Mercy DOES NOT need a Rework

[BattleMercy-1705]

I still prefer another rework involving the removal of Resurrect or a rework involving mass Res. This iteration of Mercy, in my opinion, can’t be fixed. Also, I really hate Valkyrie.

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𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽

Spreading positivity and ice cream, one Mercy at a time.

[S3GMEN-2325]

Obviously they would need to balance it out so Mercy cannot rez someone every second? And it still could have a cooldown but you could make the cooldownahorter by doing more work? So, if a match is going really bad, the Mercy would still have Rez, but not as much as she would if everything was going alright. I am trying to find ways to make Ressurect more skillbased and rewarding so players stop feeling like a bot when rezzing or healing their team

And also, I am not saying that people should fly to the other end of the map while using Valk. It should be an option, but not a must. And to be honest with you, other than Junkertown there aren’t many maps with very long sightlines either so that wouldn’t really be an issue. Making the beam longer would be great so Mercy can at least move freely and doesn’t has to worry about her beam breaking.

[HyenaHeart-1307]

If the sole purpose was to make Mercy more engaging, she literally does need a rework. I would not go that far myself. It is preferred; however, I would probably be fine if they just reverted 60 HPS. Maybe make rez instant again. If she can only do it once, I do not really care if the counter play is to kill her.

[S3GMEN-2325]

Well, we are trying to find solutions to make you like Valkyrie and find reasons why you hate it.

[jokerpenguin-2763]

Instead of one mega-bean during valk, i would suggest buffing the main beam (the one before “spreading”).
By this way, she could heal/boost all her team during valk, but also could prioritize her targets, making her less passive during ult duration

[BattleMercy-1705]

@S3GMEN-2325

Well, we are trying to find solutions to make you like Valkyrie

I’m probably never going to like Valkyrie since I despise the concept of it; Chain heals and flight.

Titanium sums it up well too:

@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.

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.

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𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽

Spreading positivity and ice cream, one Mercy at a time.

[S3GMEN-2325]

At this point I don’t think Blizzard will remove Ressurect. It’s such an important ability for Mercy and is pretty much what makes her unique. It even has involved her Ressurection abilities in her story. I think Ressurect has been around for too long to be removed

[Ashwynn-2955]

Mercy does need a rework. Not a revert. Going from broken to broken isn’t a solution to anything.

When it comes to your ideas:
Rez on charge… sounds like an ultimate doesn’t it? It’s not like she is doing anything else than heals most of the time so having two different charge meters powered by the same actions? Yeah… that doesn’t make any sense.
Valkyrie idea… As a Mercy - I hate the range on Valk already. It makes you completely disengaged from the fight. If her survivability in the Valk became a pproblem, buff the Valk self heal.

But better yet… just remove the Valkyrie. It was scrapped in Beta for a good reason. It’s a horrible design as an ultimate. Everyone’s ultimate is a “LETS GO HAM” button just Mercy has an “afk mode” ultimate. It’s just bad. She needs to stay close into the fight and deal with her range problem by mobility.

[CuppaJo-11973]

Well, some valid reasons to not like Valk are:

• You don’t do anything new or anything better(at least not in a relevant way).

60 HPS during a teamfight doesn’t help much because any focus fire or burst damage exceeds and kills your allies. DMG Boost in AoE is nice but you are a main healer, and since your average heals already don’t cut it during the fight, you can’t afford not being healing your team.

• Valk removes Mercy’s Risk/Reward factor.

Mercy’s trademark is being in the middle of the fight, dashing from ally to ally avoiding damage. With Valk that fun aspect of her gameplay is out of the window. You just fly high avoiding most damage. Its boring and contradicts her game-flow.

• Valk doesn’t feel powerful.

Compared to other healer ults, Valk feels very unimpactful. The healing isn’t strong(Zen’s is 300), the DMG Boost isn’t strong(Orisas’s is 50%), Ress has 0 upgrades, flying is slow, the most powerful part of her ult is her gun and that’s not a compliment.

[S3GMEN-2325]

That’s why my plan was to remove the chainheals and make her just overall stronger while using Valkyrie

[BattleMercy-1705]

That’s why my plan was to remove the chainheals and make her just overall stronger while using Valkyrie

I still have a problem with flight. Then there’s the issues highlighted by Titanium.

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𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽

Spreading positivity and ice cream, one Mercy at a time.

[WarriorPoet-21919]

Every 30 seconds regardless of performance, is a good feature otherwise one team just starts snowballing the other team due to the other Mercy not being able to perform.

[Silentstrike-1319]

If we’re not reworking, I like the idea overall, but would not like to see beam length increased. That is the most boring part about the ult. I want a risk/reward for being closer or in the fight. You’re actively helping the fight, but you’re not actively helping IN the fight. You’re off in the sky box safe and sound or behind a wall to avoid ults. The difference with Mass Res in this instance is that once you ressed, you were dedicated to that fight, all or nothing and you had to fight tooth and nail which was exciting. Survival is exciting. Longer beams doesn’t achieve that. (I’m not advocating for Mass Res. I’m just giving an example of why it felt more exciting to use in this one example - the fight to survive after you ult)

Personally, I HAAAATTTTEEEEEE Valkyrie and want nothing but to see it added to the “removed” section of the Wiki. I would even get rid of res if that meant Valk never returned either. I would personally love another rework over any form of tweaks to Mercy with Valkyrie. I don’t NEED res, but I know I do NOT WANT Valkyrie, and would gladly give up both to get rid of Valk.

[Dva-21640]

Valkyrie is the most rushed rework in the entire game.

The developers didn’t even have a voiceline or proper sound effects when it was put on the PTR. It wasn’t even properly internally tested evident in the ability to resurrect 30-40 players a match. What complete idiot thinks that’s balanced? Ban me if you want, it doesn’t take a 600 IQ player to know that reviving anywhere above 20 people on average in a match is beyond broken.

For that reason alone it needs to be removed. Clearly not enough time or attention to detail was put into its inception.

[Silentstrike-1319]

To piggy back off of this, if you’re able to think of a change to Valk to add risk/reward being closer to your team or to the enemy team, I would be more happy. But more healing being closer to your team (as recommended before) doesn’t sound exciting or fun. But who knows? It could be in practice?

[Qwazi-2242]

There is absolutely no point in making any form of suggestions for change if it involves anything beyond just tweaking some numbers. Blizzard is not going to get off their behinds and spend the work necessary for doing any elaborate changes. If you do not find Mercy to be fun now then you’ll never find Mercy to be fun again. Giving constructive feedback is pointless and a waste of time

[Chinclucker-1410]

If people are using Valkyrie as an “afk mode,” if anything they’re not using it in the intended way. Whenever I use Valkyrie, I hover above my teammates and shoot enemies on the ground, or chain-heal them. But honestly, a faraway Mercy would be annoying, but definitely not as bad as how badly abused Mass Rez was.

[Domqe-1339]

Your title and description don’t go together.
What you’re suggesting is a small rework, but still a rework. (Changing how valk works), and that’s good.

The problem is that res would also remain the most clunky feeling ability. I would rather res revive someone with 50% HP, than for it to remain with that awfully long cast time.

[Nandalee-2753]

Mercy has always been the pocket healer.

Mercy is a main healer for the entire team not a single persons sidekick.

Mercy is a pockethealer, and her Ultimate shouldn’t change it.

Her support ultimate should be for the entire team. Do you even know how boring it is to stick to a Pharah or whoever else all game long? It should be encouraged to fly around with her and heal everyone and not boost a single player. Thats Mercys job as a main healer to keep the team alive and not just the carry.

[S3GMEN-2325]

What do you think about my idea then? Since I suggest something that no healer Ultimate can do. Healing single targets with a high H/s and boosting them with a strong (strongest so far) damageboost