This community irritates me sometimes. This entire character was reworked because she was unfun to play against. Now she’s unfun to play as and “fun is subjective”
If fun is so subjective why did we rework her in the first place? The driving force behind the rework was that “mass resurrect is unfun to play against”. Her stats showed she wasn’t broken and her and Ana were receiving almost equal play time during season 4. her stats also show that she was never an issue from season 1-4 she wasn’t even meta before the rework zen and Lucio were the meta. she was never even used in pro play unless someone was running a Pharah.
for most of the game’s history, she was regarded as garbage until the rework. she was only reworked in the first place because “shes unfun to play against”. Now that mercy mains dislike the direction the rework went “fun is subjective” ugh.
And players who think this is the only reason why Mercy was reworked irritates me sometimes.
Let’s take a look at the balance triangle, shall we?
Balancing is based on these 3 points:
Playerbase impression.
Developer impression.
Hero stats.
Now let’s see how Mercy 1.0 (with mass rez) fits in this balance triangle.
Mass rez wasn’t liked by many players.
We all have seen the threads back then. The majority seemed to dislike it. Mercy’s ult had no counterplay other than dealing with Mercy before she ulted. (This could’ve been easily fixed with LOS checks though.)
The devs thought it promoted bad play, which it did. The hide and rez part of it. This is not how they wanted to see her played, even though that tactic wasn’t used that often.
Mercy wasn’t viable back then, but I don’t have to explain this to you. You have posted nice pictures for this.
And how does Mercy 2.0 (the current Mercy) fits in the balance triangle?
Players are divided about this. Some Mercy mains like her current kit and some don’t. One thing is for certain and that is that the majority of the playerbase doesn’t complain about Mercy’s ultimate anymore.
The devs have stated that they are not going to revert and rework Mercy anymore. The amount of changes she has received proves that they are trying to make the current Mercy work. (But they could’ve done a better job at balancing her.) both Jeff and Geoff have already stated that they think Mercy is fine.
Her average healing is on par with other main healers and her pickrate is still healthy. It seems it’s better in low and mid ranks than in high ranks, but this could be blamed on the fact that Mercy isn’t meta.
In other words, outside of “not being fun to play” (for some), is the current Mercy more balanced and viable.
BUT I do think Mercy could use some (very) small buffs.
well idk, i would say personal opinions would be the weakest, due to the potential of biases and such, and hard information like stats being the strongest
possibly to fill the void that the change in power brought by widow’s change caused? as for bastion, given how people are predicting him to be very strong just because of baptiste…i think they honestly worried of making him too strong when combined with someone else and having to balance around him
I think it was because Hanzo is currently dipping extremely slightly into a negative winrate, they know his power, so they want to try to get it up a little bit without upsetting the balance of the hero, this seems like the best change they could give him for a minor buff.
This would imply all 3 are a factor then more than likely, but I think Developer Thoughts hold lock and key on the next move, since they think bastion is extremely good at his niche and reworking him could prove very difficult.
In my honest opinion, I think the 3 points hold various strength levels.
Playerbase opinions being the weakest, due to lots of bias and certain statements being overly-exaggerated and untrue, with players arguing semantics and emotion quite frequently, to which anger and sadness skew feedback drastically.
Statistics would be middle-power, since raw statistic alone proves nothing until analyzed to maximum extent, Jeff talked about how a hero may have a spike in pickrate and winrate one week or two, then it elevates back down, which means that the statistical fluctuation makes it a bit more difficult to make the call. There may also be reasons pertaining to other heroes that one hero is used much more than usual, it may not be the hero themself being the problem.
Developer Thoughts would be the most important, since they are the ones who have the last say on what happens, they are the ones who make the decisions.
Maybe. It does somewhat explain the chances on PTR.
I only used bastion as an example, but I do think that I understand why he is still a low tier hero. Just like Mei, is bastion a hero who never should be meta or extremely viable due to his oppressive kit. A second rework with the intention of increasing his pickrate would most likely drastically change his kit and make him weaker in turret configuration.
yeah…though bastion can still be used…if you are a compantent team, for instance, you want to break down the enemy in the beginning, using the deathball to break their beginning defenses and move into a more favourable position
yeah, he isnt meant to be used always, but in the situations where the defenses are too strong for other dps to break, though of course…in order ot be “meta” you gotta be picked through a whole game
