This is going to be long, so let’s begin.
1.Changes:
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Default Click & Sympathetic Recovery:
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The base healing change results in an overall nerf. Pretty marginal; but a nerf.
And its situational behavior bellow threshold won’t save any ally, since the average Time-To-Kill is just too fast.
For the 25% recovery out of healing done… again, another healing ability under condition.
It’s a buff on its own. 100% guaranteed. But only in the wrong context.
If Mercy was already very likely to die after getting dived, because of the same TTKs, in addition to the current nerfs on mobility, it’s not only that you-are-going-nowhere, but you are also getting no recovery-heals whatsoever.
You are the primary target. And the only one taking damage.
Although, this could also be an opportunity to engage in a more active and cooperative fashion way with your pocketed DPS, by making call outs on voice chat such as:
.Turn on your monitor and L2peel
or
.Go out there and take some dmg you newb
I know the first one is usually the way to go, but after these changes I’m all in with the second xD
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Valkyrie:
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Once again, and defying all logic, we got another situational Buff, that is already on its way to getting Nerfed; immediately next patch.
In its previous iteration, Valkyrie already triggered a passive self-healing effect for its duration.
In addition, this effect could also be of use to mitigate damaging sources such as Dynamite.
All at expense of nothing else than Mercy’s Ultimate. That was a tradeoff.
Now we have this misbelief of becoming tanks.
And following the same pattern, I’m starting to ask myself: who is getting benefit from all this?
Are we feeling gameplay is on point because we’re recovering heals after catching a Dynamite with our teeth and getting shot in the face by this Ana from respawn, while Lucio and Ball stall for ages on payload, because teammates are getting… yellow beam?
This, is dilutional.
I can already see why low Tiers are having a blast with these changes.
Such is the case that they find absolutely negligible the absence of prop jumps, wall rides, any other tech, or even Beam Connection breaking after this soldier turned around the corner.
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About the Nerfs:
In its previous state, Valk increased Mercy’s base healing by a small amount. Only 5 points.
From 55 to 60hp/s. Unmodified by any variable coming from Mercy.
And right now, problem is that Valkyrie’s output is nowhere near a middle ground between the base healing of 67.5hp/s below 50% health, and 45hp/s when above.
Valk, is still doing 60hp/s, out of the box.
In addition to the new modifier, that now becomes 90-hitpoints-per-second, to all allies within range, when under 50% hp.
It’s turning Valkyrie into a mini Transcendence; but way better.
Under the right conditions, not only you are still preventing anyone from dying, but you can also reach anyone across the room.
Plus the returns, of course. For which I already said you shouldn’t rely on them.
And if you do, you are just terrible at the character xD
Honestly, this is bad design.
The way you counter Annihilation, is not by breaking other Ultimates.
And even more: what will happen when Ramattra is not even a variable among team compositions?
The worst part, is that we are utilizing ideas, randomly, and for no reason, when they could actually be very interesting for other heroes.
… new heroes.
Or, I could be wrong, and this might be a field for testing new interactions before releasing more impactful additions to the game.
Just like the 75% damage reduction Orb from Moira, during the last days of the beta.
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Quick note before we continue:
A very important thing that is commonly overlooked when discussing these topics, is knowing the skill level taken under consideration for any kind of modifications.
The reason for this, is because recreating environments that allow us to visualize simple mechanical outcomes, is always good, but actually foreseeing its impact across every layer of skill, is much more crucial.
And these modifications that were presented as Tradeoffs, are nothing but nerfs to high skilled specialists, and a glass of water for low Elo players.
As harsh as this may sound, this can be proven under two simple and practical arguments:
.In the current state and speed of the game, anyone who vows for slower CDs, has never seen what characters can do in custom games. Specially Supports.
.And final, in regards of judgment and decision making, stating things like: “this passive is so good that it actually saved my life…”, it’s a perfect representation of that very same player, standing in dwerp.
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Back on the subject.
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Guardian Angel:
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… it’s all about Guardian Angel.
This is OW2 before February 7:
https://streamable.com/mrxo28
Don’t mind the mistakes or any other stuff. It is just an example. And a very lucky one.
But because of 2 simple modifications to 1 single ability, and how they relate with the rest of Mercy’s toolkit, everything is now broken.
1st. GA Full Cooldown: This one here could be debatable for its own relative nature to how often do we want Mercy to fly from one point to another, and by extent, her very own survivability options.
But the ability on its own is far more complex and holds too many dependencies on the rest of the kit.
A perfect example for this, is Resurrection. GA can’t have a much longer cooldown than the 1.75sec it takes to complete a Res; for obvious reasons.
And activating a 30sec ability after we finish a fight, while your teammate is already on a 10+20 seconds timer between Spectating and Hiking, is just as smart and useful as Resing someone who died 2m outside of respawn.
Resurrection, is not a Taxi Service.
Just like Symmetra’s Teleport is not a ride on the bus.
So we can either reduce its cast time, provide damage reduction for the time being, or just remove it entirely from the game so we can move on to rebalance Mercy’s kit.
2nd. GA Cancel: this differentiated cooldown Can-Never, have a slower reset point than Beam Connection after breaking LineOfSight from our active target.
It cripples all Techs and all Mobility, to the point where it is causing problems when tracking teammates; on ground.
Mercy is a close-range hero. And activating your both, mobility and survivability skill, so you can catch up with a player running a few meters in front of you, is nothing but mediocre gameplay and mediocre character design.
Not to mention another issue which was significantly aggravated by this very same nerfs.
Depending on your latency, the distance from your target, and both the relative and temporary line of sight against that same target, could result in a failed GA.
For short, it would make Mercy stutter. Initiating flight, and then immediately stop moving.
This happened because of an error between the targets being registered on the server, and one of them slipping away from reach; all of the sudden.
It’s a communication error. But due to the nature of the game during match, it was quite frequent.
And if entering a free 1.5 second failed cooldown for no reason, could result in your imminent death, well, you don’t have to be a genius to know what will happen on 2.5
And no, dying to 1.5secs is not the same as doing so for 2.5
As time, is a resource for opportunity.
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Previous:
GA __ Res
1.5 <> 1.75
GAc __ Beam
1.0 >> 1.3
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Current:
GA __ Res
2.5 <> 1.75
GAc ____ Beam
gofigure > 1.3
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The lack of synergy is just… deliberate sabotage.
Like adding an active delay to Tracer when using Blink, or Reinhardt’s Shield deployment.
And the numbers are right there. It’s why Blizzard designated such behavior with such precise timings in the first place.
In regards of all the arguments saying that this changes actually increase the skill ceiling… I don’t know where they are coming from, but last time I checked, Speed, is always a key factor for error.
It’s the very same reason why Chess in 3min Blitz mode is so much harder.
And the same principle applies to pretty much everything. Football, Tennis, Rally, anything we can think of.
When you hard cap the timings, on any competitive environment, you are forcing high reaction time players to be on the same level of those with a slower response.
In more practical words, you are lowering the skill ceiling.
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2.TikTok hot takes and Misconceptions:
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The arguments for nerfing Mercy were all about her Mobility and Damage Boosting.
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So let’s begin with GuardianAngel:
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Many claimed that the new GA granted the character too much room to stay alive, but that would only be half of the picture.
Quick side note:
Before the launch of OW2, Blizzard debated with Streamers about how to make the character more intuitive to new and casual players.
The argument focused around how Mercy was supposed to be an entry level support, but only a few minority were able to master, and successfully execute all of the special techs.
In a more drastic approach, Blizzard pretty much said they wanted clear guidelines for the special movements, or simply get them removed from the game.
And so we got the Omnidirectionality variant of GuardianAngel for specialists, and the Crouch SuperJump for new and casual players. Plus other things like the Charge Indicator on screen.
And to be perfectly honest, I agreed that Mercy needed to be more friendly towards new users. Because her special movements back in OW1, were indeed, absolute-hell.
Even top500 supports didn’t want to touch the character because they knew how much time and effort was needed to master it, and then having such a low impact on the average game at the end of the day.
Especially when having so many others, and better choices.
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So the new GA did increase the skill ceiling, which also translates in better tools to survive in the hands of high ability players.
But still, this was no arbitrary rework.
The reason behind such change, was due to how fast passed OW2 was becoming; right from the beta.
In the meantime, another modification was taking place with a very much radical impact.
And that change, was the self-healing passive regeneration for all Supports, after not taking damage for a few secs.
The thing is that back in OW1, Mercy’s kit as a whole, allowed her to have such unique ability.
And unique it was; since Mercy was the only hero capable of this. But that’s not important.
Now in OW2, all supports were given this same ability.
The only difference, is that this new effect actually happened to be way better on other supports; since the effect can actually stack with individual abilities. Such as Nade, Regen, Orbs, Auras, Armor, and so on.
And this isn’t a 1% here, or a 2 second there; this is binary.
Let’s open a poll and ask what would DPS prefer for next season:
Keep 65% of their ultimate charge when swapping heroes, or trigger a 12hp/s passive self-healing effect after taking no damage for 5 seconds.
… right
And that’s the other half of the picture.
Mercy is a hero with no offensive projection. Only has physics and geometry to stay alive.
And these changes are nothing but a short straw.
So, enjoy the free kills.
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Beam connection clunkyness:
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Some players did actually think out of the box for this ridiculous problem. And one solution suggested that in order to restore Mercy’s toolkit into synchrony, Beam connection needed to last for a longer period of time than GA cooldown, after losing line of sight from our target.
And right of the bat, that is Monumentally Brilliant.
Mercy’s whole toolkit would be restored right away, and Blizzard could retain the slower passed game style they want for the character.
It’s a win-win situation for everyone.
Survivability would still be a downside, but at least this change truly offers something in between.
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GA __ Beam
2.5 <> 2.8
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… and that’s when you see the iceberg
Ever since the Moth meta, Mercy’s design focused around this sort of “Cat and Mouse” try to catch thing.
And until today, I don’t understand how Blizzard allowed such ability as the Mass Res in the first place; but at least the argument for changing the character in the following updates, were all about the negative impact that such mechanic had on Mercy’s gameplay.
Because players were not even engaging in any combat; they were just hiding, somewhere.
And increasing the duration on how much Beam lingers, carries both a terrible and similar flaw.
We cannot have any character, Mercy for this particular case, healing or amplifying teammates from behind a wall; and then peeking every 2.8 seconds just to refresh the connection.
I deeply respect the source of this solution; pretty much because this Streamer not only gave us amazing tutorials, and the best workshops for this character, but also because I pretty much owe this player everything I know about Mercy.
And no doubt of its constructive intention, but we need a more “rounded” solution.
Anyways, I’m also leaving names off this thread because of too many dumb people around.
So leave Streamers do, whatever Streamers do.
It’s pretty redundant to say that this work is the result of gathering information from multiple sources, and not only from my own knowledge and experience, but also the community itself and many top500s.
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Let’s move on to the infamous Damage Boost:
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But not without a short ellipsis xD
Back in Overwatch 1, and more around 2021-2022, with a larger format and for all it meant having an additional Tank walking around like a mobile piñata, pocketing was never an issue.
So if the variable is still the same, today, then it is quite obvious that the cause of the problem is an external factor.
Related nonetheless, but not organic.
Now, we have already been through passive DPS changes on season 1, and discussed a lot about one-shot capabilities during season 2, and for season 3… we are still talking over the same things?
When something isn’t working properly, the only goal is identifying the root of the problem.
If we fail to do so, then we don’t have any plan for action.
And “Oppressive”, I believe was the term used to call out the much needed nerfs on Mercy.
Here’s my hot take on “Oppressive” xD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKqhHhLNA7o
Right now, top500s are pushing 6k amplified damage per game, and 3600 every 10mins; on early stages since patch.
And I don’t see Baptiste or Hanzo causing mayhem with blue beam.
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And for last, the Triage Healer soft-rework:
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The modifier on critical allies is most definitely the way to go. Even the drop after passing the threshold is still reasonable.
Like, can’t do anything else here. Time to go.
But when I see how this concept interacts with the changes on mobility… that’s when I really start worrying about all this.
Because a human being cannot be this dumb.
There is no Triage Healer.
And more to the Fail list:
.Damage Boost remains untouched.
.The whole toolkit is ruined.
.And more nerfs are on the way because of Valkyrie + Recovery.
For the own sake of the Overwatch Balance team, the best thing they can do is come up with a tweet or another blogpost, saying that one of their OLAP systems rolled out misleading or “incomplete” information, apology apology, correction patch, double xp weekend next season.
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3.Gameplay and Current state:
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The nerfs made the character much more stationary in both ground, and midair.
Therefore, increasing the risk of engagement; dramatically.
And because of this forced new playstyle, we are now pretty much back in Overwatch 1.
Mercy will continue to pocket snipers and hitscans, from miles away, and with the new healing changes, She’ll be able to stabilize her designated DPS much quicker than before; increasing the active times for damage boost, even more.
And that’s pretty much all there is after season 3.
Congratulations to Blizzard. They finally nailed all the changes needed for their 1 star difficulty support hero.
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4.Alternative Changes:
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.Revert all mobility modifications:
Atop of everything said before, the 20% slower movement on Backwards GA, is nothing but a penalty directed to low Tiers, and especially those on console.
.Keep Sympathetic Recovery with a lower return ratio:
15% could actually work in addition to the current passive as it is, so new players can get something out of it, while specialists also get an improved version when stacking both effects as a reward from not taking unnecessary damage.
.Valkyrie:
We already have a 90hp/s problem on top of another 90hp/s problem in return.
So maybe try 50, down from the 60hp/s base healing when using Valk.
.Triage healing:
Needless to say the risk involved in such concept, but without the right tools, it’s nothing but a fancy word.
The resources for making this happen are right above. And I’d really love to see it.
.Resurrection:
The problem with Res, is not Res itself, but more about how bad, and low impact a character has to be in any game to actually have such ability.
And there are far better Supports with much more impactful toolkits, than instalocking Mercy, because of Res.
Some alternatives I can think of:
.Pull an ally away from danger
.Apply a damage reduction effect for a short duration
.Split/Share incoming damaging sources for a brief moment
And honestly, I do feel that the risk in going for a Res, is a perfect match for the Triage healer.
Plus, I already have the Whambulance voice line xD
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.Damage Boost:
People have already debated about replacing it with increased Fire Rate or Attack Speed, but swapping beams create a sense of inconsistency or “lack of control” for the pocketed player.
And this example does not apply to Kiriko’s ultimate. Kitsune Rush is a graph that everyone can see and understand its effect when standing in or out of it.
It’s probably the reason why Blizzard didn’t use such mechanic as passive during Season 1.
All in all, it’s really hard to think of a way Mercy can provide value when she is not healing, without breaking the “It’s called Support, and not Healer” concept, while still keeping her core design.
My best take on this matter is,
+10% Damage Amplified
+10% Movement Speed
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As an option, and most likely one for the Experimental Mode, the Amplified Damage could also scale under threshold.
Starting at 30% of target’s health, and increasing its damage the lower he is, up to X%.
It’s a “Last Stance” concept all-around for the risk involved, since Mercy can only either Heal, or Damage Boost allies at all times.
But just like there are eligible abilities that can, and others that cannot be amplified, such as Bastion’s Ultimate or Junkrat’s Rip-tire, a rework to that list would be very much needed to prevent further break points.
None valid for Modifier:
.All Ultimates excluded
.Tanks and Pets are not eligible
.Cannot apply under any mitigation ability, such as Bubble, Nade, Suzu, Immortality Field; and all Life&Armor pool effects.
.Blacklisted Characters: Widowmaker, Tracer, Pharah, Echo
Although, it’s actually very good that these things cost a lot of money to bring into practice; so we won’t see it.
10x10 is the best way to address Mercy’s right-click without many complications.
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5.In conclusion:
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I understand that whenever a new hero is introduced to the community, the developer needs to create incentives so it can be attractive for high skilled players.
AKA, the new kid is always going to be absolutely broken by default, because if his learning curve and skill ceiling are too high, then there is no immediate reason to swap from the character you already master, since that hero already represents your best pick in games that are super tight.
And this is the fundamental reason why such thing as Damage Boost shouldn’t even exist as a continuous application.
They will do nothing but perpetuate this cycle of breaking characters, that are already broken.
This also happen to be the reason why Overwatch 1 was so balanced towards its last stage.
Not only because of the Shields in the 6v6 format and the CrowdControl effects, but also because all heroes were already tuned in their most healthy version.
Now we all love new characters added to the roster, but we can’t have this toxicity levels, one season after the other, just because accretion is fun.
So, until things don’t get properly address, I’m not going to waste neither my time, or effort here.
I’m sorry, but I’m out.
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Before engaging in any eSport, we need to know that the platform provides a solid development and competitive environment, for us to evolve in both skill and knowledge on the run. Otherwise, there’s really no point in committing in the long term.
And today, Overwatch has none of these attributes.
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Doomfist was an absolute joke for most of Season 1.
I could be standing right next to him, and I knew he represented no danger whatsoever.
It was embarrassing.
Sombra went from partying in a balcony on the release of OW2, to actually fell 3 stories, flat on her face.
Not even the reflex to put a hand on the drop. And last time I saw Fitzy during the last weeks from Season 2, he was playing in Masters 5.
I can still remember his face when Chat asked him what rank he was. The guy was literally dying inside.
This is pure amateurism.
The Balance team have proven to be nothing more than a bunch of kids living the dream of working for the company that made the games they so much loved when they were young; and they are throwing dices.
And do we know about balance…
https://imgur.com/a/EdaxRrT
Still, don’t get me wrong, World of Warcraft’s quality is beyond comparison to any other game.
But Team4 right now, is chaos.
So, if the answer to a character that was running rampant, one-shotting everyone across the map, is butchering another Hero’s toolkit, because somehow it was so “oppressive” to play against, while leaving both sources of the problem untouched…
Well, that’s like trying to put down a fire on a building, while demolishing the house right in front of the street.
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Sorry, but I’m already playing other games.
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For those waiting the TL;DR version…
There you go:
https://streamable.com/nrhxfs
Hand-Tailored for the average Joe that will never accept being outplayed; not only by supports, but also other DPS as well.
Guess we can celebrate when Ana sleeps a Genji while blading, and then combo him to death, but not when Mercy survives a 1v1 with Echo, chasing her around for 20 seconds with abilities that can melt the heftiest tanks; no such thing as any skill involved there whatsoever.
But hey, imagine the struggle for landing your shots on a character flying midair in the open and with a hitbox the size of a giant balloon xD
My recommendation to those players talking about “Skillshot” abilities: learn what you are playing.
It’s unbelievable how so many scrubs talk about characters that they don’t even use; don’t know, and have no understanding how they excel.
And yet they gather around to talk about Aim as if it was actually a thing, in a multidisciplinary environment.
Doomfist, D.Va, Junkrat, Brig, Reinhardt, and so on.
Welcome to Overwatch.
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Anyways,
https://streamable.com/6bn05g
https://streamable.com/5ku1kt
Have fun
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