Mercy (and Baptiste) Rework - Valkyrie's Chain Heals and Immortality Field

General Discussion
1

Look, I know what you’re thinking.

“Another Mercy main…”

I’m not a Mercy main, so hear me out.

This is a Mercy and Baptiste rework idea that shuffles their abilities around so that they better thematically fit their characters.

Mercy - “Heroes Never Die”

Valkyrie

Mercy unleashes the full power of her suit and staff by planting Caduceus Staff into the ground where she stands, and then taking flight.

The above emote could literally be her ultimate channel animation

For 15 seconds;

  • Caduceus Staff is placed into the ground, has 250 HP, and gives teammates around it Immortality (exactly as Baptiste’s Immortality Field functions). It also functions as a Guardian Angel target for Mercy.
    • If Mercy is stunned while planting the Caduceus Staff into the ground, it cancels her ult entirely… no Immortality and no Valkyrie Battle Mercy
  • Mercy gains flight, draws her overcharged (unlimited ammo) pistol, and fully commits to the seldom-used Valkyrie Battle Mercy
    • If Caduceus Staff’s health bar reaches 0, it shorts out and stops providing Immortality… Mercy can Guardian Angel to it and use the Interact Key to terminate her Valkyrie’s flight and unlimited ammo early, and collect the staff to resume healing/damage boosting.
    • At the end of the 15 second timer, if Caduceus Staff still has health remaining, Mercy returns to normal and the staff flies right back into her hands (similar to Mjolnir for/from Thor).

Baptiste - “Gadget Healer”

Immortality Field is renamed to “Drone Network” (or something more creative, I’unno).

Baptiste deploys a network of advanced drones… (give the drones a name like Snowball!)

  • Baptiste can deploy up to 2 drones which become healing or damage boost dispensers that create weak chainbeams to any allies nearby.
    • These 2 weak chainbeams can stack to match Valkyrie’s chain heals/damage boosts
    • The drones have a health pool, can be shot down.
    • The drones have a relatively long cooldown before he can deploy another…
  • Baptiste can remotely toggle between the heal/damage boost by pressing Interact or the ability key again.
  • Baptiste’s Amplification Matrix boosts both healing and damage boosting of his drones…
  • Because his drones now provide healing, Regenerative Burst is made redundant… it could be removed so that Baptiste can heal himself with his own grenade launcher, which is more consistent with Ana’s self-healing, and would feel like it plays better.

I dunno about you, but this feels like a much better fit… and because almost all of this already exists in the game, it’s not substantially upsetting balance.

It’s just an ability shuffle. But that ability shuffle makes everything FEEL better, which arguably makes it more fun.

  • No Mass Rez
    • Immortality becomes an ultimate through Valkyrie…
  • Valkyrie feels engaging because you’re not helpless as you boost teammates, you actually contribute by dealing damage and protecting the staff
    • Because Valkyrie feels better, Single Rez’s slow is no longer a frustration…
  • The dual nature of Amplificaton Matrix’s healing/damage resonates more clearly and synergizes well within Baptiste’s own kit
  • Juggling chain beams is made more tactical
2 Likes
2

Mercy - I understand, I dislike her kit too.

Bappy? He isn’t out yet. And you want rework him? His whole shtick is that he keep you alive no matter what. I do agree however Immortality Field should be ulti and amplification matrix should be ability. With number tweaking of course.

3

Now is the perfect time to suggest changes… BEFORE he goes Live.

And the proposed changes DO keep teammates alive. This thematically fits. Baptiste uses his array of technology to provide medical and combat assistance. They called him gadget healer behind closed doors, and this does exactly that… instead of regenerative burst, he uses more gadgets to heal.

4

I mean Mercy was your typical RPG healer with Rez to “fullfill fantasy”. And giving bappy ult that heals people would be really reduntant. I mean he have nades, regenrative mist, drones and Amplify filed. He would be walking healthpack. That can bokst your damage sometimes.

5

Drone chain beams wouldn’t be an ultimate. As I explained in the OP, Baptiste can deploy up to two drones at a time.

The cooldown between deployments is really long, so it requires a bit of setup time to get both on the field.

One drone gives a weak chainbeam, but two drones together can stack their chainbeam effects together to produce Valkyrie chain numbers.

And because these drones are effective for healing, you can remove Regenerative Burst entirely (maybe put Exo boots on Shift in its place), and let Baptiste heal himself (maybe for less than his teammates) with his own heal grenades.