Mercy is DEAD. Can we FIX her now!?

[DvaSlaysEU-2809]

I don’t like this idea. Big reworks have a very high chance of being super unbalanced and ruining the game. 55 hp/s is completely safe and can’t possibly result in wildly broken balance. I like the second one better.

I respect that. After all, whether you like something or not is just an opinion.

[Mitrovarr-1405]

Yeah, taste arguments are subjective. I would both rather play the current Mercy and play into the current Mercy than Mercy 1.0. I think a lot of it is just investment people had in Mercy 1.0.

[Mrat13-2812]

So like, no rez at all? That would be really underpowered, worse than 50 hp/s.

make it an ultimate Again or just replace it.

Hide and rez. Did it all the time. Won me so many games.

Pure luck dude. That only thing that strategy abused was the SR system (which was fixed a month before her rework went live). Hide n Res was a garbage strategy. This is coming from someone with 800 hours on Mercy across all my accounts and has been GM since season 3.

Asking for a revert is what is killing any chance at helping Mercy. Stop it, for Mercy’s sake.

Also, if it was any other hero or ability that I abused, you’d say it was broke, but cos it’s Mercy, I must somehow be lucky. Nice logic there lol.

[Selauriel-1801]

Asking for a revert is what is killing any chance at helping Mercy. Stop it, for Mercy’s sake.

Also, if it was any other hero or ability that I abused, you’d say it was broke, but cos it’s Mercy, I must somehow be lucky. Nice logic there lol.

A lot of people used hide and resurrect because it was a perfectly valid strategy but it was extremely frustrating to play against which is why it was removed. People who tell you it was “luck” are just saying that because they liked Mass Resurrect.

[MizuKun-11878]

What about a single, instant rez for her ultimate? This would make it more fluid to use for the player, while potentially reducing the number of rezzes in a match.

[DvaSlaysEU-2809]

@Mrat13-2812

Asking for a revert is what is killing any chance at helping Mercy. Stop it, for Mercy’s sake.

I’m sorry, I don’t remember ever asking for a revert. This is the rework I want:

@Titanium-1686

r than waiting for an ally to rejoin the fight after being killed and revived.

New Basic Ability - Pacify:

• After a .5 second wind-up, Mercy launches a single hitscan attack from her left hand.
• The projectile’s hitbox size resembles that of Symmetra’s secondary fire.
• The projectile deals no damage upon impact with an enemy. Instead, it applies a debuff that reduces the base damage dealt by the target by 33%. 100 damage is reduced to 67 damage before other damage amplifiers/reductions are factored in.
• This debuff lasts for 4 seconds.
• The projectile does not persist once it hits an enemy. It is only able to affect one enemy for each use.
• The projectile is blocked by barriers, Defense Matrix, and Particle Barriers. It can be deflected by Genji’s Deflect ability.
• 10 second cooldown. The cooldown begins after the ability is cast.
• There is a .25 second wind-down time after Pacify is launched.
• During the wind-up and wind-down times, Mercy is not able to use her staff, her pistol, or Resurrect. She may use Guardian Angel, however.
• Does not affect non-player entities and constructs (turrets, Rip-Tire, Supercharger, etc).

@Mrat13-2812

Also, if it was any other hero or ability that I abused, you’d say it was broke, but cos it’s Mercy, I must somehow be lucky. Nice logic there lol.

You are saying you abused it because of “Hide n Res”. In actuality, you abused nothing except a SR system and just got really lucky or was always against bad teammates because it has been statistically and theoretically proven that “Hide n Res” was an one way ticket to losing the fight. Also, here, hold this:

@Titanium-1686

These two reasons can be summarized by “Hide and rez” and “Resurrect didn’t feel good to play against” . I will start with the latter of those two reasons, as it can be undermined and pulled apart in fewer words.

“Resurrect didn’t feel good to play against” . The first and most obvious question to ask at this point is, “What ultimate, when used to any benefit of the enemy team, is fun to play against?”

Last I checked, being blown up by Rocket Barrage, sliced apart by Dragonblade, frozen by Blizzard, denied by Transcendence, nuked by Self-Destruct, or knocked down by Earthshatter, does not feel good. This is a PvP game; “disheartening to play against”, “frustrating to play against”, or “unfun to play against” are a given for at least one team for part of each match, or the game wouldn’t be empowering for the other team… and thus, wouldn’t be enjoyable. Using this as a reason to change a balanced mechanic isn’t justifiable, unless the same can be said about every other ability in the game. Otherwise, it is simply a double-standard that reveals favoritism.

The second rhetorical question to ask is, “Does it feel better to play against a hero that has been a must-pick for nearly a year?”

Would you prefer to play against a character that resembles every other hero in that their ultimate is annoying to deal with, or would you rather play against a hero that is objectively overpowered, has been nearly a win condition for far too long, and still has an annoying ultimate?

Shall we dive into a bit of player perspective philosophy?

Unless the hero is a balance concern, Player 2’s perception of Player 1’s character isn’t relevant. It is given that Player 2’s perception of Player 1’s character is likely negative when playing against Player 1. On the other hand, Player 1’s perception of Player 1’s character is not a given in any videogame. For the videogame to be successful, Player 1’s perception of their own character, or how it feels to play their own character, needs to be positive. If that perception is negative, players will stop playing. As a result, Player 1’s experience with Player 1’s character is infinitely more important than Player 2’s perception of Player 1’s character.

In short, a player needs to feel empowered by their own actions. The player does not need to feel empowered, and in a PvP game, should not and will not feel empowered, by the actions of their opponents.

Player 1’s experience with Player 1’s character was breached and disregarded when Blizzard tried to make Player 2’s perception of Player 1’s hero positive… which they also failed to do. By attempting to change that which neither needed to be changed nor could be changed, the balance team tampered with something that should never be altered.

Moving onto “Hide and rez” …

“We think it’s wrong to tell a main-healing character to go off and hide somewhere and stop healing for some period of time.”

But it is fine for a main-damage character to go off and hide somewhere and stop dealing damage for some period of time, like many heroes currently do in preparation for an ultimate?

In actuality, you are right; just not for the reason you think you are. You are correct because hiding was maladaptive for the team’s chance of victory, and therefore was a bad way to play her. Allow me to explain this in an even more elaborate manner than my past few megaposts.

The success of a mass-Resurrection (4+ revived players) depended upon several factors:

• The Mercy’s ability to survive and execute the ability in the first place (the obvious one).
• The number of players alive on each team after the Resurrection.
• The number of available ultimates held by each team after the Resurrection (but primarily the enemy team).
• The shock value of Resurrect against the enemy (by far the most important factor for the post-rez fight).

The last factor is more important than the other two post-rez factors because it determines what other factors need to advantage the Mercy in order to have a good chance at a successful Resurrection. As the enemy team is given time to reorganize and fire their first attacks at the newly Resurrected team, they would already have a positioning advantage and the first shot… that is, if the team was expecting the Resurrection.

If the enemy team is expecting the Resurrection, they will have the post-rez advantages of the first shot and additional positioning time. Of course, this is a very bad situation to be in for the newly revived team, requiring some very strong advantages of their own to compensate and have a chance at winning the fight. In this case, they would need both the numbers advantage and the ultimate ability advantage.

If the enemy team isn’t expecting the Resurrection, then the Mercy could probably get by with either the numbers advantage or the ultimate advantage and still have a chance at winning, as the enemy team might not capitalize on their positioning and first shot opportunities as well as they should due to the shock value of Resurrect.

How does “Hide and rez” fit into all of this, you might ask? Hiding before the fight removes the possibility of having enough of those advantages against the enemy team in the post-rez fight, and therefore any chance of a victorious post-rez fight against any team of similar skill.

Hiding leaves the initial fight to a 5v6, the missing hero on the Mercy’s team being the main healer and primary source of sustain. Obviously, this is a huge advantage for the team of 6 in the first fight, allowing them to steamroll over Mercy’s team with likely zero casualties, and ultimate expenditures used only to counter any of the opposition’s ultimates. On top of this, the team of 6 also now collectively has 2000-3000 more ultimate charge from killing 5 players in addition to any healing dealt over the duration of that fight. Thus, it hands the ultimate ability advantage to the team opposing the Mercy.

The opposing team, assuming they are paying even the slightest attention to what is happening around them, would notice that the enemy is crumbling very easily for a supposed 6v6, raising suspicions as to whether or not the fight really is a 6v6, quickly leading to the realization that the enemy Mercy is missing from the fight. From this, only one conclusion could logically be drawn; she’s waiting to use Resurrect. There goes the ultimate’s shock value.

At this point, even if the team of 6 somehow managed to sustain 2 casualties in the initial fight, it won’t matter. If both teams entered the fight with the same number of ultimates, the team that does not have the hiding Mercy has at least two more ultimates than the other team (2000+ ultimate charge, Mercy’s team used Resurrect). One or two offensive ultimates is the absolute maximum a team needs to wipe a freshly-revived team when they are expecting the Resurrection, resulting in the revived team staring down the barrel of a gun they have no chance of avoiding.

In contrast, a Mercy who stays with her team keeps the fight at a 6v6, granting her team more sustain and forcing the enemy to expend ultimates to overpower them. Once the ultimates started firing, the mercy would distance themselves from the fight, evade, or take cover, laying down pistol fire or amplifying damage rather than attempting to heal those for whom healing would be useless. As a result, the enemy was less likely to realize that Mercy has Resurrect (the enemy was comparatively difficult to kill, removing the prompt to think about why they were crumbling easily in the first place), Mercy’s team was more likely to pick off a few enemies, and Mercy has successfully baited more ultimates from the enemy team. As a result, her team has more advantages and fewer disadvantages in the post-rez fight.

The only cost to staying with the team was an increased chance of being picked off before being able to revive the team, which just follows the same risk choice explained in the Resurrect section; if taking more controllable risks now helps to mitigate the high risk later, then taking those smaller risks now is safer than not in the long run.

Consequently, reviving a team after hiding typically resulted in a second wipe, while staying with the team until it was unsafe to do so was more likely to yield favorable results. That is why it was “wrong to tell a main-healing character to go off and hide somewhere” . It was a bad tactic, as it usually backfired.

Rather than letting the issue resolve itself by fixing the SR exploit that ultimately led to the tactic’s rise in the first place, the developers decided to remove Resurrect as an ultimate entirely. They changed the thing that wasn’t the problem, and ended up pissing off the playerbase.

Sound familiar?

Anyway, I’ve used this example many times before, but removing Resurrect as an ultimate because some players abandoned their team leading to a second wipe is equivalent to removing Rocket Barrage as an ultimate because Pharah players too often blew themselves up with it. There’s no need to intervene; the tactic will die out on its own, so long as the ranking system isn’t feeding it.

Ironically, the rework ended up only replacing one tactic of hiding with another. This time, however, the is no drawback to it, making the tactic beneficial. Valkyrie is best used by pressing Q and then flying the hell away, barely staying within beam range of the team. Doing this minimizes risk, but compromises no rewards. A Mercy playing closer to her team in Valkyrie is not helping her team any more than a Mercy 29 meters from her team, and is only exposing herself to enemy fire. Consequently, staying as far as possible from the fight for Valkyrie’s full duration is the way to go.

[Mitrovarr-1405]

That would be way more underpowered than her current state, 60 hp or not.

Also I really don’t get all the hate for valkyrie. I don’t play Mercy a lot, but when I have Valk feels fine as an ult to me. It’s a lot like coalescence, another ult people inexplicably dislike.

[DvaSlaysEU-2809]

Also I really don’t get all the hate for valkyrie. I don’t play Mercy a lot, but when I have Valk feels fine as an ult to me. It’s a lot like coalescence, another ult people inexplicably dislike.

It’s a jack of all trades, remotely insufficient in none.

[MizuKun-11878]

Then they could give her a new E. Something that can be used with GA, solidifying her role as a mobile, consistent healer. Something like a “fly to beam target” that has its own cool down.

Valk is one of those ultimates that: If you lost the team fight, it’s because valk couldn’t do enough. OR if you did win, you probably could have won without it. The only way it could have any sort of impact is if you hunt down the enemy Widow, and even that is risky because you aren’t healing.

But that’s just my opinion.

Also, I love using coalescence. It’s really good to keep the push going, seeing how fast it charges.

[Silentstrike-1319]

Statistically, it wasn’t. It actually underperforms compared to Mercy now.

She has the same, if not more resurrects per game now than she had with the ultimate, as well as having another ultimate on top of that that largely inflated her survival. Her average deaths also went down, which is the problem. A dead support is a huge advantage for your team, especially with it being the main support. With her average deaths being lowered, that means she’s even more strong and reliable.

As an ultimate is actually balanced her power and survival/reliability. With what she has now is what threw her balance off.

[Mitrovarr-1405]

Valk is one of those ultimates that: If you lost the team fight, it’s because valk couldn’t do enough. OR if you did win, you probably could have won without it. The only way it could have any sort of impact is if you hunt down the enemy Widow, and even that is risky because you aren’t healing.

But that’s just my opinion.

I think people don’t give any credit to just how strong Valk is. It’s a pocket mercy for the entire team! That’s freaking huge! And if you don’t need healing, bam, pocket damage boost mercy for the entire team. That’s better than supercharger by a mile. Plus you get huge survivability on top of it and some offensive capability. And it lasts for ages!

Yeah, it’s a jack of all trades, but versatility is hardly a bad thing.

[Cyx-11704]

That’s such a stupid argument. So Mercy isn’t allowed to haver her moment to shine because she’s not as difficult to play as other supports? Give me a break.

I don’t know if you remember, but she had her moment of shine for an entire year. What about Ana? She can’t have her moment of shine at all because you’re too selfish and want your hero to be the optimal pick in every situation?
& that’s exactly how it should be.
If a hero is harder to play than another hero, the more difficult hero should get more value.

And countless Mercy mains have been switching to another support because, as stated, we absolutely hate playing her right now.

Okay? I’m a Roadhog main that switched to Rein/Zarya/Brig. It happens. Your character is good then it becomes less good. It’s called ADAPTING.

Most of us did learn a new hero or, I know I’m going to blow your mind right now, have been playing other heroes even before this nerf. Not every Mercy main is a one trick. It’s a hard fact to believe, I know. But it’s true.

Congratulations! You can adapt! Many Mercy one-tricks can’t adapt because Mercy has little to no transferable skills to any other hero.

We don’t want her to be needed in every situation either.

sure Kappa

But we don’t want to be told “Let other supports shine, you had your moments” either because no, we didn’t have our moments. Mercy was OP yes, but we hated that too.

Oh did you? Because I didn’t see any posts during the time of Mercy meta by Mercy mains saying “Our character is too overpowered… We must nerf her.”
NOPE! It was just silence. You didn’t want your hero to get away from how powerful and how dominant she was… Sure, I saw a few “revert mercy!!!” posts here and there, but that still doesn’t help your argument at all.

It’s not about us not being able to play a different hero, it’s about us being upset that our hero had to be butchered just because someone else’s whining was loud enough for the devs to make that mistake of a rework and the following nerfs in the first place.

Like I said, I was a Roadhog player. After they reworked him, you think I was happy? No, because his entire playstyle was changed. All of his previous playstyles were not possible with new Hog, but after they did the rework… Guess what I did? I swapped to Rein/Zarya later on. See, I had transferable skills. I used to create space with my main tank with Roadhog, and I transferred both my skills into Zarya. With Rein, I had to learn him because he was kinda needed for the team, so I filled and learned. I also play Zenyatta, one of my least played hero in Overwatch. I picked him up and I win games. 64% winrate in 4300+ SR, but I had transferable skills (aim, positioning, ult tracking, projectile skills).
With Mercy, I don’t think you can main Mercy throughout the entirety that she was Meta, and player her 75% of the time, then be able to swap to another hero easily. There are little to no heroes that you can transfer your skills over. You could maybe make the swap to Lucio or Moira, but that’s about it.
Listen, I understand how it is to have your hero to be butchered because of someone else’s whining. However, you must understand that my character was actually changed because of whining, but your character was recently nerfed due to balance issues. (pickrates tell the story in these scenarios)
Could Rez as an ultimate be balanced? Yeah.
Do I think Mercy is pretty balanced right now? Yeah. She is better than Ana in some situations.

[HalfBaked-11751]

Mercy’s pickrates and winrates are the all time lowest. She is officially the worst right now compared to every other Support.

LMAOOO boi you think

[DvaSlaysEU-2809]

Oh did you? Because I didn’t see any posts during the time of Mercy meta by Mercy mains saying “Our character is too overpowered… We must nerf her.”
NOPE! It was just silence. You didn’t want your hero to get away from how powerful and how dominant she was… Sure, I saw a few “revert mercy!!!” posts here and there, but that still doesn’t help your argument at all.

Lmao, revert threads and asking for a rework would count as nerf threads… Also, there were so many revert threads, the devs even took notice and gave an official response. Sorry but you’re trying to purposefully be ignorant.

[terror-12108]

Learn how to play a different character? Like seriously? Why do mercy white knights get super scared when their ALREADY-STILL op hero is getting nerfed?

like literally pick up ana 4head

i mean your still gonna get people calling you a mercy main in compet regardless shrug

[GIR-12122]

No, they’re not. A 12-year-old could do a better job.

you mean the same 12 year olds making your mom jokes? right they seem better at game design than pros

[Isaribi-21967]

I don’t know if you remember, but she had her moment of shine for an entire year. What about Ana? She can’t have her moment of shine at all because you’re too selfish and want your hero to be the optimal pick in every situation?
& that’s exactly how it should be.
If a hero is harder to play than another hero, the more difficult hero should get more value.

Literally how many times do we have to state that we do not want Mercy to outshine other supports, jesus f*cking christ. Sorry for the swearing but god damn how dense can you be to still not get it? We’re not jealous of Ana being better, on the contrary. We support every other support player and hero, they all deserve to be the best they can be. Get that in your head and stop being so god damn ignorant, I’m tired.

Oh did you? Because I didn’t see any posts during the time of Mercy meta by Mercy mains saying “Our character is too overpowered… We must nerf her.”
NOPE! It was just silence. You didn’t want your hero to get away from how powerful and how dominant she was… Sure, I saw a few “revert mercy!!!” posts here and there, but that still doesn’t help your argument at all.

No we didn’t ask for nerfs because we knew nerfs wouldn’t do anything. And they didn’t. We asked for a revert because it was obvious that the rework was a massive failure and, as you can see, the nerfs did nothing to make it better. They made it worse, Mercy feels sluggish and terrible to use. Instead of screaming for nerfs, like literally every other player on this forum, we wanted a solution that would actually be one. Nerfing everything isn’t.

Like I said, I was a Roadhog player. After they reworked him, you think I was happy? No, because his entire playstyle was changed. All of his previous playstyles were not possible with new Hog, but after they did the rework… Guess what I did? I swapped to Rein/Zarya later on. See, I had transferable skills. I used to create space with my main tank with Roadhog, and I transferred both my skills into Zarya. With Rein, I had to learn him because he was kinda needed for the team, so I filled and learned. I also play Zenyatta, one of my least played hero in Overwatch. I picked him up and I win games. 64% winrate in 4300+ SR, but I had transferable skills (aim, positioning, ult tracking, projectile skills).
With Mercy, I don’t think you can main Mercy throughout the entirety that she was Meta, and player her 75% of the time, then be able to swap to another hero easily. There are little to no heroes that you can transfer your skills over. You could maybe make the swap to Lucio or Moira, but that’s about it.

See and this is blatant ignorance. Not every Mercy main has to be a support only main. Just because you main Mercy in Competitive doesn’t mean you can’t work on your skills on other heroes and branch out into other classes. Again, weird concept and I know it’s a surprising fact for the majority of the playerbase but it does happen. I adapted, I already told you. You don’t have to rub your winrate, SR or hero pool in my face because I don’t care about that. That’s not really a valid argument if you ask me. You don’t think people can play something else when they played Mercy 75% of the time? Great. But just because you think so, doesn’t mean it’s a fact.

Listen, I understand how it is to have your hero to be butchered because of someone else’s whining. However, you must understand that my character was actually changed because of whining, but your character was recently nerfed due to balance issues. (pickrates tell the story in these scenarios)

Oh and Mercy wasn’t changed because of whining? So the rework wasn’t because a certain streamer started crying and the hive mind picked it up? Then we must’ve been playing a different game and listened to two completely different playerbases and developer updates. Hm.
And I always love how people bring up balance issues when Mercy started with 50 HP/s but it was buffed to 60 HP/s because the devs didn’t think it was enough healing for her to be a pure and raw, dedicated solo healer.
So you’re telling me that nerfing her healing to a place where she used to be, a place where it was buffed because it was deemed too weak, just because the devs can’t admit their wrongs is balanced and fair? We all know the only reason why Mercy is being nerfed is because they can’t seem to balance Rez on E. And they never will be able to because it’s impossible. So don’t tell me the nerfs were because of balance issues because as far as I know, her healing has nothing to do with the broken mess that is Rez as a normal ability. And the only reason her pickrate has been that high is because of the Rez ability and the already removed damage boost on Dragonstrike.

[GIR-12122]

I’d be in favor of 1-2 charges of Res during Valk and no 30 second Res at all.

she already basically had that tho

I agree, I hated the Hide and Res fad and the people who abused it, but that’s NOT the majority of Mercy mains who did that,

the problem with things and op combos is usually the minority. if a group even a small one can gain a large play with a tactic leaving the tactic in is not a solution. if theres an op gun small group uses in a certain way that feels horrible to fight against leaving it in causes its own issues and could become meta bc it is so good or could cause frustrations when people…

abused it,

[MakSoo-21294]

Its a shame. The Devs break Mercy and make her Op and her mains get blamed. They beg and plead for a revert or rework, or fix and they are ingored. Now with no feedback thread they’re left posting on the main forums, and are called whiney and spammers… Huh. What a Toxic community and a terrible balance team

Can’t agree more
To begin with many blame Mercy mains for Spam in the Forums, all this is not 100% justified, but the Megathread is closed by false flags created by trolls so that you don’t know where to lean then the Forum is Disordered.

so blame goes to this order:

The Comunity managers for not taking care to create an orderly and friendly environment in this forum

The trolls for putting up fake flags and not being blocked

The feedback For Being ignored and taken as a response “Mercy is fine” from the devs and then Nerfing her twice more

If I were Dev, instead of behaving so childishly as not to recognize my own mistakes, I would try to take the greatest feedback from Main Mercys Diamonds with 300~400h and its Arguments.

[Plisken-11288]

She is not dead. She is just not the go-to healer in every single freaking match.

Look at my career, I played a lot of Mercy. But I am so happy she is balanced now.