A term that is more clear would be “resource management” instead of decision making, aim and mobility usage also requires respective decision making(btw it is interesting how it boils back down to the classic melee/range/control theory but back to the topic).
I also agree with some of the so-call misconception of Mercy’s decision making. Like you said it is the decision making related to movement, similar to how Lucio wallrides or using Winston’s leap, which allows you to be at the right place at the right time. Its goal is to assist the effective execution of short-ranged weapons and abilities. The unfortunate fact is that Mercy does not have such abilities that rewards good movements and punishes bad ones.
Another thing I want to discuss is about resource management, and kind of is a reason why I don’t think earnable Rez is a good idea. Resource management is a skill that describes how well the player EXPEND resources, NOT EARNING them. Examples are how Reinhardt expend his shield to gain space, and how Tracer expense blinks to avoid damage or reach positions. It should be something that would be punished if that resource is not avaliable when required.
Though, if earning Rez is a mechanic that is to reward good movement then that’s another story.
As for solution ideas, I think I have a bit but probably I’d reply once more at some point coz this is getting long.
Ya, trying to express things in a clear and sussinct way is half the battle, but hopefully you understand what I mean since I went off on a long post to explain it in more detail.
I love Mercy and have played her for a long time so I understand all the decision making involved with her mobility, but even I accept that there is a lacking in “resource management”, as in… she doesn’t really have any.
Anyway, lots of awesome ideas out there for fixing her of course but here’s mine:
Give the scrap mechanic that you just took off of Torb to Mercy.
Allow Mercy to use that resource to fuel activation’s of a short, timed boost to her healing / damage boost with the press of “E”. Each activation consumes one “scrap”.
Make res require a large chunk of the resource with the press of “R”, since Mercy doesn’t need to reload her staff anyway. This could consume how ever many “scraps” you require it to in order to make it balanced.
This would be the ideal change, for me at least. It solves all the flaws in her kit, injects skill expression, allows her to regulate her healing, there’s a beautiful trade off between using healing boosts and casting res, it works to her strengths as a mobile hero and it keeps her flavor.
I apologize, I misunderstood your use of the term decision making. Using this definition, her decision making is lacking and I definitely agree that she’s lacking in terms of regulating healing.
My usage of the term decision making was more literal. When I play Mercy, I feel like I’m constantly making decisions - what now, what next? Where are my people? Where am I needed now? Where will I be needed soon? How can I get between the two as fast as possible? Will it be safe? Where will my stream be put to best use? Which stream to use? Where to stand? Can I res that? Should I res that? Can I shoot here? Should I? etc. I have to make decision like that with other healers, but not nearly at the same rate and not nearly as planned out. Many of them (Ana for instance) reward you for focusing in on a very specific part of the battlefield as opposed to the whole battlefield.
You encompass these decision under the term mobility. While I see where you’re coming from, for me, this doesn’t feel like the best way to describe it.
Personally, the rework ideas I tend to favor focus on regulating healing. I’d like to see hps returned to 60, res removed and replaced with an ability that gives a heal over time (say 8 second cd, instant cast, 100 hp over 2 seconds), chain beams removed in Valk, the healing beam in valk set to 90 hps, and the damage beam set to 30% damage and 30 hps.
I’m not a fan of this. There are a lot of people who enjoy healing as a primary activity. Some of them have come here from MMO’s. The game has usually done a great job appealing to this crowd.
Absolutely false. Mercy and Zen were the meta since the release of her rework. Moira did exist on quad tank, but that was a niche meta on a few maps.
It wasn’t until after brigs release that we saw her being used alongside those 2.
Then the support update rolled around and it made Mercy less successful than Ana, so now people can pick Ana up and learn her without being rolled to a Mercy.
The supports are in the best spot they’ve ever been in.
On top of that, mobas have a much higher health:damage ratio. Overwatch has far too much damage on far too little health to support that kind of model.
On that day, and in every other day in its vicinity, Mercy had lower pick rates than Moira in every rank plat-gm (I didn’t check bronze-gold). In fact, this held true for almost all of season 9. For much of that season, she had lower pick rates than Lucio. Even right before season 10, Mercy and Moira were still pretty close.
I agree that the support meta now is better than it was in June and July. But it’s absolutely not more balanced than it was in season 9. There were no must picks back then, and the pick rates were more tightly bunched together. Right now, Ana’s pick rates are making her look like a must pick, and Mercy and Moira are looking non viable. The supports are demonstrably not in the best spot they’ve ever been in.
You are of the opinion that people by and large prefer playing Ana and were oppressed by having to pick Mercy. While this is certainly true of some people, other people prefer playing Mercy and don’t like Ana nearly as much. It’s precisely this kind of coloration of opinion that I tried to avoid when I removed the names from the pick rates I listed. I wanted people to just look at the numbers and see for themselves.
All supports should be helping one another. We are all on a mission to protect our teams. I advocated for Ana buffs back when she wasn’t that great in comparison to Mercy. It’s disheartening to see Ana mains be little Mercy mains on the forums saying that “It’s our time in the spotlight” etc. I personally felt bad for Ana, she is a great hero and she needed to excel more than Mercy in higher ranks. Right now Mercy players need your help to advocate changes to Mercy, she is in an awful state and everyone knows that, but are over seeing her picked.
Currently nothing rivals Ana because we have no options to replace her with. Not because the others aren’t viable, but because there are no other high skill supports. Moira competed with Mercy because both are low skill- medium reward.
Plus, Ana has gotten more buffs so now she’s more powerful than she was back in TT. More ammo means it’s easier to pocket, and her nano makes it easier to keep someone alive. She very well could be OP, but the difference is that Medcy only had one variable: she was more powerful than every other support.
No, there’s Moira to consider as well, and nerfing Mercy was not a mistake even if you disagree with how they nerfed her - the fact that 60hps Mercy healed more than Moira when Moira’s only value is healing was problematic to begin with. Personally I’m of the mind that both Ana and Mercy need to be balanced relative to Moira as the baseline for main supports, she’s the only one that seems to not be problematic at the top of the meta.
Be careful; this is a trap. Quite a few Ana mains don’t want to see Mercy in the gutter, just like most Mercy mains didn’t want to see Ana in such a bad state.
Painting people with this brush works against exactly what you’re advocating for.
The term under powered is a comparison term. You can’t judge a heroes power level in a vacuum, you can only judge them in comparison to their competition. If the game had no healers but Lucio, it would be impossible to judge whether he was under powered or over powered in his current state.
Mercy and Moira are non viable and under powered precisely because they can’t compete with the other character that fills their role. This manifests in low win rates and low pick rates (especially for Mercy).
Not all. But most don’t want her to be picked for a long time. I feel for them I’d be the same way if Ana was picked more than Mercy for a year. Let’s just hope Blizzard focusing on game balance is going to be a step in the right direction.
Nanoboost only does 300HPS to a single target, if that’s the buff you’re talking about.
But Transcendence does 300HPS for 6 seconds for the entire team and nobody is calling Zen overtuned. -_- Ana is fine. Buff Mercy and revert Moira’s barrier nerf (give Coalescence a bit more healing also, maybe?) and I guarantee nobody will complain.
(Actually, I don’t guarantee that, but it might come real close.)
I agree, everyone’s like “I love seeing support diversity.” But the only thing that seems to have significantly changed is that ana replaces mercy. Lucio and moira’s buffs barely impacted their pick rate, but ana’s buffs changed the whole meta. So I guess “diversity” means nothing has changed except there’s a different main healer must pick now lol
