As a Mercy player I believe damage boost needs to go. I don’t have an idea for a replacement but I don’t think it is healthy for the game.
Damage boost is not fun to play against and I don’t find it fun to play with either; it enables a sedentary play style which in my opinion is not the nature of Mercy as a character and most of her fun stems from flying around, healing and bouncing between your teammates. A triage play style.
This creates an expectation of me being a pocket for someone and I am accused of throwing if I do anything else which is so unpleasant to deal with and not how I want to play Mercy. I find damage boosting in a more dynamic, triage style more fun but unfortunately not as viable from my experience and it is not what is expected of you.
I do not want to go into a game with a fear of being flamed even though I am performing very well. This makes me want to stop playing.
I made the mistake of having my team chat unmuted by accident because I mostly play QP casually. Just from one recent experience of getting insulted I can’t even begin to imagine how often this must happen to other Mercies. I am of the strong belief that Mercy hate is rooted in misogyny but it is likely exacerbated by her not being fun to play against. I am a flex player and I can say that I only ever received hate from my team if I was on Mercy. The problem obviously comes from people taking a video game way too seriously and feeling safe behind a screen but there is no way to fix that, so I believe that changing damage boost is the way.
I just want to play Mercy without an expectation of playing a certain way and I want her to be viable in more situations, not just sitting behind a DPS. This is not fun for me, nor is it for both teams. Tanks with a pocket Mercy on their team often have to adjust their play style to accommodate and play around the pocket. And playing against a pocket duo is very oppressive. I want a more fun experience for everyone.
I know this take is a bit all or nothing but I didn’t want to make the post too long. I am open to hearing different opinions
I am fine with damage boost. What’s really unfun to play into is resurrect, especially how easy and fast it is to execute, and it doesn’t even disable movement and momentum. It should be attatched to Valk with 1 charge, let it be instant, I don’t care. And replace E ability with damage boost/healing amplification or something hp-%-based healing on a 12-15 seconds cooldown. In this way, mercy will be the same impactful as fun to play in/as.
Pockets can be really oppressive to play against, which is why many people do want the dmg boost removed.
Making dmg boost have a similar resource meter like moira’s healing could be a good compromise. The meter would only fill when healing your target or dealing dmg, so an afk pocket boost style would be dead in the water without having to rework mercy. (Unlimited boost in valk)
Another option would be to tie the boost to a cooldown. The only downside is that it would feel clumsy to use.
It could very well be replaced with something else as an ability, but then we get into a debate of what’s impactful enough for her without ruining her hero fantasy or making her op.
The only difficulty in rez comes from enemy awareness. If your team is allowing the mercy to rez repeatedly, it’s not the mercy’s fault.
It takes her 1.75 seconds to cast. It’s the longest cast time in the game for an ability, as well as the longest cooldown.
She has a 75% slow while casting, unless she’s falling or using any more difficult tech that risks the rez failing on cast.
The issue with replacing rez with something, is that most of mercy’s power budget is in rez. She would need a game turning ability to replace it with since no one wants her healing or dmg boost buffed.
And no one wants more immortality abilities either.
Would it be a 250 hp heal on a 20 decond cooldown? Would it be a shield or armor granting ability? A cleanse on 10 seconds without immortality or heal?
I once suggested that the only way mercy would be able to refresh her rez cooldown would be by scoring an elimination or by respawning. But most of the healbot community hated the idea.
(Not an assist, she would actually have to deal dmg instead of beaming)
I really like this idea! They should DEFINITELY try this!
Those who want damage boost to stay can keep it while disabling the oppressing hard pocket and sedentary play style and as a compromise it could be made stronger. This would also make people think more about who they wanna damage boost and when which would be a lot more engaging and skillful (I think Mercy kinda lacks that skill expression outside of her movement).
I much prefer changing the ability than outright removing but I had no ideas. This is perfect.
Finally people are coming round to the idea of removing all forms of damage boost including ana nano
Replace damage boost with fire rate boost
Nano gets to keep the 50% damage reduction also
Been saying DB should be removed for months now
I was thinking of replacing it with a fire rate boost too but I prefer Hieiko’s idea, adding a meter makes for more engaging gameplay and more thinking.
I don’t think nano boost having damage boost is that much of an issue because it is an ultimate but it has always been suuuuch a strong one. I don’t think I have seen anyone complain about it but I’m not against replacing its damage boost with a fire rate boost, I think that would be fun too.
The issue I mainly have with all damage boost abilities is that certain characters are trash without them and OP with them
So you can’t buff certain aspects of their kits
For example Genji blade is literally garbage without nano boost but if you increase its damage then it’ll be nano blade meta again
Soldier 76 with mercy boost is insane if you consistently land crits
Without it he pretty much is mid tier at best due to the healing creep
Sojourn in ranked when people ban mercy is much more manageable same with Ashe etc
Yeah, that’s the real problem with damage boost imo. Not whatever meta reasons people bring up like creating breakpoints that shouldn’t exist (Ashe one-shot back then, Sojourn etc.) or single DPS becoming damage monsters, but the actual gameplay implications for the Mercy itself. It’s of course fun for some people, specifically those duo-queuing, but in general I don’t think it is.
I wholeheartedly agree that the DB pocket-bot playstyle should be killed, it’s boring for everyone bar maybe the DPS being boosted and a handful of Mercy players.
However, I don’t think we’re in a position where just nerfing or reworking DB will reopen closed off playstyles.
I fully believe a number of the devs choices in balancing Mercy have reinforced and almost demanded she play this way and without changes there axing this playstyle (as warranted as it is) will probably just seal the casket on her viability. As a list: her healing was already struggling to be worthwhile before s9 and DPS Passive revamp, she’s easier to hit post s9, she has that extended GA cooldown limiting her mobility and leaving her wide open for longer after using it, she has less HP than a standard hero, her passive regen takes notably longer to kick in, and her new self healing is super conditional and requires a teammate left unhealed as self sustain juice (rip her actually good minor perk). All of these are super negative changes for a more healing focused pingpong Mercy, but in almost no way effect Blue Beam hardpocket Mercy.
If they want to change DB they need to do more than just that so Mercy isn’t just ineffective on all fronts.
That playstyle is not because of DB, it’s because Mercy is one of the worse healers in the game. Why fly around healing everyone when you can play Ana or Bap or Moira and heal a lot better, and be able to contribute with better offenses?
I am not married to blue beam, although I think it’d be hard to replace. But you can’t just replace it while expecting pocketing to go away, when blue beam isn’t why pocketing is happening.
Tell me you’ve not played OW1 without telling me you’ve not played OW1. If you think this is “unfun” you’ve clearly not been here at the game’s launch in 2016 where rez was a 5-man instant-cast ult. Mercies would literally farm ult and the camp away until enemy burned all their ults to kill the whole team, swooping in and pressing Q.
She should’ve been reworked years ago but we all know it isn’t happening. We’ve seen their refusal to properly rework heroes like sombra or hog, characters pretty much unanimously hated.
They are NOT touching the bread winner poster child.
Which sucks because her design is not good. She breaks dps that are even slightly above average if they pair well with her or they make problem dps even WORSE to deal with (sojourn for example), she’s a consistent issue to try and balance around with an infinite uptime damage boost (pharah has been held hostage by mercy for years), and the biggest problem with her… she has zero variety.
You either pocket or nothing with the hero, she does absolutely nothing else. So then you get the problem of, if you don’t have a dps hero on your team that matches with her and on top of that a dps player who’s good enough to get value out of it? She’s completely useless.
The only time she wasn’t just a pocket bot was when she was something even worse, a rez bot during moth meta. Because rez was so busted with it’s ability to refresh with ult and instant cast time. If that’s the only other option with her current kit? It’s gotta go gang
You’re throwing by PLAYING Mercy. It literally doesn’t matter
LOL
I’m sorry, in the game where the strongest characters are consistently predominantly female? Tracer doesn’t get hate and she’s both female AND gay. Mercy is hated because she’s poorly designed.
Removing the core of the hero is not necessary or something you should ever be asking for.
Mercy isn’t oppressive, she isn’t even good. She’s constantly passed over on favour of Brigitte or Lucio. People get upset when they lose to a pocketed DPS but never factor in what that team is giving up to have that.
In regards to damage boost specifically, it’s Mercy’s form of contributing damage because her pistol is far too cumbersome and unreliable. Every other support contributes more damage than Mercy and its not particularly close either.
Just add a resource meter for her pocketing (maximum 2 seconds with 6 seconds of recharge time) to solve this problem. Second idea: Add a 25% movement penalty while she is pocketing.
