Mercy breaks balance

How does blizzard plan to balance Overwatch 2, when you need to account for mercy damage boost? stuff that are normally balanced become extremely broken with mercy, and stuff that are somewhat balanced with mercy become horrible without her.
you just cant balance stuff when at any moment they can have a +30% dmg boost.

Mercy also enables bad gameplay
if your soldier is ego peaking a widow at max range and dies, instead of learning his lesson and off angling, he can just get rezed behind a corner
the rez takes no skill or effort from the mercy, and is practically free when you can just break los + move out of its range
She turns a situation that can be ā€œ10% to get a kill and 90% to dieā€ into a ā€œ10% to get a kill and 90% die but get revived to it doesnt matterā€
it encourages bad play because you have a get out of jail free card, that unlike suzu, lamp, or pull, doesnt need to be used before the person dies, but you have a 10 second window to do so once they are gone.

I understand that mercy is a hero that requires less mechanical skill, but if you aren’t gonna make up for it with it needing some other form of effort, then that hero MUST NOT be allowed to get the same value as people who put in 3 to 4 times the effort to learn their hero.
it is incredibly demoralizing when after practicing a hero like tracer for hours, I’m being out-valued by a mercy holding left click and right click on someone.

Yes, mercy is hard to climb with (when solo queuing) because of your lack of direct value and your reliance of teammates
but BECAUSE mercy just amps up another players performance, maintaining a rank that you don’t belong in becomes way easier with mercy.
If you put a diamond Ana in a GM lobby, they will lose 95% of the time. If you put a diamond mercy in a GM lobby, I am confident they can win about 40% of their games.

30 Likes

At this point, that answer has become clear. The universal health pool increase is how they plan to balance damage boost. I doubt they did it strictly for Mercy, obviously. It is just a benefit of their new direction.

That’s just a problem with this game in general.

Um… Practice more?

6 Likes

i personally dont mind mercy or moira (or even lifeweaver) being in the game
i have a problem with them being able to compete with other heros in a top level.
not granted moira is pretty bad at high elo / pro play, but a mercy player who puts in none of the time and effort that an ana player puts in shouldnt be able to get the same value. it just doesnt make sense

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By accounting for it. I love when some of you pretend to be stupid just to hate on mercy. You wanna tell me this is the first game ever youve seen damage boost exist in? Is this a whole new concept blizz came up with? How could they possibly account for a 7 year old ability they created that boosts damage to boost damage…

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no one is saying dmg boost started to be a problem NOW
its always been a problem
this isnt the first game weith damage boost and it isnt the only damage boost in OW
that doesnt make it balanced

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It actually does, because it has been. Its not that its unbalanced. Its that you dont like the balance. Db has been here since ow1 alpha. Mercy was THE support for this game when it was being made. You dont like that but then you shouldnt have bought this game

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X + 25% = Impossible to calculate or balance

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pharah without mercy: horrible
pharah with mercy: unstoppable

sojurn without mercy: 195 headshot
sojurn with mercy: 200+ headshot, can kill without even being fully charged

hanzo without mercy: 120 bodyshot
hanzo with mercy: 150 bodyshot, tracer cant play the game

blade without boost: 160 for slash + dash
blade with boost (mercy or ana): 200+ from slash and dash

yes it breaks very important damage breakpoints on alot of heros
no one is claiming they dont know how much damage it does
but if X is a balanced amount of damage, then X+25% most likely isnt

4 Likes

The issue is the usage of blue spaghetti is very variable. I think that’s why everyone is angry about it. One moment it’s there, the next it’s not. There’s very little to balance around it without creating lowered damaged heroes/locking hs to not multiply/flat out changing the ability.

Considering the ability hasn’t changed since…forever…we can assume it’s on the low priority list of issues in the dev’s sight. Which makes people frustrated, too.

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huh
almost like
the game changes over time
and as more heros that make dmg boost broken get introduced
it gets more and more unbalanced
sojurn wasnt in ow1
and she is absolutely BUSTED with dmg boost

i agree that its definetly on the lower side of the devs priorities
sometimes it looks like they are activly trying to NOT change it
every time a new hero becomes broken with mercy boost we change it (ashe, sojurn etc) instead of changing damage boost
and just because something hasnt been changed doesnt mean its balanced
everything is in relation to the game, and the game itself changes. so stuff that werent broken (mercy at the end of ow1) can become broken upon new things introducing (sojurn at the start of of2)

1 Like

Mercy is unhealthy for the game, but all these bot supports flock to her and defend her being broken. They make skins for her all the time, when other heroes are much more deserving. Least mechanical hero in the game, most boosted hero in the game. Mercy playerbase have the worst takes as well it’s a plague that will never be cured

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The argument about Mercy has existed for basically as long as OW has existed. Her kit, even after her rework, is flat out unhealthy for the game. She is difficult to balance, difficult to balance around, and I am sure (and I think I recall being specifically mentioned), she is difficult to design heros around. As a core concept, her kit is bad for the game. Damage boost on an ability, let alone an infinite resource, is bad for the game. The ability to rez outside of an ultimate is bad for the game; combined, you have a hero that triples down on an intensely disliked, but highly viable, facet of this game; hard pocketting. Ironically, I see Mercy mains complain that this is the most boring, but viable, way to play the hero. So people don’t like playing with Mercy in this regard (except perhaps some DPS who only know how to get value being pocketted), people don’t like playing into hard pocketting, and for a lot of Mercy players (forgetting, even, support players who are not Mercy mains), she’s not fun to play as. So what are we holding on to, here? Why not change her?

And make no mistake; Mercy is not a ā€˜tweak away’ from being balanced. She is almost unbalancable with number or CD changes. Any nerfs at all and she is actual trash (but, importantly, will still be played due to her high OT rate, so you will then suffer with having a dead weight hero on your team), and any buff makes not only her a nightmare, but also typically throws one DPS into the nightmare category as well. So what is the answer? It’s obviously a soft rework. Will we ever get this? No.

Rez needs to go back behind Valk. Valk gets slightly nerfed to compensate the one charge of rez during it; an enemy being rezzed on a much more predictable schedule (due to the nature of it being an ultimate) is much easier to swallow specifically because it is an ultimate. This frees up Mercy’s E key to give her an ability that, IMO, should be focused on giving Mercy some more skill expression (therefore, agency), in a way that does not require mechanical skill; tied to her unique movement abilities. Perhaps a small AOE heal tied to her movement to encourage her to move into the fight more often to get off more emergency heals. Tie DB and LMB to a shared resource like an inversion of Moira’s damage and healing; Mercy’s DB is a limited resource that comes back over time and through effective healing (both with LMB and with the new E ability), and you have a hero encouraged to take a more active role in fights (thus upping her risk/reward ratio), who has more skill expression through her movement mechanics with her new E (thus upping her agency), who feels like she can do more in fights with a bit more of an emergency heal option and with an ultimate that feels more impactful, all while not changing her fantasy gameplay style or adding any specific mechanical aim stress on the player. It takes power away from hard pocketting, and adds a little more value in general play.

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Do you really think Mercy players don’t have to try to get good at their character? If you have good mechanics, Ana should be a cake walk. In fact every dps and support hero should be insanely easy if you have good mechanics.

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Time and time again top level players do not flock to Mercy at all above other options. Her power simply isn’t useful enough to field.

Mercy at best is middle of the road in terms of value.

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Mercy is fine. Damage boost isn’t broken. Rez isn’t broken. Her movement isn’t broken. People complain about literally every aspect of her kit, not because it’s actually a problem but because some people just irrationally hate her.

As a side note, I like your Battletag.

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(sigh)

I don’t know or care who’s alt this is, but no one wants to hear it, it’s all been said before, please go away.

(Mute, and ignore)

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LOL nice try man, but i can see the edit button

It feels like the Mercy complaints are actually ā€œWhy is it too difficult to dive the Sniperā€ complaints .

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top level players dont flock to mercy because they put in enough effort on other heros to make them worthwhile
but if you put a diamond player in GM (for the sake of the argument lets say they put in the same effort at learning every hero), then having them on mercy is the best choice if you wanna win. no one is claiming that ā€œoh mercy is way too strong everyone should play her every game for free srā€
im claiming that mercy ENABLES other heros to be broken and makes the game more unhealthy and way harder to balance

1 Like

If it didn’t hit those break points, then what would be the point?

It’s almost like the devs wanted an ability to have a tangible impact.

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