Oh well since he said this I’m sold. Totally agree
There are, as I see it, clearly opposing viewpoints on the potency (or lack thereof) of Valkyrie
The real issue with Mercy is player perception and the tremendous amount of toxicity that has been pumped into her public image that so many impressionable individuals take as gospel. Where anyone that does not conform to this LCD opinion is considered a “spammer” or a “troll” or “angry mercy main”.
It’s a significant dump of a lot of logical fallacies.
It boils down to this: taking the opinions of the LCD streamer and following it and repeating it ad nauseum without even the faintest cognizance over why that opinion would even be formed let alone why it’s both factually and morally bankrupt. It doesn’t work numerically and it doesn’t work theoretically and was debunked so many times it’s not worth recounting. Because clearly it’s being ignored.
Thus why I just simply left and gave up. Has anyone seen me post lately? No, because it’s a 100% futile effort. The LCD follows the LCD streamers into whatever opinion they have. And those who are free thinkers like myself are considered the bad guys. Oh, to think for one’s self? How loathsome it is here!
And then we have things like #deletebrig that was fundamentally proven to be a flat out biased movement get a nerf within a few days meanwhile Mercy mains regardless of how strong their arguments are are ignored.
I will not be a party to such an environment. It’s insulting how we aren’t listened to, but alas I have better things to do with my time than grovel in a video game losing it’s relevance each passing month. Just checking in periodically to see if something has changed in this ever downward spiraling mess.
Clearly that is not today.
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So are on whether the earth is flat or not, that doesn’t mean that one of them isn’t clearly wrong.
I mean, I agree Mercy has design flaws, but this seems like an unfair comparison. They have a different opinion about how a character feels to play. That’s going to be subjective for everyone.
Whether the earth is flat or not is based on fact (it is obviously not flat). This is true, regardless on whether someone agrees with it or not.
There is a lot of talk of Valk vs Trancendance and I just wanna chime in why Zen’s breathed of an Ult in my opinion is okay, while Mercy’s isnt.
First off it’s the healing increase. Zen’s healing is 10x more powerful on a single target and now is AOE of 10m (I believe) so he is enhanced via power and number of targets. Mercy for comparison has options, but none of those options outside of 10 full hps and unlimited ammo is significantly more powerful. It’s just taking the question of who gets the beam out of the equation.
Not only that but the playstyle of noth heroes is completely different. Zen effectively is a third DPS until he ults. His orb is basically a shoot and forget sort of thing. Yeah a good Zen moves it around but I can basically pocket a dps until its Trans time. Not only that but that speed increase, and the fact my healing is 10x more powerful feels amazing as I watch health bars fill up and then wiggle.
With Mercy though her playstyle goes from single target healer to a mulittarget healer. Unlike Zen theres no “I’m better off healing than attacking” thought process because as a main healer that’s her job. Even as Ana and Moira there are ways to heal and damage at the same time. (Heal orb + alr fire, nade + shoot). You can play base kit Mercy, never using ult and get basically the same results as someone who does. I’ve done it many times.
With Zen his impact completely changes in nature he goes from “I am more important damaging” to “I gotta put my healing pants on” where Mercy “I’m healing…and I’m still healing but now my hand is being held.” Yes Soldier dods something similar but at least his name is all over the killfeed.
I might come back to this later. I am really only scratching the surface.
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what is the meaning of LCD in this context?
To the kitchen then! Let us see how the ice cream was made.
The tl;dr: Valkyrie is too forgiving, covers for too much skill deficiency, doesn’t allow for enough player expression, clashes with Mercy’s kit, therefore it’s not well designed for Mercy.
Some of the skills demanded by Mercy’s kit are: Positioning, survivability, beam timing and target choice. If you’re going Battle Mercy, aiming is also there. Her skill pool is not big, nor the skill gap wide. One of the lowest skill requirements in the game, and that’s fine by itself.
Valkyrie comes in and covers many of those skills with its powers:
- Positioning: Valkyrie gives “perfect” mobility and insane range, which makes positioning much more forgiving.
- Survivability: Valkyrie gives insane self heal, combined with the mobility, Mercy’s survives is much less concerning.
- Target choice: Drastically forgiving thanks to chain beam.
- Aiming : Valkyrie gives Infinite ammo and faster projectile speed to the blaster, making aiming much more forgiving.
So Valkyrie is designed around covering for the player’s skill deficiency. Other Ultimates follow this design philosophy as well. That’s not a bad design by default, however when it comes to Mercy, her skill pool is too shallow and Valkyrie removes too much/too many skills out of it.
For instance, Tac Visor removes aim demands, but it does not remove Soldier’s need to choose his targets, positioning and survivability. It really doesn’t do much for the skill demands outside of aiming, the ult still plays very much through the skill of the player using it. Death Blossom and Barrage too, cover for aim deficiency and nothing else. Very unforgiving and demanding ults. Those heroes also have higher skill ceilings, so pressing Q to lower it a little bit doesn’t feel as bad, in fact it actually feels good because it allows more players to make big plays occasionally, while still feeling like they worked for it.
Comparatively, Valkyrie is much more forgiving than those ultimates, it covers not just one or two skill required, it covers most of them, essentially raising Mercy’s skill floor so close to the skill ceiling, her max potential is too close to her min potential. Yes she is a newcomer friendly, easy hero, but Valkyrie is a couple of steps too far.
So albeit this Ultimate design philosophy might work well for other chars, it doesn’t for Mercy because it’s too bloated and Mercy doesn’t have a wide skill gap. Covering for a player skill deficiency in Mercy’s case means she becomes closer and closer to an auto-pilot, it doesn’t allow for the big plays because the skill ceiling just isn’t there, thus why she is unrewarding and unengaging for a lot of players. “Spectator mode” and “unimpactful” have been used to hyperbolic describe Valk, and that’s why, it doesn’t really matter how overpowered or underpowered it might be.
I’ve seen a lot of comparisons with Transcendence, Orisa’s Ult, Sound Barrier and Ana’s nano, because those are also “press Q and forget just like Mercy’s and those are fine”. Those Ults don’t cover for as many skill deficiencies as Mercy’s ult does, yes they do cover some skill deficiency, but certainly not to the same extend as Valk (because Mercy skill pool is already shallow + Valk is overloaded). Some, like Sound Barrier, even require the same skills of their characters general kits, which enhances their gameplay quite nicely. I don’t believe I need to break those down in detail to make that point (but I could if need be).
That gameplay feel is sometimes misinterpreted as Mercy being underpowered, but I don’t believe this to be a balance issue at all. Some also argue for the return of Mass Res - and I’m sure many of you have good reasoning - a lot of it is just because that’s an Ult people knew, so they default to that. Better the devil you know, goes the saying.
Tweaking Valkyrie to better fit Mercy’s kit and allow a bit more player expression through some skill would vastly improve Mercy gameplay for all players, including those who like her currently.
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Factually, these two arent equivalent, as one is measurable in objectively defined units, and the other isnt
She literally change the flow of the enemy team. The enemy wait for her ult to end before they show up, or they try to avoid being in her sight.
Dude you don’t think literal WALL HACKS in a FPS is a strong ultimate?!?! You can see exactly where each person on the enemy team is settup, if someone you know has ULT is hiding somewhere behind the corner, etc. etc.
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Okay so I am going to attempt to respond to everyone.
@Deserted: I agree with this and I think most of us do that Rez on a CD wasn’t a great idea for her.
@Megadodo I totally relate to how annoying it is when people don’t peak !
@NamelessGamer, I think thats overall the point of what I was saying. She doesn’t do anything herself, it’s all just enabling team mates.
@Gunslingercz GA is my favorite thing about Mercy and dodging an ult genji does feel good, although I wouldn’t say that makes her game changing and impactful. Just that I was able to dodge as ult that possibly killed my other team mates. Comparing this to Ana sleeping him and ruining his ult all together or Moira just straight up killing him. (Mercy can p gun an ulting genji but it is not an easy thing as we are not all Animetic). Valk can be fun to kill people but I wouldn’t call just killing the enemy widow again super game changing or impactful esp when it’s not really your job to begin with. Also while you have your pistol out you are not healing your team mates or damaging boosting which could have resulted in your team mates living or killing more enemies. She isn’t in a horrible dreaded spot but your examples are pretty weak in my opinion.
@sinO I see your points and I’m glad you enjoy her. My point has nothing to do with my inability to play the hero. That being said, I do feel she could be more rewarding and on par with impact as other heroes are. I don’t think it should be “get over it” kinda stand off, but more so a discussion on how to make her feel better for the over all community.
@Mozts I agree with this.
@Andough Sorry if my original post didn’t explain well enough. I was more referring to the rewarding and impactful side to it rather wanting it back. I know it was OP and not good as I said it was bad. It had a more fun factor to it as it gave Mercy something individually something she could do that was impactful rather than just enabling her team. I do not think OG Valk should come back, but I do think she needs something to make her more rewarding and impactful.
@Sparrow I agree it’s the weakest support ultimate. @Megadodo, I dont know how someone can say it’s the strongest when other supports ults do more healing, save lives, and negate enemy ultimates. Valk doesnt save lives, does less healing than other support ults, and doesnt negate enemy ultimates.
@Sovereign While I dont see a lot of toxicity in game over her, I do see it with streamers etc. I think it makes it hard for the community to talk about their feelings on the hero without someone saying something troll like. Ex Someone claimed I wanted her to be #1 support earlier on this post. I think it’s hard to make a character good and balanced when theres a lot of hate for that hero in the public eye.
@Caliginous I agree. I’ve had games where I didn’t even think I needed to ult unless we were seriously pushing or I needed the height to survive. While it’s useful it doesn’t really feel like an ultimate.
I think I covered everything Idk
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I do not know what you are referring to in regards to the first response to me, but ok
to the second: I think Jayne is a pretty well respected authority on the game, but YMMV
It’s not just that soldier appears on the kill feed, his survival tech, positioning, helix rocket aiming, movement all remain vastly the same and he has to properly utilize them otherwise his ult is useless and again it’s a short quick ult. Valk lasts crazy long, soldiers ult lasts for 6 seconds. If Mercys ult lasted for 6 seconds but provided some crazy healing that could save a team like Zens that would be something but rn it’s a budget supercharger, except Orisa puts hers down and resumes her usual playstyle while giving her team the boost.
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Casey was referencing this post there.
As for the second, I think the mileage varies because it’s simply not a compelling argument to say “well this player says this”. It doesn’t explain anything other than an authority figure / good player disagrees, which just isn’t comvincing on its own. It should be noted as it helps provide a credit to their opinion, but on its own isn’t much of an argument / not very conductive towards discussion.
thanks
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The only other ult there might to be said is as braindead and forgiving as Valk is Rally (even through I call that a stretch), but because Mercy doesn’t bash your face and whip-shots your butt to the spawn room, no one really gives a toss that Valk is what it is.
Yes exactly ty for explaining for me
Jayne is very informative and I love his videos but one person saying something doesn’t make it true nor do I agree with that comparing to other support ultimates.
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{shrug} I and many others find his opinion to be very authoritative in the OW Community
While I can see how you take his opinion more seriously as he’s is very intelligent and knows the game very well, I can opinions with a grain of salt. I try not to accept someone else’s thoughts as fact esp without any further information. Would you like me to explain why I do not think Valk is the strongest support ultimate in the game rather than just stating it ? As I can explain that with the information I have and know.
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