I have spent many days, weeks even, reading and watching about everything #reworkmercy and I finally have something to say. Whether or not you agree with me in inconsequential. And if you have a counter opinion I am more than happy to debate you but please let’s keep things civil. I’m not trying to start any heated argument. The point is to voice an opinion, MY opinion and be heard. That is what these forums are for, right devs? To be heard.
To begin with let’s start with my standing. I am a diamond mercy who played her strictly because I fell in love with the character and not the mechanics. She is a healer and a pacifist at heart. Someone’s whose sole purpose in life is to help and to heal. I connected with that. And so I took on the mantle of Mercy main. Now, that’s not to say I don’t play other characters. My D.Va and Symmetra are formidable. But at my core I was a Mercy main. Note the operative word. Was. About 500 hours on console as Mercy alone. When the devs decided to change her for a more fluid gameplay and better impact I was all for it. I was cautious over losing mass Rez to Valkyrie but I took it in stride. Because I hoped to better assist my team as any main support should do. But as the nerfs kept coming out, and less and less comments are being made by devs addressing the issues, I grew hopeless anything would be done. Her are the main issues right now as Mercy.
- Right now the number one issue most Mercy mains are having are that she isn’t fun to play as anymore. Let’s get it straight. Mercy was always intended to be a heal bot. To output the most healing to a single target most effectively. And I was always fine with that. Her mobility and positioning were always her strongest assets but now that she’s lost impact, fewer people feel the need to run her. She’s now considered a troll pick. A throw pick. She has no true effectiveness on a team short of healing someone through massive damage till they die, and then focus the next person until they die as well. Which leads me to her next issue.
- Her healing output is abysmal. The facts of the matter are that our beloved angel, the one the devs deemed “the most effective healer” is being out healed by Moira and Lucio. Both support who are offered true offensive capabilities to either assist the team, protect themselves from backline, or finish someone who is low off. These are important to remember because these characters who aoe and burst heal still have offensive capabilities while they are healing. Mercy does not. She is forced to switch off healing to defend herself in the backlines from flankers and in those few seconds your team dies and blames you for not prioritizing healing over surviving and then later bash you for dying quickly. As you are actively healing them. I’m not asking her to be given the same offensiveness as the other support. But to understand the scale of healing is skewed because she has to stop healing to do ANYTHING else and that’s bad. Especially when her healing in comparison is so low. It’s not enough to keep one tank alive in a 2 on 1 fight like in its golden days, let alone keep a teammate alive during an enemy rush. And don’t even get me started on the chain beams in Valk. It’s just like a cheap knock off Zen Transcendence. It does not heal enough to really impact the team.
- Rez as an ability was a mistake. Not to question the intent of the devs, but when an entire community cries out that they disliked a rework made, why was it kept as an ability? This has made it both overpowered and underpowered. Overpowered in the sense that you get another Rez every 30 seconds and if your team is competent enough that can help in your favor. But that’s a biiiiig if. Especially for you solo queue or queue in LFG with people you’ve never played before. On the flip side the cast time for Rez is SOOOOOOOOO SLOOOOOOOOW that Mercy is an instant pick 80% of her rezzes. Whether covered or not. Your whole team can be defending you and the body you are rezzing but the simple fact is one hack, stun, or even tracer clip can still stop you in the center. Now I’m not saying she needs her invulnerability back or anything. But if a character can one clip you mid Rez because you’ve had to sit still in one place isn’t that keeping her Rez unusable? I personally think the cast time needs to be kept but drastically cut short. I personally preferred mass Rez but I can understand where the frustration about that comes from. I don’t believe Rez should have been removed from being an ult and feel like tweaks should have happened BEFORE completely changing her kit. And for those who bring out the “Hide and Seek meta”, know this. Only bad Mercy’s did hide and Rez. A good Mercy would still be on point with you. Occasionally ducking behind cover to avoid line of sight, all the while still actively healing you. And THEN Rez if the team went down. The ONLY time Mercy should be hiding is to avoid ultra. JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE DOES.
- Valkyrie. Oh my goodness Valkyrie. How I wanted to like you so much. The name itself brings me happiness. But what we got was not what she deserved. How do I go about this one? Valkyrie, as most players have pointed out, is nothing more than spectator mode. You fly to the sky and hold one button. What fun and impactful game style. You’re forced to literally just float there. And if you bring out the pistol to shoot someone down instead, you lose the main reason of Valkyrie. Which leads me to my next point.
- Battle Mercy. Now while I don’t condone using her weapon to defend yourself or help the team take down a wounded cornered enemy, I don’t feel like buffing her offensive skills in Valkyrie was the proper choice. She is a medic. A pacifist. The WHOLE REASON I picked her was for that very reason. To keep the team alive and not have to focus on damage output. Because she didn’t believe in hurting. Only healing. But this gets changed drastically when the devs gave her infinite ammo to shoot in Valkyrie. It goes against her core character. What she stood for. And makes for sloppy storytelling when you’re changing someone’s behavior end game. She was always meant to be the ultimate healer. So why give her infinite ammo? And the chain beams? I reiterate what I said before. They don’t help her. Her ult is literally doing the same thing she did pre ult, only in the sky now. It’s not engaging or impactful and you never feel like you did anything to help the team. Sure the flying can be fun if you bounce around quick enough but it doesn’t help you survive an ult like Zens or lucios does and it doesn’t help you heal while damaging like all other support. The ult just feels unfinished and unfun.
- My final issue with mercybis the lack of dedication on the devs behalf to open communication with the community whose cried loudest to be heard and have nothing but deaf ears to fall on. I understand the devs all have lives and families and other commitments within blizzard itself but it is literally your JOB to communicate with your fans here. We pay you for entertainment and hope for at least some common decency in return. But when post are being made saying “we are hearing you and we think everything is fine”, you are slapping the face of everybody who had faith in you as developers. Who respected you. Because you’re essentially saying what we say and believe in don’t matter. And that loses you a lot of fans, money and admiration. No one is asking you for apologies or reverts. All we are asking is to respond and validate us in our feelings. Show you really do care for the fans you claim to. Show us we truly ARE being heard and not just swept under the rug. I think all the community really wants is an answer. An answer to why we haven’t heard anything about mercy. On why the forums are being locked or flagged or accounts suspended simply for having an opinion. Please. Talk to us.
- And for all of you having an issue with a one button instant ult that’s considered too “overpowered” that takes no aim: Zen, Mccree, 76, dva(if you drop on point and don’t throw it), (old) Torb, Sombra, Reaper, Ashe, lucio etc…and even rein and doom pins to lesser extent.
I feel like there is much room for improvement and I can only hope the devs can read and respond to this post haste. But due to history I will not hold my breath. Now here’s a few things I feel would have made Mercy more impactful and help scale a mercy between the ranks.
- Mercy’s Ult needs to be changed. It CANNOT be Valkyrie. Whether they revert her to her former mass Rez ult with some tweaks like LOS and/or cast time as well some kind of skill charge. Like the longer you have your healing beam on a target or stay alive, the more people you can Rez. I’ll even settle for it to have a possible cap on the amount of teammates she can Rez. I will even be happy if they make it a single Rez but give you multiple rezzes while in Valkyrie (like previous iterations) but keep it strictly connected to her ult. Hell. I’d be happy if they even gave her a new ult altogether so long as it’s fun and impactful.
- Her healing needs to DRASTICALLY change. In a game where burst healing is more useful as it instantly heals a teammate a large and exact same amount of health every time, you need more active healing coming from Mercy. I feel like her heals need to be upped back to 60 heals per second like it used to be. And maybe 70/75 when in Valkyrie (IF it’s kept). 50 heals per second was nowhere near enough which is why they originally buffed it to 60 and now it’s back down to 50? She needs to output more than Moira or lucio because that is what blizzard originally sold to us. That was her kit, her niche. The role, and I quote blizzard, as a “STRONG, single target healer.” She no longer is and that needs to be changed.
- A new ability in place of Rez. While I strongly believe Rez should be connected to ult in some way, I do feel Mercy needs some kind of alternate ability. I personally like the idea of damage reduction or a cleanse of some sort. Something that will either gift Mercy OR her teammates some chance at survivability during altercations. Something she can throw on herself and/or team to help defend or capture a point. Even A mini Valkyrie would be useful. Allowing you to get up and out in the sky without the added bonus of healing output or offensive capabilities. Think on par with the pharah booster rockets. Just not quite as fast and with a longer cooldown and shorter time. Just a way for her to get up and out of the way when cornered without need of a pharah.
- Her pistol. Now I know this one’s a little contradictory but I find it odd that the pacifist has a pistol. I get that’s its used for self defense and stuff, and I’ve battle mercyied with the best of them. But she was advertised to us as a pacifist. Why are you giving her such a deadly weapon and not something more along the lines of idk her original version stinger from pre-Overwatch? I mean yes it’s still offensive but at least there isn’t this large time passing for you to switch off healing, go pew pew, and switch back. And it would still be less damage than most other heroes. But at least she won’t have to stop healing long to get a shot or two out. Cuts the “no healing time” drastically and still allows her to defend herself if and when needed. But this one is mostly my own personal opinion and it’s okay If you don’t agree.
Now I know many of these issues have been reiterated again and again and again. But I feel like we need to keep pounding at the devs door for a response. If we are being ignored we need to shout louder and make our voices heard. Not in any aggressive or offensive way. But in a positive and useful manner. I believe the devs truly have our best interests at heart. They are simply scared to respond in fear of more backlash. But i feel if channels were opened and communication flowed freely, they’ll see the Love fans all over the world have for this game again. I get that when you fail at something it’s scary to admit fault. But true character is shown after you fall. See how you get up and continue from that point on. To see whether you will succeed or repeat your mistakes. Because that’s a true show of character. Admitting you were wrong and do something to try and fix it.
Whether Blizzard responds to any of the Mercy threads I do not know, but I can have faith that they will soon show there character through what actions they take from this point on. I can only hope it’s soon and done so with respects to the fandom they have slowly been losing.
To Titanium and Aria Rose and all the other mercy mains out there fighting the good fight, I commend you. For giving us a platform to actually feel heard and shuffled into a deck of nothingness. Regardless of your stance on these people they are at least TRYING to make a positive impact. I love you guys and “keep swimming”. You guys are real heroes. And HEROES NEVER DIE!
Good luck to all and I hope this brought some attention to #reworkmercy
Because it needs it.
(This was not an attempt to bash or point fingers at any specific devs for any reason. Just a point needing to be made that no mercy thread is being responded to with positive feedback from you guys. Just silence or suspensions. Please note that many of us are simply frustrated at the seemingly lack of care on your part. Show us we are wrong and talk with us. Don’t just shut us up.)