The support balance patch is supposed to go live tomorrow. This patch has many great changes, but one change is problematic - the Mercy healing change. Blizzard needs to nerf Mercy because of her current must pick status, but there are very good arguments against this particular nerf in terms of character design and efficacy of the nerf.
Blizzard has stated they want Mercy to be the go to healer for raw throughput healing throughout a match. Nerfing her healing by 17% (it’s actually more because Valkyrie will charge slower) will make Moira that healer. Blizzard has stated they want healing and mobility to be Mercy’s main attributes, both far ahead of resurrection. This change only makes resurrection more valuable in comparison to her other abilities.
We’ve seen time and again that Blizzard has a hard time evaluating how good resurrection on a 30 second cooldown is. It’s clear that they’re unsure how to price it in her power budget. Pros and rank and file say that resurrection on E is one of the main reasons why Mercy is a must pick. Nerfing her healing doesn’t fix this problem. It only delays the reckoning to some future date. They won’t rebuff the healing, so they’ll be forced to nerf aspect after aspect of her main kit. Mercy players will remain in a state of flux until Blizzard finally owns up to the problem.
So what’s the right thing to do? Don’t touch the base kit. Remove resurrection. Completely. Without compensation (for the time being). Then wait a few months and see where Mercy is.
Maybe the people who think that healing is the problem are right, but I don’t think so. Or maybe she’ll be really under powered and need some buff. Personally I think Mercy will be on par with Moira, with some interesting choices to make between them. In any case, removing resurrection is the only way to know.
Of course, this isn’t a problem free approach. I can see a few reasons why Blizzard might be apprehensive here.
Concern regarding Mercy player backlash. The Mercy player backlash is already here, and will continue as long as this endless parade of nerfs continues, until the day they address the rework’s original sin.
Concern that resurrection is an iconic and well loved part of Mercy’s kit. Blizzard already messed this one up by reworking Mercy and standing fast on not reverting her. Old resurrection was an iconic and well loved part of Mercy’s kit. The current iteration of resurrection is less so. It’s still very powerful, but it’s often very unpleasant to use. At this point, resurrection is a chore that’s hogging up too much of Mercy’s power budget.
Console concerns: the patch is already certified on console, changing achievements on console is annoying. I don’t actually know how to answer this one, but it seems like an odd reason to make balance choices.
TLDR: remove res entirely. Leave the base kit alone. Wait a while and see what happens.
I’m not opposed to this, but this goes against Blizzard’s stated goal of devaluing resurrection. I don’t think they’re going to revert. Which leaves removing resurrect as the only remaining viable option. This mess won’t end until one of those things happens.
They also said that rez wont go away. After all I just think they dont know what they are doing. Here is Titaniums latest thread with a rework suggestion take a look if you are interested.
I agree - Blizzard don’t seem to know what they’re doing with Mercy and are contradicting themselves left and right. I have a slight personal preference for Valkyrie over mass res, but I would be Okay with a revert.
Do you agree however with the argument that res on a 30 second cooldown can’t stay, leaving only revert or scrap as options?
I think rez on CD is terrible and valk deletes to many weaknesses for Mercy like movement dependancy and single target healing. Another rework would be nice and in the thread I linked are proposed solutions. These ideas were worked out and voted on by some Mercy players so I hope they get the recognition they deserve.
Edit: Sorry I forgot. I would rather see a revert than rez removed because I think they could balance it. If they cant they should remove it tho.
They don’t want to revert her. They want to keep res on cooldown. They want her to be the total throughput healer. They don’t want her to be a must pick. Apparently they can’t keep all of their wants consistent.
They should go by their stated design for the character and proceed from there: a pure healer that has the best throughput and mobility, but who lacks in offensive capabilities and utility.
Res was a good idea, but it’s not working out and it’s messing up the character. I’ll be happy to see it go.
I agree with this. Resurrection on E is the worst thing that could happen to Mercy. It made her a must pick and led her down a never ending path of nerfs. At this point, res in not even a fun ability for Mercy to use. Nobody likes it. Not the enemy team. Not Mercy players. Not people who are forced into playing Mercy when they don’t want to.
I’d like another ability in stead. I’d take any other healer’s E in a heartbeat over current res. But I would settle for just removing it seeing what happened.
GamesBeat: Resurrecting a dead ally is such a strong ability. Have you ever thought about just getting rid of it?
Kaplan: I think it would be unfortunate if we got to that place, where we just gave up on the ability. I do think it’s really cool. It feels great to be resurrected. It’s such a play style change. At first, your first instinct — if you’ve played a lot of Mercy, your instinct is to play it the old way. You’ll guardian angel into some 6v1 and hit your button and be like, “Oh, that was a big mistake.” It takes a big adjustment. But once you do adjust, there’s some really cool gameplay now. Suddenly a Reinhardt shield or an Orisa shield or ducking behind the payload, these become very interesting strategic choices.
To me that suggests that it’s a place they can go to. They have on previous occasions such as Scatter Arrow just given up on an ability.
I feel like the player base is less emotionally attached to the current iteration than the devs are.
Current res just can’t seem to coexist with their vision of how Mercy should play. It’s taking them too long to figure it out, and everyone is suffering for it. I hope they manage to make the mental leap and just go for it.
Personally, I think Moira should be the “pure healer”. She does nothing but heal and she has been blessed with a kit that gives her all the tools to keep herself alive. (Sustained damage, self heal, mobility) — her only job is to keep herself alive so she can keep bringing out delicious heals.
I feel like Resurrection should be her main tool! Lower her healing a bit and make her better at reviving allies. It is her defining trait.
Zenyatta’s discord makes him valuable. His healing numbers barely matter when you factor in the value his +30% damage brings.
Lucio’s speed boost is his defining trait. It felt way more powerful in 1.0’s 100% speed/30m range era (he was a must pick) but he is the game’s only source for speed.
Brigitte brings armor and excellent peel to any team she is on. Aside from Torbjorn, she is the game’s only source of armor.
Ana (I made a ton of posts detailing this) should be all about the anti-heals. Her ability to actually deny healing should be at the forefront of her kit… it doesn’t feel that way yet, however!
Don’t give Mercy all the tools, rather, make her defining trait shine more. Ana would feel stronger, like Zen does, if her anti heal was more consistent. People wouldn’t be chopping Mercy up every few months if the other supports’ signature boons seemed more valuable. As long as we keep all the focus on healing then we won’t stop comparing healers to each other and demanding nerfs.
It is too black and white: you either heal more or heal less in that scenario. I think giving support heroes unique and strong abilities is the best approach and that means keeping the powerful Ressurect ability above her healing abilities.
Anyway, tried typing this at Disney and a bit too distracted! Sorry if all this isn’t as eloquent as it could have been!!
I like your perspective about each healer being unique, but I don’t agree that Mercy’s defining trait is res.
To me, Moira is built to be a hybrid healer/dps. That seems to be the entire essence of her design, so she should cater to that design - Zenyatta is 1/3 healer 2/3 dps and Moira is 2/3 healer and 1/3 dps. Mercy should be all about the healing. That’s her defining trait. She is designed to be the only pure healer, and the healer player’s healer. Plus, I think that putting any more emphasis on res would throw the whole game into disarray. It’s too hard to balance, and too unintuitive to bring a healer whose main job comes after healing fails.
By the way - I strongly agree that Ana should have more power in her anti heal. Also, have fun at Disney!
