All of these changes are being suggested with the mindset of making Mercy:
- more enjoyable to play
- more balanced
- have a better flowing kit
- be less frustrating to play against
Note : Updated the post information to reflect the most recent Mercy change (60Hps -> 50Hps), no suggestion or text has otherwise been edited.
Currently there are many players playing Mercy that feel as she is now is going against all the points made to make Mercy 2.0 more enjoyable for the Mercy player, and while those views stated by the developers may have changed, I firmly believe the changes suggested here outline issues and the potential fixes for them.
With all of this, Mercy will flow better as a hero, be more enjoyable to play when her kit is properly executed, require more consideration in the use of her powerful traits in her kit, and have more opportunities to be countered. Overall, good Mercy gameplay will feel more rewarding and bad gameplay will be more significant.
Valk
- Valk cost increased by 20%
Currently, Mercy’s constant sustained healing in game causes Valkyrie to charge too quickly. Increased ult charge balances out Mercy’s constant beam output while also encouraging more use of damage boost for charging ult as it is too comfortable currently to merely stay on healing and gain ult quickly with low effort.
- Duration reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds
A 12s duration sets Valkyrie’s power on par with other support ultimates, rewards players with quick/sharp game sense, and improves the pacing and flow of matches.
- Remove chained beams, Make healing / Damage beams do double from base values
Right now, Valkyrie suffers from being both an overpowered ability and unengaging to play at the same time. Single target beams heavily encourages quick decision making and game sense, while increasing the variety of Valkyrie’s movement mechanics as currently Mercys are usually hovering high above grouped teammates in order to benefit from chain beam.
- Res cast time reduced in half
Valkyrie is supposed to enhance all of Mercy’s abilities, however this is the only one that is not. By halving cast time, Mercy is still vulnerable while rezzing yet doesn’t overly waste valuable ult time to cast rez. This would also compensate for shortening ult duration.
- Remove Infinite ammo, Fire Rate Increased 20%
Infinite ammo serves no direct purpose and discourages helpful gameplay. Removing infinite ammo and increasing fire rate (6/s during ult) allows the pistol to be more lethal in bursts yet empties the clip faster (3.33s during ult), taking up ult time if the player wants to reload and continue shooting (1.5s to reload during a proposed 12s ult duration) . Therefore, this change results in pistol being targetedly useful for self defense or for securing a kill, rather than dedicating a majority of Valkyrie to shoot people.
Note
If these Valkyrie changes sound OP to you, here are the stats compared to some other similar ults:
moira - 140hps + 70dps, multiple targets, 8s duration, 2125 ult cost, cannot use kit during ult
ana - 50% damage boost + 50% damage resistance, instant 300HP, single target, 8s duration, 1650 ult cost, can use kit during ult
orisa - 50% damage boost, multiple targets, 15s duration, 1487.5 ult cost, can use kit during ult
mercy - 100hps OR 60% damage boost, single target (switchable), 12s duration, proposed 2310 ult cost, ult is an improved kit
Resurrect
- Remove cooldown, now an earned ability - A Meter in the UI similar to how Torbjorn scrap functions (Only one charge at a time)
- 1150 points to charge (1380hp worth of healing, for reference), Amping/Healing fills the meter up
- Cast time (1.75s) remains!
The current state of rez has many consistency and logic issues:
- Longest cooldown in the game
- Most powerful cooldown ability in the game
- Only cooldown that remains through death
- Instantly available for free at the start of a round, devaluing the advantage gained from an early pick
Earnable rez fixes the issue of free rez at the start of a round and removes the cooldown issues. It also encourages the player to improve their apm for more potential rezzes while also providing more ways to punish a Mercy when you kill her as she cannot earn charge while dead (currently, you can die twice in a row and have rez back just because of cooldown).
This makes Mercy flow better mechanically and makes her more rewarding to play when the player can charge a fast rez through good decision making via apm and not dying(~22s-24s) However, factoring in deaths and the fact that in practice, Mercy won’t constantly be performing actions that charge rez, rez would still be used at a healthy and fair rate (~34s-48s for avg gameplay). Poor Mercy gameplay and/or constant deaths could result in a rez taking around 60s+ to charge.
Earnable rez also brings more intensity and interest to Valkyrie. The ultimate allows her to earn and cast rez faster, however with the additional proposed changes to the ultimate, there is less time (reduced ult duration) and more difficult choices to make (single target beam, rez cast time, pistol changes). With all the cumulative changes mentioned, Valkyrie overall will be more balanced BUT has the potential to have intense POTG-worthy gameplay (right now, POTG is usually Mercy floating above earning kill assists by merit of damage boosting a clustered team, they are boring to watch and even Mercy players themselves are confused when they see they’ve gotten POTG)
As Mercy is right now, she feels like the result of individual tweaks and changes that were done to address specific issues the community had as they came up. While these more or less balanced her kit, overall the collective changes don’t feel totally cohesive or natural. Mercy right now is relatively balanced, but at the sacrifice of enjoyable gameplay.
Mercy 2.0 was designed to make mercy more engaging between ultimates, the efforts to rebalance her since then have seemed to contradict this mindset. I believe there are proper ways to rebalance her to be less powerful in certain aspects, less frustrating to play against and to be more fun to play.
