So your plan is to buff basically every part of Mercy’s kit to obscene degrees, despite her being balanced right now? OK, I guess we’ll all just go back to mandatory Mercy every game.
You’ve put her healing back at mandatory Mercy output levels. That alone is a problem. Except you also gave the most powerful ally buff in the game to her damage boost; another thing that alone would be unbalanced.
But lets not forget that Cleanse is also a very rare and valuable ability; better give her that too. Oh and it’s also burst healing and has very long range, because of course.
And oh man, better not forget making her ultimate provide about as much team durability as rally, while also making one target basically untouchable. And team-wide speedboost because sure. Guardian Speedboost because why not. Oh and can’t actually lose anything so Rez makes a return on her ultimate.
I removed rez from her base kit in exchange for reverting her healing back to what it was for the majority of the game’s lifespan, buffed damage boost like Geoff himself said he wanted to, and gave her a pretty weak E ability compared to E rez. Then I shaved off 1/3 of Valk’s duration to give it some more healing. If you think these changes would make Mercy mandatory you’re insane, she was only mandatory because of how prevalent rez/instant rez was and these changes literally make rez even less common/less apart of her kit and gameplay.
lol. Nvm you clearly don’t understand how 60 HPS wasn’t making Mercy mandatory and she dropped out of meta a week and a half before her nerf even went live as soon as double sniper/Grav dragon died. Even Seagull has admitted the HPS nerf was a mistake and overkill and part of the reason GOATs came so strongly at us.
75 healing, aka one Ana shot! Insane burst!! Brig’s 150 health pack could never! Cleansing one person of anti nade when Ana can land it on 3-6 targets easily now that DM and barriers have been universally nerfed! Wowee!
Your entire post is filled with bias, exaggeration, and a clear PTSD from moth meta the stems from an ignorance on how the game, meta, and supports work. If you think numbers are too strong, that’s fine, other people left actually constructive feedback. But saying this would make her a mustpick again for 60 HPS alone is a joke, and OWL support players have said she needs it to be even be viable. Anyone who thinks 60 HPS would make her a must pick isn’t worth talking to.
Well I’m not worth talking to so you can just cease responding whenever you’re ready to make good on that particular claim!
75 healing + 60*.8 is 123 in a second, by the way. Oh and cleanse. You’re acting like having a burst heal + S tier utility is reasonable on a hero that is also getting the most reliable raw output in the game.
If you think adding speed boost, cleanse, hyper-buffing Valkyrie, and 60 hps are all OK then you’re insane. Each of those is an enormous buff by itself.
Mercy had 60 HPS pre-rework and never surpassed D-tier. Mercy only became problematic with 60 HPS when they put Resurrect on a cooldown; something Ryan’s proposal removes.
Speed boosts can be extremely powerful, and I do think that 30% or 35% would be too much on Mercy’s damage boost. 15-20% would probably be fine, however, and it’s not like Ryan said the numbers must stay as they are:
True, but it’s only a cleanse, not a cleanse + prolonged immunity. It pales in comparison to Zarya’s Projected Barrier:
Blocks all incoming damage for 2 seconds after cast, up to 200 damage.
Blocks all incoming CC for 2 seconds after cast.
Increases Zarya’s damage output if barrier takes damage.
Cooldown is 4 seconds shorter.
The only thing Salvation has over Projected Barrier is 75 burst healing, which you mention here:
Ana literally has this on her primary fire. She can do it every .8 seconds. The proposed Mercy can only do it every 12 seconds.
And again, Ryan has said that numbers are subject to change. The fact the proposed rework gives us so many numbers to change in and of itself is an improvement from Mercy’s current state. If Mercy were hypothetically overpowered right now, what is there left to nerf? What more can you reasonably change without making it irrelevant? With Ryan’s rework, you can easily change a mess of numbers to alter Mercy’s power level without destroying aspects of her kit:
Imagine making one ultimate comparable to another one.
Mind blowing, I know.
100 health/second on a single target = untouchable? Ana doesn’t need to press Q to do that. Hell, she’s only 6.25 HPS shy of that with her primary fire alone.
I agree that 30-35% would be too much, hence me suggesting 20% or less on everything except the primary beam target for Valkyrie coupled with an 8 second duration rather than 10, but come on. Lucio provides a 25% speed boost just for existing.
This basically makes no difference.
One charge. The enemy team can still take a massive dump on the proposed Valkyrie by pressing Q twice, as they do with the Valkyrie we have on live servers. I don’t like the idea of having Resurrect in the proposal because it doesn’t seem to fit, but I also don’t think it makes a big difference either way.
On a single target, once every 12 seconds.
Ana can sustain 93.75 healing/second on her primary fire alone for 11.2 seconds before reloading. If she presses E, she can deal up to 212.5 healing to a single target in one second, plus another 100 for every other ally within Biotic Grenade’s AoE. All of that is before we consider the fact that for the following 3 seconds, Ana heals at a rate of 140.6 health/second for any single ally affected by Biotic Grenade. She can repeat this every 10 seconds.
Moira can sustain 130 healing/second on a single ally for 4.6 seconds using her Biotic Orb, or she can dish out 125 healing to her entire team over one second. She can repeat this every 10 seconds.
Baptiste can maintain 92.5 healing/second on his entire team for 5 seconds using Regenerative Burst. He can repeat this every 13 seconds.
123 healing on a single target for one second once every 12 seconds is nothing compared to what’s already in the game.
Ana’s healing has been made extremely reliable over the past two years.
Her ammo count has gone up to 14, when she launched with 6 and had 10 during moth Mercy. 4 more ammo is 300 more healing without needing to reload, or 4 more shots you can afford to miss.
Her nano got a huge burst heal that doesn’t require aim, and is on one of the fastest charging ults in the game. She can now use nano as an instant save button on any hero, including tanks due to the burst heal filling up half their healthpool instantly and even more if they are naded.
Her shots now go through full health allies so there’s no annoying accidentaly blockage
Shields have been nerfed across the board extensively, making not only her shots but her nade much more reliable and consistent to ladn
DM has gotten nerfed a lot and was one of the biggest reasons Ana was not used that much in dive.
Ana’s only weakness now is her mobility, which isn’t that big of a deal when we’ve been in static-y tanky metas for the last year and a half.
Also TY Titanium for that post, really appreciate it!
She needs her 60 HPS. Love your idea to replace rez (I find rez to be a trash ability). The movement buff tied to damage boost not needed. We already have a support that can do that. What they should do is make whoever is being damaged boosted get like 15% attack speed increase with a 40% decrease in reload animation since we dont have that kind of ability (yet).
Being realistic tho, I dont see them giving her another rework. I think they are too afraid to change her in that kind of degree again so the only thing I can think of them doing is messing with the numbers with her.
I kinda have to agree with Arzoo and SAM here, the rework does look like it may end up making Mercy OP again.
But the concept sounds and looks cool and I’m willing to try it out.
Also anyone here good at workshop? I want to give these idea proposals a shot.
Since I can’t test it, I want to give my thoughts on how it should go (without making her oppressive nor weak).
Regular
Heal Beam increased to 55 HPS (To act as a middle ground)
Damage Boost gives 25% Damage, 30% speed boost (So as to make sure her DB isn’t oppressive in terms of damage, I think the speedboost is alright).
Salvation
Nerf to either 60-65 instant HP
Keep and cleanse and cooldown
Valkyrie
Keep ult charge
Keep DB changes
Keep GA changes
140 HPS is way too high, so maybe either 80 HPS.
Valkyrie (With Res)
Keep rez changes
Valkyrie (If Rez is removed)
Salvation: HPS is 70-75
Reduce cast time and cooldown perhaps?
Those are some changes I have but since I can’t test this, I’m not too sure if it will work or not.
I personally think mercy is in a very balanced and healthy state. I wouldnt be totally against a rework but i dont think its the right thing for the game. Idek if she needs buffs right now tbh. Damage boost is a very strong ability and i think its underestimated for the utility it brings to the hero and I think buffing it could really hurt the game overall. ( for context i am a mercy main with almost 700 hours so and hit 3950 so dont come at me saying that i dont know what im talking about).
Focusing on your rework idea. I think this would shoot mercy back up into S tier and give another moth meta, and thats the last thing this game needs. Your idea of speed boost makes her do WAYY too much. She would literally do everything, there would be 0 reason to not pick her. Lucio would die. ana could maybe work but theres almost no reason too run her when mercy has enough healing w/ 60hps and a very slightly worse nano constantly (not to forget the speed boost and fire speed increase AND reload speed increase). No real reason to run moira when mercy does everything she can do but better and with 10x the utility. Brig could still be viable maybe but why run her when you can mercy + zen. With bap its just less consitant healing and ig you have immortality field, but with that being nerfed pretty hard idk if that trumps the insane damage potential and utility mercy zen bring to the game.
I do not think mercy needs a rework and if she gets one this is one is not the way to go
Similar to what I did over all the megathreads… (Not to mention I am a qualified Game Designer/Developer and actually work in community management for other games)
No, because Blizzard already said they will never revert for ANY decisions they have made, they might so somethin similar to a previous version of Mercy but 60HPS is likely never to return it and in fact they already address the 50HPS issue by previously doing what I’ve just said, they made Valkyrie have 60HPS since it is near impossible to boost Valkyrie without breaking it, it’s a placebo buff.
No, because this goes against the original Nerfs placed on Mercy, Valkyries movement speed was too much for people to handle and Mercy because virtually impossible to kill without an ultimate like Soldier:76 or McCree. Also this conflicts with Lucio’s gimmick which is even more of a no because of ability clash.
HA! This is exactly like the Pacify ability and later reworks of it as stated in the 12000 post of ONE OF MANY Megathread or as I like to call it the Concept Dumpster for Blizzard to steal
The Burst Healing idea isn’t new, in fact we’ve suggested it before the release of Brigitte, at the time the idea was to turn Res into a Burst Heal ability, where the user is instantly healed a set amount of HP as oppose to Heal Over Time, the player would also gain a Defensive buff/Damage reduction (this was suggested in place of Pacify as we said a specialised hero that deals with debuff/clensing should be built instead, example Echo)
In the end the idea was stolen along with the ultimate concept and given to Brigitte, those unfamiliar with the Megathread will assume the idea is similar to Symmetra’s old gear but it is infact more similar to the Mercy idea that we dumped into that megathread.
It even has the defense boost aspect in form of armour, the different colour HP bar and Heal Overflow for HP extension and an AoE ult. The idea for the Ultimate was that Mercy would do a Mass Res but those alive would receive a burst heal and additional HP, I at the time argued it was too op to give damage reduction and the the additional HP should be colour coded and be pure HP than Armour or Shield.
Likewise near and just prior to the McCree Short, we were dumping idea’s for Mercy in the form of E Valkyrie, an ability that allows her to vertically ascend and gain a boost in GA range for a few seconds for quick escape and basically have better independant action, the vertical jump aspect was given to Baptise whilst the Temporary Valkyrie version of the idea (the original idea was a mini Valkyrie but I argued that free flight on a timer is too open for a mobile healer like Mercy and a Vertical jump would be better) and oh look… Echo has that function…
There was also talks about Clensing debuff and curing people and shielding and extending HP so Echo would be like a shield generator and someone who can shield her allies from debuff abilties.
That would have set her apart from the other supports, of course since there wasn’t much Healing abilitiy, she probs would have been a Off Support, but because of her intro and because it was evident Blizzard was nicking our ideas, people had their hopes up for Echo, Blizzard even tried to make her a support but ditched the idea due to her Ultimate.
Bad idea because Ult gain is tied to her rate of Healing, the less she heals the longer it takes, it means the sub support would have to take a backline and stop stealing heals from Mercy, if they keep competiting, Mercy can’t gain that rate and would actually benefit from doing Battle Mercy than Damage Boosting/Healing.
No because as I’ve said two years ago and I will say this now, Valkyrie is the worse possible designed ultimate there is that is difficult to balance in terms of value. tweak the values in either way and you either break it for making it too weak or too strong.
Valkyrie is more or less balanced the way it is, if you boost the value you will create this situation where things won’t die, it is already difficult to kill the targets she is healing whilst in a 1on1.
Plus it wouldn’t feel good, no matter what you do to Valkyrie, it doesn’t improve the feeling for the Mercy player, it isn’t a dynamic ultimate and if it becomes a sure win scenario, Mercy will re-enter nerf cycle hell again.
This conflicts with Lucio so that is a no, it’s been suggested before and shot down before, you cannot conflict with the niche features of other heroes.
Basically a 1 Guaranteed Res with no drawbacks to it, the reason they extended the cast time and made it occur at the end of casting and slowed her down and made her vulnerable was because the skill was still at the power level of an ultimate and they needed to curb it. Not to mention Res is a core factor of Mercy’s character so it is unlikely they would get rid of res and have it appear only for her ultimate unless they EXCLUSIVELY build it for her Ultimate and focuses it on it being the core center of her Ultimate, so get rid of Valkyrie and make it all about resurrect.
No… because a good Mercy is already difficult to kill, there is a Skill Ceiling whether you want to believe it or not. If she is uncatchable they you are breaking her character.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Wow this came full circle… so when PTR came out for Mercy 2.0 and there was the very first few Megathreads on old forums… this WAS THE VERY FIRST IDEAS WE GAVE!!! Do you want to know what happened? Sure, we suggested similar ideas we even suggested to roll both Damage Boost and Heal Beam into one, maybe make it thicker, maybe make it single target and maybe boost the effects and you’ve just named the very character that came out not longer after this idea came out (there was also that stupid, semi serious ricochet bullet idea)
Moira… Moira came out and she incorporates all the stuff we suggested for Mercy.
If you want to rework Mercy then here are the things to consider.
They cannot be a Revert on any aspect of her kit, they cannot be similar to an aspect of Mercy that was dropped for obvious reasons, her boost in speed in Valkyrie, her HPS because she was technically the strongest consistent healer in the game and was a definite pick because her healing was too strong and a lot of us Mercy’s in the megathread agree that was the main reason we picked her above all else, a good Mercy was good enough to heal to the point where we would hold off on mass res or even avoid skill res, it was a matter of skill and health management and ability to assess the field and utilise GA.
Valkyrie must never break and Mercy CAN NOT go through Buff/Nerf cycle EVER because she spent a year or two in the cycle and the devs are sick of her and the Mercy’s are sick of it as well.
She cannot have a conflicting ability or a new ability that will clearly be taken and adopted to the next new support. Moira, Brigitte, Baptise and Echo each have an element of the Mercy feedback added into them.
Also the Reverting rule applies to all Heroes, Blizzard never reverts they might bring other something similar but they will never revert back.
Precisely, coming from another Mercy player, she is in the best state she is right now and any changes will just put back on the plate for multiple reworks. Mercy was arguably fine before 2.0 they made the mistake of adjusting a balanced hero to make her more ‘exciting’ and broke her and doubled her pick rate.
Damage Boost is definately underestimated, it is an ability that is really strong, especially during her ultimate but it is an ability that most Mercy’s don’t utilise when they should.
At the same time you cannot get rid of res as a Skill, since Mercy is designed to Res… They removed scatter arrow because Hanzo was all about the dragons than his ability to scatter shot.
For Mercy you either make Resurrect the core of her ultimate again which means it should be the main focus of resurrect or you leave it alone. Which again means your original idea from the megathread, make Res the ultimate and have that debuff clensing ability as a skill but that wouldn’t work because it means adding a new gimmick to Mercy which goes back to that argument we had over a year nearly 2 years ago, it would be better going onto a new character which we had hoped would be Echo, heck she was pretty much cyborg Mercy and even looked like a Shield Gen hero and it would make sense for her to be a Shielder that can cleanse/shield her allies from CC effects!
The counter argument was for an E Valkyrie which would be in line with her mobility and her ability to be independantly mobile and adds extra survival for Mercy when she can’t GA to an ally, but that idea was taken and added to Echo instead (claps)
Then when we argued that Clense wouldn’t fit Mercy we went with the Burst Heal idea! the HP extension and the added damage reduction/defense boost or something and oh look at that… looks like Brigitte’s armour pack ability!
Let’s face it Titanium, they robbed us of our feedback from your megathread. Moira, Brigitte, Baptise and Echo, they ALL feature some aspect or feature of their ability that was slightly modified or tweak and funny enough they ALWAYS get announced shortly after we plant ideas into your thread.
Chances are if they kept Echo as a Support she probs would have projected Shield, added immunity to CC or clense CC effects, maybe extend health and would function as a Off support or something. They only ditch Echo because they wanted Duplicate to be the MAIN gimmick for her, but she clearly was allign with the ideas we submitted to your thread in regards to independant mobility and shield gen, she even uses similar light structure as Sym…
Pacify was a debuff to enemies that reduced their damage output, this is an ally targeted burst heal/cleanse…
For someone who claims to be a game dev you don’t seem to realize that the 15% raise is to offset the 60 HPS buff, since they had to buff her charge by 15% when they nerfed her to 50 HPS.
Well this post is about keeping Valkyrie so sorry? I don’t know why you feel the need to repeat yourself, we get it, you want mass rez Mercy back.
Shot down by who? You? This post is to give ideas to the Devs, not for your approval. Geoff literally responded to ME saying he wanted to buff damage boost to feel better to use/make it more powerful WITHOUT buffing the damage boost %, and adding a speed buff is one of the ways they can do this.
A 1 second cast time with a 5m range is a drawback…that’s ample of time for an “ultimate” ability single rez.
No thanks, that’s not realistic so that’s not what my rework idea is about. You should go make your own rework post if you feel so strongly though!
They literally can and literally did. The 50 HPS nerf was a “Revert”. The Valk 60 HPS buff was a “Revert”. They can do anything they want. The only thing they’ve said they won’t do is revert to MASS REZ as her ult, and said they are keeping Valk as her ult. Sorry to burst your bubble buddy.
LOLLLL now I know you don’t know what you’re talking about. Multiple OWL pros, support players and non supp players, including Seagull, have said the HPS nerf was overkill and unecessary and made her unviable, and that she needs 60 HPS to be remotely viable again. Also, Ana has been made 1000x more consistent with
Her ammo count has gone up to 14, when she launched with 6 and had 10 during moth Mercy. 4 more ammo is 300 more healing without needing to reload, or 4 more shots you can afford to miss.
Her nano got a huge burst heal that doesn’t require aim, and is on one of the fastest charging ults in the game. She can now use nano as an instant save button on any hero, including tanks due to the burst heal filling up half their healthpool instantly and even more if they are naded.
Her shots now go through full health allies so there’s no annoying accidentaly blockage
Shields have been nerfed across the board extensively, making not only her shots but her nade much more reliable and consistent to ladn
DM has gotten nerfed a lot and was one of the biggest reasons Ana was not used that much in dive.
Not to mention Bap is in the game now and Moira’s consistency has been buffed too.
They’ve literally reverted multiple changes in the past 2 months alone and tested reverts on Experimental. Global armor nerfs revert, dva nerfs revert, reaper lifesteal revert, mcree fth, testing mcree firerate revert, reverted hanzo’s arrow speed buff from his original rework, reverted lucio speed changes, reverted steadfast buff and pharah splash changes literally yesterday, etc. etc. etc. You are just lying or being intentionally blind/ignorant right now idk what to tell you…
They did if you were following the megathread, actually a number of us in Titanium’s thread was quite angry about it and tbh it was a statement Jeff made to try and curb us, obviously he might have worded it badly the aim of the comment was to kill hope for an form of revert.
To further prove this point, all the so called ‘revert’ in this game is a soft revert where it is similar but never the same, they have altered it in somewhat where it looks like a hard revert but in reality it is not.
Yes which was suggested as an alternative and was shot down as an idea in debates between myself and others years ago. In fact from design perspective it would make more sense for a new character to have it than to give it to Mercy.
Yes but at the same time you didn’t pay attention to the fact I said there are competitive healing from your team mates. The more Moira/Ana/Baptise heal to offset the amount you do as Mercy, the longer it takes to gain ultimate which means you will end up keeping a similar rate to what you have now, as was the case prior to the nerf, as the strong Ana and Moira gets, the hard it becomes for Mercy to upkeep healing as they can out do her rate and therefore, caps her rate of ult gain.
Because at the same time you are missing the point, I am being non-bias. You cannot buff Valkyrie, as i’ve mentioned before years ago, I will mention it again. You can only Psuedo buff it by weakening Mercy then boosting again, you cannot boost her values in Valkyrie in any ways as boosting her
HPS - Breaks her as she will heal to the point no one dies
Modding Res - To perform better than it currently is will re-introduce the problem of Guaranteed success and refocus the ultimate to using Res which is something Blizzard doesn’t want and would trigger haters of Res. Right now we are arguably not using Valk for Res anymore as Res get’s us killed more often than not
Because Suggestions is a two way debate, the idea wouldn’t sell because they will legit ask you the question I’ve just asked.
‘If you apply Speed Boost, won’t that conflict with Lucio’s Character? People would avoid picking him and would pick Mercy again. That would lead to her regaining a boost in pick rates and a decline in Lucio’s pick rates. Also she will get stronger and her targets will be harder to kill? Is this the BALANCE we are looking to achieve? Are we going to continue nerfing the new additions we make and redoing a 1 step forward, 2 steps back cycle?’
It was a feature that existed before, they won’t revisit it because it was still ‘Too Strong’
To turn your skill back into res means to kill Mercy’s character, either you make it about res or you don’t in which case you get rid of res permanently or you make it ‘relevant’ again. There is no middle ground.
Yes there has to be a practicality but at the same time there is a degree of respect to the characters design (which is why they ultimately turned Echo into a DPS and not a Support as they cannot give up Duplicate in any way shape or form). Since Resurrect is a core element of Mercy’s character design, they would never reduce it’s relevance or it’s value so either you boost it’s power in Ult or you keep it as a skill through out without replacing it. There is no ‘Getting rid of it’
You don’t have a choice of not liking it, thats the reality of working in the industry, if I told you, you must keep Resurrect relevant, you have to do it, no if or but. Now DESIGN A RESURRECT that is powerful and relevant during Ultimate, you can’t then that means you cannot get rid of it as a Skill.
Getting rid of Res during base gameplay will curb Mercy’s relevance as a character in terms of design. You must keep it as a skill to keep the relevance of Mercy’s character design or you ditch Valk for Res, you can’t have Res overpowering Valk and since Valk is the ultimate you have to nerf Res.
See, you’re not stuck in design hell, you can’t make Res appear in Valk as a random skill with no major impact, otherwise it just doesn’t feel right, you can’t get rid of it as a skill because thats Character assassination and you can’t have res center as a Ult as that kills the relevance of Res.
We didn’t go through a Year+ worth of Mercy changes for nothing, from a design perspective they are pretty tapped out of possible alterations.
Found the patch notes, Blizzard never reverted, they only ‘Soft’ reverted but it is infact a ‘Alternation’ that is not identical to what it was before.
Therefore the Term ‘Revert’ Doesn’t fit, they will never bring back 60HPS in base without curbing or altering something else. They nerf Valkyrie indirectly through the changes made to 50HPS on her base healing so to amend for that they change the charge rate knowing full well that Moira/Ana/Baptise can out do her healing and curb her rate and they also ‘boosted’ her Healing to 60 HPS in a classic marketing strategy.
You nerf something to then ‘buff’ to make it seem stronger, it’s a Psuedo Buff, nothing has really changed they just made it sound fancy so we feel better but the gameplay feel of it, still feels hopeless from player perspective. You’re already desperately healing in base form and when Ult’ed you’re just making ends meet and just keeping people alive
It’s placebo effect and I’ve called them out before prior to the 50HPS nerf ¬_¬ So really it’s not a surprising move, it’s the most logical. To the common player it looks like a ‘Revert’ but it’s just a soft change to make things feel/look better via a placebo effect.
Patch Notes
Mercy
Caduceus Staff
Healing beam reduced from 60 healing per second to 50 healing per second
Developer Comments:Mercy’s previous healing output made her nearly irreplaceable in any team composition. Even after this change she will still be able to deliver more healing over the course of a match than any other support hero, but it should allow for other healers to be more viable.
Mercy
Valkyrie
Ultimate cost reduced 15%
Healing per second increased from 50 to 60
Developer Comments:Mercy’s ultimate was charging a bit too slowly after her base healing was reduced in a previous update. These changes should restore some of her ultimate’s strength and let it build up more quickly.
Because you’re viewing it as a Minority, even from a General gameplay, you can tell that on a casual basis, Mercy was stronger than the rest and at the time even in discussion, we were arguing why her pick rate was so high still even with all the nerf that happened.
You’re laughing because you are ignorant. The fact of the matter is, Mercy’s consitent healing is so strong to the point a decent Mercy player can heal and keep healing and confindently heal to the point where they aren’t overly reliant on res and because of that and the confidence of doing that, she was a solid pick.
At the time, as i’ve pointed out in the megathread and forums, you have two choices.
Buff every single support so that they are far superior to Mercy (with Mercy as the base all the other supports would be too strong) or you Nerf Mercy’s heal to then raise the relevance of the other supports and divert her pick rate onto them.
It’s not a matter of the 1% at the top picking her or how she looks in the Pro League, the real target was Pick Rate Manipulation, after Ana was nerf, Mercy pick rate set her in at number 2, since it was due to Meta/Pick Rate changes they wanted to change Mercy up and to make her fancy enough for OWL & OW World Cup, but the mistake there was the she shot up from 8~9% pick rate to a peak of 15~16% pick rate, nearly double what it was and even with nerf after nerf her pick rate was still 8~9% they needed the Meta and the Picks to change and as we agreed, the other supports were evidently too weak in comparison to Mercy.
Then the 50HPS nerf happen with all the buff being applied to all the supports after I myself have pointed it out and others discussed it in Titanium’s thread.
It’s not surprising… it’s predictable especially when they have no more options and by then we can tell they leeching ideas from us for new supports.
Reaper Life Skill functions differently from it’s original version and previous versions.
D.Va’s Revert were never identical to anything that came before it, functionality may seem or feel similar but it is not a direct revert.
Same with Hog’s hook function.
Also each of the Revert’s you mention tends to be a rebuff with a nerf in another area. It may look identical, but it just a similar product with subtle changes that changes the way the character looks and feels. Plus Placebo effect, sometimes it pays to be discreate like that.
Also if you are too immature to refine your idea or engage in a debate, then you have no business designing something.
Now address the issue. 1 - Mercy cannot conflict with the design of another hero
2 - Mercy cannot lose Resurrect and Resurrect must be of some major contribution to her character and of significance/reason to play her (Example: You Pick her for the ability to Res)
3 - If you curb Resurrect by replacing it with a skill, then you MUST make it of significant relevance in a Ultimate (If you cannot do this and must maintain Valkyrie then you must keep it as a Skill)
4 - Mercy MUST NOT become a must pick nightmare, unless it is for the purpose of manipulating pick rates again
5 - Unique abilities will most likely be diverted to a new character, therefore you must come up with a Mercy design that is still Mercy (basically what she has right now) and isn’t a redesign to her character or a new concept that will subtly be diverted to a new Hero release… basically no new gimmick
6 - It isn’t always about the Players, it’s about the Business and what the company wants and the direction we want the game and character to be heading in and other CURRENT targets and projects (OW2 and Skill system and basically Mercy OW2 version)
7 - Tying into the above, resource! Time, Money and Effort, we’ve got OW2, do we need to be worrying about more Mercy changes when we’ve got a OW2 Mercy with a Skill Tree?
No, it’s not…several have been straight reverts that I listed…
You’re just throwing your subjective biased opinions at me as if they are facts and it’s uninteresting and not worthy of conversation, such as:
and apparently think because you’re a self-proclaimed developer you’re the only one who can be right and have an opinion.
This post is a CREATIVE IDEA THINK TANK that I made to highlight some ideas I had and ask for feedback ON SAID Ideas, not for you to come in and tell me the entire thing is stupid and never going to happen. I don’t care if it happens or not, I’m expressing my ideas. I’m fine with current Mercy and thing with a healing buff she’d be perfect and never need to be touched again. But I made this post for fun and to think. Now please get off your high horse and let me discuss my ideas with people instead of shutting them down because “it wont happen !!!”.
Because I got the degree and the job to prove it and the marketing experience + the inside political BS experience with working with people to get the gist of what it is all about.
A straight buff to Mercy is definitely possible, but then you are committing to the same mistake as Titanium, you are thinking about Mercy and not the Game as a whole, you want to boost Mercy no matter what without regards to the consequences or potential debates against it.
Even if you recreate the so called Creative Think Tank, ideas that are going to be suggested to this thread, are going to be similar to Titanium’s thread that has 12000+ comments with like 10+ threads before that of large size filled with ideas identical if not similar to yours.
Criticism is part of Game Design, if you can’t accept that then you aren’t fit to design, to develop something you need to accept both the good and bad feedback and have the ability to consider the consquences.
As I pointed out, Damage Boost + Speed Boost for Mercy will just recreate the uncatchable Mercy problem. If the boost is for another player then you are stepping on Lucio’s toes not to mention doubled up with Lucio you will have really high speed characters
Clensing is a great idea, won’t deny that… but will it suit Mercy character, as I’ve pointed out years ago and I will point it out again, should we be pouring all new gimmicks onto Mercy? Why not create a new character out of it, Blizzard seems to like that idea, they’ve done to the same to all the idea’s we’ve suggested.
Clogging your ears and pretending your idea is perfect with no flaws isn’t suggesting an idea/designing something new.
What I am asking you to do, as the so called idea guy that can fix Mercy, is address the problems and pitch the idea as you would, if you were working for Blizzard and come up with a solution.
Mercy is one of the most difficult characters to modify for a number of reasons and I am giving you a chance to refine your idea. Now do it and stop complaining. It’s a matter of pitching and refining your idea, you’re 2 years late to the party and other Mercy players who chipped in also did their fair share of refining and we’ve had a fair share of ideas stolen.
I’ve presented you with realistic Business Problems, now fix it.
And so do the devs and yet you disagree with their decisions, no? Having a piece of paper doesn’t mean anything. You can still be wrong. I am an artist yet I’m not going to tell other artists how to draw or say only I know how to draw correctly.
No, I don’t. I care about balance, and Mercy is not balanced right now. She is unviable and needs a heal buff, as several pros have said. Buffing Mercy’s healing is in the best interest of the game as a whole and would bring back more fast paced staple comps like Mercy Zen and other divey or spread out comps.
Except I don’t know you and I’m not trying to sell you anything, this post was directed at Blizzard as my own creative ideas, not at you for your approval…
Because as long as there is someone above you calling the shots, you don’t have that freedom. You can forward suggestions but if the majority of the politcal power says no, it won’t change. Hence you need to understand what Blizzards immediate goal is when it comes to Mercy/the game.
Since right now Mercy is in a bad spot because of her healing, what can you do to change that situation? (The Current Situation)
We look at the current situation and asked a number of questions.
Mercy is still a top 10 Pick Rate Hero, since the final changes her Pick Rate over all average is around 5~6% a goal they have achieved and are satisfied with hence why we haven’t seen any changes.
Do we need to amend the Pick Rates to Mercy? Maybe… probs not…
Do we need to do something about Ana and Moira? Answer… yes, most likely because of general feedback and pick rates. If we nerf them would Mercy’s rate go up? Most likely yes, Considerations for Baptise, Brigitte and Zenyatta to manipulate Pick rate? Yes, then they would look at potential modifications to them or introduce a hero that would change things up.
Current Roadmap? Echo Release, shaking up the pick rates and meta, yes will Mercy compliment Echo? Yes, will Mercy’s Pick rate go up? Yes… immediate Pick Rate issue? Wait and see and collect data.
At the moment Indirect changes can change Mercy’s position, it doesn’t have to be a straight change to anything to her current design. Receiving boost to healing will help but at the same time… OVERWATCH 2 Skill Tree and new hero, for all we know there could be a heal booster or a complimentary support that boost Mercy or OW2 will change the way we play and skill tree will already address the current issue Mercy faces.
Immediate concern… No as Mercy is likely the first in the batch of OW2 test batch
Her healing definitely needs a buff but realistically I don’t think they will touch her unless they want to knock Ana and Moira out of their Pick Rate position. Aside from that, they are waiting on Echo to collect data from that to see what changes happen.
Then you have to consider all the known factors…
Is 50 HPS fine? Yes and no… 50HPS use to work because you have Mass Res to act as a foil, what Mercy couldn’t heal and keep alive could be undone with res. Is 50HPS still functional? Debatable… with a good team and sensible team work, yes you can manage and keep the whole team alive! But… this is OW nothing ever goes to plan and people are reckless and stupid so from ‘Live Play’ it won’t meet ends.
Can Valkyrie be boosted? Technically no… tbh Valkyrie is poorly designed because of how it works, it’s a jack of all trades type ability and boosting the value in any area can break it making it too weak or too strong so it’s better left as it is than to play around with it knowing the potential issue it draws in.
Because of the limitation Valkyrie brings, Mercy’s base balance becomes problematic… you can’t have a base stronger than the ult and you can’t power up the ult because you powered up the base.
60HPS is the upper limit, going above that will create the unkillable healed target issue.
Now I’m going to explain the 60HPS issue and why we pointed out Mercy’s healing was too strong in comparison to the unbuffed healers at the time.
In a 1on1 fight between two players, a player being supported by Mercy’s 60 HPS becomes increasingly difficult to kill to the point it is not worth killing them unless you can bust through the heal rate and kill them, so the best thing to do is to kill Mercy herself but she is tricky to kill when experience ones stays out of targetable range or just GA’s a lot and stay safe.
Since Valyrie branches her healing to the whole team, it is difficult to kill the healed target you are fighting as the heal rate can out heal the damage taken and there is the increase possibility of being killed by the target she is healing.
The only way to kill someone would be to focus fire, land as many shots without missing or criticals hits or team up and double, triple or team them. Out do the healing with more damage.
For a lot of players outside of the top tiers, 60HPS was problematic when you face a decent/good Mercy player that knew how to heal, how to be mobile, how to stay safe and manage her team. It was arguable that a decent Mercy with 60 HPS can heal to the degree where they wouldn’t realisitically need to waste their Mass Res or use skill Res, that is why Mercy was stronger than the other supports.
Moira had strong healing but capped by a resource (resource idea was one of early suggestions for Mercy too…)
Ana was a healer requiring Aim and shooting and couldn’t and still can’t heal through barriers or walls.
Lucio/Zen/Brigitte were sub support material at best for the MAJORITY of the community.
In order to shake up the Supports you either nerf Mercy’s heal rate or you boost the other supports. (they went with both when most of us more or less gambled on it being one or the other… not both)
Also Mercy is a sore subject to them, making a blatant reversal to her base heal is like confessing to a mistake which Blizzard will not do if it gives us salty Support players the reason to hold it against them.
They’ve done ‘Reverts’ before but they always come with something else but at the same time the nerfs are justifiable to grant that hero the revert that they deserve plus there is actually subtle changes to the reverted version that differs from the original. Outside, it looks the same, inside there are subtle differences… but for argument sake and for simplicity we can call it a ‘Revert’ (fact is Blizzard don’t do real reverts, just soft ones with changes that look the same but not entirely the same)
To bring back 60 HPS something about Mercy has to changed to justify and counter balance the return of 60 HPS, alternative they can improve the performance of skill res to help with the 50 HPS as more people die, either cool down, movement speed or cast time to 1.5 seconds, they could change her Ult gaining rate so she gains it faster
You could increase Ult gain in exchange for 60HPS you could nerf GA function for 60HPS but that effects survivability, the question is… what is the end goal for Mercy right now? Leave her as she is until OW2? Or modify her knowing they have OW2 changes lined up as she was part of the core group of heroes.
Yeah and well if you can’t convince me, it would be hard to convince them…
Honestly Pacify and the Clense idea is good, but it will never go to Mercy… it didn’t go to Echo, so chances are a OW2 Hero might have it… Sojourn is Damage from the looks of it and Echo was converted so probs a reserved OW2 hero.