definitely see room for improvement and making her kit more up to par with other supports.