The Anger Around the PTR Mercy Buffs Explained

[BattleMercy-1705]

400 more replies to go.

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𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽

Spreading positivity and ice cream, one Mercy at a time.

[kongajinken-1805]

They really need to change how Valkryie works so Mercy requires more decision making. Right now Valkryie requires neither mechanics nor really much strategy. It leaves Mercy with very little to do, heck even surviving becomes infinitely easier, I would say one of the most fun parts of Mercy is figuring out how to stay alive and be effective. Vakryie removes this as well.

[Huckleberry-21132]

So was cowering in a corner waiting for people to die fun? Which in first form after the rework was still the go to strategy with instant ress you enjoy hiding than?

FUN IS SUBJECTIVE i enjoy ana more does that make me a bad person for saying not to like mercy in any way shape or form sorry i like stuff where i can showcase my improving aim not this she was ignored way longer than mercy ever was we don’t go megathread every day to get heard now do we?

And mass ress is an outright worse ult good teams will just find the mercy and collapse on her making her a worse pick than she is now. Only good on lower ranks and falls off hard on diamond or above.

[kongajinken-1805]

Cowering in a corner doesn’t sound fun, its a good thing I never did that.

Fun being subjective doesn’t mean the majority of Mercy mains enjoy Valkryie, it means there are some that enjoy it.

[Huckleberry-21132]

Fact is mercy is the most played hero off all times so more people have an opinion on the matter does not mean everyone shares that opinion now does it? If every mercy player wants a revert i am not stopping them but good luck in staying in higher ranks on pre valk mercy cause she was an outright troll pick back than what i think most are forgetting you can’t have it both ways guys.

[BattleMercy-1705]

@Huckleberry-21132

So was cowering in a corner waiting for people to die fun?

That is not how you play Mercy. Also, is one specific example of something that’s unfun. Cherry-picking often does devalue your argument so I’d refrain from doing it.

@Huckleberry-21132

Which in first form after the rework was still the go to strategy with instant ress you enjoy hiding than?

Hiding counters itself. I’ll let Titanium explain the rest.

@Titanium-1686

Moving onto “Hide and rez” …

“We think it’s wrong to tell a main-healing character to go off and hide somewhere and stop healing for some period of time.”

But it is fine for a main-damage character to go off and hide somewhere and stop dealing damage for some period of time, like many heroes currently do in preparation for an ultimate?

In actuality, you are right; just not for the reason you think you are. You are correct because hiding was maladaptive for the team’s chance of victory, and therefore was a bad way to play her. Allow me to explain this in an even more elaborate manner than my past few megaposts.

The success of a mass-Resurrection (4+ revived players) depended upon several factors:

• The Mercy’s ability to survive and execute the ability in the first place (the obvious one).
• The number of players alive on each team after the Resurrection.
• The number of available ultimates held by each team after the Resurrection (but primarily the enemy team).
• The shock value of Resurrect against the enemy (by far the most important factor for the post-rez fight).

The last factor is more important than the other two post-rez factors because it determines what other factors need to advantage the Mercy in order to have a good chance at a successful Resurrection. As the enemy team is given time to reorganize and fire their first attacks at the newly Resurrected team, they would already have a positioning advantage and the first shot… that is, if the team was expecting the Resurrection.

If the enemy team is expecting the Resurrection, they will have the post-rez advantages of the first shot and additional positioning time. Of course, this is a very bad situation to be in for the newly revived team, requiring some very strong advantages of their own to compensate and have a chance at winning the fight. In this case, they would need both the numbers advantage and the ultimate ability advantage.

If the enemy team isn’t expecting the Resurrection, then the Mercy could probably get by with either the numbers advantage or the ultimate advantage and still have a chance at winning, as the enemy team might not capitalize on their positioning and first shot opportunities as well as they should due to the shock value of Resurrect.

How does “Hide and rez” fit into all of this, you might ask? Hiding before the fight removes the possibility of having enough of those advantages against the enemy team in the post-rez fight, and therefore any chance of a victorious post-rez fight against any team of similar skill.

Hiding leaves the initial fight to a 5v6, the missing hero on the Mercy’s team being the main healer and primary source of sustain. Obviously, this is a huge advantage for the team of 6 in the first fight, allowing them to steamroll over Mercy’s team with likely zero casualties, and ultimate expenditures used only to counter any of the opposition’s ultimates. On top of this, the team of 6 also now collectively has 2000-3000 more ultimate charge from killing 5 players in addition to any healing dealt over the duration of that fight. Thus, it hands the ultimate ability advantage to the team opposing the Mercy.

The opposing team, assuming they are paying even the slightest attention to what is happening around them, would notice that the enemy is crumbling very easily for a supposed 6v6, raising suspicions as to whether or not the fight really is a 6v6, quickly leading to the realization that the enemy Mercy is missing from the fight. From this, only one conclusion could logically be drawn; she’s waiting to use Resurrect. There goes the ultimate’s shock value.

At this point, even if the team of 6 somehow managed to sustain 2 casualties in the initial fight, it won’t matter. If both teams entered the fight with the same number of ultimates, the team that does not have the hiding Mercy has at least two more ultimates than the other team (2000+ ultimate charge, Mercy’s team used Resurrect). One or two offensive ultimates is the absolute maximum a team needs to wipe a freshly-revived team when they are expecting the Resurrection, resulting in the revived team staring down the barrel of a gun they have no chance of avoiding.

In contrast, a Mercy who stays with her team keeps the fight at a 6v6, granting her team more sustain and forcing the enemy to expend ultimates to overpower them. Once the ultimates started firing, the mercy would distance themselves from the fight, evade, or take cover, laying down pistol fire or amplifying damage rather than attempting to heal those for whom healing would be useless. As a result, the enemy was less likely to realize that Mercy has Resurrect (the enemy was comparatively difficult to kill, removing the prompt to think about why they were crumbling easily in the first place), Mercy’s team was more likely to pick off a few enemies, and Mercy has successfully baited more ultimates from the enemy team. As a result, her team has more advantages and fewer disadvantages in the post-rez fight.

The only cost to staying with the team was an increased chance of being picked off before being able to revive the team, which just follows the same risk choice explained in the Resurrect section; if taking more controllable risks now helps to mitigate the high risk later, then taking those smaller risks now is safer than not in the long run.

Consequently, reviving a team after hiding typically resulted in a second wipe, while staying with the team until it was unsafe to do so was more likely to yield favorable results. That is why it was “wrong to tell a main-healing character to go off and hide somewhere” . It was a bad tactic, as it usually backfired.

Rather than letting the issue resolve itself by fixing the SR exploit that ultimately led to the tactic’s rise in the first place, the developers decided to remove Resurrect as an ultimate entirely. They changed the thing that wasn’t the problem, and ended up pissing off the playerbase.

@Huckleberry-21132

FUN IS SUBJECTIVE i enjoy ana more does that make me a bad person for saying not to like mercy in any way shape or form sorry i like stuff where i can showcase my improving aim not this she was ignored way longer than mercy ever was we don’t go megathread every day to get heard now do we?

Blizzard have made changes before regarding fun and unfun. With that in mind, subjectiveness is not a good enough argument. Also, a large number of players still find her unfun. That should be addressed and shouldn’t be ignored.

@Huckleberry-21132

And mass ress is an outright worse ult good teams will just find the mercy and collapse on her making her a worse pick than she is now.

I, as a GM Mercy main since season 3, will have to disagree here. If you’re good at Mercy, you get rewarded with a good ultimate. If you’re bad at Mercy, you’ll have a good ultimate but you’ll end up making it bad.

@Huckleberry-21132

Only good on lower ranks and falls off hard on diamond or above.

Assuming that it were to come back, we can fix this problem by giving it buffs.

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𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽

Spreading positivity and ice cream, one Mercy at a time.

[kongajinken-1805]

I would rather be a troll pick than be boring.

[Huckleberry-21132]

If the entire mercy fanbase wants a revert i am all for it but i think you are in for a rough period on the ladder. If everyone wants it i think it should happen i am not disputing that but making a hero into a niche/troll pick niche being bastion/pharah support on higher ranks i say knock yourself out but she was abysmal on everything above diamond.

[BattleMercy-1705]

@Huckleberry-21132

If the entire mercy fanbase wants a revert i am all for it but i think you are in for a rough period on the ladder.

I don’t think a revert is ideal, at all. I want mass Res to return in the form a rework (e.g: mass Res with tweaks, reworked kit and new e ability)

@Huckleberry-21132

i am not disputing that but making a hero into a niche/troll pick niche being bastion/pharah support on higher ranks i say knock yourself out but she was abysmal on everything above diamond.

I don’t think this rework suggestion would suffer such an issue :

@Titanium-1686

Valkyrie:

• Removed.

Resurrect:

• Removed as a basic ability and placed as Mercy’s ultimate ability.
• 15 meter range.
• Line of sight requirement. Does not apply to destructibles, payloads, or non-fundamental map obstacles that are too small to actually obscure a player. In other words, none of that BS where a player can move behind a lamp post to evade a nuclear explosion.
• 1 second cast time. Basic movement is unrestricted while casting, but all attacks and abilities are disabled for Mercy during this time.
• If Mercy is stunned or killed while casting, Resurrect does not activate and Mercy loses all ultimate charge.
• All living allies within range and LoS of Mercy once the cast time ends receive a burst heal of 150 HP. Mercy also receives this burst heal.
• All dead allies within range and LoS of Mercy once the cast time ends are revived at full health and receive 2.25 seconds of invulnerability (same as current Resurrect and Resurrect pre-rework).
• Mercy does not receive invulnerability upon Resurrect’s activation.
• Resurrect does not require dead allies to be activated.
• 1625 ultimate charge requirement (the same as Mercy 1.x’s Resurrect).

Most importantly, this takes Resurrect off one of Mercy’s basic abilities and places it into a position that matches its ultimate-like behavior. On top of this, various trade-offs were made to the ability to allow for the healing burst and the introduction of a second basic ability.

The healing burst, post-rez vulnerability, cast time, and LoS requirements all incentivise using Resurrect to revive 0-3 players rather than 4+ players. Attempting to use it on four or more players runs a greater risk a failed resurrect attempt due to the cast time. If Mercy manages to use Resurrect, there is a greater chance that she missed some allies due to the LoS requirement. If those two drawbacks do not drag her team down enough, there is also the fact that Mercy is vulnerable post-rez while her teammates are still reviving.

The healing burst and fire-at-will mechanics on Resurrect make the ability more flexible and open up some unique uses for it. For example, Mercy could use Resurrect to grant her team a burst of healing in the middle of the teamfight to keep their momentum going rather than waiting for an ally to rejoin the fight after being killed and revived.

New Basic Ability - Pacify:

• After a .5 second wind-up, Mercy launches a single hitscan attack from her left hand.
• The projectile’s hitbox size resembles that of Symmetra’s secondary fire.
• The projectile deals no damage upon impact with an enemy. Instead, it applies a debuff that reduces the base damage dealt by the target by 33%. 100 damage is reduced to 67 damage before other damage amplifiers/reductions are factored in.
• This debuff lasts for 4 seconds.
• The projectile does not persist once it hits an enemy. It is only able to affect one enemy for each use.
• The projectile is blocked by barriers, Defense Matrix, and Particle Barriers. It can be deflected by Genji’s Deflect ability.
• 10 second cooldown. The cooldown begins after the ability is cast.
• There is a .25 second wind-down time after Pacify is launched.
• During the wind-up and wind-down times, Mercy is not able to use her staff, her pistol, or Resurrect. She may use Guardian Angel, however.
• Does not affect non-player entities and constructs (turrets, Rip-Tire, Supercharger, etc).

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𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽

Spreading positivity and ice cream, one Mercy at a time.

[Koilure-1612]

The “Hide and Rez” myth was exactly that: a myth. There’s a difference between taking cover behind something to avoid a Soldier or McCree ultimate. I’m sure some Mercy players did do that, but it wasn’t common. The more common thing for a Mercy to do was tempo rez, which helped gameplay flow quite frankly.

And no, it doesn’t make you a bad person to like a different character. It’s a video game, and therefore meant to be fun for you whatever way you find it. No one is saying your a bad person for not playing a specific hero.

Mercy is the worst support hero as her healing is incredibly low for what is supposed to be a pure, infinite healing support, her resurrect is also slow and ties her down to a spot for 1.75 seconds. Her ultimate is just a spectator tool for me and a lot of other Mercy players. She doesn’t have much utility in the current meta either since it’s more about burst healing than anything else: which Mercy does not have.

[Huckleberry-21132]

Curious though you say utility and you say tempo ressing but ress is an ability making her temporess just like her old did only with a bit more comms needed the shout to a tank hey keep an eye on me ressing “insert random hero” which i think is a good thing forcing people to communicate.

So what utility would you like her to have?

[RelaxUrself-11536]

mercy mains will never be happy
/thread

[MegaLopunny-11165]

There’s a lot of outrage about Valk but it seems like Blizzard is doubling down on it with this buff showing us they intend to see it through.
One reason of its hate is that it’s ineffective but after a few more buffs to make it actually work number wise, I think we’ll see less complaints.
We’ll always have the she’s not fun squad but after the numbers show she’s in a good spot, the devs will finally wash their hands of her permanently and the remaining unhappy Mercy mains will either leave, move on, or continue complaining on forums but be as relevant as a Symmetra main asking for lock on back.

It’s really only a matter of time. The devs are already marching towards Valk improvements.

[kongajinken-1805]

Not with that kind of attitude.

[Koilure-1612]

She doesn’t have that much utility.

And mind you as to why I responded with tempo resurrects:

So was cowering in a corner waiting for people to die fun? Which in first form after the rework was still the go to strategy with instant ress you enjoy hiding than?

If anything the current live version of Mercy encourages “Hide and Rez”.

[Huckleberry-21132]

Can you explain that to me?

[kongajinken-1805]

People have been complaining she is unfun since 2.0 started, her being balanced again won’t make a difference.

[MegaLopunny-11165]

That’s what I already said.

[kongajinken-1805]

One reason of its hate is that it’s ineffective but after a few more buffs to make it actually work number wise, I think we’ll see less complaints.

You also said that.

[Koilure-1612]

I think it can be taken quite literally. A Mercy goes to Resurrect someone but has to hide because of the 50% movement speed reduction and the 1.75 second cast time that is extremely sensitive as to how far away you are. If you don’t hide during the Resurrect, you can be killed easily.

Not to mention it also allows for that “Mercy stops healing her team to Resurrect” mentality the Dev team brought up before the rework went live.