Let me give some exact context to the statement then.
Developer Update (August 24, 2017)
From the PlayOverwatch channel.
https://youtu.be/vDlCqJ1tD3M
Transcription
| Time |
Trascription |
| 00:38 |
And I think it’s important for me to start with: Why are we changing Mercy in the first place? |
| 00:45 |
So, one of the problems we see with Mercy right now is there’s a weird behavior that’s |
| 00:50 |
encouraged by the core, fundamental design of the hero, which is that, if you are a Mercy |
| 00:57 |
player and you’re healing your team and your ultimate is up or close to being up, you have |
| 01:02 |
this weird moment where you stop healing your team, you go into hiding, and you start to |
| 01:08 |
tell your team: "Everybody die together! |
| 01:10 |
Die on the point. |
| 01:11 |
Die on the point. |
| 01:12 |
I have rez." |
| 01:13 |
There are people who might not be listening to you on your team, who are now yelling at |
| 01:18 |
you: "Why aren’t you healing? |
| 01:19 |
Why aren’t you healing?" |
| 01:20 |
They go off and die somewhere else. |
| 01:22 |
Anyway, the team eventually wipes and then Mercy swoops in and does her big Resurrect. |
| 01:30 |
There’s a couple things we really don’t like about this. |
| 01:33 |
One, we think it’s wrong to tell a main healing character to go off and hide somewhere and |
| 01:40 |
stop healing for some period of time. |
| 01:42 |
The other thing is, that on the receiving end, like, let’s say you’re on a team that |
| 01:49 |
puts a lot of effort into getting a full team wipe. |
| 01:52 |
You use a Zarya Graviton Surge and maybe have Pharah rain justice from above on top of that. |
| 02:00 |
You wipe out the entire enemy team. |
| 02:02 |
It’s pretty disheartening to have Mercy just erase that moment with a full team rez. |
| 02:07 |
So, we felt like her Resurrect was something that needed to be addressed. |
Followed by this…
| Time |
Trascription |
| 03:42 |
So, Mercy will be getting an ultimate that’s called Valkyrie. |
| 03:46 |
And Valkyrie does a lot of things, so let me walk you through all of them. |
| 03:51 |
First and foremost, when Mercy activates Valkyrie …she can fly. |
| 03:58 |
And I don’t mean she can Pharah boost in the air briefly. |
| 04:01 |
I mean she can fly. |
| 04:04 |
And it’s super fun. |
| 04:05 |
You have complete control of your character. |
| 04:08 |
After all, Mercy has those wings, we might as well put them to real use. |
| 04:11 |
I mean, Guardian Angel is pretty good, but imagine flying with Mercy, how much fun it could be. |
| 04:18 |
The other cool thing about Mercy when she’s in Valkyrie is that everything she does is |
| 04:24 |
basically better. |
| 04:25 |
So, Guardian Angel now goes much farther than it did before, so she can reach targets much easier. |
| 04:35 |
Her beams now go farther, both healing and damage boost beams can reach much farther |
| 04:41 |
than they could. |
| 04:42 |
The coolest part about the beams is now they chain to multiple targets. |
| 04:47 |
So, if you have multiple teammates who are in need of healing and they’re grouped up |
| 04:52 |
the beam will hit all of them and they’ll all be getting healed or they’re all be getting |
| 04:57 |
damage boosted. |
| 04:58 |
Also, for those of you Battle Mercys out there, and I know you exist, her gun is now better |
| 05:06 |
when she’s in Valkyrie mode. |
| 05:08 |
She can shoot faster and it does more damage, which is basically, like, me saying in two |
| 05:13 |
ways: “She can do more damage.” |
| 05:14 |
I think the thing that you’ll like about it the most is the ability to fly. |
| 05:20 |
I think the flying really opens up those moments for Mercy where she’s getting attacked, |
| 05:25 |
her teammates aren’t really helping her out, she needs a chance to get away, and really just |
| 05:31 |
sort of flying… |
| 05:32 |
The other thing you can do is swoop in and save people at the right time. |
| 05:35 |
And, by the way, your Resurrect refreshes right when you use the ultimate ability. |
| 05:42 |
Now, on the PTR we’re going to be experimenting with different versions of the Resurrect and |
| 05:47 |
how it works with Valkyrie. |
| 05:49 |
Right out the gate, you’ll see that she can use Resurrect even faster when she’s in Valkyrie. |
| 05:55 |
So, in a lot of ways, you now have Battle Mercy, flies to the air, sees her teammates |
| 06:02 |
in trouble all around the battlefield, and then flies to them, either heals them or, |
| 06:06 |
if they happen to die, she’s gonna, you know, resurrect different ones of them. |
| 06:11 |
We feel like Mercy will feel a lot more engaging to play than standing around the corner, hiding, |
| 06:18 |
waiting for that moment to press the ultimate. |
| 06:21 |
So, we really hope that you respond well to these changes to Mercy. |
| 06:26 |
We know that she is a character that’s played almost second-to-none, so we think we’re going |
| 06:32 |
to get a ton of feedback from you. |
| 06:34 |
And we’re really eager to hear…we want to hear what the Mercy players have to say and |
| 06:38 |
we want to hear what people who have played on the receiving end of that team-wide resurrect |
| 06:43 |
feel and how they feel about Valkyrie. |
| 06:46 |
How do you feel like the balance is? |
| 06:48 |
Is it fun to play against? |
| 06:50 |
Do you understand what’s going on? |
| 06:52 |
So, we think this will be a good, healthy change for the game overall, so we look forward |
| 06:58 |
to what you have to say there. |
Namely the issues are from these sections:
It’s pretty disheartening to have Mercy just erase that moment with a full team rez.
Now, on the PTR we’re going to be experimenting with different versions of the Resurrect and how it works with Valkyrie.
We feel like Mercy will feel a lot more engaging to play than standing around the corner, hiding, waiting for that moment to press the ultimate. So, we really hope that you respond well to these changes to Mercy.
We know that she is a character that’s played almost second-to-none, so we think we’re going to get a ton of feedback from you. And we’re really eager to hear…we want to hear what the Mercy players have to say and we want to hear what people who have played on the receiving end of that team-wide resurrect feel and how they feel about Valkyrie.
How do you feel like the balance is?
Is it fun to play against?
It’s disheartening to be killed by a lot of things that feel like BS. Like for many how it feels to get hit by Tire or DVa bomb. Those don’t get changed though. Feels terrible for an ult to get nomed by DVa’s DM or reflected by Genji. That doesn’t get changed though. The reason it feels like garbo to have Mass Rez wipe your effort was because you let her do what she naturally does and you know you goofed big time; just like it hurts when those other situations occur. For the most part, it was just as easy to deny value from Mass Rez as it was to deny Trans.
Kill 
the supports first. ESPECIALLY if it’s Mercy.
Super easy strat, but clearly it was too hard for a lot of people. So I guess target priority is too elite of strats for this game. Mind you, Resurrection was almost only buffed and not even that often either ever since the game launched and until invulnerability was added to the ult, it was so trash tier that Mercy and using Rez was considered throwing in most contexts. Then came the SR exploit and all of a sudden people are using hide and Rez EVERYWHERE and getting stupid amounts of SR for playing horribly. It’s almost like the problem was the ranking system and putting invulnerability, and that the rework could have largely or entirely been avoided if they fixed the SR exploit when it was reported instead of waiting a couple months, add limits that make it much harder/impossible to hide and rez, and/or removed invulnerability and put in something like damage reduction or healing for improved survivability without removing the risk of the ability.
As far as “trying out different versions of Resurrect on PTR”, they tried 1. Just 1. People would have been stoked if they’d tried out different versions of Mercy in general, but they really didn’t. Unless you read “PTR” as “live” in which case, yes they did try out multiple versions and tried out at least 10 iterations of Mercy causing a year of balance turmoil that could have been avoided if they just did what they had said they would.
As far as the feedback goes, well… that’s self explanatory if you watched the feedback thread while the changes were happening. People gave a lot of feedback. Then Jeff in his next interview gave a summary of the feedback he was getting which was completely different from what was in the feedback thread.
Of course there is dramatization everywhere about exact syntax of how things played out, but the core of that still remains undeniably true. Well, I guess it’s deniable if you’re delusional or don’t subscribe to the notion of facts being facts.