They’re useful for reference, but not for the purposes of balancing. You can’t balance around casual players or there won’t be any high-level players.
Balance should be made with both in mind, IMO.
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It is loosely kept in mind in Blizzard’s case, but they opt for high-level balance when there’s a conflict. That’s why Bastion and Pharah wreck everybody at low levels but are very situational at higher levels. I think the devs count on casual players playing the game a bit differently, though. It’s fine if some things don’t work well at lower levels because there are many things that DO work there that wouldn’t work at higher levels. There’s still plenty of game to be played at all levels; It’s just done differently across them.
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And I thought it was obvious I was broadening the conversation to damage contributed by showing my distaste in how Moira’s contribution is commonly overlooked while Mercy is constantly judged for hers.
Obviously I can’t really talk about another healer’s damage amped stat when Mercy’s the only one that can actually amp damage. So I’m comparing her contribution to other healers in literally the only way possible.
817x = 1800; x = ~2.2032
3x = ~7
In my mind, it makes more sense to me to just directly solve for x this way instead of finding the exact value of a single apple and going from there.
Beautiful part about math is there isn’t really a wrong path to the answer, so long as you don’t take incorrect steps.
Remember I had to come up with the 16 and 27 on my own, they weren’t given to me like I gave them to you. My equation would’ve looked like x * y = 4100 and x * z = 6800. I would have solved for y and z anyways. In the end, wouldn’t have saved that much time.
I was going off the highball estimate you provided here:
I never said you had the stat yourself.
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Not necessarily.
If the game wants to be accessible to the average player, then the game needs to be balanced at a level the average player can actually play at. Balancing around the top 0.1% will just force the remaining 99.9% of players to leave to find a game they’re actually capable of playing.
Not really. Ranking systems in these games are not designed for people to constantly rank up. It’s why people have so much distaste for it in this game, you find where you belong and play there. Sure, you might rise a little bit, but people aren’t going to commonly climb to GM from silver. Telling others to “just git gud” is entirely unrealistic.
Not to mention, we as a community have been improving. Typical low plat players today play like Diamonds when the game first came out, because we’re all just better than 3 years ago. If the average player is constantly improving along with the rest of the community, then that player will still find themselves in gold, despite being significantly better than when they started. So the question is, when do they become “good enough” to get considered?
Again, expecting everyone to climb to GM just to prove themselves is unrealistic. Even if it were to happen, those at today’s skill level of GM would find themselves in gold as they would become the average, and only the people better than them would climb up higher. Now do those ex-GM players deserve to be ignored, despite already having proven themselves as knowing how to play and only fell because the others finally caught up to them?
To me, high level play is little more than recognizing what works and rolling with it, using and abusing it efficiently over and over again until you hit the top. It’s why we have a meta, and why the top players are always using it. Who cares if Mercy is balanced, she’s never going to be used if she’s not the top choice, so her balanced state is ultimately irrelevant.
This is my problem with people looking strictly at high level pickrates for their opinions. Those top players will choose the same hero and same comp over and over again because it works, and they need to constantly use what works, not necessarily because that hero is inherently broken or their alternatives are weak.
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One could, and should consider a Resurrection a form of healing.
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I think Overwatch is still absolutely accessible to the average player even though it’s balanced around the top tier of them. Matches might be played very differently at lower levels, but there’s plenty of game to be played at any level even if there are some occasional roadblocks at lower levels. They’re never game-wrecking.
Remember when Symmetra was a god at lower levels due to her lock-on beam but almost useless at higher levels? When that kind of thing happens, changes get made. Symmetra’s rework was a change made for all levels. Imagine if they’d just taken away the lock-on beam so lower levels wouldn’t be so oppressed by Symmetra. That would’ve made her even less useful at higher levels.
Sometimes, though, like in Mercy’s case, changes are made for the higher-level players that make life harder for lower-level players. Valkyrie opened up a lot of possibilities for some while removing a crutch (mass rez) for others. That didn’t make it a bad change, it just affected gameplay differently across levels. Anybody can get good enough with Mercy to use Valk correctly even if they don’t have the time and skill to grind up to GM.
As far as climbing to GM, I do believe that anybody can do it if they’re willing (or able) to put the time in. I did it and it’s not because I’m amazing or more talented than anyone else. I did it because I play this game a lot and really put time into studying all of its intricacies. Even then, it took hours upon hours upon weeks over a couple of seasons to grind from my initial placement in plat to GM. I am now much better than the average player, but only because I put the effort in. I understand that not everybody has as much free time as me (I don’t have kids or any major responsibilities outside of work) and that’s fine. There’s still a game to play for those people; They just won’t play it the same way I do. That being the case, though, they shouldn’t be expecting the game to fit their needs or operate at their level.
I agree that pickrates are mostly meaningless. They’re not indicative of much outside of determine what the meta currently is.
If that was true then every other hero would be affected similarly, whereas Mercy’s average ‘on fire’ changed radically after the rework and subsequent nerfs. This is a hero specific problem.
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Correction: can’t use their pistol, or risk letting their team die.
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The problem, if it can be called a problem at all, is that the engine that calculates onfire wasn’t adjusted properly for Mercy after the rework. The problem is with the onfire calculation, not Mercy
Excellent post! Thank you for writing this. I hope a ton of people read this and take your points into consideration before writing their next Mercy screeds.
COMPLETELY AGREE!!!
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That’s not true at all. My healing numbers went down slightly after the HPS nerf, but my damage boost numbers stayed the same. Damage boost only needs to be held down for the exact moment your teammate’s damage connects with the enemy. So you can easily flick between heal and damage boost at the right moment to damage boost every widow shot/hanzo arrow/Pharah rocket/Rein firestrike/etc. without losing any healing, as long as you can time it correctly.
The average Mercy player doesn’t have low damage boost levels because they HAVE to heal so much more now, they never had high damage boost levels to begin with. There #'s are low because they have poor timing and knowledge of the ability, nothing more. I also see many low rank Mercy players over-using the heal beam when they should be damage boosting. You don’t need to constantly be healing anyone who’s missing 10% of their health. If my Winston is at critical health but he is diving a Zen, I will 100% damage boost him instead of healing him, because my gamesense lets me know he will kill the Zen with my damage boost without dying, so I don’t need to heal him.
Nothing drives me crazier than seeing Plat-Diamond Mercy mains never touching their blue beam because “wE hAvE tO kEeP hEaLiNg!!”. You said it yourself in your post, killing enemies is more valuable than healing. That’s exactly why Mercy players should be damage boosting MORE, not less, ever since the HPS nerf.
I hate to sound blunt/rude, but that’s the truth. Mercy players in ranks under masters have ALWAYS had ridiculously low average #'s for damage boost, even with 60 HPS. It’s because of their bad game sense and perception that healing is far more valuable than damage boost, which is simply untrue.
Don’t you dare forcing even more pistol use. Killing enemies isn’t her thing at all.
Eliminations are important for hybrid healers, but not for Mercy.
It is true, if your DPS aren’t good shots. Damage boost relies on your teammate landing their shots regularly. If they aren’t, it would be better to heal them, so they outlive their opponent.
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They call her heal low because the speed of healing is low.
And that matters more, than overall healing over round. Faster you heal, faster your teammates get back into action and more shots they can ignore.
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Yes,it is. You are absolutely right. I wonder why many people do not understand this.
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Saw the video where “pro” said: “Pocket the strongest player in your team”. Is it about a hero who should help the whole team? Before rework: The angel should help the whole team, not hide and wait for the moment to resurrect the team.
After rework: mercy should pocket her ashe for the win,because ashe is the biggest buff to mercy.
Click your mouse on 1hero for the win
(my eng isn’t good)
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Maybe this comment isn’t going to be worthy considering all the detailed and well thought-through contributions here, but my thoughts on removing Mercy’s rez, or making her able to use her sidearm more is this:
That’s not who she is.
To me, making Mercy more viable through enabling more damage would just make her less Mercy. She was made specifically with being the ideal healer in mind. Just like Widowmaker is the ideal sniper or Reinhardt is the ideal shield tank.
Balancing in a way that negates that role or even taking away a considerable part of her kit and personality - Resurrect - is, in my mind, something like taking away Reinhardt’s shield and giving him an assault rifle or telling Widowmaker to use her sniper rifle less and start using a shotgun.
Just my two cents.
slowly walks backwards before anyone starts yelling at him
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Yes, and we already got plenty of healers, that are expected to deal damage on the regular. Use them.
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i think mercy is fine you just have to g1d gudloooool