Mercy on the Experimental: Good Foundation, Poor Execution

General Discussion
1

I’ve been getting asked about this a lot, so I figured I’d put all my thoughts on the matter in one place.

For those of you who are unaware, here are the changes to Mercy on the Creator Experimental Card:

Valkyrie

  • Is no longer an Ultimate ability
  • Is now Ability 2
  • Healing increased from 55 to 70 health per second
  • Caduceus Staff beams no longer attach to additional allies
  • Duration reduced from 15 to 3 seconds
  • Cooldown is now 20 seconds
  • Flying movement speed decreased from 7 to 6
  • Guardian Angel movement speed reduced from 25 to 20

Resurrect

  • Is now an Ultimate ability
  • Can resurrect up to 5 people at once
  • Maximum range increased from 5 to 8 meters

Looking at the design of this and comparing it to the current version of Mercy on live servers, this is a massive improvement from a gameplay perspective. Resurrect takes its rightful place as an ultimate, once again tying Mercy’s most powerful ability to the player’s own performance. Valkyrie’s duration has been reduced to a much more fitting length for the ability, removing the so-called “ultimate” that played out like five basic abilities lined up back-to-back. Valkyrie’s new adaptation, while far from perfect, inches Mercy ever-so-slightly closer to her intended role as a main-healer.

However, from a balance perspective, this Experimental Card is a catastrophe for Mercy, even disregarding the changes to other heroes. Moving Resurrect from a cooldown ability to an ultimate ability is a very wise change from a gameplay standpoint and a balance stability standpoint. However, it would also be very unwise think that Mercy’s current viability does not hinge heavily on Resurrect being a basic ability. Unfortunately, the fact that Mercy’s current viability depends upon E-Resurrect seems to have gone unnoticed.

Tempo-Resurrections have always been the most powerful form of Resurrect. That’s why the first few versions of Mercy 2.0 were absurdly overpowered; they made tempo-Resurrections more abundant than they had ever been before, and removed any drawbacks to employing them. To reel in Mercy’s balance, the developers reduced the abundance of tempo-Resurrections and added more restrictions to them (see Resurrect’s cast time). On the Experimental Card, Resurrect was moved to Mercy’s ultimate slot. However, confining an ability to an ultimate is an excellent way to reduce that ability’s abundance, and none of the existing restrictions to Resurrect were removed to compensate. As a result, these changes net a massive nerf to Resurrect.

All of that said, this does not mean that said nerf to Resurrect is not warranted or healthy. E-Resurrect on live servers is holding the rest of Mercy’s kit hostage; it is perhaps the sole reason Mercy cannot be allowed to function as a main healer without becoming overpowered. Moving it to the ultimate slot reduces that power, and thus frees up more of Mercy’s power budget for potential buffs to her healing output. Again, from a gameplay perspective, this shift is a net positive.

But we cannot simply move Resurrect to the ultimate slot and then forget about it; it needs to be tuned so that the ability can still carry out its intended purpose. If its purpose leans heavily towards tempo-Resurrections, then then it needs to have a relatively fast charge rate. If its purpose leans more towards mass-Resurrections, then the ability needs to have fewer restrictions to it (longer range, shorter cast time, etc). Currently, the ability has a slow charge rate, which makes it ineffective for tempo-Resurrections; and it is heavily restricted, rendering it useless for mass-Resurrections. Unlike the issues with the Mercy we have on live servers, however, this issue is not fundamental to the design. It can be resolved by changing some numbers.

What I am more concerned about is Valkyrie as an E-ability. This has been one of my long-standing qualms with Valkyrie: Mercy doesn’t need more mobility, especially not mobility that does not build upon Guardian Angel. Mercy is already incredibly slippery. She does not need a panic mobility button, whether it be an ultimate or a cooldown. With free omnidirectional flight, Q-Valkyrie is the former, and E-Valkyrie is the latter. Moreover, it seems like this mobility increase is the reason that E-Valkyrie has such a long cooldown. It’s why one absurdly-long cooldown is being replaced by another absurdly-long cooldown. 70 Healing/second on a single target for 3 seconds is nothing noteworthy for a healer, especially not one that’s supposed to be a main-healer. It would not warrant a 20 second cooldown. However, being able to escape virtually any sticky situation on top of an already mobile kit would warrant such a cooldown. For these two reasons, I would remove the mobility aspect from Valkyrie entirely and reduce its cooldown.

To summarize the changes I would make to Mercy on the Experimental Card:

Resurrect:

  • Increase its charge rate.
    OR
  • Reduce the severity of its restrictions (range, cast time, line-of-sight checks).

Valkyrie:

  • Remove free flight from the ability
  • Reduce its cooldown.

That’s it. Those are my thoughts.

68 Likes
2

Yep. The one thing we consistently agree upon.

Agreed. I genuinely wouldn’t mind this as a rework if the numbers were done correctly.

Thoughts on her ult being a fast-building charge of Solo Rez with a .8-1 sec-ish cast time, and she can stack up to 3 charges?

Also I think for Valk I’d

a) Remove freeflight
b) Activating it gives Mercy an initial boost of movement like Echo gets from her flight, and increases her Angelic Descent speed to be similar to Echo’s glide

and/or

c) Resets GAs CD and increases it’s range and speed for the duration to help her reach critical allies faster in a pinch

11 Likes
3

I would be perfectly fine with that. Might even get me to play the game again, with the cast time being less obnoxious.

22 Likes
4

I still think an issue with a resurrection based ult is that it is a lot more situational than other ults. You can’t really use it to push, unless the idea is that you tell people to YOLO and hope they die in a good spot.

At the same time I’m really not fond of E-rez… and at the same time I really don’t want her resurrect removed.

I dunno, I just feel most resurrection based ult ideas lack some versatility because of the nature of the ability.

2 Likes
5

I agree with the points Titanium made.

I’d like to see this new rez charge faster so it fits a tempo-rezzing playstyle, and include a burst heal for living teammates (including mercy herself) so it’s less situational.

I think I could be okay with ult-rez having a long cast time, but ONLY IF it doesn’t have any movement penalties on top of it…

That way, enemies would still have a fair chance to stop rez from going off - but Mercy being able to move at full speed and use movement abilities while casting (without it canceling rez if you move too far from the corpses) would put her survival squarely in the hands of the Mercy player’s own positioning/escape skills.

Valkyrie as an E ability definitely needs some more workshopping. Having free flight when Mercy already has GA and bunnyhop tech is overkill.

I like the idea of e-valk being a mode that lets Mercy use GA without a target for a few seconds, and beefs up her healing beam:

Beam upgrades could include stronger healing, cleansing negative effects from teammates, and/or even the ability to overheal.

8 Likes
6

I have an ideaaa to fix this :smiley: Maybe it sucks but idk

Ressurect

  • Solo rez

  • charges fast-ish like Pulsebomb

  • Can stack up to 3 charges

  • 5m range, .85 sec cast time

  • Resets GA CD

  • Can ALSO be used on LIVING allies at a 30m range, with a .3 sec cast time, Burst heals them to full HP and cleanses them of any negative debuff (mini nano heal basically)

:smiley: The last bullet would make it much more interesting. You could use all 3 charges to burst heal half your team and cleanse them of anti nade, or save them to rez ppl, etc.

13 Likes
7

yeah valk as an ability needs some significant changes but bcuz i like the fact that she can fly like Echo’s ability with unlimited ammo and burst of healing for the target its a nice thing to have and it could be game changing bcuz if it had lower CD and 5 sec duration instead of 3 she could like dodge that enemy rein shatter and maybe outheal the dmg done to ur beam target from that shatter, she can also dps with that increased projectile and unlimited ammo so valk as an ability would be an awesome idea tbh and it would fit mercy’s kit which is a permanent mobile healing and buff hero on top of that she has rez as an ult which means is not like u can spam it or something, other than that her it needs some serious changes like u said is it more of a mass rez ult or to like rez 1 to 3 allies max

8

Nope. Mass Res has no business existing. It promotes dumb strategies and bad game-play for Mercy. It is Poor Foundation, Poor Execution.

Mercy is good as she is right now on live. She is a good proactive and aggressive healer. She doesn’t need to be turned into a single target utility belt with sacrificial resurrects.

8 Likes
9

Listening to ML7 on his stream today, he discussed the Mercy changes. He mentioned his goal was to see the viability of swapping Valkyrie and Resurrect. As he played Mercy, he started making notes on things needing adjustment, as this was the first time he was able to play the final changes. Hopefully the pulling down of the experimental will allow for some adjustments.

27 Likes
10

Nope. What promotes dumb strategies and bad game-play is having an ability that only has any use on allies who are dead, while this ability is simultaneously extremely easy, safe, and quick to use.

Mercy also had no midfight tempo swing outside of this ability - which became problematic when given the aforementioned traits above.

Resurrect does not need to be both (or even either) of these two things in order to function as a proper and balanced ultimate while retaining its capability of reviving multiple teammates.

Mercy is good as she is right now on live.

Looking at what role she’s been shoehorned into in higher ranks (basically just a weapon attachment)… hard disagree.

She doesn’t need to be turned into a single target utility belt with sacrificial resurrects.

Bold of you to assume she isn’t already that. Valkyrie isn’t even worth prioritizing farming, just pocket the carry, because anywhere above Diamond your second support will scream at you for being a “healbot” and blame you for their lack of ult when you were trying to get your own, or your DPS will flame you when they die on some off-angle flank route out of LoS because someone else was in trouble and you didn’t immediately follow them. At these ranks, pocketing DPS is an expectation that others place on you when it comes to Mercy’s current iteration, there is no way around it.

4 Likes
11

Do you remembe anything specific he mentioned?

12

Why are you arguing about this again? Don’t you have anything better to do?
We’ve already been through this with the entire community and development team several years ago. It’s a well-known dumb strategy that even Jeff Kaplan and his team shunned.

Is it because I said your suggestion sucks?
You want complexity to feel good about yourself and your skillfulness? Please, go play Baptise and learn how to use his experimental 1.5sec immortality field at the right time; you won’t need resurrect at all then. Or take Ana for a spin and learn the complex skill of sleeping Valkcy, Genblade, Tracer, Pharah/Echo.

I’d argue resurrect doesn’t need to be an ultimate ability at all. Hell, it doesn’t even need to be an ability in this game.

In fact, I think the only reason we still have resurrect as a single target ability is because devs just didn’t want to remove it outright and upset the players that fell in love with the idea of this ability. People were just so attached that they were crying out loud almost literally on forums so that it would stay.

Mercy, as an aggressive support hero that provides heals and damage boosts at will at any point of time and can quickly traverse the battlefield to aid her teammates, does not require any other strengths. Mercy’s greatest strength is in her teammates, because she relies heavily on them to do their job of hitting shots, controlling the battlefield and being aware of the LOS with Mercy.
Not every hero needs to have an ability like Earthshatter, Graviton Surge, Transcendence, etc. to greatly impact the fight. Sometimes you just want an ultimate that just makes your other basic abilities better; thus, making your team’s positioning, composition and strategy more impactful by having an empowered Mercy watching over them in the skies.

That is a game-play choice. Her ultimate, Valkyrie, literally promotes group support. Just because some crackers in-game want you to play that way doesn’t mean you should. There are plenty of people that play Mercy as a group healer. Try pairing her with Zen and running dive; it’s an insane composition that rewards coordinated players that know what they are doing.
Just because you cannot find value out of Mercy currently other than pocketing a single dps hero, doesn’t mean the hero design is flawed. Maybe you have issues gauging the hero’s viability, or the composition just doesn’t allow her to be moving more freely.

Regardless, making her a single target with mass res won’t solve this particular issue. It will instead compound it and gut the hero into a very niche category or make her mandatory; there’s no middle ground with Mass Res (or 1+ res for that matter - devs tried that already).

5 Likes
13

It’s funny, because super jump makes E valk flight kinda redundant.

2 Likes
14

“Rez in it’s current iteration is a little too clunky for my taste and it also builds kinda slow”

“Valkyrie is mostly fine but could probably last a little bit longer or maybe a slight cooldown decrease”

17 Likes
15

Ayy nice hopefully he gives a little love then, these sound like the main things people are commenting on about Mercy

16

Why are you arguing about this again? Don’t you have anything better to do?

You stopped replying earlier, I kept looking for Mercy threads because I was bored, and you just happened to show up in another Mercy thread. You kept making statements and arguments I found easy to dispute, so I disputed them. If you’re so bothered by it, then ignore my replies.

Is it because I said your suggestion sucks?

That’s in another thread, not this one. Poor taste of you to try and poison the well.

You want complexity to feel good about yourself and your skillfulness?

You want to dismiss any potential avenue of skill expression to be introduced to a hero?

In fact, I think the only reason we still have resurrect as a single target ability is because devs just didn’t want to remove it outright and upset the players that fell in love with the idea of this ability.

Not “in fact”. Only in your speculation. There have been no official statements regarding why Resurrect remains in Mercy’s kit.

Think all you want, though. Doesn’t seem like the way that you’re thinking will get you anywhere anyway.

Mercy, as an aggressive support hero that provides heals and damage boosts at will at any point of time and can quickly traverse the battlefield to aid her teammates, does not require any other strengths.

Why not? Her healing is lackluster compared to Ana, Moira, and Baptiste. Her damage boost’s value depends entirely on her target’s capability. It’s fine and all for a hero to be team-reliant, but it’s problematic when their main value is something that they can’t even make plays that they can call their own with. Resurrect on E, Mercy’s other valuable utility, is also a culprit of this kind of design; because after the cast time nerf, all of your teammates and enemies decide whether it’s usable, not you.

Her movement and survivability is very nice, but a hero’s survivability is only as valuable as the output that their survivability enables. Unless an enemy makes a mistake by chasing/focusing/prioritizing them too much - and in Mercy’s case, why would the enemy do that, unless they’re that dumb?

Not every hero needs to have an ability like Earthshatter, Graviton Surge, Transcendence, etc. to greatly impact the fight.

Why does Mercy need to be a hero without a powerful ultimate?

Why single out Mercy in particular to be this hero? Especially considering the nature of the rest of her kit.

Name any part of her current kit that provides some kind of output other than damage boost and E-Resurrect (both of whose values are put entirely into the hands of other players - any plays that Mercy makes with these are not her own plays) and I can tell you that there is a hero that does it better.

Sometimes you just want an ultimate that just makes your other basic abilities better; thus, making your team’s positioning, composition and strategy more impactful

Do I (or many other Mercy players) really want that, though? Speak for yourself. I can already “make my team’s positioning, composition, and strategy more impactful” without Valkyrie most of the time. In Diamond, I usually use Valkyrie to quickly re-join a team-fight after respawning, shrug off dives/take a weird position, or right click vaguely into the center of my team and hope they do something with it.

by having an empowered Mercy watching over them in the skies.

Watching them, yes. Not doing much else other than watching, really.

That is a game-play choice. Her ultimate, Valkyrie, literally promotes group support. Just because some crackers in-game want you to play that way doesn’t mean you should.

It is objectively the meta way to play her. In the highest ranks and in e-sports settings, whenever Mercy is viable or meta, she is almost always paired with a DPS that benefits from the hard pocket, like Ashe or Pharah.

One should ensure their beams hit as many players as possible while using Valkyrie, sure, but while Valkyrie is inactive, pocketing someone (especially in higher ranks where they will do something with it - this starts around mid-Diamond and is almost guaranteed at Master rank) is worth more than focusing on healing your team to farm Valkyrie in the first place. No other hero has a gameplay loop in which farming their ult is actively discouraged.

Try pairing her with Zen and running dive; it’s an insane composition that rewards coordinated players that know what they are doing.

This works like every other double off-healer pairing that’s used in high ranks - it depends very heavily on utility over healing. In order to make Mercy/Zen work, there needs to be adequate damage boost targets for Mercy, as well as good follow-up on Zen’s discord orbs. otherwise the other support is better off picking Ana/Moira/Baptiste to pair with Mercy.

Just because you cannot find value out of Mercy currently other than pocketing a single dps hero

Don’t put words into my mouth. I said pocketing was her main value, not her only value. I wonder what motive you’d have to twist my statements otherwise. Regardless, it’s unhealthy for it to be this way, IMO. You know, I’ve run Mercy/Zen before, and that’s why I like it - because I’m not forced into an off-healer pocket role for once. Unfortunately, it’s a double off-healer pairing that only works with a coordinated team, and Mercy is very poorly viable with other off-healers. Meanwhile, it seems like the other off-healers are mostly quite viable with each other in these ranks.

Regardless, making her a single target with mass res won’t solve this particular issue. It will instead compound it and gut the hero into a very niche category or make her mandatory; there’s no middle ground with Mass Res (or 1+ res for that matter - devs tried that already).

You’re making unfounded speculations as well as analyzing past metas in a narrow and unobjective manner.

You’re pretty much saying a whole lot of nothing because you’re missing the entire point and making circular arguments while not making any actual points that address anything that has been said. You’re drawing equivalency between any possible hypothetical iteration of Resurrect as an ultimate and ascribing the design flaws of past iterations of Mercy as entirely inherent to having any capability of reviving teammates, without elaborating on any points to back up these claims in any way.

Anyways, it’s 2 in the morning and I’m losing interest, as well as patience and the ability to maintain at least a shallow veneer of politeness and etiquette. You’re painfully boring to argue with, you treat your opinions as fact while repeating paper thin non-arguments and displaying poor reading comprehension (or perhaps deliberately/maliciously misinterpreting what you read?), and not to rank-shame, but you’re also getting quite baselessly patronizing towards me for someone who seems to be in Gold. I only really responded earlier because I happened to see many statements with no arguments to back them up, and when there were any, they were arguments that sucked that I could poke holes in. It gets a little monotonous after a while, though, so this is where I take my leave and find better things to do.

Goodnight.

9 Likes
17

I mean, I’ve been playing this game since pre-purchase open beta and I played mercy for 212 hours in total (based on my profile stats), and I have been here through all the Mercy changes, reworks, buffs and nerfs. I have also been reading forums for the majority of that time.
And I only made points about all those experiences and activities, but what do I know? All of those words are just hypothetical and not backed up by anything substantial.

18

I have more than 1000 hours total on Mercy. I’ve played on this account since season 2 (I also played during season 1 on my brother’s account before buying my own).

I can un-private my career profile if you don’t believe me about the 1000 hours, just ask. I usually have it public,
I’ve just temporarily privated it because in ranked I’ve dropped straight from 3.4k/3.5k down to 3.1k (probably rusty from avoiding ranked and rotting my game sense with quick play for the past 3 months before this season) and that makes my win-rate look pretty bad right now.

Edit: Also, you showed up right as I was finishing up edits, so again - goodnight.

1 Like
19

Definitely the first one, there should never be anything done to make pulling off a Rez whether it be on a cooldown or an ultimate easier to do. Any changes that makes “Mass Rez” easier to do will only bring us back to where we were before the rework where 90% of people playing Mercy did not understand the value of tempo rezing.

20

ML7 has completely destroyed Mercy in this experimental, turning her into a useless character who is useless (look, the experimental one a few months ago was a nerf, but this one won).

3 Likes