So, I see a lot of Mercy posts and a lot I agree with and some not so much. I want to talk about what I personally think the real issue with her is. I don’t think she’s in a horrible god forsaken place. Taking things from her previous states, there is one thing people really enjoyed about her and that was she could shine on her own. Mass Rez, she was able to make a big play on her own. Even her OP state, while it was pretty bad and I think we can all agree on that, she again was able to do something herself to change a fight. Mercy lacks individual impact right now. She is seen as a pocket healer and meant to enable to her team. I know all supports enable their team but they all have shining moments for themselves while Mercy solely is there to enable people. This is not a “fun” play style and doesn’t have any rewarding factors to it. It’s also detrimental as you could be playing really well and it won’t matter if your team isn’t doing enough. There’s nothing to Mercy that allows her to really change the tide of the fight and have any big burst impact like every other hero in the game. If the gave her a rework or tweaked her to be able to shine individually I think Mercy players would be much happier with her. I am not sure how to do that as I am not a developer but I think it’s important to point out what I believe is her biggest issue.
It actually is fun and rewarding for many of us. She can change the tide of some fights with her ultimate and with good beam prioritization.
Next time you are in a team fight I want you to just sit there and do nothing, literally. Then tell me your team didn’t need you or that you couldn’t make an impact. There are times I swap off of Lucio or Zenyatta for a Mercy because we need more healing.
Mercy players want something she probably isn’t going to get. They need to either learn to have fun with Mercy as is (with the most fun part of her kit, GA, having been buffed), or learn another character.
I did both. I still love playing Mercy, but I can play other supports too.
Every character’s ultimate should be able change the flow of the game. Currently, only Mercy’s ult doesn’t do that, so the person playing her never gets to influence the game much.
I hope they make Mercy fun to play again…
Widowmaker?
Next time you play Mercy I want you to do nothing and see how much “impact” the team lost without you.
Mercy’s ultimate absolutely does this. I have saved games with my ultimate with Mercy.
People really need to stop crapping all over Valkyrie and learn how to use it. It’s not the best ultimate, but it is far from the terrible mess people try and make it out to be.
All I can read behind this wall text: I want to see Mercy as #1 support! That’s fun for me!
Wrong statement. I’m Mercy main and with Valk I have contributed to 40% in team kill participation.
There is no issue with Mercy.
May I use this? It’s very impactful for Aria Rose ‘rework mercy’ threads.
Of course lol!
I don’t think Casey is saying that at all. I personally recall Casey awhile back asking for people to help give pointers so they could improve, rather than just asking for buffs or hoping for the hero to be OP.
OT: I understand what you mean. Outside of Rez, Mercy lacks what feels like meaningful midfight impact / utility. That’s not to say a good mercy goes unappreciated or does nothing. Most other heroes however have some way of quickly changing the tide of the fight. Often for healer, they can do this without stopping their heals.
Mercy doesn’t do that. She can rez, which can often be risky given she isn’t gealing during that period and is slowed down. Additionally, where your teammate died has a huge impact on whether you can safely get that rez off or not.
My personal opinion is that rez as a CD has some fundamental flaws. I’d rather it be swapped with a much shorter Valk on CD for instance, with rez as an ult without the current limitations. Or some other ultimate entirely, honestly. I have a lot of fun with her, I can normally do a pretty good job with her, but making game play changing impact as her is really rough.
Thank you ![:slight_smile:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
and yes you helped me as well get better !
I agree rez on CD has really made her kit hard to balance and also harder to allow her to have rewarding plays and impact. I don’t really agree with Valk on CD even without the extra stuff but that’s because she is a very mobile hero and the added mobility on a CD I think would make her too powerful. I don’t want her to be OP as this other person suggests and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with discussing some of her flaws like lack of individual impact.
I think that’s a fair critique. Honestly, I wish I could test ideas out, as on paper I’ve seen ideas that seem really good to me but I’m not sure how they would work in practice.
I know you don’t 
I think a lot people on here just have burnout talking about Mercy, I wouldn’t take what they say to heart. It’s not worth it haha.
The biggest reason people think Mercy is boring is due to Valkyrie. It’s not Valkyrie isn’t impactful. It is very much an impactful ult when used properly.
The biggest issue with Valkyrie is Mercy is also a very easy and straightforward hero, to which Valkyrie makes Mercy’s already easy skill set that much easier. The ult makes target prioritization easier, makes positioning easier, makes survival easier, makes Battle Mercy easier, and removes her weakness/niche of being reliant on her teammates through GA discipline by giving her flight.
Many heroes have a “press Q and forget” ult or an unimpactful feeling ult, but it is fine for those heroes. The reason for this is because these ultimates either do not reduce a heroes difficulty at all, or if it does, like Soldier Tac Visor, it only removes a single skill set. He still has to focus on soft aim (getting to auto aim on the right target), positioning, Helix Rocket burst damage, and enemy positioning.
Ana is another example. Her Q does nothing to enhance her gameplay, but it also doesn’t lower her skill ceiling during the duration of her ult. Same goes for Orisa.
The reason this same method does not work for Mercy is because it makes all of Mercy’s skill sets easier, which is why it is seen as a “brain dead ultimate”. Her ultimate would feel more engaging and impactful if it didn’t reduce her entire skill ceiling while using it.
Overall, this is why the ult feels boring and unimpactful. It’s not a bad ult by any means! It just plays a little poorly because it does too much. If it only eased one or two of Mercy’s skill sets, compared to all of them, it would most likely feel much more rewarding and engaging because it is then up to the Mercy’s skill to fully utilize the ultimate instead of it being done for her.
Examples of this are most Valkyrie reworks include reducing active time, removing unlimited ammo in compensation for faster/more damaging bullets, removing chained beams, empowering solo beams, and attempts to lock res behind Valk.
These are some of the most popular suggestions because it removes Valkyrie assisting Mercy in every skill she has. With changes such as these, aim is more prominent on the Mercy player’s skill because no more unlimited ammo, target prioritization is back, and res being locked behind Valk can allow for a base kit or res buff to make Valkyrie have more choices for the Mercy player to make on her own.
It stops overly assisting Mercy.
Does this assessment make me right? By no means! But from my analysis on Mercy over a year and a half, this seems to be the most common denominator: Valkyrie assists Mercy too much.
Yaa it’s really difficult to say what would work and what wouldn’t. I think Mass Rez could be balanced but I’d be super open to more ideas which is hard as we have no way of testing any of them. Mass Rez is popular because it’s the most relatable state people could refer to I think.
I think people just jump to conclusions because it’s been so talked about and can be annoying. I haven’t seen many people talk about just her impact before so I decided to post.
With regard to what the OP posted I would have to agree. Even if they gutted out and removed Resurrection from the Game altogether she still needs “something” to give the hero the satisfactory feeling of making a play. As is she’s pretty much just a sustain character and not much else.
We’ve seen them boost Valkyrie and thus far it’s been either an OP or boring ability. Never anything else. Maybe they should also get rid of Valkyrie and give her something else — not Valkyrie and not Resurrection.
Maybe Martyrdom: have her regen ability go into “rage” mode and at the same time give her damage redirection unto herself — such that if you’re in range any damage done to you instead goes to her?
Thank you. My entire issue was exactly this. They made her ultimate so obnoxiously easy to use that they had to dumb down the impact just enough for it to feel very… Meh. I personally would like to see a shorter duration with more hp/s, as well as falloff healing for her chain beams. I also thought jay having a shorter cast time for Rez would be nice, but I also kind of want Rez removed so that they can properly balance her kit. 
Silentstike, I agree with this a ton. I think she’d be upper if they upped her heals in valk and made her solo target maybe Idk but yes it does dumb down her kit a ton.
Skald, that’s a pretty interesting idea. I dont know how it would work out but it sounds cool
Yeah, I certainly understand why. My idea for rez wasn’t necessarily mass rez, though I still don’t think there was anything about that made it so it couldn’t be balanced.
I think something else that is important about mercy and possible rework ideas is that rez is is very much integral to her character. It’s a pretty important part to her identity and gameplay. I could see a version where she doesn’t have rez at all, but I doubt Blizzard would be interested in pursuing that.
Which kind of leads us to the issue we have now. We have rez as part of her base kit, but it’s awkward to use, hard to balance, and really limits her potential to change the course of a fight like a well placed ana nade or zen discord + damage might.
I can’t fault them either for her lack of midfight potential, because rez is really strong, and there are those times you can get away with it midfight.
I’m not sure what the ideal solution would be, but rez on E is the one major complaint I have about her. To me, it holds the rest of her kit back in some form or another. I don’t think she’s weak, I do think the design has some inherent flaws however.
Then how come people don’t think Ana is boring? Press q, watch teammate do stuff while healing.
Yeah, I don’t see that as an issue. An ultimate that makes a character more independent for 20 seconds and allows them to make more of an impact. Sounds good to me.
“Tac Visor is so boring, it just does the aiming for me”
I never seen complains about soldier’s ultimate, yet it does what you are describing for soldier. It makes a relatively easy job that much easier.
Why is it an issue with Mercy, but not with Soldier? Soldier is easy (for a DPS) and is very straightforward.
This seems extremely arbitrary. It removes a “single skill set”… like aiming? His most important aspect?
You say it is fine for those heroes, which reminds me of special pleading honestly. Why is it fine for the other heroes but not for Mercy?
When Mercy uses Valkyrie she still has to “soft aim”, position, damage boost, Guardian Angel, and worry about enemy positioning. Just like soldier.
Your differentiation here leaves much to be desired and honestly comes off as special pleading or applying a double standard.
…And? These are pretty arbitrary distinctions. An ultimate must not lower the skill ceiling? Why? Winston’s ultimate definitely reduces his skill ceiling. Why is his okay?
People think Valkyrie is the worst ultimate in the game. You can use Valkyrie and have everything die. The ultimate lowers her skill ceiling, sure, but knowing when to use the ultimate is where the “skill” part of it comes in. It is very easy to waste Valkyrie.
Soldier, Reaper, Zenyatta, Widowmaker, Brigitte… All of these characters have “brain dead” ultimate abilities. Why is it an issue for Mercy?
Moreover, I don’t even consider it “brain dead”. Not anymore “brain dead” than she usually is.
It can’t both be one of the worst ultimate abilities in the game that people constantly complain about and do too much.
I don’t agree with your assessment, obviously, and I think you’re using some logical fallacies.
It already is up to the Mercy’s skill. You do realize that a bad player will die with Valkyrie despite it making everything easier right? I find it rewarding and engaging. I think this has less to do with “making everything easier” and “this isn’t the ultimate I want for this character”
If it isn’t broken don’t fix it. I don’t mind any of these changes, theoretically, but the ultimate is fine as is. You act like Valkyrie takes away decisions from the player when all it does is give you more options.
An ultimate ability assisting a character. God forbid.
My analysis on Mercy since the day the game came out says otherwise. Old Valkyrie assisted Mercy too much, absolutely, but the current Valkyrie just makes a mediocre character a little better for 20 seconds and I enjoy using it.
The problem is with an unearned but powerful ability on ‘E’, so powerful that it has to self stun her for nearly two seconds as well as hold back some of other kit’s power (including Valkyrie, which is surprisingly classed as an ultimate ability).
Anyway, I agree. However, resurrect either needs to be replaced or perhaps become an earned ability which has potential risk too (e.g. a resource meter where if you die you lose some of it or all of it). Valkyrie can then be changed in some way to offer potential impact with potential risk, and her base healing could perhaps be buffed a little (e.g. to 55 HP/sec or maybe even back to 60 HP/sec).
The problem is convincing the team, who I feel have appeared to grown more disconnected with the community since the rework fiasco from day one (with using megathreads but never engaging in them).