Let me open with a few quotes that highlight some fundamental groundwork of this post and can let us start off with a common understanding.
Source of the quotes I cite:
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Introduction
Stylosa is not known as someone who has shown love to Mercy, in fact in the past he was a VERY outspoken person on how Mercy needed nerfs and was undeniably an opponent of Mercy mains.
Even Stylosa HIMSELF, on his YOUTUBE CHANNEL has now come in yesterday’s video saying Mercy isn’t fine.
This only adds more to our arguments that we’ve made in the past that Mercy isn’t fine. She is flat out outdone by other supports such as Moira and Ana, she feels clunky and unfun to play and overall her kit doesn’t even show much of a difference between a newer Mercy player and a veteran Mercy player.
They even went into potential rework ideas that they were thinking of.
In which case I will provide a rework idea I fleshed out that includes COMPLETELY REMOVING REVIVE IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM:
But let me continue into the actual meat and potatoes of the post below!
Disclaimer: Sorry if I mess up the quotes a bit with the wording, I am literally doing it by hand and trying to keep it as accurate as possible but I’m human and not an audio-to-text robot. As such I’ll add timestamps near quotes that people can look up the youtube video.
And Stylosa has a guest I will quote in this post too. Just consider me as quoting the youtube video itself rather than any specific person.
Mercy’s kit is fundamentally flawed: It’s number tweaking completely reliant on the current meta and the state of OTHER heroes.
This is a point I feel strongly is why we need to look at reworking Mercy. Her current kit is completely reliant and dependent upon ALL OTHER FACTORS IN THE GAME.
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Is it a tank meta? How much Hp/s is Ana doing? What about this nerf? What about that buff? What about this other nerf?
Mercy’s kit right now feels with it’s last 5 or so nerfs like it’s just an attempt at numerical optimization (Before anyone goes at me for using this word: yes I know what this means and have learned AI and reinforcement learning.).
Her kit fundamentally cannot be in perfect balance and will constantly need tweaking in it’s current state. It’s oppressive on one end of the spectrum and then it’s underwhelming on the other where you have Mercy mains like myself up in arms because we feel horrifically weak.
Her kit in it’s current version just doesn’t allow flexibility. Not in showing how skilled we are as Mercy mains nor any other way. It’s extremely linear and streamlined and has been streamlined so much that diversity just doesn’t exist.
Ana at the top levels of play is fantastic. But there is a HUGE gap between the skill ceiling and skill floor of Ana. Huge. Utterly huge. And Ana players must fall between her maximum and minimum.
The gap between a new Mercy player and the best Mercy player is in comparison much much much smaller.
What does this mean? That her numbers she does are basically static. (They don’t really fluctuate.)
So this means that if you set Mercy’s hp/s with her CURRENT KIT to 54.7hp/s… well, that’s going to be a pretty reliable number to see.
So this imho is one major reason for a complete rework like the one I proposed above.
Mercy’s current change was in the wrong direction
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Her ultimate change is not what we needed at all, and I’m so glad that this has been spoken about so much. We’ve already had this 60hp/s Valkyrie a month ago. It was not good then and it’s not suddenly good now.
Mercy’s player fantasy has disappeared.
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I think that this is a very critical point to bring up.
Player fantasy is a very critical thing in video games like this, where you want to live the fantasy and enjoy the character and bring forth what they do.
Right now Mercy used to be “heroes never die” and the protector of the team who would be the like caretaker and keep people alive and safe no matter what-- even if they were KO’d.
Mercy doesn’t provide burst healing, Mercy’s ultimate is compared to other healers NOT even close to as protective, Mercy’s constant stream of healing is less than Ana or Moira. Mercy can’t even fend off attackers as well as Moira or Ana to protect her team mates.
The Mercy caretaker fantasy has been utterly destroyed. Right now it feels like the “Mercy fantasy” is to be little more than an accessory for Pharah or Bastion just to damage boost.
That doesn’t feel good, her entire fantasy has been dismantled and warped and corrupted into this terrible feeling state.
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And truly, Mercy’s class fantasy of even being a revive hero has been DESTROYED.
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Why in a doomfist heavy meta with lots of one shot mechanics isn’t Mercy being played? Why can’t she fulfill even the single target revive fantasy let alone the mass revive fantasy?
In a meta with 1 shot doomfist why hasn’t Mercy become meta against him?
She’s clearly too weak and revive has too many constraints placed upon it, making it unrealistic to use properly even in a situation where her class fantasy should work.
Fundamentally she cannot fulfill her class fantasy AT ALL.
Mercy doesn’t show skill as much as other heroes
(People will attempt to argue this point, but compare a new Mercy to a veteran Mercy. Now compare a veteran Tracer to a new Tracer. The difference is HUGE.)
Mercy just cannot show skill difference as well as some other heroes like Tracer for example, where a veteran Tracer will do so much more than another Tracer who is new to playing her.
This is one really strong indication for why we need a rework or some sort of significant change that is more than just numbers.
There are a few rework ideas mentioned in the video that I think could certainly help bolster this that I cover in the rework section below!
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She has no form of burst healing.
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To say the least, Mercy doesn’t have any form of burst healing. You can argue that revive could be considered a burst heal but that ability on it’s own isn’t even a burst heal.
Mercy heals for 50hp/s. So you could argue reviving a 200HP squishy will be 4 seconds worth of healing. At the cost of being stunned in place for ~2 seconds.
By that argument, Moira can heal (up to 300) 75hp/s with her biotic orb while concurrently healing allies for 80hp/s. Meaning the two combined is 80+75 = 155hp/s. That’s on a SINGLE TARGET, in a group Mercy is flat out dismantled by Moira in this area.
And Ana can simply nanoboost nearly every single last hero in this game to 100%HP. Not to mention her healing boost from her healing-nade and then shooting a target for a nauseatingly high hp/s.
To say the least, of any healer in the game she flat out lacks burst health/shield.
Bridgette’s E: Burst heal.
Lucio’s ult: Burst AOE shield.
Zenyatta’s ult: Burst AOE heal.
Ana: Her healing-nade + shot, her nanoboost.
Moira’s probably the closest thing to an exception, but as shown above Moira’s Hp/s towers over Mercy’s. Especially when combined with biotic orb let alone in a group.
So Mercy the “primary healer” of this game who is dedicated to healing can’t even burst heal nearly as well as the other healers.
Her ultimate is just not good enough
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To say the least, the current “Mercy buffs” (it’s a net nerf over the ~past month) don’t satisfy Mercy mains because simply put… Valkyrie was flat out always underwhelming.
Compared to other healers ultimates it just isn’t good.
In their video they commented about
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And it’s true. Mercy’s ultimate is just underwhelming. She lacks the ability to burst heal at all and compared to Ana’s ultimate she’s just flat out not going to save you. You will be dead in that heavy damage with a Mercy over an Ana far more often than not I’d expect.
Even Moira’s ultimate that is the “closest” to Mercy’s heals for 140hp/s and deals 70DPS at the same time.
Mercy’s little 60hp/s flying beam compared to Moira’s beam is actually a mockery of the entitre concept of Mercy being “the healer” of this game. Moira flat out outdoes her not only in healing but also in teamfight contribution.
But that’s not surprising to anyone whos’ been reading my posts, because I’ve statistically proven Moira adds so much more to a teamfight than Mercy can even dream to.
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In fact, I did a fully fleshed out statistical table of this and how bad Mercy is compared to other healers at contributing to the teamfight.
COMPARISON SUMMARY TABLE"
All percentages is showing HOW MUCH THE HERO TO THE LEFT (row) DOES COMPARED TO MERCY. Areas that the opposing hero does MORE than Mercy will be marked by a (+) and areas the opposing hero does LESS than Mercy will be marked by a (-).
Eg: Moira does 1395% MORE ELIMINATIONS THAN MERCY. (Yes, you read that right! ONE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND NINETY FIVE!)
HERO NAME------ ELIMS ----- OBJECTIVE ELIMS ----- DAMAGE% ----- HEALING%
Moira ---------------**(+)** 1395%----**(+)** 1406%---------------**(+)** 1455%-------**(+)** 5.5%
Zenyatta -----------**(+)** 1027%----**(+)** 871%-----------------**(+)** 2108%-------**(-)** 53%
Bridgette^1 -------**(+)** 1072%----**(+)** 931%-----------------**(+)** 1379%-------**(-)** 45%
Lucio^2 -------------**(+)** 940%------**(+)** 949%-----------------**(+)** 1438%-------**(-)** 19%
Ana -----------------**(+)** 717%------**(+)** 608%-----------------**(+)** 954%---------**(-)** 16.5%
^1 [If you look into the Bridgette vs. Mercy analysis below, you actually can see mathematical backing for the concept that Bridgette contributes more to "team sustain" than Mercy through her armor generation and healing.]
^2 [Lucio may offer "only" 19% less healing than Mercy. But this isn't taking into account his shield barrier in any capacity. I couldn't find average damage shielded by Lucio so I left this out because I wanted to keep this as mathematically relevant as possible. I'm quite sure it's non-trivial.]
_Note: Table does NOT account for armor, shield, healing increase or other utility_
Source of my work with the math done in the table.:
Rework ideas
Even through the video they bring up rework ideas and ideas to make Mercy more skillful and better able to protect her allies. Such as.
1: Overhealing (to raise their HP bar higher and protect them from being killed).
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2: Healing ramp-up
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I personally think both of these ideas would be very minimalistic ways to change Mercy’s kit but fundamentally alter her entire playstyle to be more skillful and require more pre-planning and attention and reward skilled Mercy play. I’d even say both should have a spot in Mercy’s current kit.
However I do still stick by my MMORPG healer rework idea where Mercy gets more options on how to heal and who to heal.
Primarily I say this because Mercy is currently extremely rough mid-fight where she offers just flat out so much less than other healers imho (everywhere else is weak too compared to other healers imho ofc but needing to say mid fight especially here…)
So simply overhealing isn’t going to change that much, but I do see this as a positive step in the right direction where more skillful mercy play can be encouraged!
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I also agree fully that we need more ways to differentiate a Mercy veteran from a new Mercy player. Accessible heroes do not need to be one-dimensional and have no depth!
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I even spent a good long while thinking about reworks and how we could go at REMOVING REVIVE and making Mercy live the caretaker fantasy. Here is my personal thoughts:
Note that this includes COMPLETELY REMOVING REVIVE IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM:
I am tired of revive as an ability weighing down Mercy’s entire kit and playstyle and fantasy down. Give me the tools to PREVENT death if reversing it is such an issue. I want to life the caretaker fantasy on Mercy. I don’t want to be chained down because of revive.
Unlike EVERY OTHER SUPPORT she has no real offensive capabilities.
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This is extremely true, and when I bring up my statistics table showing what other supports bring to the table against Mercy a lot of the time people just try and ignore the statistics of eliminations, damage dealt and objective kills.
Ladies and gentlemen, elims and damge dealt to people are undeniably metrics of this game that are core and clearly every character partakes in. Mercy should be no exception-- and if she IS an exception she should be such a strong exception in every other aspect of her kit that her lack of offense should be made up for equivalently.
Which at present, is absolutely not the case in any capacity.
I’ll reference my table again. Mercy doesn’t offer enough additional healing to justify her ~1000% (ONE THOUSAND) less elim contribution, ~900% (NINE HUNDRED) or ~900% (NINE HUNDRED) percent less contribution in these areas.
It’s just so hard to justify in a game where literally every other hero partakes in these stats to look at Mercy and see her peers her FELLOW SUPPORTS do nearly 1000% of what she does in 3 primary categories WHILE healing almost as much…
It’s a tough pill to swallow to say the least ladies and gentlemen.
Conclusion: Mercy isn’t even on the same planet as Moira or Ana.
As stated very clearly by not only the Mercy community but now also through multiple posts where I showed some of the following facts:
1: Mercy is one of the lowest picked supports across ranks.
2: Mercy was widely regarded as F-tier since release up until her rework. Where she did admittedly become an unfun must-pick hero for too long of a time.
3: Mercy compared to other supports flat out doesn’t bring enough to the table. Mercy is a dedicated healer who cannot contribute to damage, eliminations or picking off high priority targets like flanking Genjis and Tracers (far unlike her Moira counterpart.)
4: And many many more points that would make this post even longer yet.
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So she doesn’t burst heal. Her general healing output is poor. She has a very low gap between her skill floor and her relatively low skill ceiling. She cannot even compete with any other support on core metrics of eliminations, damage dealt or objective kills. She is anchored down to healing and only healing and if she walks around with her pistol out we are in trouble for it. Her class fantasy is disappeared and needs help and overall she is feeling more like a pharah or pirate ship bastion on junkertown accessory than an actual hero.
It’s time we all accept the facts for what they are. Mercy needs help!
Thanks in advance!
