I understand my friend, I get the same urge more often than I’d like to admit and I’ve done it more often than I’d like. I appreciate that, thank you. I’d like for it to stay level-headed, it’s a rare chance to actually get some proper discussion going on these forums! Everyone seems to be providing good feedback, so if he leaves the thread of his own choice, it’s probably better that way.
I’m really not a support player so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
Ana:
Healing at range could be really great and really powerful, but the maps are not built for that. At least not without character mobility. Imagine if an Ana where a Widowmaker can go (places like illios ruins or kings row) she would be great. I don’t know what they could do to give her more mobility though, remove Hanzo’s lunge and give it to her? (he didn’t really need it anyways…)
Side thoughts on Ana versus Mercy, I remember way back when Ana was meta, the biggest difference between the two was that Ana had to work really hard to get the same healing value as Mercy, but she had so much utility that mercy didn’t have. The only utility mercy really had at the time was her ult. But with that utility now part of her normal kit, that difference is gone and now Ana just has to work hard to be as good.
Segwaaaayyyy
Mercy:
This is taken from Titanium’s post here
The idea itself is from ReinStein
OverWrite - Let's Fix Everything: Part 2
Valkyrie: Removed.
Resurrect: Is once again Mercy’s ultimate.
Now uses a charge/stack-based system, stores a maximum of 3 stacks. 1320 ultimate charge is required to gain a single stack of Resurrect.
Cast time removed.
Resets GA cooldown upon use.
Otherwise functions like Resurrect does currently.
New E ability: Alter Stream
Pressing E activates Mercy’s chain beams, which function as they currently do in Valkyrie but without the primary beam range increase. Pressing E again returns the beams to normal.
The strength of Mercy’s beams is decreased, reducing her damage boost amplification to only 10% and her healing to only 20 HPS.
This ability has no cooldown.
I personally like this, makes resurrect about the tempo, the same way it is now, but is dependent on the healers performance. Making the new e could still allow for a strong mid-fight presence but the reduction in healing means more evaluating what to do.
(Lots of grains of salt here, I am an Awful mercy, so this is all theoretical.)
Brigitte:
I don’t like her, I think she is poorly designed, but she is more or less balanced. Changes I would like to see to her would be.
- have her shield take damage equal to half the current health of her target. incentivise stunning squishes like she should rather than making tanks not want to play.
- Either lower her self-healing, or her shield health, or her shield recharge time.
- make rally armor disappear after 45s-60s. If you lose a teamfight against it, it makes too much of a snowball when now your next one will be harder because they still have armor.
My biggest gripe with her is her counter play is either stay away or switch to a hard counter. Both make one person feel rather powerless. Neither of which is very fun for either party. Hopefully these suggestions would increase said counter play.
Lucio:
I really don’t know much about him, but I think lowering his cast time And/or have him gain some ult charge from speed boosting could be good.
Moira:
I think she’s a pretty good place, well, she way before the “bug fix”. She was strongest in grouped up brawly comps, but if there’s a shield anywhere in that brawl she loses so much value. Just revert the “bug fix”, or at the very least let her heal through barriers with a reduction on the amount (someone mentioned 60% healing, that sounds like a good number).
Zenyatta:
His fine, BLIZZARD DON’T YOU TOUCH HIM.
Ultimately I think the biggest problem is that with healing in the game burst damage > sustained damage. And as the games get’s more burst damage and gets faster the healing need to keep up with more burst healing. Which just makes sustained damage worse (power creep 101). I don’t know what to do about this (Nerf hanzo?) but it makes balancing hard.
Of course as with OP’s post, please think of these suggestions as independent of each other, or any combination of them.
2 Likes
Actually I think it’s nice to get some input from people who don’t play support, see how it looks/feels from the outside-in. Glad to get your thoughts on the topic!
For Ana, I agree. Essentially she has a good kit, but the game doesn’t allow her to properly utilise it, certainly not as effectively and frequently as she would like. In theory an old woman with no known mechanical body parts would be difficult to give a mobility ability like a lunge, but a mechanical thing like a grappling hook would make more sense… but then she’s a bit close to widowmaker. It’s a difficult call.
Those Mercy changes look interesting and could work, though I’m hesitant to let her potentially do 100HPS with no skill input nor ultimate cost, and even a 10% damage boost lets certain things do a lot of damage, like McCree one shot a Tracer. It’d need to be tested for balance, but it could work.
As for Brigitte, that’s an interesting idea regarding the shield bash. It could work, but that might be a bit too punishing, especially with someone like Hammond coming into the game. His shields can give him an effective 1300 HP. Half of that would be 650HP, and the shield only has 600HP. Bashing him would be an insta-break from full health. The concept I like, however it’d need careful balancing or Brig would never have shield uptime.
Thanks for the input!
This thread I could’ve have been so much worse😂
I actually agree with a lot of it, so nicely done. Jelly likes❤️
1 Like
Honestly I was surprised myself. This thread actually came to have some nice ideas and good discussion. Hopefully there’ll be more to come too and the thread keeps going!
1 Like
This is from an outsiders view as I haven’t played in over 5 months and is primarly speaking on past expierence.
But seeing as it’s still going on, but wouldn’t it be easier just to remove ressurection, due to it causing majority of Mercy’s issues.
Of course, I say that knowing Blizzard sadly will never do that because of the backlash it would recieve and Blizzards or Activision mainly, is all about that good PR.
I don’t know, after what, 5? reworks and dozens of tweaks I feel it’s time to move on because it clearly doesn’t work and makes “balancing” nightmare fuel. For other characters and Mercy herself. Yes, their would be some backlash but people would get over it.
I realize this a very minority opinion, but please no hate. Just voicing my opinion, it’s nothing toxic. I have nothing against Mercy or the people who play her.
A little controversial, but I don’t think Ana needs mobility or a passive heal I think her cooldown and abilities need to be lowered a tad. The devs said that sleepdart is suppose to be a way for her to disengage but the problem is that it’s a skill shot and the cooldown is long and enemies can be wakened by 1 point of damage it.
I think this a good start for her because a lower cooldown would be fine, like I mentioned it’s a skill shot so it all comes down to aim. And she’ll have it more often. And giving it a damage threshold so in the middle of a fight when you need to disengage trash damage doesn’t wake them up.
This would make her borderline broken imo because you need to remember all the effects her nade does.
- it does damage
- it anti heals
- it gives an instant 100HP to anyone it hits
Something that does that much needs to be blocked by shields. Her being able to throw it through barriers would make her slightly too powerful because barriers wouldn’t be safe anymore. I also wouldn’t say she’s Underpowered since her pickrate is about the some and in some tiers as low as gold her pickrate is above Brigette who by a lot of people consider either balanced or OP.
You already said you prefer Brigette as is so I don’t want to get into that but two things you suggested as potential changes are a little to harass that I wanted to point out.
That’s why too much damage on her sheild for one ability imo.100mis more reasonable but 300 is too much
Her passive is already kind of low so lowering it more would be overkill on her.
As for Lucio the only changes I think he needs are his aura to be slightly bigger and for his ult to cast faster like mentioned here:
The problem with his ult isn’t that it’s too weak but it’s the fact it gets shut down much easier due to the ultimate changes that happened a little back. He just takes too long to cast it and in that time he could be stunned or headshotted.
For Mercy, her problem comes from Rez and everything combined with it. Her healing, damage boost, regen, and flight weren’t a problem when she was troll pick, when Ana was dominate, or when Lucio and Zen were the best choices. It’s because she has a mid-fight rez along with consisten healing output that is the problem. If she were to get these nerfs it wouldn’t change her status as the best healer. 50 hps isn’t high but it’s consistent and she would still outheal all the other healers aside from Moira. 25% damage boost is still boosting killing potential and no other character can do that. And Valkire can still do all that but to an entire team, plus a res if someone dies. She needs res to not be a regular ability anymore because that combined with damage boost and her pocket potential are what’s making her the go to pick. It also doesn’t help that the Meta does favor her and Zen
Lastly, with Moira all you need is just to revert her bug fix and she’s pretty much fine lol.
1 Like
I like this, it’s a simple idea and I’m glad someone brought it up. Only meaningful damage should wake up a target, even if it’s only 20 damage.
This I actually completely disagree with. For sure, Ana’s biotic grenade has a lot of power potential, but think about it in context. Shields block everything in her kit. Her cooldowns are useless through them and she can’t even shoot through them.
In the context of the fight, being able to throw in a biotic grenade through an enemy barrier could help turn a fight. However, that’s still ALL you can do until you get past the barrier. You can’t sleep a target through the shield, you can’t shoot darts at enemies through the shield, you can’t heal allies through the shield… A clutch burst heal might save your team until you can get there to shoot darts into them. The point is that you wouldn’t get any followup anyway. Ana deserves to have SOMETHING she can do through shields, and shooting through shields would probably be more broken due to consistency.
I think you’ve misunderstood the statistics. Pickrate means very little compared with winrate. Even winrate isn’t the most useful tool.
People are picking her because many people are sick to death of having to play Mercy for several seasons now because she’s objectively the best healer. Once Ana got tiny quality of life changes, people started playing her because they WANTED to play her, not because she’s actually very good.
If you look at Ana’s winrate, across all tiers it averages at 47.54%, which is by quite a margin the lowest winrate support, and is the third lowest winrate character in the entire game. She only starts having a barely positive winrate in Diamond and above. At that rank, people who play her a lot and are good with her can get good value out of her, but fact is Mercy does more, is a better all rounder, more consistent and can do what Ana does for much less skill input. I say this as someone who has played a hell of a lot of Ana, is playing in Diamond games and has a 54% and 52% winrate with her in seasons 9 and 10 respectively.
.
Sorry, I tend to rant a bit when it comes to Ana. I’m pretty tired of her being thrown under the bus and not being rewarded for playing a more skillful support at all. The rest of your points are pretty fair though, nice to hear them and thanks for the input!
1 Like
That’s true but you can still get around the barriers by throwing the made to we’re the splash damage still gives the effects. Plus is anything should go through barriers on Ana’s kit it should be her primary fire to heal on the other side of them. Something as powerful as her made is too strong to just be able to ignore barriers. It’d also maker her compete with Mercy and other healers because she can still support them.
Lol don’t apologise, I complete understand as Ana is a fun support to play and it’s good you alone with other people are being more vocal about her. The deva said in a stream that she’s still on their radar so hopefully we see more from her soon!
1 Like
I’ve written a few threads and spammed a bunch of threads regarding buffing Ana. I will copypasta my buff ideas here:
As for her ult, that’s a completely different story. I don’t really know what to do. But a fun idea is to lower the ult charge necessary (increasing damage or healing output would do this) so she can just throw it out like candy. (it wouldn’t be fun to play against a nanoboosted enemy every teamfight, though)
2 Likes
I sometime think it pretty strange we are using the term counter in supports. They usually just support and just have different survivability. I think brig is more a tank in that sense. Her additional heal or repair is just a different form of blocking.
And zen is also in a different catagory maybe.
Other supports mainly provide heal and are decent or very good at it. But Lucio now lacks heal and speed boost isnt that popular. And Ana is too exposed.
1 Like
If like to see lucio have his auras increased in size when he uses amp it up. Maybe the auras can extend briefly and return to normal after
1 Like
You know I really like your post but i do disagree with the shield bash makes the shield take 300 dmg nerf. You can’t nerf shield bash, her self and teams heals, her damage and her shield health all at the same time. That would make her weak.
I also disagree with some of the mercy parts too:
-Her healing doesnt need to be nerfed. Back then there werent as many stuns or dmg and all that but even then mercy couldn’t quite sustain her team with 50hp heals. It was changed for a reason
-I agree with 2 sec cooldown on ga. Its no big deal. (At leats your not suggesting a 4 sec cooldown like some people around here)
-The regen changes I’m not sure. Would have to see how good or bad she would be.
Altought for me her core kit shouldn’t be changed since it’s been here since season 3
Now this are some of my changes:
-Either lock rezz to her ultimate or make a sort of mass rez her ultimate. She could only rezz up to 3 teamates and would need LOS to the corpses. And they could make valk an ability but with some changes ( no chained beams only a stronger single target beam and no flying).
If valk stays ( probs whats going to happen) they should take the chained beams because that covers mercy’s weakness (group heals).
I also don’t think mercy will be balanced while she has an ultimate in a form of ability. If they made rez an ult again as an E i would like the cleanse idea ( have you heard of it??)
Well and that’s it for my suggestions and opinions.
I really apreciatte that you made an actual well tought post instead of just screaming nerf mercy to the ground ( looking at people who suggest healing ramp up and 4 second cooldown on regen and ga ![:slight_smile:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=5" ":slight_smile:")
)
Sorry for the long post guys
1 Like
Right so I’ll respond to you all in order (so scroll down for your @ if you don’t wanna read the others)
.
@Xarx
This would be fine, but obviously it couldn’t be on top of her current health pool - it’d have to replace part of her HP, maybe 125 health, 75 shields to total 200HP again.
Can’t really buff her too much in that aspect. 70 is still quite a lot, but part of the problem is it’s tick damage so it’s somewhat ineffective. 75 damage would be my cap because then you could 2 shot Tracer and mini D.Va. Headshots would probably be very OP unless the multiplier was only x1.4 or something.
This would be amazing. It’s so easy to dive an Ana anyway, her scoped shots giving away her position all the time just ruins her.
.
@Hawai
This is true enough, speed boost isn’t as useful as it once was and his healing is just kinda lacking until he amps. A small love tap could really help him out. Same with Ana. She’s too easy to dive and screw over.
.
@ThumbDrives
They actually do this for Lucio in Heroes of the Storm (at least, as an optional upgrade you can take). I play him in HOTS too, and I always take that option. It makes sense as an interesting thing to try, and logically it makes sense too (louder music could be heard further away). It definitely shouldn’t increase up to the insane range it used to, but maybe 20m like Brig’s passive healing is currently at.
.
@SneakyTurtle
Oh god no, that would totally kill her. Like I said, the changes I’ve suggested would be implemented with just one or two of the options, definitely not all at the same time - one or the other. A small nerf in one aspect would still leave her balanced, but nerfing everything would make her completely irrelevant.
Maybe her basic healing, but her Valkyrie healing could definitely be put down to 50 and it’d still be a very strong ultimate.
I’d never suggest it being that long. Heroes like Hanzo can get away with having a longer mobility ability cooldown (although 4 seconds is still a bit too low for him) because they can fight back with damage. Mercy needs her mobility on a lower cooldown because 99% of the time, she’s not going to be able to fight back since she’ll be healing or boosting her team, not having her pistol out.
This one I’m actually pretty sure they could change. If I remember rightly, the original Mercy had her regen happen after 2.5 or 3 seconds. Back then, that was far too long and she was a very easy target to focus down. Since then though, she’s gotten more mobile (especially with the ult) and people have gotten better at the game with positioning and such, so Mercy only having a 1 second timer before regen kicks in a little bit fast when she’s as mobile as she is.
I don’t think Rez is ever going to be an ultimate again honestly. It’d be more balanced (compared with Mercy 1.0 rez), particularly the LOS part, but I don’t see it happening. As a whole I think she’s more balanced in this state and a bit more healthy for the game but she’s still a bit problematic naturally. Regarding Valkyrie, I wouldn’t say they could “take” the chain healing, but they could quell it a bit. Having the full 60HPS and full damage boost on group targets is a little bit much. Lowering the healing to 40 or so per target, and maybe lowering the damage boost to 20% during valk would likely be enough to make her reasonable.
Unfortunately this seems to be a common theme with Blizzard’s hero reworks. Symmetra ended up with teleporter on a basic ability, they’ve spoken about Torbjorn being tried out with a variation of Molten Core on a basic ability too. It’s not ideal imo, but I suppose it keeps the character feeling like they originally did for the people who played them pre-rework.
Indeed, I play several games where a cleanse is a thing. I actually like this idea, and there’s already abilities in the game that do this (although generally it’s not their primary use). Zarya bubbles get rid of discord orbs, anti-healing etc, Mei and Reaper’s invincibility abilities do the same. It could certainly be done and probably be quite effective.
Thank you, and thanks for the input too! It’s nice to get this sort of discussion going rather than just screaming nerf threads. In an ideal world, I’d love to see all the healers be similarly viable. Thankfully none of them are so OP or UP that they’re beyond fixing. Asking for huge buffs or nerfs would ruin them, and I’d hate to have that be the case. For what it’s worth though, I kind of understand why some people do want Mercy nerfed to the ground. She’s been the main meta healer, vastly outweighing the other main healers for so many seasons now that some people are just sick of her and don’t want her seen again. I don’t think they understand though that just small nerfs here and there would make her balanced and then allow other healers to flourish too!
Hope that answered all your responses guys, thanks for everyone’s input so far!
1 Like
Oh god no, that would totally kill her. Like I said, the changes I’ve suggested would be implemented with just one or two of the options, definitely not all at the same time - one or the other. A small nerf in one aspect would still leave her balanced, but nerfing everything would make her completely irrelevant.
-Ohh ok i quite misunderstood this point o
Maybe her basic healing, but her Valkyrie healing could definitely be put down to 50 and it’d still be a very strong ultimate.
-I agree with the healing changes to valk
I’d never suggest it being that long. Heroes like Hanzo can get away with having a longer mobility ability cooldown (although 4 seconds is still a bit too low for him) because they can fight back with damage. Mercy needs her mobility on a lower cooldown because 99% of the time, she’s not going to be able to fight back since she’ll be healing or boosting her team, not having her pistol out.
-Also agree with your point
This one I’m actually pretty sure they could change. If I remember rightly, the original Mercy had her regen happen after 2.5 or 3 seconds. Back then, that was far too long and she was a very easy target to focus down. Since then though, she’s gotten more mobile (especially with the ult) and people have gotten better at the game with positioning and such, so Mercy only having a 1 second timer before regen kicks in a little bit fast when she’s as mobile as she is.
-Ok, this is feasible and acceptable
I don’t think Rez is ever going to be an ultimate again honestly. It’d be more balanced (compared with Mercy 1.0 rez), particularly the LOS part, but I don’t see it happening. As a whole I think she’s more balanced in this state and a bit more healthy for the game but she’s still a bit problematic naturally. Regarding Valkyrie, I wouldn’t say they could “take” the chain healing, but they could quell it a bit. Having the full 60HPS and full damage boost on group targets is a little bit much. Lowering the healing to 40 or so per target, and maybe lowering the damage boost to 20% during valk would likely be enough to make her reasonable.
-It’s sad but i think if mercy had mass rez back ( maybe under the conditions i suggested) she would be more balanced.
I think valk chain beams covered her weakness. If they removed that and made the beam stronger it would make her more balanced but again it would make her ult kinda weak.
Unfortunately this seems to be a common theme with Blizzard’s hero reworks. Symmetra ended up with teleporter on a basic ability, they’ve spoken about Torbjorn being tried out with a variation of Molten Core on a basic ability too. It’s not ideal imo, but I suppose it keeps the character feeling like they originally did for the people who played them pre-rework.
- Agreed. Off topic: WHATT MOLTEN CORE AS AN ABILITY??
Indeed, I play several games where a cleanse is a thing. I actually like this idea, and there’s already abilities in the game that do this (although generally it’s not their primary use). Zarya bubbles get rid of discord orbs, anti-healing etc, Mei and Reaper’s invincibility abilities do the same. It could certainly be done and probably be quite effective.
-If they have change rez back to an ultimate or remove it completely i think this would be a good, fun and insteresting ability. It would require good timing to pull off. I thini it would maybe need some form of a drawback. Maybe she remains imobile while casting it but she can freely choose the allie she wants to cleanse ( she levitates and emits golden light and then shouts the abilitie line- seems cool to me)
Thank you, and thanks for the input too! It’s nice to get this sort of discussion going rather than just screaming nerf threads. In an ideal world, I’d love to see all the healers be similarly viable. Thankfully none of them are so OP or UP that they’re beyond fixing. Asking for huge buffs or nerfs would ruin them, and I’d hate to have that be the case. For what it’s worth though, I kind of understand why some people do want Mercy nerfed to the ground. She’s been the main meta healer, vastly outweighing the other main healers for so many seasons now that some people are just sick of her and don’t want her seen again. I don’t think they understand though that just small nerfs here and there would make her balanced and then allow other healers to flourish too!
- Yeah i kinda get from where the hate comes from but people need to think throughly before they post
And thats all I’ll keep an eye on this post
BTW i dont remember how to quote people here sozz
1 Like
Yeah they mentioned trying Molten Core as a normal ability, but they didn’t go into detail and we don’t know if it’ll make it into the final rework. It was in an interview done a few days ago (link below).
Torb Rework Interview
(Start at 0:56 for the interview, plays until 1:40)
As for the quote thing, just highlight the piece of text you want to quote, and a small “Quote” button should appear above it. Click that and it’ll place the quote in your response. At least, that’s how it works on PC, not sure about other devices!
Hopefully we’ll get even more responses on the support topic, I’m loving the discussion so far!
1 Like
I’m not saying that Ana doesn’t need a small buff in terms of survivability, but I don’t think I’d be wrong in saying that this would be the wrong path for the hero.
For starters, I personally like tick damage/healing. It’s something that checks Ana from being too effective in teamfights seeing as how the hero is primarily used alongside main supports picks (i.e. Mercy/Moira). Of course, it makes her character more prone to burst damage, but that’s why biotic grenade exists. It provides a burst of healing/damage to those caught in it.
While I’m on this topic, biotic grenade is an ability that to is used in the wrong way in many teamfights. Players neglect to use such an ability on simple map geometry like walls in order to negate enemy team healing to provide an advantageous position to move in on. So as such, allowing this ability to pierce barriers not only breaks the common trend of projectiles and barriers, but also lowers Ana’s overall skill to the point in which support heroes would be a joke in itself.
1 Like
Mercy’s base kit doesn’t need any changes.
Also, why nerf damage boost but not discord?
I certainly don’t want Ana to become some highly mobile, unkillable heal sniper machine. Fact remains though that she is in a bad spot. She’s just about playable but she needs something.
In an ideal world, something in her kit needs to go through shields. For such a high skill character, it’s far too easy to just make her absolutely useless, or even just kill her and remove her from the fight. Her abilities are powerful sure, but they’re also moderately long cooldown and skillshots.
If you’re intent on keeping the tick healing, you could always increase the speed at which the ticks apply. Currently it takes 0.85 seconds or so to apply all 4 ticks of damage/healing. If we lowered it to 0.4 or something, the ticks would still be there but it’d be more consistent and not be so awful vs burst damage.
.
EDIT: @Karo
Mercy definitely needs some changes, but they don’t need to be big or kit-ruining. She’s too good of a pick right now to make the other main supports viable, but you can’t just give huge buffs to the other main healers or they’ll be OP.
As for nerfing damage boost over discord, it’s because Zen’s discord orb is an enemy debuff (the only type of its kind), can only be single target, requires Zenyatta to maintain line of sight to the discorded target or it loses all effectiveness. Mercy’s damage boost can be applied to 5 people at the same time and the rest of her kit is all very strong.
The balance over the whole kit matters more than the power of a single ability in this scenario. Zenyatta has relatively low (albeit consistent) basic healing, no mobility, no CC, no technical self healing, one form of utility and a strong ult. He needs the discord orb to provide utility to make up for what he lacks. Mercy has great consistent team healing, great mobility, a strong, fast acting self-heal, two forms of utility (one of which being the best in the game - rez), and a great ult that makes every single thing in her kit vastly stronger.
The only thing that needs to change (or removed) is the current rez. Mercy’s kit was never a problem before. Nobody screamed for nerfs back then, so why now?
Discord is only one target yes, but it’s that one target vs your whole team. Zen is also able to multi task by being able to heal, debuff and do damage all at the same time. Mercy can only do one or the other, which also requires line of sight.
You can’t just name only the strengths/weaknesses of a hero, there are trade offs.
Zen has low healing, but it’s the safest in the game and allows him to multi task. He’s able to defend himself as a trade off for no mobility, and I don’t know what you mean by technical self heal but he has shield health.