At the launch of Overwatch 2, Mercy’s Guardian Angel lost its super jump which during Overwatch 1 was the result of a bug, requiring clunky button inputs to be executed and which wasn’t always reliably reproducible. This was in favour of working it into the ability itself as an intended feature. As I recall, the developers at the time stated that they wanted to lean into her high mobility and not only wanted to make the super jump easier to perform, but also expand on what was possible to do with Guardian Angel.
Despite this, Mercy’s mobility as of season 4 is in a worse state than it was at the end of Overwatch 1. The cooldown is now effectively 3 seconds when Jump or Crouch cancel is used, which is almost every time the ability is used. Granted the omni-directional nature of Jump cancel is more powerful than the Jump cancel which existed in Overwatch 1. I like this feature and I do realize that greater power may need to be compensated with longer cooldowns, I just don’t think it should come at the expense of the mobility Mercy had by the end of Overwatch 1 to the extent it does.
A couple of month back, Mercy recieved changes designed to empower her even more as a triage healer. Namely the Sympathetic Recovery passive ability which requires Mercy to be where the injured allies are to benefit from it and even more so the 50% increased healing on allies under 50% of maximum health. The latter of the two was removed entirely in season 4. While I understand that it needed to go due to how it was to play against, I think it’s a shame it wasn’t replaced with something else which similarly encouraged Mercy to prioritize low health allies.
On top of all of this, the state of Mercy’s ultimate ability is also a major issue for me. Prior to the removal of Resurrect as Mercy’s ultimate I used to be a Mercy main. Valkyrie however, following all of its nerf just isn’t as impactful as other support ultimates, so much so that it might be unwise to heal allies which could be healed by the other support. At any rate it doesn’t feel impactful or fun to use. I think Resurrect is too iconic to not be the ultimate.
With all of that said, here are some ideas I have on how to make Mercy more fun to play and which address these issues.
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Caduceus Staff
- Healing done to allies under 50% of their maximum health grant an additional 50% ultimate charge to Mercy.
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Caduceus Blaster
- Projectile speed increased from 50 m/s to 65 m/s.
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Veer <Placeholder name>
- New ability.
- Replaces the Jump and Crouch cancel active state functions of Guardian Angel. The charge feature is removed, Mercy is now always launched at full power.
- Launches Mercy in the following direction.
- Forward + Jump: Mercy’s facing direction.
- Back + Jump: Opposite Mercy’s facing direction.
- Jump: Upward.
- Can only be used during Guardian Angel and doing so cancels Guardian Angel.
- 4.5 second cooldown. The cooldown begins immediately when the ability is used.
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Guardian Angel
- The ability can be cancelled early in three ways:
- Ability 1: Mercy’s movement to her ally is halted.
- (Forward or Back +) Jump: See “Veer” above.
- Crouch: Mercy stops flying “on rails” toward her ally but her momentum is retained. (This is the same behavior the Jump cancel active state feature had in Overwatch 1.)
- Mercy specific controls option to swap the behaviors of Crouch and Jump during Guardian Angel.
- 1.5 second cooldown. The cooldown begins when the ability ends or is cancelled early.
- The ability can be cancelled early in three ways:
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Valkyrie
- Now Ability 2 instead of the Ultimate ability.
- No longer increases the range of Caduceus Staff.
- The beam of the Caduceus Staff forms a chain affecting up to 3 allies in sequence, instead of spreading out from the primary target to all nearby allies.
- The target of each next segment of the chain is required to be in line of sight and within 8.5 meter range of the previous ally in the chain. The 1.3 second grace period Mercy’s beam normally has on broken line of sight and exceeded range applies here as well.
- Each next segment of the chain will always select the nearest valid ally.
- Each affected ally takes 55 healing per second (Primary Fire) or +30% damage dealt (Secondary Fire).
- Resets the cooldown of Guardian Angel and Veer.
- During Valkyrie, Guardian Angel does not require an ally. Instead, Mercy flies similarly in a line to a point 30 meters away (less if the path is obstructed) in her facing direction.
- 0.5 second cast time. During this time, Mercy cannot use weapons or abilities except the Primary Fire and Secondary Fire of the Caducues Staff and swapping weapons.
- Reloads the Caduceus Blaster, instead of infinite ammo.
- No longer increases the projectile speed of the Caduceus Blaster.
- Lasts for 2 seconds, including the cast time.
- 12 second cooldown.
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Resurrect
- Is now the Ultimate Ability.
- Souls left behind by dead allies killed in the air no longer fall to the ground.
- Cast time reduced from 1.75 seconds to 0.75 seconds.
- Grants omni-directional flight for the duration of the cast time.
- Requires line of sight. Moving out of line of sight during the cast time does not cancel the ability.
- Maximum range increased from 5 meters to 23.5 meters. Moving out of range during the cast time does not cancel the ability.
- 60% knockback resistance during the cast time.
- 60% movement speed penalty during the cast time.
- Restores 55 health per second to Mercy and her allies within 8.5 meters and line of sight for the duration of the cast time.
- Resurrects one ally. The resurrected ally will spawn directly in front of Mercy instead of the position where they died. If the position in front of Mercy is blocked by map geometry or otherwise invalid, the ally will spawn in another valid position near Mercy.
- Restores 200 health to Mercy and resets the cooldowns of Guardian Angel and Veer when the cast successfully finishes.