Healing beam: click to toggle or hold to toggle?
I personally use click but I was wondering what other people use.
So people who dont play mercy cant respond?
And you wonder why Blizzard dont take you guys seriously…
That’s the biggest problem is you can work your absolute hardest on Mercy and you aren’t rewarded for it.
You’re completely tied to how good your team is.
Obviously I don’t mean in the sense of carrying, but every hero should have a chance to change the trajectory of the fight.
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Mainly because the questions revolve around people who do play her and have experience in her.
There’s thousands of posts where you can voice your opinion, or even make a post yourself.
OP isn’t trying to be exclusive, it’s simply a question aimed at Mercy players
I think that my opinion of supports can best be described by how it feels to play the engineer in tf2.
Imagine you find a team without an engineer. You pick engineer, suddenly the entire game is your sandbox. You are the one who decides where frontlines are defined, you are the one healing your entire team, you are the one changing the course of every single fight with your constantly active teleporter. You are, without a doubt, the core of your team and the most impactful player.
Now imagine you find a team with three engineers, and you pick engineer. Suddenly everything rails against you. Everyone is playing classes to counter you, your personal impact feels greatly diminished, you get less decision making to do and you’re far too safe until suddenly your entire setup gets steamrolled without you having any power to stop it.
The issue with supports in OW isn’t their reliance on their team mates, it’s the lack of individual impact and feeling of agency you get when the game is setup like it is. I think if there were less supports needed per team, but the supports were even more powerful than they are currently at operating alone, then people would be dying to play Mercy again. She SHOULD feel impactful and like the core of her team, but she doesn’t because she’s no more impactful nor more of the core of her team than the other two supports, she sucks when playing solo and her gameplay without that feeling of impact is worse now that they’ve removed her play-making mass res.
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It is generally a good idea to not one trick in Overwatch. However… if you can point me to the other support who can fly, I’m all ears. Mercy has a very distinct play style that no other hero has… formerly enjoying it and wanting to enjoy it again isn’t weird.
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I absolutely did speak out about it. So did a lot of other people. We all generally got ignored.
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No. I wrote out a fairly substantial post with my issues with current Mercy. It was… long. I’ll link it so this post doesn’t get huge.
Why Mercy needs another rework
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Well, Brig is about to be in the same position in terms of how much impact it feels you’re providing and while yes, switching is something that’s part of the game skill set, sometimes you want to play a certain character, and if that characters feels awful to play, that tends to default to not wanting to play at all. Plus, there’s the people who don’t handle the twitch reflexes required for Ana and Brig all that well due to health concerns and are better able to play via Mercy. At this point there’s a whole list of reasons as to why being told to “Just switch and move on” feels dismissive of player concerns. To say nothing of the loss aversion that’s happened as a result of all the nerfs.
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Yes, it’s bad. We play heroes because we find them fun and we’re attached to their themes and play style. The fact that Mercy was drastically changed means we’ve lost her as a character. It’s not all about balance. Some of it is about Mercy not being Mercy anymore.
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Their were tens of thousands of posts saying what was wrong with the Mercy rework and their are still post created today, over a year later, discussing why Mercy is broken.
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I like that she has some dependency on other teammates as it works well with her kit. I dislike that her whole character hinges on that dependency. To make a large impact with her at the moment the player has to use their pistol and murder people in Valkyrie. She used to have a large impact on the game as a healer with a unique ability. She needs that type of play to be restored and not be a side kick or substitute DPS.
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I’m not a big fan. I liked playing Mercy, she was fun. Now i’ve switched to Moira and Birgette and heal more than Mercy can do with her 50hps as well as often claiming Gold elims
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I honestly miss 60hps and mass res on ULT. I feel like Mercy should work like how Moira does, she should have to balance healing/damage boosting output with her res pool. They should cut mass ress off at 3x to prevent the “hurry up and die” plays with her. Or, if she chooses to mass res 3x then she won’t be able to res for awhile again because she must fill her res pool.
I feel like some balance between Valk ULT and Res on a pool type mechanic is the right way to go. I allows for good Mercy to be measured and rewarded properly while conversely a bad Mercy would be easy to compare to a good one. Valk lets her charge her res pool faster, allowing her to get those big res plays on point but ONLY IF her res pool is max. It also allows a good enemy team to deny/mitigate Mercy gaining res pool; she isn’t simply granted res for being fielded
IMO Granting a Mercy res for being fielded and then punishing her severely if she uses it poorly is wrong.
It should be that the Mercy must earn the res by using healing and damage boosting output to fill her res pool, to a maximum of three. I know some of you will say “That sounds like an ULT, Healbus” and i’m aware of that but hey considering it’s already on a 30 sec cooldown and not on a pool mechanic, why would moving to a pool type mechanic similar to Moira’s hurt anything?
I was thinking this makes so the Mercy will throw up trash stats if her team is playing very well, not taking much damage or getting picked, but I suppose as long as they balance damage boost with heals in terms of pool charging, I think it would work okay
Personally, I don’t mind switching. However, that doesn’t mean that a hero should be left in a bad state if they are in a bad state. I don’t think she’s unplayable, but her hps are absolute trash.
And no, I don’t think that having to rely on your team is a problem for any support. It just comes with the territory, regardless of the game you’re playing. Support characters are usually the most vulnerable players on a team. So when it comes to Mercy and outplaying the enemy, she’s designed to do it with her movement, not brute force. And imo, that’s okay.
As a support main and mercy player since launch, I can tell you that nowadays I only pick Mercy when I want a relaxing match with no aiming stress involved. I also pick her for specific 2cp maps when we’re defending first point because getting a single cheeky rez off can really help
I don’t pick her for her healing prowess though as we all know it’s very mediocre with zero burst healing. I don’t pick her for killing potential because her pistol is underwhelming too. I just pick her when I wanna feel that playstyle that only comes with her kit, the fly around everywhere to be fast evasive, and heal people with zero mechanical sweaty palm skill needed
I dunno if that answered your question or not, but if we need a serious healer then I go Ana or Moira 100% of course
#1
For some of us this isn’t the first character that’s gotten the short end of the stick in one way or another. I started Overwatch playing as three different support heroes: Ana, Lucio, and Mercy. At this time you had a total of four supports that healed so I was literally playing 75% of the support cast only to have them all get changed on me.
Ana got a massive nerf because she was dominating at the top of the ladder in competitive which made her completely non-viable at the mid to bottom where I personally played (Before the nerf she was actually my lowest winrate support).
Lucio had his aura massively changed because players were being passive in competitive play and that change significantly reduced my enjoyment playing the character as it was a royal pain to keep people in the circle as QP teammates are at times like a herd of cats.
Mercy then got hit with a rework because of competitive players hiding that changed what I liked about the character.
The changes didn’t really have a great record balance wise. Lucio remained a must pick until Mercy’s rework at the top. Ana fell out of the meta for a year + at most skill levels. Mercy became a must pick for an extended period of time.
How many times is one supposed to adapt in a product that one has paid for when those designing it clearly are struggling to hit good results?
(Ana is currently really hit and miss and lower skill levels and has the lowest winrate of the supports at most skill levels.)
#2.
Some of us have been relatively consistent in our feedback on the changes.
Here’s me from Sept 2nd, 2017 while the Mercy Rework was originally on the PTR:
#3
I don’t think supports relying on teammates is a problem on it’s own.
As a support I help my team out and my team helps me out. I don’t need to always massively carry or outplay the other team. I’m perfectly happy doing small things to tap the scale in my favor with the occasional big moment mixed in. It was fun in TF2 as Medic and it was fun in Overwatch as Mercy before they changed it.
That was one of my favorite games as Mercy. I didn’t have a huge rez in it or a big moment where I slaughtered the whole team but I did lots of little things and a few medium ones that tipped the scales.
If you wanted to increase the outplay potential of supports you could make healing harder but more powerful or add utility (buff, cc (yuck), debuff, ect).
For example, Team Fortress 2 has a medigun called the Vaccinator.
If you had it on the correct resistance to the incoming damage it would block 10% of the damage of that type.
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I agree, but I feel like people can do a lot more than they think. Mercy does have a lot of impact, but she can’t win fights.
That’s what I did. I play each of the supports now (except Ana, honestly)
People being vocal about Mercy hasn’t changed. Before and after the initial rework there were dozens upon dozens of threads
No, she has always relied on teammates.
Make her Guardian Angel better and easier to do complex maneuvers with. (not too much easier)
What I mean is things like the “super jump” shouldn’t be as tight as it is. Making the timing a bit easier would help that move.
I, personally, have always wanted the ability to move around while using Guardian Angel instead of just going in a straight line.
My most requested feature as of yet is making it so that you can have “prefers beam target on” and “prefers beam target off” enabled at the same time.
The fix is stupidly easy. Just make it so that you can make a key for either one. Instead of choosing which one you can use for the match choose which one you can do on the fly. That would add more variety.
I thought it was because the status show that Mercy is in a good place overall, but they still try to convince everyone that she sucks.
I mean, numbers don’t lie…
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Yes and no. If a meta essentailly strong arms a relatively balanced hero out (ie Half the DPS roster v GOATs) it’s sensible to temporarily move on and play what works while advocating for tweaks/changes to overtuned heroes that are strong-arming others into oblivion. If a hero that you absolutely loved is reworked to a former shell of itself with no similar hero on the roster, moving on will never satisfy the itch to play them again. While I still love Mercy’s GA and Beams I tend to blow Valk and Rez as soon as I can because I feel obligated to use them, not because I want to use them.
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I wasn’t active on the forums prior to Valk hitting live, but I have been rereading the old forums trying to dig up data on Mercy’s playerbase’s reactions and suggestions overtime, as well as overall community perceptions, suggestions and feelings towards Mercy/Mercy mains. I can’t tell you the number of posts I’ve read where people go into detail on why Blizz should’ve listened to a 404ed feedback thread where apparently people were abhorently against the initial Valk, or the number of posts requesting a temporary revert while Valk was retuned to not be game breaking for 9 months.
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Not necessarily. I feel that her power level is just screwed up by the theoretical possibilities of E-Rez that it feels justified if the rest of her kit is lacking. I also think there are problems with how she is judged vs Ana with Moira essentially getting a free pass due to being balanced but lackluster in most scenarios. I’d honestly rather see every “main” healer get a revive mechanic so passing judgement on what’s “too good” is less wrapped in theoretical values that can’t be properly evaluated in a balancing scenario.
Edit: Holy crap. I read that very wrongly!!! my apologies.
No, no… everyone is welcome to join in! I quite literally said that in my original starting post. I wanted opinions from mercy mains, because I wanted to understand their point of view(s), and how it compares with my own experiences playing the hero.
In fact, I really appreciate non-mercy players giving their feedback. I would very much like this thread to provide some honest insight into the mindset and conflicting views of different players, rather than just becoming a dumping ground for complaints.
Thus far it’s been really great. Thank you mercy and non-mercy mains alike!!
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- Mercy is he only character that fits my playstyle. I’ll be still playing her even when they nerf her to the ground.
- At first I thought it would breath a new air when they reworked her, then all went downhill with constant nerfs to the valkyrie and her healing power.
- I like the guardian angel, but I wish i have some mobility to escape dps without teammates around, like high jump. You know mercy will always be target no 1 by all dps before anything else. It’s hard life being a mercy.
I’m no mercy main, but I am a support main, and I can tell you that every support relies on their teammates. Even Reddit Lucio requires his team to be able to take advantage of the people he boops out of place, or have them group up when he’s healing them.
I use toggle. It’s already hectic enough to fly here and there, toggle healing at least gives a little bit of relief to my index finger.
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