The Anger Around the PTR Mercy Buffs Explained

Done.

No.

Then I’ll keep posting until they do care.

Seeing that the forums have been on fire over this issue for well over a year… no, the playerbase hasn’t moved on.

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Here, hold this:
Why I Have Yet to Not Despise Mercy's Current State

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Ok… Mercy is my 4th most played hero of all time. This argument fundamentally makes no sense. You claim ‘how you play Mercy is no longer fun’ but when you boil Mercy down to her basic mechanics, nothing about her core game play has changed.

Putting her ult aside, how I played Mercy before the rework and how i play her now is really no different. Yea maybe I’m a bit more aggressive since I don’t have a Rez ult I need to keep safe for my team but I could do the same for Valk. The way I as a Mercy player dance around the battle field, heal and damage boost my teammates has not changed since Valk was introduced. LITERALLY NOTHING ABOUT HER CORE GAMEPLAY HAS CHANGED.

Yes, there is now a new thing I must think about. A 30 second rez. I need the gamesense and awareness to know who I should rez, as well as when and where to do so to keep myself safe. But, is this all not too different to before the rework? You’d hide and wait for the right time to rez when it’s the most safest? Sometimes you’d get a huge rez other times you’d get small tempo rez’s for important teammates. Does this not still carry over to the rez we have on cooldown? Yea we’re not getting any team rez’ anymore but we still hide ourselves and swoop in to save the day for someone important on our team.

I personally have no issue with Valk. I enjoy going in for a team fight, Valking and using my chain damage boosting to push my team through a choke point. I enjoy using Valk to save my teammates caught in a earth shatter or grave. Hell just the other day I got a PotG rezzing our Doomfist and then saving our team from a Grav using Valk.

Now, I can’t tell you to enjoy Valkier or that you’re “objectively wrong” for not enjoying the ability. I understand wanting the old rez ult back. I enjoyed swooping in and saving the day with a huge 5 man ult. I still have a few PotG’s saved of me doing so. It’s felt so good knowing I helped single handed swinging a team fight and I’ll admit I do miss it. But the position Mercy is in right now is not the worst. Mercy used to be in a position where if you didn’t have one on your team, you LOST. That’s not good for the game. That’s not good for any team based game.

I was upset at first too when I heard they where reworking Mercy and was quite conflicted as nerf after nerf after nerf was thrown at her. But after thinking about it critically and taking time to study different aspects of the game, I can say that this is alright.

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Anyone who tries saying E rez requires more game sense then 5 man rez is just an idiot who probably contributed to the 5 man rez plague that people had a problem with.
Tempo rezes were good, people needed to master them, you didn’t so you think the “look both ways before crossing the stree” is harder then the dozen or so question one mut keep in mind before popping rez.

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I respect your opinion but let’s keep it classy. :blush:

It’s simply an analogy to point out how lacklustre the buff was. They took something away in the previous change and brought back a portion of that in the most recent change. The problem is, the thing that was changed originally didn’t need to be changed at all and the reasons for the first change get contradicted by the second change.

Let’s refrain from making strawman arguments. :blush:

Another strawman. :unamused:

Some of us, including me, have despised her state since her rework. I wouldn’t claim this when this entire subject is mostly subjective. :neutral_face:

Another way of saying to ignore the problem which isn’t ideal at all for x amount of the player base and the developers themselves.

Another strawman and one which I don’t particularly like considering the fact that I have previously acknowledged such heroes… :expressionless:

That is wrong since one, there are heroes that are objectively easier than Mercy and two, we, unlike you, do not want to ignore the problem by switching heroes. If a hero is not pleasing the community, the solution isn’t to ignore it but rather to address it. :wink:

I don’t see how this is relevant but ok? I never argued that it wasn’t a buff. I simply pointed out as to why some may be dissatisfied. Wait, did you miss that? :sweat_smile: I’ve always said that I’m fine with this buff.

On the contrary, they haven’t suggested this at all.

Think again. :smirk:


𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽

:shaved_ice::chocolate_bar:

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

Mercy is my most played hero of all time since season 3. :blush:

People no longer find Mercy fun after her rework since 3/3 of her kit has been changed since her rework. What’s their that makes no sense? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Her heals and GA got changed. Her base heals are just bad for a main healer and isn’t enough at all. People may find it unfun to have bad heals. Then there’s GA; you have a large range of easy-to-pull off techniques that just give your more mobility and make your life easy. Similarly to chain beams, it becomes boring when everything is hand-fed to you without requiring much skill.

I’m concerned… Before the rework, you had to play much more defensively and passively wheresd after the rework, you just could play whatever since your ultimate did everything for you so charging that up would be your priority. Also, E Res was and still is OP so that encouraged you to hide and wait for your Res. To summarise, the gameplay definitely isn’t the same.

And for some reason, you think your experiences should apply to Titanium and a bunch of other people because? :thinking:

Objectively false. :blush:

Woah! Something that may or may not change Mercy’s gamestyle! :open_mouth:

This is a hyperbole. The only thing you need to think about is, is it safe to res. No? Then don’t Res. Compared to mass Res, the gamesense and awareness you point out is way lower than that of mass Res.

It is way different from the rework. :blush:

Nope. Funny, you say that Mercy is your 4th most played hero when you still think hiding was good. To summarise, it was a bad strategy that only had one positive; the SR system at the time which artificially inflated your stats and gave you more SR when you hide more.

The only thing that gets carried on is tempo resses and that itself is much different from tempo resses before the rework. Here, I’ll let Titanium explain the rest:

I don’t really have anything to say about your experiences since it is subjective… I will say that I completely despise Valkyrie. :blush: Also,

This is one big hyperbole…

I don’t even think the OP claims this. Is this a strawman? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Considering that she was objectively underpowered and wasn’t the ideal hero for any META at the time, I’m just going to dismiss this as an objectively false assertion.

The OP in question made a whole thread addressing Mercy, studying the game and what-not. Her and a couple of people came to the conclusion that it is not alright, at all. :blush:


𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽

:shaved_ice::chocolate_bar:

Spreading positivity and ice cream, one Mercy at a time.
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Clearly you have no idea how to make a proper counter argument or think critically from an objective point of view.

Saying “that’s false” followed by an emoji is not a counter argument. It’s a waste of time.

Funny since your argument addresses something that is mostly subjective. That aside, let’s keep things classy and constructive. :blush:

Because I already addressed it… Do you want me to copy and paste something that you’ve already read? :face_with_raised_eyebrow: Seems to me like you want to waste your time. Besides, you’re the one who repeated your assertion twice. Not me.


𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽

:shaved_ice::chocolate_bar:

Spreading positivity and ice cream, one Mercy at a time.
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With… 27 hours as far as I can tell.

If we’re going to play the credibility game, I’m sitting pretty over here with my 470 hours total of Mercy playtime, roughly 50 of which were on the PTR.

Of those 470 hours, approximately 100 of them were spent playing high-Master/GM games in Competitive play, spread out across three consecutive seasons in GM (two seasons before the rework and one season after the rework) before I went inactive.

If you’re going to preface your post with an attempt to look credible because of X amount of experience, expect to get one-upped.

Her base kit of beams and GA is still fun. The problems are the interruptions and contradictions that plague that same kit.

There’s your first mistake.

“I’m going to disregard the fact that there’s a 15-second basic ability and spectator-simulator on her ultimate.”

There’s a reason we would be thrilled to simply have Valkyrie removed.

Mechanically? Sure, if you ignore the periodic Resurrect cast time that interrupts and contradicts the mobility and healing based flow of Mercy’s kit.

Correction: One less thing to think about.

The thought process for Resurrect has been simplified to a very basic question:

Will standing at Y position for 1.75 seconds get me killed?

Any player who was semi-decent with Resurrect from Mercy 1.x has no problem answering that question by taking only a quick glance at the situation.

In contrast…

The answer is always the first pick, if possible.

That question is answered conceptually for every scenario. You couldn’t say the same for mass-Resurrect.

I’m really starting to think that I should have just dropped my entire thread on you…

Hiding to use Resurrect prior to the rework backfired against a decent team. Hiding today is encouraged in both the use of Valkyrie and the use of Resurrect.

So yes, this is every different from pre-rework Mercy.

No.

You no longer have to consider the value of using Resurrect to revive that Reinhardt who has Earthshatter versus the value of using Resurrect to revive three players after an enemy Graviton Surge. One of those options is eliminated as a possibility entirely for you because you’re not going to revive three players in ten seconds.

So the obvious choice is always to revive that Reinhardt, regardless as to whether or not it would be a worse choice than hypothetically using Resurrect on those other 3 players.

“we still”

Both of those words are incorrect.

The only instances of this occurred after the rework.

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I mean, you’re not wrong in saying that this would make Mercy more engaging… but it’s pretty contradictory to have the game’s dedicated healer wield a support ultimate that is best spent shooting enemies.

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“I don’t agree with it, but my opinion is unpopular. I know, I’ll accuse everyone I disagree with of spamming to make myself feel better!”

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Is it the overall pickrate you’re concerned about?

Because I’ve already been over this. Mercy had the highest overall pickrate in the game in Competitive play during season 3, when she was F-tier. Ana dominated and generated the meta around her, and yet, Mercy was the most-picked healer at the time.

Is it really a logical to conclusion to state that Mercy was overpowered because of that 11% pickrate in season 3, despite being F-tier?

No.

So when Mercy’s overall pickrate in seasons 4 and 5 reach 14%, but Mercy is still D-tier, backseat to every other healer in the game, is it logical to conclude that Mercy was overpowered?

No.

What then, could be the source of Mercy having that high of a pickrate?

Could it be that… players really liked to play Mercy? That her popularity was literally just that: Popularity?

If the game were perfectly balanced, then a given hero’s Quickplay pickrates and their competitive pickrates across all tiers would be close to uniform. Why? It shows that the only thing affecting those pickrates is how fun that hero is to play, regardless of rank.

If the playerbase is playing a hero approximately 12% of the time in the fun and casual mode, then approximately that same statistic should should reveal itself in every rank for that hero. And it was… until you reached high-tier play, where it fell like a stone.

Why?

Because that hero wasn’t good enough, wasn’t powerful enough, for those ranks, save for 4% of that rank’s population.

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That “Mercy main echochamber on this forum” happens to be the most popular thread of all time on the Official Overwatch Forums.

But sure; when the majority disagrees with you, it’s just an “echochamber”.

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Sigh

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Fixed that for ya;

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I think you underestimate our determination.

We’ve been at it for over a year already. If we haven’t given up yet, there’s not much that will get us to give up.

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you really cant take a joke? I guess all mercy mains really are sensitive

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Go ahead and keep asking. The Symmetra players are still asking for lock on back but like Mass Rez, it was unhealthy for the game.

I never found Symmetra being able to lock on “unhealthy for the game”. The problem with Symmetra is her primary fire is harder to aim with and build up charge to her beam.

Also, Mass Resurrect wasn’t this unbelievably “unhealthy” ultimate for the game as a lot of people make it out to be.

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I find Mercy to be very fun to play in her current state, ie before the 60HPs in Valk change is applied

Since all the change does is make her more powerful, I will continue to have fun playing her after the change is applied

I know many folks who find her very enjoyable to play in her current state

Being angry about a buff - and this was indeed a buff, since the state of a character is always their current state, not some arbitrarily selected state in the past - makes no sense to anyone I know who plays Mercy