Ana needs buffs, and Mercy is balanced, but that isn’t what’s really argued right now, it’s the impact of their ultimates. There’s some things I want seen done to Ana, mainly in her fire rate and reload rate, because man is it slow. Ana’s nano in the right hands can be effective, it’s simply harder to be effective, and not everyone can use it. My favorite targets to nano aren’t Genji or Soldier, but rather Hog, or heck even Winston, give that boy 90 damage per second on multiple targets, and have the rest of the team push on it. Will either of these get potg? Probably not, but they are intimidating targets to nano nonetheless.
Mercy is in a decent spot in terms of balance. She’s no too overbearing, but the feel of playing her is nothing more than her base kit, and like I keep saying that’s what’s frustrating If she was “easy” and “braindead” before Valk she’s even more now. I have used Valk to keep myself alive while I move my cat who was trying to drink my tea and when I finished moving her I still had like 5 secs left on Valk and the fact is that I can do that and be just as effective if I was actively participating is the frustration.
Mercy is glorified spectator mode at this point and all we want is an ult that has us more involved with the teamfight. We literally are getting ourselves far away from the action as possible and we don’t even have to think about where to focus our healing, or damage boost because again the chain takes care of it for us. Zen at least has to be in the middle of the fight in order to get use out of his ult. Ana has to maintain healing on her nano’ed target as they wreck havoc.
All I want is an ultimate that feels like I am doing something for my team, and not “hmm, do I think I can run to the fridge and back in 15 seconds?” which is something I sometimes think because what else am I going to do? Rez acts the same from her base kit, there’s no boost in healing or dmg numbers, it’s just “now I am healing everyone” and if you have toggle you can sit back for a second.
Ummm…new mercy. The only thing that changed was her ult, and even then all that happened was it migrated from her Q to her E and lost the AoE in favor of a target with cast time. Valk is all-new and just makes her Mercy even harder than normal. She didn’t lose anything in her rework. She actually got more.
Guardian Angel is still there.
Heal beam is still there.
Damage beam is still there.
Pistol is still there.
Passive regeneration is still there.
Unless you’re talking about the hide & seek rez which was frustrating, unfun for everybody who wasn’t playing mercy, anti-pattern to the core game loop, and arguably OP.
That was a bug back in the PTR when Orisa got released. They fix it before she went live.
You’re talking about damage resistence. Damage resistence can only be stacked up to 50%. So Bastion’s Iron clad and Nano boost together doesn’t go above 50%.
I am Caliginous’s duo and I figured I would give my thoughts on the whole Mercy/Ana debate between him and Shade. I am going to try to remain as impartial as I can, and just give my own viewpoint as a tank/support main.
This seems as good a place to start as any so here we go! This whole “she is balanced” thing is the basis of your argument, but balance is not the only thing the devs look at. They also pay attention to the fun factor. They want the heroes to be balanced AND fun for the people that play those heroes a bunch, for the people that main those heroes. So if Mercy mains don’t think she is fun, then something needs to be looked at.
Can confirm this. Also, because I know people have argued about this before, Ana’s is a bit more engaging. At least when the person she boosts cleans up, she knows that she chose the right target, and she did the best she could to enable them. It was because of her Nano that they pushed the enemy team back. If not for her, then they may have been stuck in a stalemate, and she can get satisfaction from that. Valk can do this, but it’s not nearly as effective as any other support ult.
Sure, it’s a chained 60 HP/s, but Zen can do 300. Yes, it’s chained 30% dmg boost, but Orisa can get 50% with Supercharger. And again, if Mercy mains don’t find her fun, then there is a problem.
Nano is all about enabling someone who is already doing well. If you Nano the wrong target, then yeah it is going to feel underwhelming. But boosting a tank is usually a good idea, especially if it means keeping them alive. Besides, people always expect Nanoblade or Nanovisor. It’s nice to just make the monkey glow red (from the enemy’s perspective) and freak them out a bit. Plus, that 90 DPS that can damage multiple targets is no joke.
She is primarily picked because she has the most consistent healing out of all the supports. If we had supports that also had consistent healing, then we would likely see Mercy’s pickrate drop a bit. But all the healers we have either do not heal as much, or their healing is inconsistent, whether it be due to a resource, a cooldown, or aim.
I think they were mainly saying that all the heroes have something in their kit that gives them that rush, ult or not. With Mercy, she doesn’t have that. Nothing about her playstyle changes in or out of Valk. And that is where the majority of the frustration is. That’s my views on it, at least.
This is the bulk of the argument I have seen from Mercy mains, and honestly, I agree with it.
Okay, that’s all I found to pull from your debate so I guess here is where I put my closing comments:
There is no denying that Mercy is a strong, balanced healer. That’s really not an issue here. The issue is do the people that play Mercy regularly find her ult fun now? I think it’s especially important that we ask the people that played Mercy before her rework if she is as fun as she was before. Her ult before required her to be mindful of the ult economy, play a bit more passively if big ults may be coming, and swoop in for the rez when the time is right. Now, ult economy is not as important anymore and she can use her ult whenever with little consequence. There is no planning to Valk, no thinking to it. Like Cal said, you’re basically playing spectator mode and you might switch between healing and damage boosting. That’s stuff you do out of Valk anyways, though. Nothing about her is changing. The only thing that changes is the chain beams, and honestly, I don’t think that’s enough to constitute it as an ult. She needs something to make Valk more engaging. Removing rez as an ult and making it an ability instead was already pushing it, and we saw how Mercy was immediately after the rework. The problem now is that they need to find a balance between keeping Mercy in line with the other supports (ult-wise because, as I said before, her pickrate is due to how she has the most consistent healing) while making her fun for the majority of the people that play her on a regular basis. At one point, she was fun but too strong. Now she is fine but is not fun. So there needs to be a middle ground somewhere in between.
Old Mercy turned Overwatch into a high stakes game of cat and mouse. Due to her weapon switching and being unable to shoot and heal at the same time, Mercy is definitely the mouse that’s being hunted. Getting hunted and surviving against all odds is super exciting. Thing is though… something about the mouse needs to be kind of insane otherwise it isn’t high stakes anymore. That’s why Mercy was given the ability to save her whole team from anything with Mass Resurrect. She’s all about saving anyway, but she needs a way to punish the cats for not catching the mouse, otherwise the cats will just ignore the mouse.
That’s whats happening now. Mercy is still the mouse in the game of cat and mouse… but neither Valkyrie nor E Resurrect is scary or game changing enough to actually get the cats to pay attention.
The fun and engagement Mercy had is in shambles and hasn’t been replaced with anything. Fun wise… she’s currently in the same position Hog was between his gun changes and his vape changes but with the downside of not being garbage.
I agree with this but I don’t think everyone thinks she is unfun. She is one of the most picked characters. Not only that but what made her fun in the past specifically was that she was a lackluster character with a great ult. Now the ult is less “fun” but that is because her base kit has ressurect on E.
It’s not engaging for Ana. I have a ton more time than you do. It’s great to be nano’d and I’m sure you feel its more engaging as the recipient of the ult, but as Ana yourself it’s simply not true. Do you know how many Ana topics have been centered around replacing her ult or buffing it? Take a moment and reflect that saying Mercy players don’t find her ult fun is valid but Ana players not finding her ult fun or effective is a lesser argument. You’re hearing it from an Ana player directly.
It’s not engaging for Ana, period.
If she was unfun to the point that she was a problem her pickrate would be nowhere near as high. This isn’t just in competitive or OWL, this is even in quickplay. If people are having more fun on other supports, they would be playing other supports. The truth is the “unfun” argument is overblown. There are tons of things that are “unfun” for every character but it’s not enough to the point that people refuse to play them or it actually requires a change.
There are a ton of “unfun” ults in the game, it’s not only Mercy.
Mercys gameplay has always been boring. I agree that mass res was the one light she had before as it was a huge power swing, but that’s been gone for months now and people have continued to play her. That says a lot.
Honestly, I would have preferred they just tweaked rez instead of changing her as much as they did. But at the same time, I am not sure how exactly they would tweak it and how the feedback would be on those changes. But that’s just me. It would still keep her engaging because back then, she was picked for her rez, and that was the most engaging part of her kit. Now much of that engagement and adrenaline is gone. You pick Mercy now more for her healing while every other support has something else to pick them for. Moira for the healing and damage; Zen for the high DPS; Lucio for the speedboost, AoE, or boops (depending on the situation); Ana for the utility in nade and sleep; Briggy for the shield and armor. Mercy is just her healing.
Yeah, I think I see your point there. I can certainly speak from experience when talking about Mercy, but with Ana, I can’t. Mainly because I can’t play Ana to save my life, but that’s beside the point. Regardless, thank you for giving me your views on Ana’s ult. I still think that it does shift her focus to the person she is boosting, and the boost has a bit more potential to shift the tide than Valkyrie, but that’s probably just opinion more than anything.
As I said before, people pick Mercy because she has the most consistent healing out of all the supports right now, and for the supports that do have consistent healing, they do not heal as much as Mercy does. No other support can heal as consistently or as reliably as Mercy can. That is why she is picked so much. Not because she is fun, but because she has the most consistent healing.
Also, if you take a look at the pickrates at QP this month, Briggy is picked more than Mercy (tho that’s a given, new hero hype and all spiked that a bunch when she first released), and Moira is picked more than Mercy as well. The comp pickrates show that Moira is still picked more than Mercy. She is still close to the top, but she’s not number one across all ranks. So it looks like people are looking into other supports and trying to find the one that is both strong and is fun playing.
I agree with this. To me not getting the Mercy rework correct(making her overpowered to the point where she had to be gutted) was the biggest mistake in Overwatch ever, nothing comes close.
At this point and time though, the change went through, we are were we are and Mercy is still a viable character that tons of people play. It’s not enough people that she is one of the lowest picks like Ana. In comp at most ranks she is in the #1-3 slot of all characters in the game. In quickplay she is pretty high up at all ranks and only competiting with two of the other supports.
Again I think this is opinion, yes she has consistent healing, yes some people can’t play other characters but you guys are overstating what “unfun” is. Mercy has a diehard fanbase and though they may dislike elements of the character, they still like the character. As much as I find nanoboost unfun I still love Ana. Moira has overtaken my Ana play recently but that’s just because she is unviable.
It’s a very “first world problem” to complain that Mercy is unfun. There are characters who are unfun because they are unviable like Ana, there are characters who have similar unfun mechanics/ults and they’re actually trash characters.
This forum has created a huge confirmation bias among Mercy players. I’ve seen it with my own eyes with people swearing that she was underpowered after Valkyrie 2.0, ruined with every subsequent nerf where she was overpowered and that res with a cast time would be a “death sentence” and for all these things people said they would never play Mercy again, none of these things turned out to be true.
The “unfun” thing is just the latest chant from people who continue to play a character that they trash just because she’s not in the exact position they want her to be in. She is only one character in this game, people playing other supports is a good thing.
Development time should be focused on characters that are actually trash and unfun to play, not a character that is perfectly fine and has a crazy high playerbase just because they no longer have their adrenaline rush ult. Would I be against Mercy changes in the future? Of course not, but with the development cycle that we’re in where characters like Ana, Torb, Sym have not only been unfun but statistically trash for such long periods of time then Mercy can wait.
