[OW2] Reddit, might have solved Mercy and Sojourn

General Discussion
1

So I wake up and see a post on /r/CompetitiveOverwatch and see this.

https://reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/ziye60/should_all_the_damage_amp_abilities_replaced_with/

TBH, this is an actually pretty great idea. That I’m almost embarrassed that I didn’t think of it, because it feels kinda obvious in hindsight.

So a big limiting factor on Mercy’s design is that at high ELO she gets used as a damage-boost bot. And that is one of the big limiting factors on improving her playstyle. There’s just not enough “power budget” to play around with to do much with her design-wise.

But if they were to replace her damage boost, it would need to be something that still very similar, or else you’d get a lot of upset people in a “Symmetra 2.0 was better” kind of way.

So yeah,

MERCY

Caduceus Staff: Fire Rate Enhancement

  • 30% damage boost, is replaced with 30% attack speed.

Sojourn, Widow, and eventually Hanzo with their burst damage is a problem, that OW2 hasn’t figured out how to handle. This would solve a lot of that problem, without messing with more sustained damage sources. (Heck, this even applies to cooldown heavy characters like Roadhog).

Throw this onto Mercy’s blue beam, and then you get a lot more room and flexibility for Mercy buffs/changes.

TBH, I’m really freaking impressed, considering Reddit usually isn’t a great place for design ideas.

And this is just in-time, since Mercy was about to be in “Sojourn Jail” after this current patch that puts Sojourn just below Rail instakill breakpoint.

33 Likes
2

Yaaawwwnnn thats no fun who would ever play mercy without damage boost thats boring

19 Likes
3

Well that’s the trick. It makes it a lot easier to make the rest of her equipment more fun. Or add more things that are fun. Since “Can damage boost” was eating up a massive amount of her “power budget”. (Kinda like Sym and her turrets/teleporter)

Swap that out with something that’s nearly identical at mid-low ELO, but really different at high ELO. And you get a lot more room to balance her closer to what mid-low ELO players would enjoy.

2 Likes
4

Mercy indeed is already boring to play. Maybe the problem with mercy is that they always want to take something away from her first and later replace it with something that isn’t quite the deal either. At the end of the game she still sucks.

They made doom a tank i mean they change a lot on other characters too. Why not mercy, give the girl a bazooka.

2 Likes
5

Having more attack speed is kind of jarring on certain heroes. Mercy standing there revving up your gun fire randomly would be kind of annoying.

32 Likes
6

Mercy doesn’t need solving

4 Likes
7

If Mercy wasn’t fun, she wouldn’t be by far the most popular character

8 Likes
8

Devs need an excessively large amount of additional support players in the next 2-3 months or so, to address matchmaking/queue issues.

And Mercy alone could be like 1/3rd of that.

As far as I remember, Ana was more popular than Mercy at almost every ELO on PC Comp.

5 Likes
9

Don’t fix what isn’t broken. Get it through your head.

8 Likes
10

I just feel like that introduces other problems, though.

Attack speed buff on a Tracer or Genji would still suck lol

The real solution is to just, actually, nerf Sojourn. The fact we have to keep brainstorming ideas to work around this when they could just simply nerf the busted hero feels like a result of us all being gaslit by the balance team.

35 Likes
11

But how would that be functionally any different than +30% damage?

Yeah, but as soon as they solve one instakill-oneshot DPS, then they gotta solve Widow/Hanzo. Also Roadhog does need to get pushed out of “hard meta tier”.

12

But what state does that put characters like Zarya and Symmetra when amped?

Or how does it affect things like recoil?

Not saying I completely dislike it, I think Valk with a RoF boost sounds extremely fun to see, I just feel like there are other characters that this arguably hurts too.

1 Like
13

How would attack speed buff work on heroes like Winston and Zarya tho? And does that also work with abilites? Like hog can throw his hook faster so that it messes up with his aim so he can have more opportunities to scream at Mercy players?

3 Likes
14

Mmm, yeah, that’s a good idea. It’d probably have to be more than just 30% attack speed (ie, reload speed, or perhaps an increase to ammo efficiency, so it doesn’t nerf its interaction with heroes like s76 too much).

But yeah, Mercy being crucial to damage break points rather than just increasing DPS has always been an issue, and this is a good solution.

There’s also the whole visual indication problem that OW has with damage amps. You can’t visibly see if a junkrat bomb will do 150 or 120 damage if you can’t directly see the junkrat. With this system, it’d always be 120 which is nice.

1 Like
15

You know, I hadn’t really thought about how damage boost is a much clearer indication of “You are being powered up”, than “I guess there’s some blue stuff on the edge of my screen”.

So yes.

16

they can’t even solve their gender identity I doubt they’re going to fix anything… those changes are stupid at best because they nerf a useless support to avoid fixing the real problem of the game which are the same heroes that all seasons are always in the META for years…

17

Recoil & Bloom?
(Also poor Sigma’d kinda be up the creek without a paddle :stuck_out_tongue:)

18

TBH, I’d just make it 30% more attack speed.

Then give Mercy something else, in addition. For example:

MERCY

Guardian Runes

  • The more GA Meter you gain, it would give a proportional little burst heal when you arrive at the GA’d player.
  • The catch is that this is a ground based heal. (i.e. like Soldier heal) That shows a magic circle below the healed teammate. (i.e. Can’t be used on flying teammates)
  • The burst heal ranges from 5-40hp instant heals, depending on GA range.
19

pretty sure her popularity is not based on the game itself… we both know what i mean

4 Likes
20

Which is different at high ELO, if people are aiming for headshots.
But almost easier to land shots for Plat and below, that are going for bodyshots.

But that’s the whole point of this. To make her worse in Masters/GM, without affecting Plat and below. And then with that freed up “power budget” spend that “power currency” on something else.