I became active on the Blizzard forums when thought Blizzard were going in the wrong direction with the Mercy nerfs. I think I acknowledged that she was OP but I did not like the kind of nerfs Blizzard introduced due to it making Mercy clunky to play and it disrupted the flow of her kit.
My second post I ever made on the US blizzard forums is complaining that Mercy is no longer fun to play, and it was done 11 months ago (November 2017)
It’s kind of interesting that I was just called a Mercy cultist for “suddenly” complaining that Mercy is no longer fun as if it was something Mercy mains are resorting to when the Overbuff statistics do not support other arguments. My primary issue has always been about Mercy no longer being fun to play for me (I know it’s selfish and subjective) and not whether she is underpowered, meta, or overpowered (though I think balance is a good thing)
Mercy no longer being fun to play is not a recent argument that people use. People have been complaining about it for about a year or more now, and I’ve been complaining about it for 11 months. I reckon a bunch of us will continue complaining about it until we finally give up the game.
I believe there are good reasons to change a hero if the change will please a greater portion of the playerbase than currently enjoys the hero. I definitely believe there is the potential for a version of Mercy in the future that is fun for those who enjoyed an earlier of version as well as those who currently enjoys playing Mercy. It does not have to be mutually exclusive. And changes that makes a hero more fun for those who play the hero, and for people who play with or against that hero, is something worth fighting for.
I only came to this forum and started posting because of Mercy and her awful rework. On the old forums I occasionally lurked around without ever doing anything. Reading some posts and looking what people are up to but thats it. With the ongoing frustration since the rework I thought giving feedback and voicing my opinion would matter and help.
Now I am more here than in the game and still no positive changes for Mercy. Not even the devs addressing any of them. Only Jeff telling us about pick/winrates when we dont even care about them.
I would just give up and go if I were alone but there are so many people (not exclusively Mercy mains btw) who dislike Mercys current state that I stay for the moment.
It is just very disheartening to see your main hero get changed like this. Plus all the feedback all of us provided seemingly ignored while we only try to make a balanced and fun version of Mercy.
At least I met some nice people along the way who still fight for changes.
I hope so as well but we can only hope right now that at some point we get acknowledged for real from the devs instead of shady excuses and dodgy statements.
Fun is always subjective, some people do find her core concept appealing, a mobile hero with strong single target heals and a resurrection ability all being purely about supporting your team… please correct me if I am wrong, but I would guess that’s why you decided to main her, well at least I play her occasionally because of that, I like her gameplay of both healing, providing a buff or even save a team fight or two with a well timed rez.
However, her recent changes in reducing her healing made her certainly less fun, or enjoyable, taking on a role as main healer with her means you are never able to reliably outheal burst damage, even on tanks, so her one supposed strength of decent single target heals is negated, and she is bested by Ana as single heal or Moira as multi-target heal.
Is this all necessary to balance out her rez and mobility? Maybe so. But let us not leave Mercy in the underperforming state she is right now, she deserves a slight buff to her healing, say, to 55 hps, it would not be enough to threaten Ana, but just a little to make her healing more viable in a gameplay where bursted damage is prevalent.
I just wish they could make her more fun while keeping her balanced, but I don’t think the dev team really cares enough to even try to do that (or maybe they’re just too scared to touch her again)
Considering I found her boring already 11 months ago when she was still OP and still had her 60 HPS I don’t think getting her healing buffed will solve my primary grievances with Mercy’s kit.
I think Valkyrie is trivial and so dumbed down that you can replace the player with a pair of clothing pins, one that holds down spacebar and another that holds down one of the mouse buttons. The player can then go get themselves something to drink, because they are not needed for the next 15 seconds (ok, that is perhaps a bit oversimplified but that is how it feels to use Valkyrie)
Using rez is like having someone speaking loudly with someone on the phone while watching the most amazing and captivating movie in the cinema. It’s just extremely annoying and completely disrupts the fun you were having swooping around, and no matter how good you are at using your rez you’ll always have people complaining about your use of rez. Rez is a curse, a disease that slowly kills me from the inside every time I have to use it. And every so often someone stabs me in the back with a knife calling me the worst Mercy ever because I didn’t rez them when they were laying dead on the other side of the map or behind enemy lines… or people telling me to go kill myself, or telling me I’m the worst Mercy ever for not rezzing them.
Rez as a 30 second cooldown ability is the worst thing that ever happened to Mercy, in my opinion, though Valkyrie is at a close second. And I’m not calling for a revert… Another rework, or even just removing free-flight, reducing beam-length, removing auto-regeneration, adding a single instant rez to Valkyrie while replacing rez on E with a high-jump ability would be a welcomed change I think.
Like you I only joined the forums due to the Mercy rework when I didn’t like how the character was being changed. She’s missing that spark that made her fun and feel like she could make a difference to the game.
I stopped playing OW about 9 months ago and have only dipped back into the game to get event items that piqued my interest. Due to the current state of the character I don’t think I’ll be returning to play any time soon.
I never play as Mercy anymore. Mercy is my most-played hero, and I used to play as her all the time. She was my favourite hero to play as in the entire game, and now I never play as her. I barely even heal anymore, but when I do, I play as Lúcio or Ana (or Brigitte, sometimes).
When you get someone who used to main Mercy to never play her at all, you know you’ve done something wrong.
Really, though, I’ve tried playing as Mercy after all her nerfs, but I just can’t. It’s not fun to play as her anymore. Her Ultimate is boring and unimpactful, Resurrect is too hard to pull off, and her healing is way too slow.
Adding to this thread, I came to the forums after Mercy’s rework because I disliked it. Decided to try and give my input to hopefully make Mercy fun again. What a (silent) ride it’s been.
If the Mercy posters could come up with an idea that’s simple, probably balanced, doesn’t flag any obvious roadblocks, and could assured the devs that Mercy influencers would promote the idea as a great thing.
I think they’d have a lot more success in negotiating with the devs.
I want to clarify because I did call you selfish, the selfishness isn’t you wanting Mercy to be fun for you but wanting her to outshine pretty much every other support character, you may do this intentionally or not but your suggestions always go back to the same thing, mass rez and I would assume also 60 hps, this cannot and will not come back, not because we or the devs hate you but because it’s the course of action that benefit the larger portion of the community
Yes, Mercy mains who hate the change are part of the community but the changes to Mercy have opened up the doors for several other characters to become viable and as such we have reached a time in overwatch where there is almost no wrong answer as long as you know what you’re doing, this includes Mercy and is the only way this game can ever reach close to a balanced state
I don’t mind them reworking her. I just want them to rework her in a way that maintains the fun, the play style and impacfulness of what she had before.
In all honesty I don’t think that’s possible at all, look, before Ana, the imbalance of support/dps/tanks was pretty big (still kind of is) and as such the one tasked with covering the support need was Mercy, why? because believe it or not, back then Mercy was the hardest support to heal with, Zen has always just tagged you with his harmony and Lucio’s Auras have always being pretty much a passive
but the game has evolved and now we have Moira who doesn’t bring anything, ANYTHING other than a bit of damage and healing, if Mercy were to remain untouched Moira would have no place in the game, neither would Ana, Brigitte and other supports that might be in development!
ans here is why I call Mercy mains selfish, because you don’t care that Moira players want to be effective as well, you don’t care if Ana players require weeks of practice, you don’t care for new support heroes archetypes or niches, all you want is for Mercy to have the same power as she had before even though the game has shifted forward
This is a thing that has happened on the DPS roster since forever, we have 14 DPS heroes and as such their pick rate and effectiveness are always all over the place, you don’t have any dps dominating for a year because it’s factually impossible thanks to diversity! and diversity WILL keep happening and this means that all the power that was concetrated on Mercy need to be brought to a balanced state so that she doesn’t kill diversity, simple as that
I completely stopped playing mercy after she lost her 60 hp heals (though she was already unfun to me since the rework started going into wrong direction)
And yes, I know mercy is an easy hero but that’s not the reason I played her, my dps main is sombra and mei and my second healer main is ana, they are considered to be the most skill required hero and I’m decent with them. The reason a lot of people love mercy was because they love the design of her, her personality.
She is still a doctor, but completely loose her standard.
I even bought a golden gun for Mercy because I loved playing as her so much. It’s the only golden gun I’ve ever bought and the only one I’ve ever been able to afford. Now, I never play as Mercy. It’s sad, really. The hero who has been my favourite to play as since the game’s launch is now the worst support hero in the game. Press F to pay respects.
I have over 1200 hours on Mercy, but the drop in her hps killed her for me. I was in masters as a Mercy main for 10 seasons, even during triple tank meta, and this season I am currently mid plat. Mid freaking plat. I didn’t get worse. All my friends ask me why? How? And I honestly think I’m going to end the season in gold if I continue to grind for the Halloween loot.
Either I really pissed off some Blizzard employee, I got worse, or Mercy can’t even remotely carry now. I’ll let you decide which seems most likely.
agree, plus yes fun is subjective, but one of the major reasons she was reworked was because she was unfun to play with and against, but through the rework they also made her unfun to play as…