Personally hated the removal of mass rez. It was a strong ultimate that felt impactful. It also made Mercy even more frustrating immediately after (Moth-Meta) and made her frustrating to use after that (1.75 second rez).
I would have much preferred experimenting with reducing the timing window to get the rez (I.E. all teammates would have to die within a shorter time frame to each other), reducing the capture radius of the ability or including LOS checks.
There were a lot of options that were never explored rather than removing it.
…as it needs further elaboration for some people, when designing new heroes damage break points, they have to constantly consider “What if this hero is damage boosted…?”
…they need to do this for every heroes primary/secondary fire as well as every ability they have that does damage…
…it’s not that ‘they can’t do it’ (such a strawman), moreso it makes some abilities hard to implement as they’re either:
too weak: no dmg boost
too strong: dmg boost
…I already acknowledged Zen earlier in the conversation:
truth be told, damage boost is broken at a fundamental level, just like current junkrat entire kit, and as a Mercy main I hate how it holds her back from having any skill expression and being unhealthy for the game.
Mercy should have her pocket boost replaced with the offensive staff from the PVE vid. It’d give her actual skill expression while no longer holding dps like Ashe, Sojourn, Hanzo, Pharah back because of problematic synergies -this would solve most of the problems. This of course needs to come with adjustments to other overtuned supports like Kiriko.
I couldn’t give exact numbers but using soldier as a baseline you want the attack speed increase to roughly match the DPS benefit of damage boost.
Soldier DPS: 162
DPS with damage boost: 210.6
So the fire rate increase would need to bring soldier’s DPS to ~210. It would likely be a little lower due to having to reload but you get the idea.
The idea isn’t to nerf Mercy’s damage boost, it’s to give it an iteration that doesn’t push high damage, single shots over the edge.
Ah sorry, didn’t see that only saw your reply to me since I got the notification.
It that case would you then be arguing for the removal/rework of Discord?
If not, why not?
If it was a straight up 30% to 30% swap then the DPS would be the same. Yes the uptime of damage would be lower due to reloading more often… but I personally would like to see less of an emphasis on pocketing a single dps for the entire game and a more rounded support
Generally, I’m pretty sure GM players gravitate more towards mechanical skill-based heroes. It’s a general trend, not an absolute rule, though - but since Sojourn gets so much benefit from it, they can’t really avoid it that much. I don’t think Mercy is bad without Sojourn. If a DPS is doing well she can enable them even more.
Yes, that’s the idea.
But the difference is this.
With damage boost a soldier’s clip (as an example) goes from 540 dmg (excluding HS) to 702 dmg.
With a fire rate increase it goes from 540 dmg to 540 dmg.
Damage boost allows you to miss more shots and still be effective. Fire rate increase improves your effectiveness only if you’re hitting your shots.
In a mirror match a damage boosted soldier only has to hit ~28.5% of their clip to score the kill
A soldier with a fire rate boosted soldier has to land 37% of their clip, exactly the same amount as normal. They just push out the damage at a faster rate.
As an extra note you should also consider that fire rate does not benefit from HS damage, so the change would already be a nerf to mercy in that respect.
Skill issue. learn how to counter an mercy. You guys that is complaining about mercy dmg boost, let me guess… An streamer said for you come here on forums and spam “nerf mercy” or “mercy dmg boost is OP” etc? This is so pathetic, people crying about an hero that is almost died.
…possibly, yes, although it’s worth highlighting the difference between the two first:
dmg boost constantly empowers another hero to swap targets at will, it has 100% uptime while connected and requires no input from the boosted hero (Mercy just has to stay with them)
discord requires a high level of communication between Zen & his team to focus on targets, the ability cannot have 100% uptime (as it requires an enemy within LoS)
…of the two abilities, although on paper they serve similar functions, one is far easier to execute, especially at lower levels of play (Mercy holds rmb the entire match).
…as for nerfing/removing both? I think re-working would be the first place to explore (dmg boost on a meter similar to Moira’s heal for example)…
I don’t think those skills themselves are an issue – if anything, my real question would be on how “free” they should be
If Mercy’s damage boost had a cooldown then that sounds like a simple balance change. Like many heroes who buff themselves for a short time, she’d be buffing one ally for a duration giving the enemy plenty of options to avoid/counter the ability. (and there could even be some tradeoffs there – if the boost is a cast rather than channel buff, she could heal/shoot giving her more freedom at the cost of a more restricted ability)
The problem I have though is that Mercy with a DB cooldown means she’ll basically be holding left click all the time which doesn’t feel as good design wise. From a concept level, if she healed with her staff and could fire energy bolts from it too (like Destiny’s Glaive or some star wars staff blaster) then a damage buff ability on E would fit in nicely and even give Mercy more options to duel while supporting
If Damage Boost shared the same button with Resurrect (different cooldowns) then that could also introduce an interesting trade off… resurrecting an ally = no damage boost until it is off cooldown. Might even be worth trading that limitation for a better/faster Resurrect animation!
So to sum it up: Mercy’s staff can shoot on rightclick + Damage boost/Resurrect combined + Damage boost gets a meaty cooldown and locked out during Resurrect’s cooldown + Resurrect/Damage boost feel less like a clunky 2016 ability and comfier for Mercy
Forgot they showed that – yeah, that is basically what I imagined; same projectile speed or even faster! Part of me likes the whole “field medic that has a backup pistol” idea but if she were being introduced today as a new hero, it really feels like her staff should just fire a beam itself. (Pistol ends up a bit redundant but I think it should get a second look at either way)
I think heal/beam shot would be perfect for Left/Right click. Damage buff + Res sharing a cooldown on E would also introduce some good counterplay since it gives DB a duration/cooldown to play around + removes DB after a Res since it has a longer cooldown (and vice versa – boosting an ally means the enemy gets a quick window to maybe get a kill while she waits for the DB cooldown)
