It was an example of a badly - designed, “low skill = high reward” Ultimate that simply couldn’t be fixed with simple numerical changes, as it didn’t belong to the game of Overwatch.
Of course he devs realized that and rightfully reworked Mass Rez out of the game for good.
Mass rez was a niche ult and useless in high ranks. All the skilled mercys used tempo rez which was basically reviving one or two teammates with it to keep the fight going. Then an Sr exploit was discovered that allowed people to use 5 man rezes to easily climb which is what caused hide n rez. It was the abusers that wanted easy Sr. Mercy felt amazing to play with mass rez. Everybody loves being rezzed. It felt bad getting outplayed by spamming q and having mercy rez a teamwipe though
I mained Mercy back then.
You’ll hear a lot of hyperbole about “Mercy hiding in a corner and waiting for her team to die” so she could get a mass rez, but in reality they almost never died like that.
In most games, your team didn’t die all at the same time in a neat little pile (requirements for a mass rez) unless they’ve been caught in a graviton or other ult… and that assumes that you didn’t get caught in the ult yourself.
They’d die at different times, and so spread out that usually Mercy would only be able to catch 2 (or more uncommonly, 3) in resurrect’s 15 meter range in any given usage of her ult.
Another reason why “mass rezzing” was an impractical thing to try for: it often ended up in your team dying again.
You know how the most disastrous use of Mercy’s rez currently is her drawing the attention (and gunfire) of enemies while she rezzes, dying almost immediately after casting it, closely followed by the very ally she died to rez?
Amplify that by 5, and you’ll have a realistic depiction of the dangers of using a mass rez.
Fun fact, flying in and shouting HEROES NEVER DIE at the top of your lungs draws attention… and it makes the enemy very interested in killing you ASAP. For most of multirez’s runtime, Mercy did not get any i-frames after using her ult. Making a “big rez” almost always meant sacrificing Mercy’s life to do so.
As for your freshly-resurrected team… the time it takes the rez animation to complete is enough time for the enemy to set up a retaliation ult without any fear of being shut down. Using a Dvabomb, riptire, high noon, or any other ult that takes some setup right after a Mercy makes a mass rez was pretty much free second teamwipe.
"Mass rez" is the overhyped support equivalent of Pharah’s rocket barrage: success with it was beyond rare, and it usually got the user killed.
Most Mercy players used “tempo rezzing” instead of mass rezzing.
That is, most Mercy players rezzed only 1-3 allies at a time, and only when they died despite Mercy’s best efforts to keep them alive. It was pretty much a jury-rigged burst heal.
There was a catch to using rez this way, though: you needed your ult to be available A LOT more often than the average Mercy. It meant you had to be popping off as near 24/7 as you could manage, in order to build ult as fast as possible - because Mercy’s ultimate was her only contingency plan against burst damage.
Sadly, this is not the way most remember Mercy’s rez ultimate.
In Feburary of 2017, the devs buffed rez to give Mercy i-frames after using her ultimate. This made it so Mercy could not be punished for getting “greedy” with her rezzes.
Some players realized this, and discovered that the SR system disproportionately rewarded “mass rezzes” - since most Mercy players preferred tempo rezzing, the average number of “players rezzed per rez ultimate” was around 2-3.
The SR system saw how rare it was to get a mass rez, and “thought” that getting a 5-man must mean that you’re OWL material.
There were players who abused this to get into ranks that they really shouldn’t. Performance based SR went all the way to T500 back then, and so there were players abusing the “mass rez exploit” to get as high as grandmasters with winrates as low as 30% - a perfect demonstration of how “hide n rez” was more more likely to throw the match than not… but with the massive SR gains it gave, some players did it anyways.
Instead of fixing the SR exploit or reverting the buff that made rez abusable in the first place, the devs decided to remove Mercy’s multirez entirely. I will forever be salty about that.
Broken? Not overly.
Frustrating?
Absolutely.
I started back just a little after OW came out that same year in 2016. Mercy was considered F tier. She was able to get her rezz off, and “save the day”, and to some extent, I remember that feeling felt so good but it usually meant she would sacrifice herself.
Then they decided to give her immunity when she ulted, and that’s when she became a must pick. It was the most brain dead play style of hide and seek. Whoever had the better Mercy usually won. I remember justifying it at first because of all the team-wiping ultimates that existed, but the means of achieving it were feasibly mediocre to come by.
Short version: It was a unique mechanic that was terrible for the game…an “undo button” on a large scale
Long version: Mass Rez - Why its gone and what it was
It’s gone for a reason (and no I’m not talking about “hide and rez”)
You didnt win by dying, you didnt always win at all
You just respawned on point basically
In english also said ‘‘get some armor’’
but probably the Lindholm family isn’t allowed to give armor at all ,sure we still have Brig ulti… but remember how Torb was used to give armors all the time?
I was a mercy main during it. The enemy team got so mad when they used a bunch of ults to win a fight, just for me to get a 3-5 man and save the game
So I started playing Mercy when I was in gold, 5 man Ressurects were common. Didn’t have a massive amount of power usually the enemy saved ults and just team wiped us after.
As I climbed with Mercy as my main, around 3300 it changed to where a 2 man rez was stronger than waiting for a 5 man. Around 3900 I don’t remember getting a 5 man rez except the few rare times when the enemy didn’t actively try and kill me while using all their ults. Maybe happened 2-3 times.
I don’t think it was broken, I think they buffed the mechanic when they didn’t need to which led to people complaining about it.
No it was not.
Mercy was still a mediocre pick in GM , and she moved up from F Tier to D Tier in pro play. The ONLY times Mercy was ever a must-pick was when she, Lucio and Zenyatta were the only healers and Zen had 150 HP, and AFTER she was reworked into the moth.
Mass Rez wasn’t broken originally. It was more useful for temp rezing than a big team rez as you’d likely die from using it that way. You rarely saw Mercy in the top ranked games as she was a devil to play effectively.
You were very vulnerable as a Mercy back then. You had no bunnyhop or Valk to save you and Mercy was a main healer in those days. The roster was smaller, her heals higher. You could just about heal the whole team if you played your socks off. If the enemy team had half a brain cell you’d be focused constantly and your teams respawns staggered all over the place if you didn’t keep up the tempo rezes. It was a good time to play. Lots of fun just trying to survive with the occasional big rez moments when everything just came together perfectly and you got out alive.
It did annoy some people when played 2CP maps on the last objective but then other ults that did team wipes balanced it out. It’s all about team work after all.
Mass Rez only became a problem when they gave Mercy invincibility when rezing. I think one of the arguements was they weren’t happy with the character having to die to use their ult. It seemed counter to the spirit of the game and cost the team their main healer.
Then the whole SR Gain incident started and non-Mercy players hopped on the bandwagon and started abusing the system to reach Masters. This is where the whole Mercy hiding until their team died then rezing thing came from. Wasn’t a problem until this bug.
This whole series of events led to some well known streamer DPS mains starting a movement against the character. Their fan base created a huge storm around it and put pressure on those in charge.
Instead of fixing the SR Gain system those in charge panicked and butchered the character. The result was Mercy had an extremely badly reworked kit, feedback from the Mercy community was ignored, Moth Meta happened, nearly 20 balancing tweaks over a year occured, years of hatred towards the character was spawned, similar hatred towards those in power from the community and towards those people who forced the changed and a finally badly broken fan base that has never recovered.
And here we are now. Years later and still talking about how badly they screwed up.
Wait what? Season 6 was when Mercy had her immunity during Rez. At this time, she and Ana, as well as Zen were meta and the reason Mercy was a must pick was because people believed that if the opposing team had a Mercy, you needed one too. Otherwise, you were considered to be throwing.
Her change to Valkyrie further solidified her place as a must pick, until we arrive to what we have today. Just type in Overwatch League Highlights 2017 on YouTube.
Absolutely boring to use. Used for free sr farm. Good it’s gone.
Absolutely busted and unfair.
You and your team use a ton of ults to win the fight but because mercy was hiding and your team can’t find her she rez her entire team and you lose that obviously wasn’t always the case but with her ult charge and constant multiple rez compared to 1 was so unbalanced
It was mostly used to pick up 1-3 teammates in the mid fight. Before invulnerability she would almost always sacrifice herself in the process. When she was given invulnerability however, it removed most counter play. High risk high reward. Removed for being “frustrating” but if they actually balanced around that we wouldn’t have any abilities at all smh. It got removed because streamers didn’t like it
It wasn’t “Broken”. It was frustrating in lower elo’s and useless in high elo’s, often leading to the enemy team getting another free team wipe with even more ult charge. It overall hurt Mercy’s viability in ever being meta on ladder or pro play.
If it wasn’t for the SR exploit, she would have never seen popularity above gold.
i think it wasnt that broken because people would focus mercy a lot and when you could rez all 5 it was good but didnt happen much
nah. Season 6 was Mercy’s rework. Invulnerability was like mid season 4.
Also no. The meta was still very much Lucio Zen. Ana was a throw pick by that time because Winston shut down everything in her kit. Mercy didn’t see Meta relevance till after her rework.
It wasn’t broken, most players at the time had poor Ult Management, and everyone tended to blow them all at once. Not thinking, "Oh wait, they have a Mercy who’s not Massed Rez recently, maybe we should bait the Rez with 1 or two Ults, and then clean up afterwards with the rest of them. Alas no, everyone just played for “Play of the Game” instead of playing to win, which funny enough, often gave the Mercy player PotG because they would Mass Rez to take the point, which would usually win the game.