Fun fact: That is true of literally every hero in the game, and Mercy is statistically better than over 50% of the hero base in both scenarios.
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mercy is a pretty reasonable character, actually. it’s just that she isn’t supremely overpowered like ana or baptiste.
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I think thats pretty bad considering its already a downtime of 3.5 seconds from healing that’s a potential of 150 healing lost, plus Mercy has always had problems survivng resurrect even when it was instant and aoe.
Just look at this:
July 19, 2016
General
Hero Balance Change
- Resurrect
- Ultimate charge cost increased by 30%
- Movement is no longer prevented during activation
- Guardian Angel instantly resets upon use
Developer Notes
Mercy’s ultimate is one of the most powerful abilities in the game; however, players would often fly into the fray and die while using it. With this update, Resurrect will now take a bit longer to charge, but Mercy will be a lot safer when activating the ability in the middle of combat.
So originally despite not having a cast time it would stop Mercy’s movement for less than a second and that was problematic. She was still dying so they did this change next;
September 1, 2016
Hero Balance Update
- Caduceus Staff
- Healing Beam
- Healing-per-second has been increased by 20%
- Resurrect
- Resurrected allies will be able to maneuver after 2.25 seconds (reduced from 3 seconds)
Developer Comments
Resurrection now allows teammates to jump back into the fight more quickly, which should help Mercy survive after activating her ultimate. Mercy’s healing is also getting a boost to solidify her role as a strong, single-target healer.
Mind you this was a time when Resurrect was INSTANT and the amount of damage in the game was no where near as high as it is now.
Even so, Mercy’s were still dying although I think it was fine, if you wanted to get a big rez there had to be some risk, but the developers felt that apparently Mercy should be able to bring everyone back and not suffer the consequences of resurrecting in front of the entire enemy team.
Thankfully, they seem to have realized the problem with this but theyve made current resurrect have the exact same problems as before by nerfing it even harder even though the behaviours they disliked about the ultimate still exist and are forced upon Mercy.
The last change was the most controversial and has led to the most problems because it created an uncounterable ultimate:
February 28th, 2017
Hero Updates
- Resurrect
- While performing a resurrection, Mercy now becomes temporarily invulnerable along with the allies being revived
Developer Comments
Mercy’s Resurrect has always been very powerful, but it often forces her to sacrifice herself to use it well. There have been changes in the past that attempted to help her in this area, but haven’t done enough to solve it. This change means that once she uses the ability, she will always survive long enough to be with her team again.
It was only OP because of the Resurrect refreshes and charges that Valkyrie gave.
Had they removed that altogether and just made it so Resurrect was always a static 30 seconds as it is now, it would have been fine. They never tried it though and its probably not going to happen.
Best thing to do is either remove Resurrect altogether since it can’t be balanced as an ability without destroying the other element of mercy that is defining (her mobility) and reintroducing the same problems of the past that led to many buffs.
Resurrect does not need a refresh, it already goes unused in the only time it can really change a fight and thats right in the middle of one.
Doing so and you’ll likely end up dead, have the person you rezzed end up dead again, have the person you rezzed and yourself die (which comicallly leads to a potg triple kill a lot) or both of you plus someone else that died while you were resurrecting.
It needs to go, its not iconic to Mercy anymore. Its an ability that is used less than most ultimates including Mercy’s over the course of a game.
The same argument that was made about Reaper’s Shadowstep can be said about Resurrect.
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While I do see your point, it’s more of Rez in Valk, when it was instant and lowered CD was shown to be fairly broken.
We have yet to try this though. Rez right now is seen as both enhanced and not enhanced by Mercy players. Some say it is with the lower movement penalty, while other don’t consider it (example, Niandra doesn’t consider Rez as enhanced while in Valk).
If improvements need to be made then let them-however I would just like to see how this change would affect on how Valk is used then. Getting an extra Rez through either a cancelled rez, or an ally being taken down as you perform it could help bring a bit more “impact and power” to Valk that it’s currently lacking.
Or just remove chain beams and let Mercy use some target selection.
Increase her skill cap for once.
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I don’t even think it was that, it was primarily the way resurrect interacted with Valkyrie that made it overpowered. They went straight from introducing a cast time outside of valk and keep valk with 2 charges when I think they shouldve tested having instant resurrect at a 30 second cooldown that is static.
Problem is I’m sure it wont be tested because people will just call it op, but when the devs first reworked her and Kaplan talked in the dev update, he said that it has a long coooldown of 30 seconds specifically so that she wont be resurrecting people often, and while that wasnt true because of how it interacted with Valkyrie, it could be tried.
I think the best buffs Mercy could get that dont affect her balance at all but rather make her better in the hands of experienced players is the ability to cancel Resurrect and Valkyrie (which i think should be extended to all heroes with a transformation or channeled ultimate).
I understand that, but it goes against the wishes of the developers to keep Resurrect seperately from Valkyrie. Although like the changes to Mercy pre-rework that mindset may have changed seeing as how they went completely backwards on Mercy survivng resurrect and buffing it even when it was instant and aoe.
I just don’t think its what she needs.
If you’re interested in a more detailed read, I made a post a while back that for the most part is still relevant to my current opinions except that I would probably remove chain beams in valkyrie
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/yet-another-mercy-thread/355676
Ah yes, remove more from a glorified ability that does almost nothing in a team fight
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Yes, lets remove what covers for skill and give something skillful instead.
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or you can make the main beam do more healing and damage boost so that we buff her instead of absolutely kill her off 
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Oh geez you’re a genius, who would have thought that removing chains beams would be a way to buff the main beam.
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I meant keep the chain beam and make the main beam stronger , thanks for calling me smart
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You’re not smart if you think chains beams are fine.
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well that’s a little rude now isn’t it , I could say the same to you. chain beans are the only thing that make Valkyrie good other than that it’s a glorified spectator camera with no impact on the fight whatsoever. it’s supposed to be offensive and unifying. making the beams chain is what gives it the offensive power it needs
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You set the tone of this conversation with your amazing sarcasm.
Chain beams are the biggest part of what makes Valkyrie a glorified spectator mode.
The entire point of getting rid of such horrible skill-covering bullcrap powers is to inject impact back into the players hands through skilful powers.
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I have a dual wielding mercy concept, just hear me out, i know its a little far fetched but it’s just an idea. Rez moves to the ult slot with no invunerability and Valk is removed. Her pistol is now in her right hand and her staff is in her left, she can use both at once, but damage boost is removed and she gets an ability instead. The ability is her shooting through her staff to heal a long range target. She still has GA. Thoughts?
It’s also deppends on how fun the character is ofcourse…
but I see your point about pick rate and win rate
To be honest makes a lot of sense to me… a good hero is all about synergy and countering…
Playing Brig against Bastion-Junkrat is a suicide.
Another example is playing Moira against long range composition with snipers or turrets…
any role has it’s time to shine and thats how to game should and was intented to go… sure some have more use then others but every hero has a special time where he’s a must pick…
As for Mercy just like you wount run lucio with Bastion. you dont run Mercy with heroes like Winston or Zarya that wount get enough value from it…
Mercy is kind of in the middle, she provides a lot of healing with the right pairing but also a lot of utility. her job at the team is embracing medium-long range burst heroes by damage boost.
if widow gets picked mercy can easily rez her without any risk bringing tons of value.
but since long range heroes usually try to avoid damage and want to keep their distance she cant be full job main healer but cant be offhealer as well.
when the fight gets to close range usually her medium healing is enough to help her team finish the enemies in close range.
Because of that she works best with heroes like Zen,Brig & Baptiste that have similiar use.
Personally I found her ult boring because she really doesnt gain anything new from it…
it’s just super mercy, same thing as her normal form but slightly better…
Her ult is not even good, you cant pop it in order to save your team or use it in a way that can change battle that much… it’s usually a small buff and that’s it.
I don’t think the hero is bad herself. but take in mind most of her best counterpart are now in a really bad position…
Junkrat & Bastion are pretty bad right now,especially after the shield nerfs they became useless since every hero can break shields as fast as them.
Sure, she an be good with ashe & Pharah.
but Ashe is just worse than any other option most of the time, and Pharah is really her only good pair up in the current meta…
Especially with Orisa being out of the roaster the heroes she works well with will not be used at all…
In conclusion in my opinion the hero is good but has a fairly bad ultimate and her best pairings count as F tier picks…
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I hate the statement this isn’t her meta, while Ana gets to have 5 meta’s almost in a row.
I don’t know if mercy is bad, or Ana is too good, but that is another topic.
OPINION WARNING
I think having a hero who is an extension of another character is not a good game choice. There was a forum about this subject, and almost no Mercy mains enjoyed the new pocketing style of her hero.
Every hero should be an individual and able to work on their own. This is the reason I despise Bastion. To get value, he needs the comp to play around him, which is selfish. I find Pharah to be another example of a hero who requires a Mercy at higher ranks because she won’t survive against the hitscan. I think this is also a stupid thing. Ashe, Bastion, and Pharah should be stand alone heroes along with Mercy.
They all should be separated completely and made into a hero who can function without being the pocket or needing a pocket. I think this speaks wonders on how Bastion, Ashe, and Pharah are terribly balanced due to this.
If Mercy was reworked to be a main healing beam juggler, and had angelic decent removed, Pharah, and Ashe could stand to see more buffs without becoming busted due to their association with Mercy. Mercy is solo handedly holding back these dps, because of the pocket nature of her character.
Opinion over
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caduceus staff
- heals increase from 50hps to 55hps
Valkyrie
- Beam no longer disconnects upon activation
- ability to self cancel Valkyrie so you can start charging up for a new one faster
Please devs this is literally all mercy needs to make her a viable main healer again and not just a pocket bot
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If they are gonna keep her as a pocket healer, just remove the chain heals or make them different, some ideas:
Babysitter mode:
-Remove chain beams in valk.
-While in valk healing beam and damage boost beam are combined ( white beam to make it look different?)
-1 fast or insta rez (only on valk, no extra charge nor cooldown reset/reduction)
-Weird idea:
(some damge or cc reduction or similar on the target to compensate for less total healing)
New valk:
-Keeps chain beams.
-Main beam 80 hps(?), chain beams 30 hps(?)
Just some ideas.
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i kinda like the combine both healing beams and buff beams into one idea, means you wouldnt have to buff her hps and she can constantly use both her most useful abilites at the same time (healing and buff)
then make her right click pistol shot, would help her tons since she wouldnt have to have that .5 second delay in switching weapons