đź“„ Lets (Try) To fix mercy!

General Discussion
1
Other threads in the series

Lets try to fix the game (Hero Balance)

Custom games

Tutorial

Competitive

in there, there were some ideas to fix mercy, But since i didnt want to say too much to turn the thread into a mercy discussion, i decided to make a separate one,

So first, lets start by saying what i consider to be the problem with mercy

So, whats the problem?

While statistically she doesnt seem that bad, i find that she is suposed to be a main healer, but she does not real nearly enough to perform this, in fact, sometimes stopping healing somebody to damage boost or resurrect may lead to another death in many situations, Valk also does not really help as a defensive ult, But its not really that good offensively either, and resurrect requires no real skill imput at all to adquire, as the cooldown makes it be completly automatic, and the resurrect should be something earned, as theres no real way to make it “mechanically” skillful, we need to find a way to separete good mercys from bad mercys with resurrect usage, Overall the hero is also devoid of player imput almost completly, she feels completly automatic,

So, What would I do?

Im going to go ahead and list MULTIPLE possibilites to fix the hero ill try to be as diverse as possible when it comes to throwing out possibilites, So lets start with the most commmon one

Possibilities to fix mercy

1: Mass rez mercy

This variation of mercy will be mostly about bringing back resurrect as a multi-target ultimate, While trying to adress the frustrations about it as well, So lets start,

Valkyrie

Valk would be moved to an E ability, essentially trading spots with resurrect, The following would be changed:

  • Chain beams would still be in here, but the healing would be halvened, the person beeing healed would be healed by 50, and the chains would heal 25, same for damage boost
  • Continious Regeneration removed
  • Duration reduced to 5s
  • Cooldown of 12
  • Free flight preserved
  • Infinite ammo removed

Resurrect

Resurrect would be moved back to her ultimate, Working as an Area of effect ultimate, it would be like this

  • Cast time of 1.5 seconds
  • Damage resistance of 25%(50%?) during cast time (this is to prevent mercy from dying instantly as she casts it)
  • Requires Constant line of sight all arround the cast time, Meaning that mercy cant hide behind a wall, pop up and res,
  • it has a clear, visual warning, Imagine mccree high noon like but with a yellow glow, So people cant say that they didnt see it coming,

2: Single target Res ult

Preserving the same Idea as valk from above, im just going to talk about the new ultimate,

Resurrect

Resurrect in this case would work similarly to what it does now, But inestead it would be an ultimate, It can build up to 5 charges of ultimate individually, each charge costing arround 800 - 1200 ult points, Good mercies who naturally survive longer and build up more ult charge will survive long enough to build up the ult,

  • Posseses a small 0.8 second cast time
  • Resurrects an individual target per usage
  • animation remains the same as now,

3: Valk 2.0

This version of mercy keeps resurrect exactly as it is, But focuses more on strenghtening mercy during her ultimate, making it less of a weird hybrid ult and more focused on be used to keep up your team during a fight or as to help the team engage easier, at the same time, giving mercy a little bit more of another ability to help her in battle

  • Healing increased to 80 healing per second during its usage
  • Mercys primary damage boosts as well

New ability: Fake soul,

  • Bound to R (only works while holding staff)
  • Cooldown of 15 seconds (starts when used)
  • Active time of 8
  • Creates a fake soul on where mercys cursor is pointing to, which she can then fly using Guardian Angel towards it,
  • Utilizing Resurrect on this fake soul will make it explode, and apply a healing over time buff to all teammates arround it for its remaining active time, Healing 20 healing per second, Resurrect cooldown would be 8 seconds inestead of 30 when using it on a fake soul

4: No rez mercy

This version completly gets rid of resurrect as an ability, replacing it for something new, For the case of this, we are keeping “Fake soul” on mercy, Bound to R, and buffing her entire kit

  • Healing increased from 50 to 60 healing per second

Since rez isnt a problem, we can make mercy more of a healer without making her meta again,

New E ability: (Note: This is based on an idea someone had before, i think it was grayfalcom but i cant really remember exactly, thought id atleast give credit tho) Angelic Protection

  • During this ability, Mercy throws her staff in the air, and it stays there, floating, with the tip flying upwards, Healing all allies nearby in a 12m range for 60 healing per second
  • Active time of 6 seconds
  • Cooldown of 8, starts when ability ends
  • Mercy loses her staff from her inventory and switches to her pistol for the duration,

5: Valk 2.0. Version 2

This is another iteration of valk 2.0, mainly aimed arround the current meta, For this situation, Fake soul Would not be an ability for mercy, this would help making mercy more of an offensive - based ult to help against the current meta

  • Primary fire: Both Damage boost and healing beam
  • Secondary fire: Its a purple coloured beam that works exactly like her other beams, But targets enemies, Cutting the healing done and recieved by 66% and movement speed by 20%

Valk will now act as a counter to goats, the chain beams would affect the entire team since they are all cluttered together, and they would not be able to sustain the fight without their healing who is only 1/3 as strong

6: Offensive mercy

This is more focused on making mercy more of an offesive based support, mainly focused on utility rather than healing,

New R ability: Spear of the valkyere

Mercy throws her staff piercing all enemies in a line in front of it, Knocking them back 8m, Dealing 80 damage to each, and reducing their movement speed by 25%

  • Cooldown of 8s

New E ability, Cleanse:

Mercy emits a yellow aura all arround her, in a dome-like shape like meis ult, This aura does many things:

  • Removes any active debuffs any allies have (dynamite, anti heal, slow down, Stuns, pinned, Etc)
  • Prevents any new effects from beeing applied (essentially, Acts as ANTI cc as well)
  • Heals people inside the dome for 10hps
  • Active time of 5 seconds, Cooldown of 12, starts when the duration ends

7: Anti-Death mercy

This focuses on replacing resurrect by another mechanic, inestead of reviving, it prevents death,

E ability: Angelic Protection,

  • Mechanically similar to Repair pack Or harmony orb, in the way that it automatically targets stuff, and the projetile bends arround to reach them
  • 50m range
  • Once it reaches, it activates a buff that if the heros HP were to reach to 0 and died, They will be instantly brought back and have invencibility for 2s
  • Cooldown of 12
  • Buff duration time of 6

Also, to give her a little bit more strenght, Her base healing would be increased back to 60,

8: Resurrect as a passive

This version of mercy focuses on removing resurrect for a more active ability on e, Could be any of the new ones i mentioned above, i cant quite decide,

resurrect now acts differently, Once a teammate dies, their soul remains, and mercy can utilize her primary fire to “Heal” the soul, Once the soul is at full health, They will be revived, if the respawn timer were to reach to full before they are fully resurrected and mercy still hasnt revived them, it would be stalled until they were Rezed or the beam disconnects, where they would be respawned

it would have a minor cooldown of 5s between resurrects, but nothing more, The healing would be her normal rate and valk could techniaclly mass ressurect a team that died close together

This are all the ideas i could come up with, Maybe none are pefect, some are op, some UP, or some could be combined, Feel free to discuss below

12 Likes
2

The eighth idea really sounds like its worth exploring to me, I like the idea of sacrificing a more significant amount of time that could’ve been spent healing living teammates to try and resurrect a fallen one. Technically her current rez does this, but increasing the time it takes and doing it via beam/primary fire sounds seems more interesting that spending resources or a cooldown ability to achieve a rez in shorter time. And stalling respawn until the beam is detached seems an interesting concept!

1 Like
3

All sound good, I wanna talk about that throwing the staff one, what if that is how she healed always, she dropped a staff which would essentially be a heal bot and heal all allies until the enemy destroys it, like a Torb turret, and it’s her R ability, her E is the same, her shift is the same, but now she can join the ranks of the other supports that make them more fun, she can dps while passively healing. Her alt fire with her pistol would change the beam to damage or healing, depending on what the staff is currently not doing, finally her Ult would have the healing out put and damage output increased and she can still fly around and shoot, but remove the infinite ammo.

1 Like
4

I propose Option 9: Death Machine Angel

Simply put: Give her Reaper’s Shotguns.

I see no logical fallacies with the plan at all.

In all seriousness, I do like where Mercy is right now. I’m liking this post though because it’s clear a lot of work went into it and I respect that.

1 Like
5

I also like where Mercy is now, but I do like these ideas too, especially #3 and #8.

My big thing is that I wish res didn’t take 3 seconds to do. I wish it was instant or the devs would put a breakable shield around Mercy because literally ANYTHING and ANYONE can counter her res now. All you literally have to do is shoot her in the head and boom, dead. It’s even more impossible when the entire team focuses you as Mercy and your team isn’t quick enough to counter their attacks or ults.

1 Like
6

No thank you

I think this could work if it was an ult with no cast time and lower charge required, but just as a single rez and no extra charges.

This would be nice, too.

I’d be okay with this.

This is pretty neat, but I don’t know if it really fits Mercy. I think of her as more of a buffer than a debuffer.

Sounds fun, but not really a fan of it on Mercy.

I definitely think she should have something like this, though. Maybe not with the heal, but something that removes CC and damage over time effects would be cool.

This seems like it’d be too powerful.

This could be interesting, but a cooldown of 5 seconds is definitely a no from me.

7

The 4th option was more oriented towards a anti-goats thing more than anything

8

With apologies, I dont like any of these ideas - sorry Magy

1 Like
9

I do like idea #7. But instead of making it a target-able projectile, how about making it only work on your current heal patient? I think that would make GA feel more engaging if you time it right. This ability would also be a good choice against burst damage, and at the same time be weak to consistent damage sources like s76 and Winston. Also, maybe replace the 2 sec invincibility with a very small (50) burst heal.

This could also be chained through your beams during Valkyrie, making it a pseudo mass rez.

1 Like
10

It could work, BUt i feel like it would be better to encourage mercy to multitask to give mercy players something else to do with that specific idea other than just hold M1 harder

11

I think her skill ceiling could be improved without increasing her aim requirements by drawing more stuff from TF2’s Medic. Especially stuff that rewards multitasking.

E.g. add a “Biotic Saturation” effect to her staff beam that is a loose analogue to Overheal:

  • When her beam is applied to an ally, a white Saturation bar appears over their health bar and starts filling up.
  • When her beam is taken off that ally, their Saturation bar turns either yellow (if using healing beam) or blue (if using boost beam).
  • Yellow/blue Saturation bars empty over time, disappearing once completely empty.
  • If Mercy applies her beam to a hero who still has a yellow/blue Saturation bar, the bar turns white and start filling up again.
  • A hero with a yellow Saturation bar regenerates health over time (less than when under Mercy’s heal beam). Their bar drains faster if they have received damage recently.
  • A hero with a blue Saturation bar deals increased damage (less than when under Mercy’s boost beam). Their bar drains faster if they have dealt damage recently.
2 Likes
12

She is the best main healer for highly mobile comps. That’s why she was the go to healer for dive comps. We are now in a very tanky meta where Ana and Moira are better. If the upcoming changes hurt Goats and dive is more popular, then mercy will be more popular.

13

I’m late to the party but I love these ideas.

I love this idea especially, one of Mercy’s biggest survivability flaws is a lack of assurance when not in a team fight and able to fly between multiple allies on the go. I love the idea of giving such a complex and skillful- yet also rewarding aspect to her. I can already see the potential, get dived on by a Tracer, place down fake soul a safe distance away and fly to your teammate, then fly to the fake soul, creating a mind game for you and the enemy. Or, your team has been wiped and you try retreating, place down fake soul where you want to go and fly to it, reducing the frustration of knowing you’ll be dead otherwise.

I like the heal mechanic on it when “resurrected”, by giving up your time and survivability in certain situations, you can give back to your team. I love diverse and limitless potential abilities like this that can be manipulated depending on the situation. However, I wish the heal was increased or replaced by something VERY impactful to truly make up for using rez on this instead of a teammate, alongside giving up your survivability and time. Could a full heal work? Like an AoE, LoS cleanse that heals every ally back to full health- or perhaps 50% of their maximum HP?

14

Jesus Christ no. Mercy’s current ult is already underwhelming and you seriously say that a single res as the ult would work?