As a hog main i’m curious, why isn’t Mercy “fun” anymore? I never really pay attention to these mercy threads except for a few occasions, because they always go one of two ways, there are 4 types of people that at least I see in the forum, The Condescending mercy main, that is “always” correct and will throw seasons and statistics that value their own opinion to make who they are responding to feel wrong. The more chill mercy mains who want a change. The Opposing side that does pretty much what the condescending mercy main does, except with opposite statistics, and then brain dead MuRcY WaS BrOkEn. I Understand the anger around mercy mains but I never understood how they “ruined the fun in mercy” Like even back to when they took away mass rez, and put in Valk, that rework, was a new ultimate and they put the single rez on E, you can say that VALK got nerfed. and VALK got less fun, so lets change VALK. But the character as a whole didn’t really change much. I’ve seen the very few mercy mains that attack her rez e key, saying it goes against her “mobility” themed kit, Mercy jumps to her allies, and has always jumped to her allies, and the souls of them, being able to make use of the souls to change the game, and head back is a big deal, is it effective in this meta? nah, should they change the ability, buff it? Of course. But Mercy as a whole didn’t suddenly get un-fun. Her ultimate got changed, her ultimate got nerfed. Roadhog had more of a rework compared to mercy, his ultimate wasn’t changed, there were 3-4 iterations of hook, they changed the way his gun worked completely, they changed how his E worked completely, hog had never been top tier, and he became bottom of the barrel FOR MONTHS. Mercy in lower rank has been performing fine. Higher ranks? not so much, shes the I believe second to last picked healer?? I think other characters that have been in the dumpster for a while deserve changes more than mercy, and I don’t think mercy needs her old ultimate to feel “fun” there are things they can tweek with her kit now to make it fun. I would much rather make changes to how her primary and secondary work. and buff that, and have valk enhance those changes, such has maybe giving her a higher healing per second, and being able to give a percentage of that healing to say two different players, being able to either select one at a time with a more concentrated healing. or power boost, or being able to split it to max like 2 players, giving more interactivity and skill to her normal kit, while in valk being able to toggle like 3 players healing or 3 power boosted,
Jesus christ imagine if people cared this much about things in life that actually matter
This forum doesn’t include all of the player base. You can’t base numbers like that.
People play Mercy because they have been for a long time. She has a unique kit that doesn’t transfer well to other heroes in the game too (sometimes anyway).
People also play her for the fantasy that her design and background provide. Players would continue to play her because they are drawn to her in some way, just like how I love playing tanks and supports.
I’ve seen a few posts of people describing what is fun about Mercy and most of them don’t include her healing and being engaging with the team: it’s about battle Mercy mostly.
I know a lot of Mercy players have a lot of great ideas and I can give you the link to one of them!
One I prefer is one that someone else came up with: her having two Resurrect charges during her ultimate. The healing buff that she’s getting helps make it feel like it actually does something but right now it definitely isn’t enough. My own opinion though so 
Such a simple question with such an incredibly long answer that is significantly deeper than any one factor or any one contributing issue. It’s impossible to answer it with a short concise response, but this is the best I can do:
Valkyrie did more than change the way Mercy’s ult works; it changed the fundamental way the character is played and in a way that actually lowers the skill ceiling of the hero or forces you to soft throw if you play the hero for maximum output. The change removes the potential for demonstrating more skill as a Mercy player by limiting your potential and your play making abilities as your ult does your job for you and negates any showing of the skill you develop through practicing multitasking, battle flow prediction, and target prioritization. Valkyrie with aoe healing removes some of the more engaging parts of her play style that revolved around actively taking pains to compensate for and play around her core weakness of being a single target healer and the game sense you gain from being forced to overcome that limitation with the tools at your disposal.
Often times when you’re trying to compensate for being able to only heal one target at a time, that is when you really learn some of the important ways you can get extra value out of Mercy’s kit and the limits of what people can survive, or the synergies that shave away at that survivability faster and synergies that give you more leeway to do as you please, as well as ways you can spread your healing and give maximum benefit to allies to minimize deaths. Valkyrie just applies your beam to hit everyone and negates any incentive to learn how to compensate for her weakness or to look for ways to drag more effectiveness out of her kit, and it’s now up frequently enough that it’s no big deal since you’ll likely have it when you need it, not that using it will make a big difference besides letting you be lazy. This also diminishes the incentives to learn how to do your job while trying to squeeze out extra value from the rest of her kit without sacrificing healing performance where it’s needed.
She is less fun because she’s less engaging, less rewarding, less demanding, and less cohesive of a design that makes her feel worse to those who constantly tried to push the boundaries of what Mercy could do. Now it’s better if you approach her playing as an ult farmer or heal/rez bot depending on which play style is soft throwing less. Picking Mercy instead of someone more impactful is effectively throwing in most ranks and in most games currently, and that on top of losing the feel of her prior play style adds up to her just not being fun anymore for a section of the player base that really tried to engage heavily with Mercy. Ironically that was what the changes were supposed to do, but they ended up doing the opposite meaning the rework failed to do the stated goals and in many ways makes it all the more unnecessary and that much more bitter of a pill to take.
I’ll spare you going into pages upon pages of explanation of why unless you REALLY want me to (legit I could slam out a novel). If you read Titanium’s mega posts, and watch Aria Rose’s videos about Mercy, you’ll get the break down of it really quickly why so many people find Mercy unfun and more importantly the drama and buildup to the situation we see now that makes it that much worse being a Mercy with everything that has happened and why the resentment is so very real. Consider this is a topic of passion for us, and given that it makes it that much harder that the situation has been so incredibly BS. Even if you don’t agree with them on everything they say, its worth giving their stuff a chance to better understand whats going on from the perspective of Mercys who are upset with the current situation (and it avoids me repeating and thus spamming whats already been said multiple times on the forums).
Even though I don’t agree with everything Titanium and Aria post, there is far more that I do agree on, and have experienced Mercy since launch. There have been numerous train wrecks for the supports, and especially for Mercy, such as the SR system creating hide and Rez, and the Mercy rework. If you didn’t experience the events as a Mercy most of it will likely feel like it’s foreign or just outright made up because so much of it is just so wild and ridiculous. As an example of some of the BS, support SR and especially Mercy’s SR was broken every competitive season for the first 5 seasons and exceptionally broken by the Orisa launch (which also created the maligned “Hide and Rez” that prompted the rework to begin with) and playing as support, especially as Mercy, was an an act of intentional rapid deranking for MONTHS while the Devs actively said we were all lying even after we made a freaking DATABASE with game scores, stats, and SR to prove it. Multiple gaming youtube channels and websites covered the absurdity of it still being a problem before finally they admitted that MAYBE it might be something worth looking into since so many people are “anecdotally” claiming SR gain issues affect them disproportionately.
Basically, there is plenty of anger and bitterness after nearly 2 full years of getting stockings full of flaming animal excrement and being told to be excited about it, then topping that off with a rework that was a bigger disaster than a tap dancing clown fiesta with raging explosive diarrhea riding on top of a flaming dumpster fire careening out of control down a hill into a crowded building of coulrophobics. Since the reason for the rework of Mercy was because of how “fun” it was to play against Mercy its basically using the justification for why she was reworked and saying that it failed and it still needs more work and to not just leave it be. It’s worth noting that a lot of people find it still not fun to play against Mercy unless you define fun as a 6v5, and now even more people find it not fun to play AS her than before since her pick rate went down pretty significantly after being the most played hero for a very long time even when she was meta wise considered even below trash tier.
You should take a look at Titanium’s post that is the number 1 highest rated post of all time on the forums, and the link to Slyther’s survey. Its really eye opening even if you don’t agree with all of it, and it gives far more detail about all of this.
(note: I’m really tired, so pardon any oddities, grammar fails, or repeats in this post)
And here is a prime example of that willful ignorance I referenced in the OP.
A glance at the OP would tell you that a flat buff isn’t what we wanted, much less one to the ability that we want removed from the game, or at least removed from its current status. You’re right; it’s not exactly what we wanted. It being exactly what we wanted would require that is at least remotely close to what we wanted.
And you topped it all off with:
“I’m going to skip reading the OP (or ignore its contents entirely), to post an insulting, hypocritical, and pointless comment before muting the thread so I can ignore the flak I’m about to get from said comment… And then maybe I’ll feel better about myself.”
So… you’re going to make an assertion and then ignore the facts that contradict that assertion because “reading is hard”?
That’s not how you reinforce an argument.
That’s a fair position.
Funny how they mentioned that Mercy was one of the most heavily-discussed heroes in the game in the Developer Update, which would would in theory imply that they are reading the feedback.
And then they proceed to do nothing that addresses the concerns of that feedback.
So either they are aware of the concerns, and choose to do nothing while pretending to do something, or they simply don’t know what concerns are and pretend that they do know what the concerns are.
Either way, it’s yet another demonstration that they don’t care; it’s a middle finger either way you look at it.
By… reverting it to state in which those complaints were equally as prominent as now?
“We don’t like Valkyrie in this state.”
Blizzard makes a change to Valkyrie and then undoes that change to Valkyrie.
“This doesn’t change anything. We still don’t like Valkyrie.”
“You Mercy mains are so entitled.”
You might notice that the developers were the first party to break that respect in the first place with the rework made with no regard to the Mercy players.
Respect is a two-way street.
then make her kit harder. also pretending like dmg boost and rez dont exst
Well, there’s the fact that Mercy’s Quickplay (the fun and casual mode) pickrate is below half of what it was prior to the rework…
If we were to assume that everyone who currently plays Mercy in Quickplay is happier post-rework Mercy than pre-rework Mercy, that’s still over half of the Mercy playerbase unsatisfied.
If they realize that saying “no” to another rework ever would mean hell, maybe they should reconsider their position?
“We’re do scared to do/say X because the playerbase won’t like it.”
Who did Blizzard make the game for, again? Did they make it for themselves to play, or did they make it for the players to play?
Except a one-man Resurrect every poke battle that discourages engagements does a lot more to slow the game down than mass-Resurrect ever did, which was more often used to create a second engagement.
Going by your own logic, the developers don’t know what they are doing.
Her pickrate is a bit low now.
But I don’t think her pre-rework numbers were all that good for the game either.
Her rez is a joke and her DMG boost is at the mercy of the target she is boosting.
And you want to make her harder? Don’t make me laugh, most heroes in this game are actually very easy to play so your only form of “hard n skillz” is limited to your ability to aim and have good game sense.
If I was a designer for this game then this game would have neat little details and depth for each character but that would scare off casual players.
But making her kit harder, a focus main healer with trash DPS and currently lame utility (1 at the mercy of others and the other being situational) is like trying to make S76 harder because he is easy to use and effective.
If you weren’t blinded by your “deluded love for skillz” you would ask for her kit to be changed in a way that it is fun but not annoying which means you ditch her rez and or dmg boost for something else that makes her a good MAIN HEALER with no hybrid bs design.
In my opinion the Devs should just make her a TF2 Medic clone with 2 ults to choose from and ultimate decay protocols.
“oh but M1 no fun”
Bare in mind, she can’t burst heal, her mobility is limited to the location of her allies, her utility is situational and her ult is underwhelming and a joke when compared to everyone else who have mobility.
She can only heal 1 target at a time at short range while others can burst heal like it’s nothing, have better healing range and better dps and utility.
And you want to make her harder… some how.
Stating that because the developers at one point were against a flat revert, they must be against any form of mass-Resurrect forever, is an extrapolation beyond the realm of reason.
That was a spicy use of a graphic. I love it.
Funny how they mentioned that Mercy was one of the most heavily-discussed heroes in the game in the Developer Update, which would would in theory imply that they are reading the feedback.
And then they proceed to do nothing that addresses the concerns of that feedback.
So either they are aware of the concerns, and choose to do nothing while pretending to do something, or they simply don’t know what concerns are and pretend that they do know what the concerns are.
Either way, it’s yet another demonstration that they don’t care; it’s a middle finger either way you look at it.
The term “most heavily discussed” could also include wider feedback that exists outside of the Mercy main echo chamber on this forum.
Who did Blizzard make the game for, again?
Good question. Hint - not just Mercy players.
Where exactly is this discussion taking place?
Comp overwatch subreddit is the most toxic place for non-Ana supports.
Where is this taking place, I’d love to know personally.