Hi. I’m Naz 
I’m not really a Mercy main (these days I flex, but I call myself a D.Va main), but Mercy is my most played support. I’ve been thinking about for a while–like literal years–if replacing Rez with this type of ability would give Mercy more room for skill expression while mitigating both the sometimes pretty darn bad feeling of having an earned pick reversed (STAY WITH ME HERE) and the sort of jarring, tempo-breaking feeling of Resurrect that feels kind of clunky within the kit of a highly mobile support hero. This isn’t really, like, a sort of pressing problem I think exists in the game, but I’d like to sort of have discussion on this to see what people, Mercy player or not, think.
What is Guardian Spirit/Divine Palm?
In World of Warcraft, Holy Priests have the talent Guardian Spirit. It’s a buff that the player applies to an ally that lasts [x] seconds. During this time, it increases their healing received, but most importantly, it will prevent fatal damage–the instance of damage that would kill the ally–and instead heal them for a percentage of their health pool. This also consumes the buff. If the player is taken to 1 HP but not any less, they will not get the massive heal benefit.
Divine Palm is Kharazim’s heroic in Heroes of the Storm, and it essentially functions the same way but without the healing received buff. Its duration is shorter than GS.
As an example, I am linking a Youtube video of Divine Palm in action. For those unfamiliar with HotS, you’ll see the green health bar get ticked almost to 0 as the player is stunned, then they are put into a stasis (kind of like what Suzu gives you but you cannot act–this is part of Divine Palm but not GS), and healed for a large chunk. Note that this is not a CC cleanse.
Discussion
Giving an ability like this to Mercy–with or without the healing buff–is arguably more fitting to her ‘Heroes Never Die’ catchphrase than Resurrect. I understand Rez is iconic to Mercy, and people are touchy about it. Thematically, I think this ability is a suitable replacement. It turns Rez into a proactive ability rather than a reactive ability, granting the Mercy player more fulfilling clutch play opportunities without having to GA to a corpse and spin really fast to hope they don’t get headshot. On the enemy team’s side, they play against a telegraphed ability that can be baited out with coordination and punished without having to shoot down an additional 200 HP health pool.
Here are some potential discussion points/issues:
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Is this actually a buff? And if so, is it too much of a buff? In my mind, this is an instant or short-cast targeted ability (of course, it doesn’t have to be). This eliminates one of the moments Mercy is at her most vulnerable. That said, higher skill Mercies typically won’t take rezzes they won’t survive. Would Damage Boost have to be rebalanced if this truly is that much of a power shift? Personally, I think this is more of a shifting of the skill if anything to make it both more consistent and less frustrating. It may slightly elevate Mercy’s skill floor and ceiling. Idk I’m not an OWL player.
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What is the counterplay? I haven’t provided any theorycrafting for the cooldown or duration of the buff for this ability, but presumably the biggest piece of counterplay is to discipline yourself to not cause fatal damage or shoot someone else, like a Zarya bubble. The Mercy player is encouraged to either wait until the last possible second or use it for its healing buff (IF that is part of the ability in this game) to try to top off the player. Is that less frustrating or more frustrating than Resurrect counterplay? Naturally, the saved player is still in the same position they once were and can be… damaged down again.
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What aspects of these abilities should be included? The Stasis period from Divine Palm that acts much like the temporary invuln from Rez now? The healing received buff–and should it only be from the Mercy player?
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Specifics: if interested, how long do you imagine this CD and buff duration? How big the healing amount? Should there be a limit to the damage you receive in one instance where too much will not save you? For instance, Guardian Spirit will NOT save players from ‘massive’ instance of damage. Presumably in Overwatch, this would mean this buff would not protect a player from a D.Va bomb.
I’ve been sitting on this idea… Pretty much since mass rez was removed, and I think it’s kind of interesting since there’s a precedent in other Blizzard games for it. I sort of shelved it when Immortality Field and Suzu were added, because I was worried that there might be a bit of crossover. However, I think a strong, single target CD is a largely untapped niche for support heroes besides Rez itself. I thought I’d finally make a thread on it now that Mercy is very prevalent in balance conversations, though I’m not necessarily saying Mercy needs buffs or nerfs.