Mercy's Mobility is Not the Problem

General Discussion
1

There are a number of things that could be buffed or changed to help Mercy from being a weak/niche pick, but making her mobility (the only skillful thing about her) even simpler is NOT one of those things.

I don’t want to sound negative, I really appreciate the attempt, but if the goal was to make superjump easier, it both succeeded and failed. If you just want to go all the way straight up every time, then this is fine, but performing the old superjump tech is EVEN HARDER now that you can’t hold down crouch without triggering the new superjump.

However, whether its good or bad is beside the point. The point is that Mercy’s mobility is NOT what’s wrong with the character. Everything else is.

Skiesti recently posted an amazing video where she talks about why Mercy feels so lackluster compared to other Supports. Ultimately it boils down to, Mercy’s mobility is amazing, but she doesn’t really have much to DO with that mobility.

Sure, she can do a good job of being evasive and staying alive, but what is she actually doing while she’s alive? Heal at a static 55 HPS and hope that its enough to keep her target alive? All she can do is try to stay alive and hope that her mere passive existence is somehow enough because she has no other agency to contribute to winning a fight.

Every other Support contributes offensively. They deal anywhere from 5-20k damage on their own as well as other abilities, and in OW2 5v5 Supports participating in fights has shown to be more important than ever. But how does Mercy fit in to this? She just doesn’t. A meager 2k damage boosted is NOTHING compared to the abilities and damage output of every other Support.

And as for Res, when you WANT to use it, when a teammate goes down in the middle of a fight and you NEED to use it, that’s when its an impossible suicide mission. In 6v6 you could MAYBE hope to rely on your team to protect you, but in 5v5 with only 1 Tank, GOOD LUCK, that’s never going to happen, ESPECIALLY when its your tank that goes down, who you’d REALLY like to get back up, but there’s just no way. The only time its safe to Res is when you’re out of a fight, which just makes it a glorified respawn timer reduction. What gave Mercy’s single target Res value was when it was instant. Now, like damage boost, whether or not you’re actually getting any tangible value out of the ability at all is questionable.

Valkyrie has been nerfed so many times that its a complete joke to call it an Ultimate because it has all the impact of a standard cooldown ability. 60 HPS should be her default, not her ‘buffed’ Ultimate form, and its still not enough to help stop someone from getting focused down. I would take a significantly increased single target beam over split beams any day.

So despite having VERY few options for things she can actually DO, she’s still REALLY terrible at being able to multitask them. Every other Support can swap between fighting and healing almost simultaneously while ALSO contributing a number of potentially fight winning abilities like anti-nade, sleep dart, discord orb, immortality field, etc, AND have powerful Ultimates, but Mercy has NONE of this. Just a bad Ult, one over-handicapped suicide ability, anemic healing, incredible mobility and nothing to do with it, and damage boost that is either completely useless or breaking the game, but either way is INCREDIBLY BORING to use. Even Mercy’s unique healing passive has been given to EVERY other Support while Mercy only got a MINISCULE 2.5 HPS buff to her own.

So PLEASE guys, Mercy has SO many issues, there are SO many things you could be looking at adjusting to make her better, but pete’s sake, super jump isn’t the problem.

28 Likes
2

While Mercy players are really good at giving feedback on why they don’t like things, and maybe a bit on the gist of what they want.

They are usually pretty bad about being very direct and obvious about what they do want, and examples of how to get there.

It’s really not that hard, but it’s so eyerollingly frustrating that they can put hours of energy into phonebooks of posts.

But can’t make posts like this, that have a very concise 1. Problem 2. Solution 3. Result, with examples of how to get there.

[✅] Easiest fix for Roadhog
[OW2] Balance Design Blueprint

3 Likes
3

Just a few corrections I have.

The best thing Mercy can multitask is being a threat people might want to hit to exposure self and be hard to hit, but at the same time providing value by healing/boosting other people.

By exposing your booty to them and your ally’s they have to make a choice. Attack the Mercy that is in sight or attack the thing she’s helping.

Uncrouch before using guardian angel. You are exposing yourself anyway by flying, so uncrouching ahead of time is not a big deal.

2k boosted you are right doesn’t do much, but its always been more about reaching break points. Oh, rein is swinging or using double fire strike. I should boost that such that he can 2HKO and not 3HKO. That is really hard to show the value of at all to people or the lack of value it can bring.

In a way, Mercy gets a ton out of superjump, so its a flat buff. Being able to jump whenever in guardian angel is now very liberating no longer being tethered to the height from the ground or where an ally is when you use it. Lots of self-agency gained.

There could probably be another change that is more proactive to influence a match, but I’m fine with their rapid development cycle to see where Mercy lands after this larger change.

4 Likes
4

Its hard enough just trying to explain WHY she’s bad and what all the problems actually ARE since the devs don’t even seem to really be aware of WHY Mercy mains say she’s bad. Like I said, there’s SO many things that the community has pointed out that could help, they just need to pick ANY of them and try SOMETHING. I mean, I could write out a whole wishlist of ideas and suggestions, but I’m not the game developer, I have no real say over what they can or should do, all I can really do is point to what the problems ARE that need attention.

5
  1. Gun is garbage and clunky
  2. Fix gun
  3. Mercy now has more agency and self defense
2 Likes
6

I mean, neither am I. But that doesn’t stop me.

It’s just frustrating to me when this stuff feels so easy to me, but practically the entire rest of the Mercy community can’t be bothered.

[OW2] Should Mercy copy TF2 Medic?
[OW2] Fix for Support hero hype
[OW2] Support Passive "Combat Medic", Damage = GreenHealth

1 Like
7

So are we specifically talking about how it takes 1.2 sec to switch to her pistol, then 1.2 sec to switch back to staff?

8

Gun IS garbage and clunky, but I don’t think gun should be the focus.

Swapping to her gun sucks, so I tend to use her melee a lot, so some kinda buff to her melee like Zen got would be sweet. I always liked the idea of her getting a two-melee combo with her staff.

But besides that, I REALLY think that of ALL the characters in OW2 the one who deserves some kind of CC ability should be Mercy since she has no other offense. Some kind of stun or blinding bright light effect would be cool. She could use it defensively for herself or to protect a teammate, or offensively to help your team push in, but importantly she wouldn’t be like Cassidy or Hog assassinating people with stun-headshot combos, though it could also help give her a fighting chance in a duel.

As for her healing, I think she should get a cooldown where pushing reload while staff is out ‘supercharges’ her staff for a period of time and boosts her healing output, but then has a sort of ‘reload’ animation where its unusable for a few seconds while it ‘recharges’ and the ability goes on cooldown.

3 Likes
9

The fact you need to swap out your primary weapon at all, yes. I can’t think of another character that is required to do that besides Mercy and I would bet that is part of why her personal damage is abysmally low.

I’m not going to give suggestions though. If they require me, who has far less game development experience or game design education (I would assume), to tell them what to do then this game is pretty pooched.

Zen kinda works because he already has a ranged primary. Melee range is not a place that you want to be in, particularly as a support which is a primary target already.

10

you gotta be able to separate the fact that you’re used to superjumping the way you’ve been doing it for over 4 years (if you play since her rework) and the actual usability of the skill in question

it is by no measurement harder, you’re just not used to it, there is however a lack of control that can be arguably less interesting than old superjump but the added versatility and usability overrides the issue

2 Likes
11

Hah, if you’re hoping for forum Mercy mains to tell you how to design a support hero, when even Blizzard can’t design a functional support, I fear you’re being optimistic.

There are old interviews with Robin Walker (essentially a co-inventor of the class based shooter genre), talking about how the TFC medic was a bad design, whilst TF2’s medic was much better, that might give a good starting point though.

Essentially, making supports just overpowered is not a good strategy and doesn’t make the role inherently fun. You need to make supports the best role only at specific game changing moments, and have skill expression in interactive ways instead of existing to merely provide a simple function.

Under Robin Walker’s designs, the non-healer classes naturally form stalemates and front-lines, and the healer’s role is being the primary means of breaking stalemates, and the frequency you’re able to do that ties to your game sense and knowledge of the intricacies of the class.

No idea how OW could ever step down from how far cemented it is into the position of just having a bunch of overpowered supports with no real unique role in the game other than dealing out overpowered levels of healing.

12

It would be nice if they actually tried…

But it’s like all passion with zero effort.

13

Fine, I would say…

Reduce the effectiveness of all non-support ults massively

Find ways to make all support mechanics anti-synergise with other supports providing similar effects

Rebalance healing such that most people are not full health most of the time (but outside of combat, healing should be quick and easy)

Mechanically discourage healing the same target as someone else

Make support ultimate generation more skill dependent

Make support ultimates more interactive to use

Mercy 1.0 was much closer to this than we are currently at. Making her easier or more overpowered does not solve anything. Giving her a genuinely skill dependent ultimate that could change team fights in ways that no other ultimate could, whilst at the same time making her survival based on your game sense instead of handholding it with OP mobility, made her an interesting support to play. Nowadays the most powerful thing most support players will do is press Q when Genji presses Q as Ana, which you will freely be able to do by holding your heal button on your tank. It’s incredibly dull.

Obviously, I’ll add that mass res introduced many issues when it comes to FPS design integrity, and I don’t want it back specifically. I’m just saying that the gameplay of it was much closer to how supports should feel to play, compared to Mercy’s current spectator mode ultimate, or Ana’s press Q to win buttons.

1 Like
14

people actually think mercy is bad?
When I see mercy players they’ve often made the most difference in games.

and mobility is definitely a good part of that.
it lets you actually stick to your target, and stay alive while doing your healing.

1 Like
15

Totally agree 100%

I see this as a big plus for Mercy

2 Likes
16

A big plus she didnt need, its fun to use dont get me wrong, but she didnt need more mobility, she needs more self agency, and less team reliant abilities, more ways to make an individual play like everybody else excels in.

5 Likes
17

It sounds to me like we both want the same thing… Give Mercy a Desert Eagle.

3 Likes
18

Blizzard has retconned the lore a bunch of times already, why not

1 Like
19

The Deagle is filled with magical science stuff and the shooting sounds like a squeaky toy so it’s ok.

20

Yes it literally is lol. Before you could press down Crouch and GA at the same time and hold them to do a superjump. Now if you do that it instantly shoots you up. The only way to do/initiate an “old” superjump now is to hit crouch, then hit shift, and instantly let go of crouch after you hit shift. The time is really finnicky and inconsistent now.

Luckily all of the top non-Mercy players on Twitter are hating on it and all of the top Mercy players are hating on it so Blizz will probs adjust it

Ew. Non Mercy players saying what’s a “plus” for the hero when majority of Mercy players disagree is so gross.

Yup ^

3 Likes