Mercy can't possibly have been designed by someone who loves playing her

[Legos-1690]

Just because you don’t enjoy the hero does not mean others don’t. Fun is subjective, the forums just happen to be the place where the most vocal minority scream about their main.

If you don’t find her fun, learn another hero or don’t play the game.

[Beschiss-1961]

I wasn’t talking about your post, but rather some troll who posted a troll comment.

I do, however, think your post is a bit sensationalist. Mercy is definitely viable, just not as a powerhouse solo main healer.

[Arceus-2238]

@Mel-22110

except the definition of every mercy main fun is quite literally overpowered.

Fun =/= Overpowered… This should be quite obvious. Also, the fact that we want mass ress back as you’ve already said. It is literally, historically weaker than reworked Mercy.

@Mel-22110

mercy pre-rework was overpowered, and they want it back

It wasn’t. It most definitely wasn’t. Mass Resurrect was close to being balanced. All they needed to do was add a cast time, do some LoS fixes and tweak the ult charge. Also, this assertion isn’t reflected in pro play. Before the rework, she was F-tier in pro play, only ever used to pocket a Pharah. You’d think pros would take advantage of an ‘overpowered’ similarly to what the team’s in the OWL did.

@Mel-22110

The reality is mercy can only be fun and fair and balanced if there is no res in the game, but most of the community will explode even more if there is no res in the game.

Well this is obviously false since she was fairly balanced for seasons 4 and 5. In reality, Resurrect on E can only be fun and impactful if the ability itself is ridiculously overpowered and in turn, can’t be fun and impactful if the ability in question is riddled with movement debuffs and extremely long cast times. I mean, it literally is an ultimate cast time because no other ability can be compared to Resurrect on E’s cast time. Further shows that Resurrect should be an ultimate, not an ability.

@Virticonttv-1989

Look. Another thread about how people are upset that mercy isn’t a must pick anymore. I still use her frequently, she may need a few tweaks. But she is far from terrible like this post and many others are trying to imply.

You’re personal experiences can’t be applied to everyone and, statistically, she is extremely underpowered.

@Virticonttv-1989

I get it, you don’t like the fact that you don’t feel important now that your main isnt a necessity for every comp.

Is that why the OP in question literally said that he would exchange a lot of things Mercy has just to make her more fun to play. Sorry, this doesn’t add up.

@Virticonttv-1989

But frankly every time I see one of these posts I feel like mercy should just be removed.

This is even less constructive than the ‘Mercy spam’.

@Virticonttv-1989

The mercy main community has so much ridiculous amount of toxicity that comes from it (how many megathreads we on now?)

Oh please, let’s not act like this is just a one-sided issue. Both sides are equality guilty of this. Now, you’re just unnecessarily trying to antagonise a whole group of people… As for the megathreads, that literally has no relation with ‘Mercy toxicity’… Megathreads are for feedback. Classing that as toxicity is frankly dumb.

[HealBus-11939]

@Sparhawk-1917

Isn’t that basically an ult?

That’s how an ULT works, yes. You charge it, then use it.

Moira doesn’t have infinite healing output, she must deal damage to enemies to fill her pool faster.

I think Valk is in the right place. Resurrecting one person as a ULT is too weak for an ult. Resurrecting multiples is apparently way too strong.

Keeping Valk in it’s current state is good because it would allow a mercy to charge her healing pool much faster because of the chain and mobility mechanics, making the ULT very useful in the right occasions. Again, adding risk/reward to Mercy play.

Moving resurrect to a pool sort of fixes all the problems. She isn’t OP, she isn’t UP, her ULT is good and useful, but not game breaking, and her Resurrect is very strong and useful, however now an enemy team has options available to counter an enemy Mercy other than killing her or selecting her form the hero pool.

She now has the ability to make big game changing plays by using her Pool very wisely during key moments and engagements.

I can’t see anything negative from moving Res to a pool-type mechanic other than Mercy will have to work harder to earn the res? Isn’t that what people want though?

[uossii-1655]

Christ, this thread is a mess. We just want Mercy to be fun again. She doesn’t even have to be the best healer! She can be weak, and we’d still love her. But we want her to be FUN. That’s it.

[uossii-1655]

@HealBus-11939

@Qwazi-2242

I personally don’t need to see a revert but I’d like to see another rework, one that perhaps sacrifices rez to leave room for something more fun while keeping Mercy balanced.

I think that fundamentally, the issue with Mercy is her resurrect, and it’s the fact that it’s on a cooldown, meaning that it isn’t a reward that a good Mercy can earn and then deploy for maximum team effort, it is granted simply because she is fielded.

Putting the left shoe on the right foot; issue is DPS players don’t have a cooldown ability that, when pushed, grants an elimination. Really good DPS players can earn fast picks, and demolish an entire team, and this is considered fine because the DPS earned it. Or, it at least looked like they did.

Mercy pushes E and gets a resurrect because 30 seconds has elapsed. There’s a little bit more too it than that, but the perception is that’s how she works.

For the most part, that’s how she does work.

Personally, I think fixing Mercy involves the addition of a metered pool mechanic, where a Resurrect pool is filled passively, but it may be filled faster by a Mercy who is healing/DMG bossing lots.

This accomplishes two things: Enemy team can negate Mercy’s ability to deploy resurrect, and an under-performing Mercy will not have the ability to use Ressurect passively every 30 seconds.

I think this would discourage inexperienced Mercy players from picking her and using her as a “Res Bot”. It also adds an additional layer of risk/reward to Mercy play, which I think is moving strongly in the right direction. This would also reward experienced Mercy players by allowing good play to be rewarded, which trickles down to the entire team.

This whole thing. Just awesome, I agree 100%.

[Toni-12989]

Not talking about it at all is considered silence, I guess.
They are ignoring Mercy.

[Arceus-2238]

@HealBus-11939

I think Valk is in the right place. Resurrecting one person as a ULT is too weak for an ult. Resurrecting multiples is apparently way too strong.

Think again. It was historically underpowered for most of its existence and only became remotely viable after the invulnerability patch. This sounds much better:

Apparently Resurrect on a CD is way too strong

Why?

• They gave it a ridiculous amount of restrictions and it still was overpowered.

• Erases picks with ease. That’s OPAF.

• They gutted everything else in her kit to make room for it and yet, they still failed because she’s now underpowered…

@HealBus-11939

Keeping Valk in it’s current state is good because it would allow a mercy to charge her healing pool much faster because of the chain and mobility mechanics, making the ULT very useful in the right occasions. Again, adding risk/reward to Mercy play

Valkyrie is a disgusting conglomerate that should’ve never existed. It

@Titanium-1686

Of course, probably seeing that the ability was still flaming garbage, they decided to add a few other bonuses to it. They added a bunch of buffs to Mercy’s pistol (most of which were removed before going live), and they added the potential to get four uses of Resurrect out of Valkyrie (rez, valk, rez, wait, rez, wait, rez). This time they were successful in making Valkyrie worthy of being an ultimate, because they added an ultimate (Resurrect) to a basic ability (Valkyrie). A basic ability in addition to an ultimate nets an ultimate ability.

Now the developers had a different problem. Mercy had two ultimates: Resurrect and Valkyrie… Or to be more direct about it, Resurrect and then more Resurrect. As you probably already know, Valkyrie was nerfed repeatedly. Resurrect was slowly withdrawn from the sack of garbage that was sacked and then unsacked, eventually rendering the sack of garbage to be a sack of nothing but garbage.

When Resurrect was pulled out Valkyrie, so was the ultimate in Valkyrie. Now we’re just left with a basic ability that lasts fifteen seconds on Q, while Mercy’s real ultimate is on her E.

Configuration: Spectator:

Consider the risk and reward for playing at different proximities from the fight for most heroes. Generally, the closer a hero is to the fight, the more impact they have; targets are bigger, and more enemies are visible. Projectile speed, spread, damage falloff, and limited range on abilities become less of an issue as a hero gets closer to the fight. The closer a hero is to the fight, the more they have to shoot at/heal/protect. By the same token, being closer to the fight also means greater risk, as the player becomes a bigger target for the enemy.

With the exception of a few specific heroes (Widowmaker) the risk and reward scale at about the same rate with proximity to the fight.

And then there’s Valkyrie.

The risk still scales with Mercy’s proximity to the fight while using Valkyrie; the closer Mercy is to the fight, the bigger of a target she is.

The reward does not scale with Mercy’s proximity to the fight while in Valkyrie; her team is receiving the same 60 (or 50, whatever) health/second regardless as to how close Mercy is.

As Mercy gets closer to her team while in Valkyrie, the risk increases. The reward is flatlined. This then prompts the question: Why would any Mercy with even the slightest hint of common sense want to be anywhere near the fight?

Trick question. They wouldn’t. The reason to get in close in the first place is to maximize reward. If that reward vanishes and the heightened risk stays, then the obvious choice is to minimize that risk by staying as far away as possible.

On top of this, Mercy has free flight with an omnidirectional movement speed of 9 meters/second and a 30 meter beam range. Not only does the Mercy have the incentive to be as far from the fight as possible, but they also have the tools to do so with ease.

The result? The best way to play Mercy while using Valkyrie is to hide in the skybox for fifteen seconds while sitting 29 meters from the beam target. This poses very little risk and sacrifices no reward.

This would be fine if Mercy had something to do while floating halfway across the map from the fight, but Valkyrie more than takes care of that. All of the skills and nuances of Mercy’s base kit that keep the player active and engaged? Yeah, those are thrown out the window.

• Healing prioritization? AoE beams remove the need for that.
• Damage boost utilization? AoE beams also negate the need for that.
• Positioning? There aren’t really any threats to evade in the skybox, and you are already in the best position you are going to be in for the duration of the ability.
• GA discipline? You’re still in the skybox and you have free flight, remember?
• Awareness? There isn’t much of a need to pay close attention to the fight. It’s not like you would get any real benefit from doing so. Skybox and AoE beams are still a thing.

Consequently, Valkyrie treats the Mercy less like a player, and more like a game object; like a construct. It doesn’t give the player anything to do. Instead, it does everything for the player.

Are you 29 meters from the fight and holding down LMB/RMB? Congratulations! You have reached maximum capacity. That is all you will be doing for the next 14 seconds.

Naturally, an ultimate that is a borderline AFK button doesn’t feel good to use. Whereas most ultimates offer a unique change in playstyle that still demands player activity (Dragonblade, Tactical Visor), offer a brief burst of power (Earthshatter, Rocket Barrage), or leave the hero’s playstyle unchanged (Supercharger, Photon Barrier), Valkyrie transforms the player into a glorified spectator that applies flat bonuses to their team. From the player’s perspective, they aren’t helping their team; they are idle. Instead, Valkyrie is doing all of the work.

And this is a failure in game design. The player and their character’s kit are not merging as one. The player can’t take ownership for the ability and say that they helped their team; they didn’t put any effort into doing it. It was just given to them.

Participation awards and idle-execution abilities isolate the player from their character. It changes the perception from “I did this” to “This was given to me”. The player doesn’t take ownership for the actions that were supposedly theirs, and thus, they don’t feel heroic. Instead, they feel like a sidekick or a tool used to let others take the glory.

It gets worse. Not only is Valkyrie a glorified spectator with an absurdly low skill ceiling, but it isn’t powerful enough to contest other ultimates or even basic focus fire. Valkyrie may have the potential to heal at a combined rate of 300 health/second, but that healing rate is spread out evenly across 5 allies… all of whom either don’t really need it, or need more than 60 health/second to survive. As a result, most of that healing isn’t helpful, resulting in Valkyrie having a nearly identical effect on the fight as a Mercy playing at high capacity without Valkyrie. Hence the “easy-mode” stigma on the ability.

Because of Valkyrie’s inability to sustain a team, not only does the Mercy player feel idle, but they also feel utterly helpless as they watch their team get mowed down/blown up/frozen/knocked down/cut apart.

And this is the biggest problem with Valkyrie. No hero, no ability, no ultimate, should ever leave the player feeling helpless or useless. That is perhaps the worst thing that could ever happen to a playable character, and doesn’t scream anything other than developer incompetence. It contradicts the very point of active videogames in the first place: To empower the player.

Although I guess I should commend Valkyrie for what it is good at. Despite its shortcomings in impact, player engagement, and skill limitations, it is perhaps the most flexible ability in the game. No other ability in the game offers all of these options midfight:

• Showing the world how much you like the color blue by leaving a weight on Mercy’s alternate fire the entire time.
• If you are a strange person, showing the world how much you like the color yellow by leaving a weight on Mercy’s primary fire the entire time.
• Casually shooting down the enemy Pharah.
• Inspecting the ceiling textures.
• Fetching a drink from the refrigerator.
• Drinking some of that drink you pulled out of the refrigerator.
• Checking your social media (or the Overwatch Forums!).
• Petting your cat.
• Petting your dog.
• Feeding your pet fish.
• Using a laser pointer to drive your cat nuts.
• Working on homework.
• Eating a sandwich.

was scrapped during the beta for a reason. Here’s a more in-depth explanation:

@Titanium-1686

Why is this thing still an ultimate ability?

Functionality:

Valkyrie is a disgusting… pile? I’m trying to think of a good word to describe it…

Looks up synonyms for “pile”

“Conglomeration”.

Valkyrie is a disgusting conglomerate of existing abilities that were all thrown into a single ability with seemingly no regard for cohesion or player experience. There’s nothing original in Valkyrie.

Flight? Pharah has that.
Mediocre AoE healing? Hello, Moira, Lucio, and Ana.
AoE damage amplifier? Orisa.

As a result of trying to put all of these into one ability, the developers also made every ultimate that Valkyrie contends with (or tries to, anyway) simply outclass it. The ability can be summarized by “Jack of all trades, remotely sufficient in none”.

Valkyrie poses the opposite problem that Resurrect does. Rather than an ultimate placed behind a basic ability, Valkyrie is a basic ability placed behind an ultimate.

Let’s list what Valkyrie currently offers:

• Allows Mercy to fly in any direction at 9 meters/second. (5.5 is base walking speed for most heroes).
• Extends the range of Mercy’s beams from 15 meters to 30 meters.
• Extends the range of Guardian Angel from 30 meters to 50 meters.
• Mercy’s passive regeneration is no longer interrupted by damage.
• Mercy’s beams spread to all allies within 10 meters of the primary target.
• Guardian Angel’s flight speed is increased.
• Mercy’s pistol has infinite ammunition and a faster projectile speed.

If we were to cut this list down to the parts that actually have a direct influence on the fight, we would get:

• Mercy’s beams spread to all allies within 10 meters of the primary target.
• Mercy’s pistol has infinite ammunition and a faster projectile speed.

That’s it. Everything else either has no realistic use, or it just makes Mercy harder to kill… which doesn’t really matter being that she removes herself from the fight while using Valkyrie anyway.

Let’s throw these capabilities up against the ultimate abilities that are most comparable to Valkyrie: Transcendence and Supercharger.

Transcendence is very similar to the healing aspect of Valkyrie in several ways. Both heroes gain additional mobility upon activation. They both heal all five allies in a 10 meter radius around Zenyatta/the primary beam target. They both become (effectively) unkillable while using their respective ultimates. They are both unable to impact the fight in any way other than healing while healing their team with their ultimates; Zenyatta is a channeled ultimate, and Mercy is unable to heal and shoot at the same time.

What’s the difference between Transcendence and Valkyrie? Transcendence has five times the healing output (soon to be six!). Transcendence heals for 300 health/second on every target. Valkyrie heals for 60 health/second on every target. Valkyrie’s healing rate is simply blown out of the water by Transcendence.

Unfortunately, we do not have statistics that tell us exactly how much healing Mercy is doing through Valkyrie, but we do know that Mercy’s overall healing output really isn’t much higher than it was pre-rework. As of the day I am typing this (August 7th), Mercy’s average healing output is 12085. Her pre-rework healing numbers were around 11900. If we were to just assume that Valkyrie’s introduction is the only thing responsible for the current statistic, we would only be able to say that Valkyrie provides a bonus 200 healing/game on average. In contrast, Zenyatta averages 2259 Transcendence healing/game.

Supercharger is one of three ultimates that increase a player’s damage output, the other ones being Valkyrie and Nano-Boost. Its visuals are similar to the visuals of Valkyrie’s damage amplification beam, and both ultimates amplify the damage of all allies in an area around the Supercharger/primary beam target.

The similarities stop there, and just about every difference between the two abilities favors Supercharger over Valkyrie. For starters, Supercharger has fire-and-forget mechanics. Orisa can deploy it and resume playing as usual, as she does not need to channel the damage beams for them to be active. In contrast, Mercy becomes the supercharger, effectively removing the team’s main healer from the fight while she channels her damage beams. Furthermore, not only does Orisa get to participate in the fight while her ultimate is active, but she also receives the damage benefits from her own damage amplification. Valkyrie is five players and one buff dispenser; Supercharger is six players and one buff dispenser.

As if another source of damage was not enough for Supercharger to outclass Valkyrie’s damage amplifier, Supercharger also increases the damage of all affected targets by 50%, instead of Valkyrie’s 30%. On top of this, it also has a substantially larger AoE radius than Valkyrie; 25 meters. The one downside Supercharger has in comparison to Valkyrie is that it needs to be protected, but considering the rest of Orisa’s kit, that isn’t terribly difficult. She has her barrier to cover it and her hitbox is a good size to body-block enemies from attacking the drum, especially with Fortify to help her do so. The only good options there are to destroy the Supercharger are to flank or to get in close… neither of which are great ideas when the entire enemy team is dealing 150% of their normal damage output.

So… Valkyrie is totally outclassed in both the healing and damage amplification categories by other ultimates. Not only does the ability not have anything unique to its name, but it is simply worse in every category than its ultimate counterparts.

Valkyrie is really just a basic ability. Compare its impact to that of other supports’ basic abilities and that becomes clear:

• Amp It Up (healing aura): 46.8 health/second to all allies within 10 meters of Lucio. Lucio can shoot while this ability is active.
• Biotic Grenade: An instant 100 health when used on allies, along with a lingering healing amplification. When used on enemies, it deals 60 damage and leaves a lingering status effect that negates all healing received by those affected. Fire-and-forget mechanics. 4 meter blast radius.
• Orb of Discord: Increases the damage received by one enemy target by 30%. Fire-and-forget mechanics, allowing Zenyatta to both deal damage and heal while his Discord Orb is active. (Virtually) Endless duration and can be retargeted at will when provided line of sight and a 30 meter proximity. 3-second decay time when target leaves range and/or vision.

Give Valkyrie a 3 second duration and slap a 12 second cooldown on it (beginning after the duration ends), and you have a nice basic ability.

But that’s not what the developers wanted. Instead, for reasons never provided, they wanted to take the pile of dung that they scrapped in the alpha stages of the game (citation ) and slap it into the game as Mercy’s ultimate. How did they do this?

They extended its duration 20 seconds.

@HealBus-11939

She now has the ability to make big game changing plays by using her Pool very wisely during key moments and engagements.

Quite the opposite really. This is reflected by her appaling on-fire rate. That aside, Valkyrie can’t make any plays unless you go full throttle DPS mode. It’s just easy mode. Resurrect on E, because of its restrictions, is almost impossible to use during the fight and is therefore almost always used before or after a fight. That being said, if pulled of during a fight, it can prove to be quite play making. I’ll give it that.

As for the rest of her kit, it’s pretty self explanatory tbh.

[HealBus-11939]

@Arceus-2238

Think again. It was historically underpowered for most of its existence and only became remotely viable after the invulnerability patch.

@Arceus-2238

Valkyrie is a disgusting conglomerate that should’ve never existed

So are there any reasons as to why moving Res to a pool mechanic isn’t going to fix these problems.

@Arceus-2238

Valkyrie can’t make any plays unless you go full throttle DPS mode.

I personally have used Valk many times to initiate, gain and hold as well as halt an enemy. If you consider a 30% DMG buff to the entire team unable to facilitate plays then i’m going to have to stop there and question that.

@Arceus-2238

This is reflected by her appaling on-fire rate

Right, so that’s just another opportunity to fix her. They could buff her fire rate, and once she’s on fire this could be reflected by an increase in passive charging of Res pool.

I am really convinced there is plenty of wiggle room here.

[Arceus-2238]

@HealBus-11939

So are there any reasons as to why moving Res to a pool mechanic isn’t going to fix these problems.

No idea what that is.

@HealBus-11939

I personally have used Valk many times to initiate, gain and hold as well as halt an enemy. If you consider a 30% DMG buff to the entire team unable to facilitate plays then i’m going to have to stop there and question that.

I mean, that’s just you enabling your team to make a play + if I wanted to do that, I would’ve just went Orisa.

[Sparhawk-1917]

It’s worth noting that Orisa gets to continue playing the game while boosting her team 50%.

[Ruby-24887]

I find it hard to believe that Jeff has as many hours on Reinhardt as he does and he’s somehow in the state he’s in.

[HealBus-11939]

@Arceus-2238

No idea what that is.

Play Moira.

@Arceus-2238

I mean, that’s just you enabling your team to make a play

@Arceus-2238

That aside, Valkyrie can’t make any plays

That’s a really interesting perspective there.

[Arceus-2238]

@HealBus-11939

Play Moira.

No, explain it.

@HealBus-11939

That’s a really interesting perspective there.

It can’t. It just enables others to do so.

[failbender-1105]

@Mitrovarr-1405

The problem is, I think a lot of Mercy mains only enjoyed her because she was overpowered, in whole or in part. And they won’t ever enjoy her unless she is again.

You may find this hard to believe, but it was downright embarrassing to play Mercy when she was OP. It was fun for like a week and then it’s like, “uhhh this can literally never be shut down”. I remember seeing a Reddit post with a D.Va who got rezzed I think 3 times in a row because the Mercy just swooped in, rezzed, and flew off. That’s bonkers unbalanced.

The only thing I enjoyed about the six month Mercy Meta that no one wanted was when I’d pick her, someone would say “oh thank god I can play a support I actually like”.

[Kara-12571]

They can’t show bias towards one her they have to please others

People wanted Mass rez gone Mercy mains wanted and E they didn’t want to get rid of rez so they tried to do what no human has ever done please everyone and well you can see how that went

[Virticonttv-1989]

Fun is pretty subjective. I think shes a blast.

[LiteningWolf-1173]

Mercy has A healing beam A god damn healing beam only dedicated to healing and should have less healing GTFOH.

[SpringRocker-1446]

I’m getting really tired of people crying and complaining about Mercy needing nerfs reverted/rebuffed. Halve the heroes have actually been ignored or “buffed” in the way of nerfs.

Mercy has always been and still is a solid choice, she doesn’t need to be the best at everything.

EDIT: However, who knows. People complained about Brig being too strong so much that the devs caved in and nerfed her.

[InTheDesert-1983]

Not trying to be rude but I’m going to be extremely rude