My thoughts on the Mercy Buff

General Discussion
1

So the following buffs to Mercy are going onto PTR

What this buff means is that Mercy now has 60 HP/s again…but only during her ultimate. So, Mercy still has the terrible 50 HP/s normally. Yay?

And her ultimate now costs 15% less, which in itself is just a revert of the consequence of nerfing her healing (because less healing = less ultimate charge).

So what will these changes do to Mercy? By the looks of it, not much.

50 HP/s really just isn’t enough for Tanks. Armor is the most important part of a Tank’s health, so having to wait what seems like forever for Mercy to heal you to full ends up being not worth it.

Her ultimate ends up not being worth it either. Valkyrie is that support ultimate you use on top of another support ultimate. The first support actually saves the team, and Valkyrie damages boosts them so they can win the fight. Valkyrie on its own, is lackluster. Most of the time you’ll end up using Valkyrie for healing if you run Mercy as your Main healer. Your team still dies rather easy through it, and you don’t really feel like you have m,any options when you Valkyrie. Using coalescence feels great because you feel as if you can save people, or maybe chase down kills, or both! Valkyrie, just doesn’t have that same feeling. Your options are either m1 or m2. If you’re feeling bored I guess you could rush the enemy widow if your team really doesn’t need you.

Overall, I’m confused on what direction the Devs want Mercy to go in. She’s the off-healer with no mid-fight utility*. She just doesn’t bring to the table what the other supports do. She’s really only useful as someone’s pocket, and is that really what she should be? The support who’s only good at healing that one character and nobody else? I personally don’t think so. each character should be able to stand on their own without having to rely on another hero to be effective.

  • “But what about Rez? Does that not exist?”. It does, but doing it mid-fight is incredibly risky and 90% of the time not worth it. Most of the time it’s used before a fight occurs (should some one get picked early) or after (to prepare for the next fight so they don’t have to walk from spawn). Also, using it mid-fight could be disastrous as you have to stop healing to do it. One of your team mates could die while you go for it. You and the person previously mentioned could die due to the cast time. There’s just too many risks to go for it mid-fight that it ends up being not worth to use it most of the time. Not to mention if it’s a brawl of the payload.
    *Damage boost also sees less use because of her slower healing (more time spent healing = less spent damage boosting). Other healers can provide the same value by simply helping you kill the enemy themselves. Zen could discord and assist with orbs. Lucio could constantly distract and throw the enemy off his game with boop and wall ride (or speed boost you out). Brigitte could just kill said enemy with a stun, displace with her flail, distract with her very presence, burst heal on a low cooldown etc. Moira with her succ beam and succ orbs. Ana with the nades and damage and CC. You get the point.

I would really like to know what direction the Devs are trying to pull Mercy towards. If people knew what you were going for, then people could suggest around that. If nothing is said, people will just keep going back to what they think to be the simplest option, which is a full revert to mass rez. If that’s not the direction you want her in, then say what is. Say you want her to be more about healing than rez, and I’m sure people would be willing to go off that. It’ll only get worse the longer you don’t give any direction on what you want her to be.

TL:DR; Mercy will still remain a lackluster pick outside of Pharmercy because of her poor healing and lack of mid-fight utility. These buffs most likely will not change anything about her. The devs should state what direction they want Mercy in so the community can build around it.

9 Likes
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Well actually when they nerfed her healing from 60 to 50 it was a 17% decrease. They decreased the ultimate charge by 15% so she still charges her ult 2% slower than when she has 60 HPS :confused: Personally I would like them to test some different style of healing with her to something like Sym’s ramp up.

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I initially misread the patch notes and thought that Mercy’s base healing was being buffed to what it was before. I’m sad that’s not the case. :confused: Sure, she’d still suck, but at least picking Mercy over Ana or Moira wouldn’t be the end of the world.

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As much as I like that idea, wouldn’t that cause single pocketing to be more predominant?

Unless the max cap isn’t very high.

5

The ramp up on healing would be cool, although the issue could be that it could encourage pocketing even more.

Also, idk if that 2% is going to feel majorly different, so I just simplified. Guess we’ll see.

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Well I was thinking more of lines of keep the base at 50 > 55> 60

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The Mercy style of play people want is the fast 100 choices a second style.

Valk is the reverse of that, since you don’t have to target people as a fast moving putting out fires style.

Her current Rez is ALSO against that style, since it pins you, and stops you making meaningful choices.

Personally, I think they should get rid of both, give her a counter ult (like Zen), and give her some low cooldown single target abilities, which enhance the 100 choices a second style of play.

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We’ve already felt and seen what 60hps on Valkyrie was.

Garbage and Im still surprised people are surprised that other people arent happy with it.

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If anything, the reverse would be better, to promote more switching between targets when possible.

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Yes, speed up the game place, more choices…

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That’s why I compared it to coalescence because you feel as if you can make choices during it. Who do I target and Why?

Valkyrie doesn’t do that. It’s just, do I do this or that? Does it matter?

It’s the support ultimate to a support ultimate (or at least that’s how I use it).

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Yeah, and it is totally against the style that made people love playing Mercy. I still can’t believe Blizzard doesn’t have a handle on Mercy’s style.

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Unfortunately they absolutely refuse to remove res.

But I completely agree, she currently feels “slow” and lacks excitement.
While some people like that, I loved… I don’t know, moving more? Doing something…

Both Valk and Res makes me feel like I’m in a slowmo spectator, and it’s a weird contrast with her GA and beam changing speed.

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14

If that was the case then something along the lines of 70>60>50 would be nice. The problem right with her is that she is terrible at healing tanks. Takes waaaaay to long.

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15

Healthpacks are a better healer than Mercy currently. They also do not take a hero slot.

I hope eventually we get something that fixes her core issues. For now, this is better than nothing.

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I don’t know, I think it is worse than nothing, because it is pushing her further and further into the slow paced, ‘run on auto’ style. I’d rather not have that.

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I meant the bandaid half revert is better than completely ignoring her.

This isn’t ideal, It gives me a bitter feeling. But I’m grateful something has changed back.

She’ll still have trash healing outside of her ult though.

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I think they simply want to say: Valkyrie is good, Valkyrie does not need to be reworked.

I would like to shorten them at this point, since the text walls of valid reasons do not seem to interest them. 3 quick answers on Mercy "No explanation challenge"

  1. I do not like Valkyrie because I feel more passive in action.
  2. I want a rework that makes the character iconic (torbjorn and symmetra have new ones and are well structured according to their concept)
  3. the ress is iconic and does not go trashed. but Valkyrie can also disappear for me just as the shield generator, armor modules and scatter have disappeared.
19

Ugghhh, tell me about it.

Whenever I go tank, and I see a Mercy on my team I go, “Oh boy, wheres the nearest healthpack”

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I internally groan when there’s a Mercy on my team. Especially if they’re in a duo. Because you already know that they are just going to pocket their dup partner and leave the Zenyatta to heal the tanks (seriously why do I keep running into people like this).

With Mercy as a Main heal, you just can’t play that aggressively, which the enemy can severely punish you for with spam comps. I don’t feel like I can rely on a Mercy to have my back in the middle of a team-fight. That isn’t something that should be the case with the “Pure Healer”.

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