They could’ve. The problem is that they reworked Mercy and made that disgusting Moth under the illusion that that iteration of Mercy was balanced. You don’t think they did play-testing before they implemented the rework? Nope, they genuinely thought CD Res and a broken ultimate would be balanced and acceptable.
The reason why they took so many patches to fix the issue is because each time they did a volley of nerfs, they thought enough was done until the stats told them otherwise. It was a constant case of expectations being hit with reality until finally they nerfed the one thing that the rework didn’t even change.
All I know is that they’re adamant about her being a DPS.
Funny thing is that the treatment Sym and Bastion got is comparable to the first volley of nerfs Moth Mercy got. That alone should tell you how ridiculously broken reworked Mercy was.
They made a lot of questionable choice with Mercy’s rework. And to balance her they didnt nerf her really hard to be below average first then slowly buff her back up like they did to Bastion and Sym.
That s why i said they blatantly played favor with Mercy.
They nerfed her so hard that they ended up going for the one thing that wasn’t changed by the rework at all. At which point, she became so trash that they decided to give her back 55HP and now we come to present-day Mercy. Meh in OW1 and hot garbage in OW2.
Bastion and Sym players understandably get nothing from the developers but their nerfs and changes just can’t be compared with Moth Mercy which was so broken it needed several volleys of nerfs to address.
Do not trust anything “Badman” says on Sym… what he thinks is “good” statistically might just mean she’s strong in lower tiers with zero intention of being every allowed to be good high up.
Can we also get Mercy style DPS please? It will be like LMB for Mercy pistol sized hanzo logs, E for instakill of an enemy on 30s CD, Ult for invincibility and flying
Yes. But she got more nerfs than both Sym and Bastion combined. Her first set of nerfs that came immediately after her rework was launched practically decimated pre-launch Mercy 2.0 and it still wasn’t enough. She was, again, so broken that a single set of nerfs (like what they did with Sym and Bastion) was not enough and she needed to go through a whole year of nerfs to only become underpowered afterwards.
Mercy is hardly being showed favouritism here. Quite the opposite really. The rework alone made dozens of Mercy players quit the game.
My point is that they weren’t baby-step nerfs. It was sledgehammer after sledgehammer and all because they underestimated how powerful E Res and Valk was; foolishly believing that mass Res was somehow stronger.
Mercy’s nerfs were not a sign of favouritism - it was very much the opposite.
Yes. Many people find her very satisfying to play. That’s part of the reason why she’s so popular. She’s also not nearly as frustrating to play against as many other heroes.
I don’t understand why it’s a risky move. You’re not going to like every single hero they release. I don’t play snipers, but I’m fine with them releasing more of them. There’s no harm in the game having multiple options for multiple playstyles.
Because OW is a PvP. There should be a common denominator to measure each player’s worth to decide winner and loser.
Variation is good, but it should still be bound to such common denominators. Mercy as a hero has always been a deviant and too far away from the norms compared to the rest, so much so that she just simply plays her own game. Mercy players can do great thing, but it s just her thing, everyone else aint even trying to compete against her directly.
This is just my own experience and personal bias, but how often do you see people take a Mercy at similar rank seriously? Or do they think of her as an accessory? I like playing Mercy from time ti time as well, but for the integrity of the game, she should have been the nichest among the niches.
Ok there are some really bad takes in this thread being passed off as fact lolz
No, they wouldn’t at all. LOL. Not many people enjoy playing Brig, and everyone HATES when she is meta. The Devs themselves have said this. LOTS of support players LOVE playing Mercy, she is one of the most popular HEROES in the entire game. The Devs themselves have said this multiple times. Ana is the other most popular support, as per the Devs.
As someone who plays support in GM, we HATE when Brig is meta because she is boring and mind numbing to play. Mercy at least has interesting movement mechanics you need to use to get value, Brig just sits in the backline spamming whip shot and bash off CD. zzzz sleeper.
He…himself said that? The streams were also…publicly viewable? I literally was on his stream near the end when he said “My final Youtube video for unranked to GM Mercy is up, in it I talked about the things that finally allowed me to get maximum value at her and finally break through Masters” because he had been hard stuck in masters for weeks.
Also it took him 187 games…which was WAY more games than any other support he did. Ana, Bap, Moira, and Zen all took under 100 games. Brig took 110 and Lucio 140. So Mercy took almost an entire double amount than half of the supports and a third more than the others.
Good thing multiple OWL main support players who had to learn her during Moth have said things contrary to your claims that she is the easiest hero with the lowest skill ceiling, then!!
Custa, ArK, and NeptuNo all had to learn her for Moth and all have made either entire interviews or statements about her having a high skill ceiling in the high level as a MS. NeptuNo (who was one of the youngest CSGO pros, initially an OW hitscan player turned Lucio player who had to learn her for OWL) said, and I quote, “Mercy is one of the most complex heroes to play at the maximum level.”
I think I trust their opinions more than yours! I also got to top200 playing support and play all of them at a GM level/in college scrims, and I can aim very well/have gotten an Ana only account to GM with ease, and I think Mercy is pretty much on par with Lucio skill-ceiling wise and vastly above Moira and Brig. Lucio has to aim more often to get value but her movement mechanics are arguably more varied and important to staying alive and getting value than him, especially at higher levels and in dive metas.
Which is probably why…they want to make more heroes like her? If one of the most popular heroes in the game has a unique playstyle of being non-aim-intensive and instead getting value via positioning and game sense, according to Geoff himself, and also for the fact that they spend more time supporting their team rather than interacting with the enemy, then clearly it’s a good idea to make similar heroes…no?
And then there are 2 or 3 heroes that “nonflexible Mercy mains” can have their skill set transfer between and flex between. While also making a large portion of the playerbase who enjoys these heroes happy. That’s a good thing…no?
In GM? I get complimented by my team and the enemy all of the time about how hard I will carry teamfights or games. I made a folder and started keeping screenshots of it because it was happenin so much. Same with in my college bracket games, enemy players will literally add me to compliment my movement after.
Because most high ranked players can actually see and appreciate how much value you are getting via good mechanics on the hero.
And in the same vein, yes, many will see a Mercy hard pocket their duo all game and hardly do anything else, and no one really respects them. And I don’t either!
The issue is that sadly the latter option is an extremely viable playstyle
Honestly, I still fail to understand how any of this amounts to a serious objection. I can’t see an actual concrete problem with having more heroes like her in the game. It all feels like hand waving and sophistry to me.
Mercy has been in the game since launch, and the game has always managed to have competitive integrity. Her existence doesn’t detract from it in any way.
She’s a popular hero who has almost always seen some play and every level, and has almost never been oppressive (outside of Mercy 2.0). If Mercy is in some sense unique, all of this is an argument for making more heroes like her, not for making her more niche.
Whether or not some people take her players seriously is largely irrelevant.
To me, the situations is similar to how some people argue against the validity of same sex marriage. The arguments always seem to vaguely hint that some (other, of course other) people may dislike it. They shy away from stating concrete problems problems with it and instead opt for abstract concepts like the integrity of the definition of marriage.
Both are pretend problems (though one is obviously much more important than the other.)
Mercy’s optimization ceiling is also pretty insanely high.
Do you regularly recognize the intervals of every hero’s attacks and affectable abilities in order to waste as little boost time as possible?
Do you know the thresholds by which you’d need to keep your ally up against incoming damage in order to actually increase their TTD (instead of just having them die with fewer points of overkill)?
Do you know when to Glock? Is your glocking highly accurate? Can you slingshot advantageously for Glock position, to minimize chance of being hit and maximize your chance to crit?
Do you know when to bodyblock?
Do you regularly shotcall encounters to maximize the HPM and bait value that can be generated through Rez?
Etc., etc.
Mercy has a low skill requirement to be decently effective, but the awareness and knowledge requirements (and mechanical, even, in Glock’s case) to optimize her fully are tremendous.