Mass Res - Easier to Counter, Better than Valkyrie? | Area Denial Ultimates

General Discussion
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With Torbjorn’s rework on the horizon. I’ve been doing a bit of thinking in terms of how his ultimate would function against the supports. Most namely, Valkyrie.

Looking into it, it seems that due to her having seemingly a sky-box, spectator mode camera for an ultimate, area denial ults like Hammond’s mine field and Torb’s Molten Core will have little to no affect against her.

This means that effectively, area denial ults have little to no counterplay against a Valkyrie Mercy, since of course, she would simply be able to float right over them.

On that note… Wouldn’t this kind of defeat the purpose of an ultimate meant to deny heroes of an area? It seems pretty counter-intuitive to call an ultimate “area denial” when some heroes aren’t exactly denied of that area.

On the other hand, Mercy’s previous ultimate Mass res, would not only be way easier to counter by these new ultimates, but also would allow direct counter play to them. A Torb or a Hammond can punish a bad Mercy’s Team res with such long lasting ults that would last long enough to kill enemy resurrections, and it would further encourage proper ult economy - waiting until the best time to use the ult, rather than just blow your load of ults and hoping that the side with a bigger combo wins.

In my opinion, this is overall healthier for the game as well. Teams no longer can depend on everyone having ult and “just getting on point” with them. Matches aren’t as straightforward and linear, since even Mercy mains would have to know when to use their Mass Res without being countered, and Torb and Hammond mains would have to know when to save them to secure the objective without any potential stalling. I would even guess that this would help boost Torb and Hammond pickrates as well, which are among the LOWEST of all the heroes.

Both sides check each other as well, which would solve the whole “no counterplay” argument. The need for “aiming at the unkillable Mercy” during Valkyrie would also be less of an issue, since she no longer has 12 seconds of not being engaged in the fight anymore. She would now have to be present in the fight and engaged when she wants to make her big play, and she would also need to be skillful enough to do it without her ult being shutdown.

But that’s just my thoughts. With these new area denial uls becoming a thing, what do you think about it?

Do you think that these area denial ults will struggle to take out Valking Mercies? Maybe you feel that Valkyrie is in fact more balanced than Mass res against a molten core? What do you think about the idea that a Team res may be completely shut down by a Mine Field or Molten Core ultimate? Post your thoughts below and thanks for reading. :blush:

~Sincerely Yours xoxo,
a Lover of True, Fair, and Fun Balance.
xavvypls :blue_heart:

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Inb4 all hell breaks loose

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Braces self :wink:

~Sincerely Yours xoxo,
a Lover of True, Fair, and Fun Balance.
xavvypls :blue_heart:

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Mass Ress will always be better than Valkyrie for multiple reasons.

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… why do you think the new molten core should effect every character equally?

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I’m pretty sure that this thread addresses Molten core, Mine Field and Mercy’s current ult, not every hero. :blush:

~Sincerely Yours xoxo,
a Lover of True, Fair, and Fun Balance.
xavvypls :blue_heart:

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… fine… why does it have to affect mercy?

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I… Actually somewhat agree with this… After a long time of seeing mercy complaints that just triggered me or looked ridiculous, I actually kind of agree with this idea. There’s a good argument for the counter ults and I think it would actually make the game more balanced since a Mercy would have to fly THROUGH the mine field to try to max out rez potential. Which could end up killing her in the process, and if that happens, then it’s a gg for your team. Well said OP, well said. Mind if I copyt/paste this in the r/CompetitveOverwatch subreddit? I want to see what other people might think of this perspective, I’ll give credit.

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There’s actually been quite a few ults added to the game now that would punish mass res- Doomfist popping his ult right when Mercy resses her whole team, slamming down into them while they’re prone and immobile? Hammond flying in and dropping his mines over them all? Torb pissing lava everywhere? There’s lots of great options to really punish a big res- which means it would most likely be used as a tempo res for 1-3 people more often than not, which was sort of how it was anyway, but that’s neither here nor there. Either way, I’d much rather have Mass Res than ‘unkillable butterfly’

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Think its more to do with giving Mass Res more counters (or explaining how something can be one) in an attempt to justify it coming back.
Or I’m reading it wrong :stuck_out_tongue:

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My only issue would likely still be the whole “hide and rez” playstyle, which I think really isn’t fun and I think we can all agree that no one really liked playing against or with that style of play. To which I think this would counter it. Also, about the DF ult being a counter, I haven’t tested it but I’m going to guess and say that the timing would need to be crazy good to punish a rez’d team . The channel time + slam down time seems really hard to gauge right after a rez, or when you’re anticipating a rez.

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oh… … Out then.

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It doesn’t only affect Mercy, but it affects Torb and Hammond as well.

I’ve added this part in as I didn’t think of it before. But giving Hammond and Torb the ability to hard counter a popular hero would = they get picked more often right?

Keeping in mind that Torb and Hammond are among the least picked heroes in the game, this change will not only help Mercy mains because they get their arguably more engaging ultimate back, but this will also help Torb and Hammond mains from being niche, to being a lot more viable.

This addresses the problem people had of Mercy’s mass rez in the past as well. The common view on why Mass res is “unfun to play against” is because it has no counterplay. Bringing it back will add more counterplay to her by definition, since she will now HAVE to fly through an area denial point in order to make a game changing play. Currently with Valkyrie, a mercy can simply hover over all of the danger, away from the fight, for 12 seconds.

Unscathed and untouched as she watches her team mates die (since of course she wouldn’t be able to outheal them through all the damage). This means that there is also less time wasted on trying to “kill the mercy” flying around in valk, since of course she would easily be able to just float back to spawn without any real effort. Mercy mains who are complaining about her being boring to play are now given a reason to not just spam their ults, and enemy teams have a reason to save them as well. Either way, it’s a win win on both sides. :blush:

~Sincerely Yours xoxo,
a Lover of True, Fair, and Fun Balance.
xavvypls :blue_heart:

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It wouldn’t be hard to anticipate a res; if there are more than two or three corpses on the ground and you know their Mercy is alive and probably has ult, it wouldn’t be a bad choice to linger and watch her dive in.

Most Mercy’s want there to be a cast time, about half of what it currently is, with no cement shoes. It would give people ample time to pop their ultimate if they see her going for it- I think there needs to be enough time for Hammond to see her ulting, pop his ult in that space, and get his mines activated before her players are ressed and active again. That would provide great counterplay for both sides; Mercy would need to be more selective and cautious about when and where she’s ulting and people could throw up beds of lava under the feet of the people she’s ressing, effectively ruining her ult despite her getting it off - that would be a fine counter for something so powerful. On top of that there’s also Doomfist’s meteor strike, if he sees Mercy coming in for a 3 person res he can pop that and just wait for them to come alive and kill them all; there’s at least three great options that almost guarantee ruining Mass Res right there, and for most ultimates that’s about all you can ask for, is 3 hard counters/blocks. I mean Moira’s beam goes through barriers; but it’s stopped by stun, etc.

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for all except those who don’t want to see a well executed wombo combo undone in a second… which is a lot of people. So instead of burning 2 ults to team wipe, you HAVE to burn 2+ to wipe and another to make sure they stay wiped. Still seeing a problem.

All in all i’d say leaving the widely disliked mass res out is still in the best interest of the game.

Here’s to being a part of the megathread again.

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Hammond’s ult is literally one ultimate that can completely counter mass rez by itself. The same with Molten Core. Even Doomfist’s ult can do the job as others have explained. So I’m not sure why one would need to use 2+ ults in this day and age to counter it? Those days of using multiple ults just to take out mass rez, in my opinion, are long gone now. :blush:

~Sincerely Yours xoxo,
a Lover of True, Fair, and Fun Balance.
xavvypls :blue_heart:

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People don’t complain about Valkyrie having a counter because it quite literally does nothing. If Valkyrie was strong, people would actually make these complaints, but it’s so weak that when Mercy uses it you just ignore her most of the time.

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And people have made complaints about Valkyrie in the past. Quite vocally as well. Shall we remember the dreaded “moth meta”? :blush:

~Sincerely Yours xoxo,
a Lover of True, Fair, and Fun Balance.
xavvypls :blue_heart:

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Well, that’s when it was strong. It does nothing currently, and certainly isn’t anywhere near as powerful as it was when Mercy 2.0 was released.

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Exactly; no one complains about Valk except the Mercy players, and I think we’ve all established that Mercy Players aren’t allowed to voice any kind of opinions on these forums anymore without being dogpiled into oblivion for daring to speak about Mercy, because she’s already ‘talked about too much’.

Valk is boring as beans, and it does so little for you as a player. People just ignore Mercy for most of the game these days, I hardly ever see my teammates gunning for her like I did back when they knew she had Res in her pocket.

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