Is #ReworkMercy Even Needed?

General Discussion
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I’m a One-trick Mercy main but…

Do you guys think #ReworkMercy is needed?

I feel like it’s a big NONO. it’s just a meaningless follow-up on the #DeleteBrig movement.

I will explain it below.

The Idea comes from:

  • A memory of her low skill ceiling and overpowered state right after her rework until her second instant grant Rez was removed from her. People miss that, which is unhealthy to the game balance.
  • Her current state in Overwatch: off meta. If a Hero is off meta it does not mean she has to be picked in every game and she is not underpowered. Instead, her low mechanical skill ceiling has promoted her pick rate by a lot in lower ranks. Her 5% pick rate is surprisingly high as an off-meta hero.
  • The July/August patch. The healing reduction over nerfed Mercy (the rant comes, I ranted as well). But the revert healing amount of her ultimate and ultimate cost reduction saved her and actually made her more viable. (Mercy only lose about 10% percent of heal after the healing reduction but valk gains 15% faster so valk comes faster. Some ppl prefer HugeRez over Valk I will talk about Valk vs HugeRez below).

Why some people think that we need to rework Mercy?

  • She doesn’t heal enough: they played her imperfectly.
    • They may question mercy’s healing ability. It’s not her kit’s problem but a common mistake while playing Mercy: they don’t use her beam effectively. They should record their Mercy plays and count how many seconds they waste by healing a full health teammate, damage boost an AFK player (standing still Reinhardt for example), or just miss healed their engaging teammate entirely. Every second is 50hps heal. They will be surprised by the fact that how many heals they could have done more. Sure, your tanks might get burst down, but it is not Mercy’s problem cuz tanks are receiving slow heals and they should know that. Talking about her “slow heals” …
  • She cannot compete with Ana or Moria (or even Lucio, idk if that’s still a thing) in terms of healing: people are not playing Mercy right.
    • Mercy is not all about healing. Sure, according to Blizzard, she is the strong single-target beam healer but screw that. If Mercy is all about strong single-target healing, she will have less utility thus more boring to play. SHE HAS DAMAGE BOOST! I was surprised when I checked the Damage boost stats in overbuff. The graphic is skewed right which means majority Mercy players don’t know that damage boost is as important as healing. A bad Mercy player heals less, about 7.5k to 9k heals with no damage boost. An okay Mercy player has okay heals, about 9 to 10k with damage boost roughly around 600 per 10 min. a decent Mercy player has more than 10k heals and sometimes even more with 600 to 800 damage boost. A carrying Mercy player has not only more than 10k healing per 10 min but also 1200+ damage boost per 10 min. And YES! You read it right: Mercy can carry! There’s still Mercy one-tricks in GM or even top 500, and as Masters Mercy I can carry weak teammates in Diamond with great stats. People may think that her damage boost is less than Moria and Ana’s damage while provides similar heal amount. But in fact, damage boosting a tank or dps is equally effective in terms of getting picks and winning the fight while giving extra ult charge to you and your teammates as well. It’s more valuable than just deal damage like what Ana and Moria do.
    • Ana (lucio) and Moria is more effective (I talked to so many ppl about other heroes’ playing style and their core value to make sure I get this part right since I one-trick Mercy).
      • Yes. Ana is the meta right now because stronger tank heavy comp. The definition of Ana and Mercy is completely different. Ana’s core utility is the nade. It boosts healing of teammates and shuts down enemy’s heal completely. It’s OFC more viable in a tank heavy space control meta (season 12-13). Mercy’s core utility is about damage boost and rez. It’s more suitable in double sniper pocketing meta (season 8-10). The reason of having a tank heavy meta (goats) is all about strong AoE healing, Brigitte’s armor behind personal shields, Dva defensive matrix, stronger ults tank line has, etc. It’s hard to compare Ana and Mercy in this case because there’re too many factors as lurking variables to cause misjudgment. It’s basically impossible to say which healer will be better if meta shifts again.
      • Lucio out heal Mercy is either because Lucio doesn’t know how to play Lucio or Mercy is not good enough in the particular rank. Lucio is never a main healer.
      • Moria is all about healing and her healing is restricted by enemy shield (im not talking about limited resources here cuz a good Moria almost never runs out). That means when Winston’s isolation bubble drops at perfect location she’s just useless. Mercy is the only main healer that can heal thru shield and that’s her huge advantage. Moria’s only utility is healing. Damage is mostly used to recharge her healing. Im not talking about DPS Moria below low gold since it only represents a small portion of the community (about 25%). She does not have a direct impact on getting important kills (compare with damage boosting) but to heal teammates to make sure they kill enemy before they die. She is less effective to help team secure kills. Besides she has a less impactful ult… talking about valk….
  • Valk is underpowered, HugeRez is better… As a high Master One-trick Mercy main, I will talk about these ults.
    • Is HugeRez any better to maintain momentum?
      • NO. HugeRez enable teammates after their death. Valk enables teammates to let them kill enemies before they’re dead. Sure, HugeRez grants Mercy a higher change getting a POTG but it doesn’t keep the momentum of the fight but to prolong it. Imagine team are running goats. Your teammates are dead, rez them, Mercy an can get her ults in 40 seconds again (cuz large health pool Mercy can just heal without stopping) and rez again. Giving teammates a second chance is just boring and make non-Mercy mains hate Mercy even more.
    • HugeRez has provides a higher skill ceiling OR valk is Useless but a big spectator mode for Mercy
      • HugeRez actually lowers the skill ceiling. Valk is a ult that use before or right after team fight happens. It’s almost a bet to get its full value because sometimes things are just too hard to predict. HugeRez instead, is a mid-fight ult. It requires generally less situational awareness cuz teammates die is the clear signal of rezing. Again, check out Mercy gameplays. you don’t see often that a Mercy can get full value out of her ult. Cuz valk is a long duration ultimate. It needs a really accurate timing to ensure the win of the team fight. Before valk you need to know basically everything (I won’t mention the entire Mercy valk tutorial again, it’s another 300 words) about enemy teamyou’re your team. But HugeRez is just calling out teammates to die together and rez safely with other teammates’ support. A good Mercy and a bad Mercy can be distinguished easily by comparing their valk timing. But with HugeRez, I will say there’s not much of the difference except thinking who needs to be rezed.
    • Valk is just underpowered/boring
      • I don’t agree with that. I have carrying moments as Mercy when valking, and I rez and got potg because of it. If you feel Valk is underpowered please check out any advanced Mercy guide to understand its huge damage boost potential.
      • If you don’t know what to do when valking is because you choose to valk at a bad time. Either enemy team has already down 2 or 3 and you team can just wipe them without your valk, or your team has already lost the fight: you popped your valk too late. A good valk is hard because you need to constantly switch damage boost and healing, or sometimes just to straightly damage boost while to pay close attention to make sure teammates wont die. I don’t recommend valk with pistol tho since the damage boost value is way more than your pistol except the situation when you need to fight high ground with enemy dps to keep yourself save when valking. Besides, is HugeRez, pressing q and done, better than valk? I’d say no to that.
    • There’re still other ways to fix Mercy
      • Yes. HugeRez is not as good as valk I just explained that. I’ve paid close attention to this #ReworkMercy movement. None of other ideas convinced me as a more powerful and fun substitution of valk.

In conclusion,

Mercy current state:

  • Off-meta but balanced
  • You can still one-trick her in GM
  • One-trick Mercy in any rank on any platform is possible
  • Mercy is not as boring as described. It’s more of a feeling involved in it.

So maybe instead of rework Mercy what should dev do?

  • Make GA more skillful.
  • Make a distance rewarding beam: more aggro Mercy more heals.

Please add your comments under! I’m not totally disagreeing with #ReworkMercy. She just need tweaks to become more fun and engaging. I just feel that #ReworkMercy is a bit too emotionally involved. Please give a like or share it if you agree with me. Make your voice be Heard!

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Imagine being toxic enough to one trick mercy in high elo. literally throwing peoples games…

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i have a 60%+ winrate as Mercy in Masters :slight_smile:

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#ReworkMercy =/= #RevertMercy

Why is this post only about reverting Mercy?

Also, the fact that she’s in a good spot balance-wise has nothing to do with the movement. She’s not fun to play, generally speaking. She relies on her teammates, having almost no impact when doing stuff on her own. She doesn’t feel like a hero to many Mercy players, who have played her since the beginning, anymore.

Isn’t fun the reason we play games?

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I’ve heard ppl complaining about her impact as a hero. I want to say she’s just off meta fine and balanced. The reason ppl complaining about her unfun to play comes from the old broken Mercy

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I see this thread and then also see the ‘on fire’ stat average being severely below average on Mercy. I also see some popular streamers who used to main Mercy no longer really play Mercy and instead play other heroes. I wonder why… :thinking:. Valkyrie can get POTG, although extremely rare, assuming nobody got a double kill or better in a match. Resurrect on ‘E’ as a freely given ability every 30 seconds is just bad, it decreases the skill ceiling of Mercy, and then there’s Valkyrie which pretty much plays the game for Mercy (again decreases her skill ceiling) while offering little potential impact. Sorry but I respectfully disagree with OP’s analysis.

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You can also read about it in Kotaku xd

https://kotaku.com/overwatch-players-want-blizzard-to-rework-mercy-but-di-1831186934

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Less ppl is playing Mercy is because she is currently off Meta. Have you seen that much of Ana streamers previously when Mercy was the Meta healer? Mercy does have a low on fire rate and that’s partially why Mercy cannot get potg often. Dev needs to fix that.

About Rez. I will say perform a good impactful Rez that can change the course of the game is hard.

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While I agree with your response regarding resurrect’s potential impact, unlike Valkyrie, the problem is that resurrect isn’t even earned. You’re given it for free every 30 seconds from an attempt. It’s so powerful that it has to also pretty much self stun Mercy for nearly two seconds. This just reeks of a bad design in my opinion. I also blame the standard ability in some aspect for holding back potential power to other aspects of Mercy’s current kit, but again that’s just my opinion.

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TL;DR

  1. Mercy players are not impactful because they’re bad.
  2. I got a POTG rezzing in valkyrie and therefore it is good.
  3. I’ve paid close attention to the #ReworkMercy movement and still don’t know that it’s not about bringing HugeRez back and they don’t know what they’re talking about.
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it’s just so hard to design Mercy’s kit with Rez not being a ultimate (i sad why it shouldn’t be earlier) while making her balanced. Rez cannot be removed since it’s basically who Mercy is. But making a resource meter for Rez as E ability is just unfair to low elo players since then cannot heal much. dev could have done that but they chose not to

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No. Low elo players can heal. They just can’t damage boost since dps can’t hit much.

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But ultimates are supposed to be unbalanced or unfair. Mercy could have her rez back as an ult and nerfs could make the ult less unfair

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A charge meter similar to Torb’s old scrap system would be perfect. (without passive generation, reset upon dying)

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Bless you bringing in dmg boost when mentioning her ‘lack’ of healing
The valkyrie 60hps buff actually makes her feel fun to play
I won’t play her in competitive because Ana is just so much better overall, but in other gamemodes I enjoy playing her, watching my enemies burn under the dmg boost

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In comp, you don’t damage boost you cannot win. At least it’s for me. diamond+

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I agree, I play her on an alt account but not my main (again, I prefer preventing enemy healing over dmg boost) and damage boosting is far more useful than keeping a healing beam on a full hp team
People also seem to forget you have Aoe dmg boost in your ult, seriously why doesn’t anyone use that when pushing xD no one needs healing just buff us

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i have never played mass rez mercy and hated Mercy valk god mode

I still find mercy boring to play.

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Let me ask you some questions.

Why not? Res being a 1.75 sec cast time with a 75% movement speed reduction was obviously a band-aid fix to instant res being so broken and when that didn’t work they kept sledgehammering til she was finally being picked less.

Don’t you think theres a possibilty that along the way they got something wrong? That maybe 1.5 secs would be long enough?
That 60 hp/s was never a problem?
That at least 1 instant res could still be balanced?

And now consider the other support buffs, would she really be a must pick with an instant res in valk and 55 to 60hps as her base healing?

Why not listen to the people saying her ult is un-engaging because of chain healing beams and make her single beam stronger and chain beams half that?
Would it really break her?
Would it really be so bad?

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When balancing Mercy, we need to consider her performance compare with other healers, her relative effectiveness cross all ranks, her viability cross all platforms. I feel like in terms of her current kit. Her position right now is what Dev think to be the sweet spot. Since dev cannot simply revert her (it’s bad for dev cuz it’s basically they telling their boss their wrong doing) and Dev has more statistical analysis than us, I believe dev is making the right decision based on her current kit. Also according to Jeff, dev is working on things that are more exciting (new heroes, new features, new game modes, and they need to prepare owl. And I can see they are trying to eliminate tank heavy meta). Dev doesn’t have time and effort to change Mercy now until next Meta shifts again. It’s also pointless for Dev to change Mercy rn since according to my prediction, there will be a Meta shift in next 2 to 3 seasons. If dev change mercy rn they have to balance her again when Meta shift comes since the entire game environment is different. Dev don’t want to spend more effort and change Mercy multiple times cuz that will creat more rant. That’s my prediction.