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.
TheFizzWizz:
Putting her ult aside,
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…
As for how the best execution of old Resurrect was determined… It depended upon a lot of variables. For starters, here are some variables and questions considered before the engagement begins:
Living allies prior to the teamfight. Are we a full team, or are some allies dead/walking back from spawn?
Living enemies prior to the teamfight. Does this put us at a numbers advantage/disadvantage? Is it possible that additional enemies will join the fight late?
Ultimates held by present allies. Are there any allies I should prioritize when it comes time to Resurrect because of their ultimates?
Ultimates held by present enemies. How many ultimates does the enemy team have at the ready? Does this put us at an advantage/disadvantage in primed ultimates? Are there any ultimates I should be weary of in particular?
Missing enemies. Are there any enemies I cannot see/have not accounted for? Are they flanking? Where might they attack from? Am I their target?
Allied positions. When things get hot, who can I fly to for safety? Will I still be able to heal the frontline from there, or will healing the tanks require another reposition?
Mercy’s position. How can I place myself in a way that still allows me to support the team, but minimizes the enemy’s ability to shoot at me? If I am directly attacked, could a reach a position that gives me an advantage in that fight? Are there nearby healthpacks that I could take advantage of?
Engagement patterns. Will the enemy get a pick and then engage, or will they fly through that choke point, ultimates blazing? If we are the team initiating, which pattern will we follow?
During the engagement, here are some of the variables the player might consider in the heat of battle:
Midfight numbers. Are we at an advantage/disadvantage in this category? Will Resurrect give us a numbers advantage? Is Resurrect even necessary to win the fight?
Enemy activity. How aggressive are they playing? Are they slowly gaining an upper hand, or has all hell broken loose? How aggressive is each one playing? Do the aggressive ones have their ultimates ready? Are they prepared for me to use Resurrect, or are they too blinded by their tunnel vision to realize I’m still here?
Death locations. Are my allies close enough to one another to be revived in a single use of Resurrect? Is there a specific position I should attempt to reach to revive them all? Would reviving a particular ally provide our team with an advantage due to their location in relation to the enemy?
Midfight ultimates. What ultimates are active? What ultimates do we still have? What ultimates does the enemy still have? How can I bait out those ultimates? What ultimates do our dead allies have? Are they in a position to use them?
Respawn timers. Will more allies die before that first ally respawns? Should I revive that first ally now, or should I hold onto resurrect until more allies are down?
Resurrect priorities. If I am forced to choose between reviving one ally or the other, which do I choose, based upon their hero, skill, and ultimate status?
Enemy positions. Where is each living enemy? Are any flanking around in an attempt to kill me? Am I in the sights of any enemies?
Safety/practicality limits. Is it too dangerous for me to have a presence in the fight anymore? Would healing my team even be useful at this point? Is it time for me to pull back and supplement healing with pistol fire?
Post-rez outcome. Given all of the above variables, what are the chances that my team will win the fight after I resurrect them? If the chances are not in our favor, how can I tip them in our favor? Who should I try to finish off with my pistol while taking advantage of the invulnerability frames? If the post-rez fight will not be in our favor, should I bother using Resurrect at all?
There was a mind game that centralized around defining the best way to use Resurrect. It was a mental puzzle in a race against time. The mind game brought an additional layer of player engagement to a mechanically basic hero.
In contrast, Resurrect currently has a static optimal execution. The only real thought that goes into the ability’s use is safety, and its optimal execution serves to mitigate its hazards anyway. Rather than a series of questions, hypotheticals, and planning that require close attention to the fight, quick thinking, and refined awareness skills, Resurrect now only requires a check for a few specific parameters based upon the positions of visible allies and enemies.
“Will doing this get me killed?”
If the answer to that question is “no”, then it is clear to use Resurrect.
Analogy time! Who’s ready for an analogy that I totally haven’t used before?
Go outside and stand in front of (what I am assuming is) your friendly suburban neighborhood street. Now cross it, but don’t be an idiot about it. Be safe. Do what your parents drilled into you twelve-thousand times: Look both ways before crossing the street.
Look left. Are there any cars coming?
Now look right. Are there any cars coming?
If the answer to both of these questions is “no”, you may cross the street. Otherwise, you should wait for those cars to pass before crossing. Simple, isn’t it? The most difficult part of this entire “mental exercise” is remembering to check both ways in the first place, and that isn’t a concern anyway; it’s common sense.
Are you able to do this on a regular basis? Yes? Congratulations! You have mastered the art of not getting yourself killed while using Mercy 2.x’s Resurrect. The train of thought and mental demand between the two scenarios are the same.
Resurrect’s complexity was lost through the rework, removing its mind game and a layer of engagement. Resurrect hardly requires any thought to use anymore, and there isn’t any variation in how it should be used.
Players used to claim and complain that Mercy was a Resurrect bot… Mercy became more of a Resurrect bot because of the rework. Resurrect has been reduced to nothing more than a bot-like function.
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.
As a result of lower numerical complexity, usage inflexibility, downtime predictability, and a basic-ability status, E-Resurrect also has a consistent optimal use scenario. That optimal time of use is always to reverse the first pick prior to a teamfight. This is the case for several reasons…
First, there is safety. With Resurrect’s incapacitation upon cast, it is clear that Mercy could use all the help and protection she can get while casting; she already has the biggest target in the game on her head. The more living allies nearby to protect the Mercy in the first place, the more likely it is that using Resurrect will result in a successful Resurrection and a living Mercy. Using the ability when there are only two allies to protect the Mercy is typically suicide.
Second, the realistic impact of Resurrect is greater the earlier it is used. Its numerical value remains the same (one person), but that numerical value means much more when used earlier in the fight rather than later. This is because of how teamfights typically snowball.
Both teams start out facing each other at a dividing point in the map. Six players on each side. One team gets a pick (or a first kill that grants an advantage and a prompt to engage), and then pushes into the opposing team. The team of five players is at a one-man disadvantage, a weakness their enemies capitalize on with their engagement. The team of five loses another player, dropping them down to four. Then they lose another. Somewhere in there, they may have gotten a kill, bringing to fight to a 3v5, but it doesn’t matter. The team that got the first pick has too much momentum and too great of a numbers advantage for the losing team to fight back with any success. The team of now three players crumbles, and the last three living players are killed off.
What point in that fight would be the best time to use Resurrect?
Using Resurrect when it’s a 3v5 or worse would probably mean not being able to get Resurrect off in the first place… but let’s cast that aside (no pun intended) and say that the player somehow manages it anyway. Okay, great! You got that ally back, and chances are that another ally is in critical condition from the damage they sustained over the past 1.75 seconds of you not healing them. That is, assuming they didn’t just die in that time.
But you know what? Let’s ignore that second flaw too. Let’s suppose that miraculously, Mercy pulled off the Resurrection and every other ally that was still alive was left unscathed during that 1.75 second cast time… It’s still a 4v5. Mercy’s team is still at a huge disadvantage.
Okay, let’s try using Resurrect earlier… How about on the first pick?
When trying to revive that first dead ally, four other teammates are there to cover for the Mercy; she has a good chance of getting Resurrect off, so that’s a good start.
What about Mercy’s other allies? Well, the enemy doesn’t have much momentum yet and there are four allies to spread damage among rather than only two, greatly reducing the chance of more allied deaths or even the chance of them dropping to critical condition. Both flaws presented in the late-fight Resurrection are heavily mitigated when using the ability earlier.
Not only that, but a successful Resurrection means the fight is back to a 6v6; the enemy no longer has the numbers advantage, and has likely backed off because of that. Teams typically want to engage with an advantage.
It is easier to stop a snowball before it starts than it is to try to stop it once it is rolling. Rather than using Resurrect to little or no effect later in the fight, it is best to prevent the scales from tipping in the enemy’s favor in the first place. Therefore, using Resurrect as early into the fight as possible is always the best option.
I’m really starting to think that I should have just dropped my entire thread on you…
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.
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.