I’ve seen a lot of suggested nerfs to Mercy. I would like to give my opinion on them, as a Mercy main, and tell you all which ones would be good and which would be bad.
Disclaimer: I don’t believe Mercy needs a 9th nerf, she instead needs another Rework. This is just hypothetical.
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Good Nerfs:
Earnable Rez
- Resurrect is now earned through a chargeable meter (like Torb’s scrap). 1500 healing = 1 Rez (25 seconds of constant healing).
Has the potential to be a buff, but more often than not will mean Rez is acquired less.
Resurrect has a 2 second cast time but no slow.
Valkyrie Healing Nerf
- Chained beams in Valk are reduced to +50hps but primary target healing is increased to +70hps. Damage boost is reduced to +20% for chained beams but primary target stays at 30%.
AOE healing is too much for Mercy because she has the most reliable single-target healing and adding in AOE makes her too strong, so I want to dial it down a bit but increase her single-target.
Primary target damage boost in Valk is staying the same because it’s strong enough already and increasing dmg boost will be too much imo.
Cast time Resurrect Nerf
- Increasing Rez cast time to 2 seconds but reducing the slow to +50%.
I believe that Resurrect as a cast time needs a longer cast time due to a couple reasons. These being:
- Mercy gets Resurrect often, and very easily.
- 1.75 seconds is not a long time and if you have to reload, Mercy gets a free Rez.
I decreased the slow given in compensation. To get a feel for it, imagine a situation where Lucio was speedboosting you whilst you were rezzing.
Bad Nerfs:
Increasing Resurrect Cooldown
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Resurrect will still be powerful. Having Resurrect available at the start of the March means she will always be able to erase picks.
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Increasing the cooldown does not reduce the impact of a Resurrection, nor does it increase the counterplay.
Reducing Valkyrie Duration
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Reducing Valkyrie’s duration won’t accomplish anything.
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Much like my previous point, she will still have high influence on the fight with AOE beams and reducing it’s duration by 3-5 seconds won’t change anything.
Rez Only In Valk
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A point given for the rework was to create a long requested second ability for Mercy, so she gets more mid-fight potential. Taking away that second ability would not be a good thing.
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Introducing a new E ability whilst keeping Rez in Valk would be a straight up buff and a no no.
Base Kit Nerfs
- People have suggested nerfing her base kit, such as Healing, DPS, Guardian angel.
- Her problem is not with her base kit. She was never overpowered in Season 4 when she had this same base kit. Her problem is having a strong base kit AS WELL AS a strong ultimate and a standard ability that’s even stronger than her ultimate.