They keep making Mercy easier (and less fun) to play by nerfing her

[HalexUwU-1852]

Geez the positivity and overall likes vrs comments on this thread is crazy!

[GreyFalcon-11737]

Cause right now Mercy’s skill ceiling is much too low, and that makes her boring.

This sums up the complaints about Mercy’s rework quite nicely.

Can’t have peaks without valleys.

Any thoughts on how Mercy could be less consistent, but more effective?

[Silawatsi-1430]

Make Mercy’s biggest impact moments rely heavily on precise timing.

I’d keep Mercy’s hps at 50, even though it’s not enough to keep teammates under fire alive. In exchange, Mercy gets an E ability that can make up the difference if the user is good at timing it right and using it creatively.

As for the ult… you’re not gonna like it, but I’d put AoE rez back. It would have a LoS restriction and a .6 second cast time, and (in addition to rezzing) give living allies 1.75 seconds of invulnerability. Mercy wouldn’t need to take steps to ensure she’s the last survivor if she doesn’t have to wait for teammates to die before she can help them with her ult. Mercy would be able to use rez at anytime, not only when there are nearby dead teamamtes.

This version of rez can be wasted, it can be interrupted, it might be only minimally helpful or turn an entire game around. It depends on when the Mercy uses it.

[GreyFalcon-11737]

Mercy gets an E ability that can make up the difference if the user is good at timing it right and using it creatively.

Like what?

[FemboyIHOP-1815]

Why are ya’ll replying to a thread made 4 months ago

[Silawatsi-1430]

A few things off the top of my head:

Pacify: Mercy shoots out a bolt of light (like soldier’s helix rockets). The bolt is a single target-debuff that suppresses an enemy’s damage for a short period of time.

E Valkyrie: Mercy gets 3 seconds of flight, and her beams are buffed. Healing gets buffed to 75hp, and damage boost gives the ally a 15% move speed bonus.

(I wouldn’t buff damage boost past 30%, because anything more than that makes a lot of heroes capable of one-shotting when they shouldn’t.)

Vaccine: Mercy gets a resource meter. She can’t use her gun or staff while channeling from it. Mercy uses the meter to target an ally and channel a mini-fortify buff onto a teammate. Max duration: 2 or 3 seconds.

(Mini fortify: there’s two ways to do it. The first gives the ally a 20% damage resistance and speeds up all stun/debuff timers. The second gives a 30% damage resistance and immunity to cc, but it can’t clear cc that’s already landed)

All of these are up for discussion, and I’m open to other suggestions.

[GreyFalcon-11737]

So, for the sake of argument. Let’s say they did swap Valk and Rez.

But instead of a multirez they just do a quick/instant single rez, with whatever Ult charge needed to balance that out.

Then have an E-Valk, with healing boost, free flight, and a bit of permaregen. (And just 10hps chain beams cause the devs seem to love chain beams).

How about that?

[Effervescent-11737]

I love when people complain “Mercy is a braindead healer”
And then the mercy community is like:
“Well we have some ideas to make her a little more impactful AND add some skill to her “

Then the people say:
“Stop whining mercy moron, you always complain. Papa Jeff said Mercy is fine like this, you should be happy with her like this”

Hypocritical much?

[Silawatsi-1430]

Single-target ult Rez would have to charge as fast as pulse bomb in order for it to have any real power… but that’s when the balance gets really tricky.

Really good Mercies would be so good at charging their ult quickly that she’d be a must-pick in the high ranks.

The Mercies who don’t charge their ult as quickly would have almost zero presence in the game’s ult economy, making single-target Q rez a horrible ult in the low-mid ranks.

I’m also leery of bringing back any form of instarez, because I don’t think it has enough counterplay. Every ability needs to give enemies a chance to react.

How about you, what’s your favorite idea for a Mercy E ability?

[sinǾ-1927]

Mercy is not a difficult hero to play, but she used to be about choices, timing, and decisions.

She was never that difficult, by design, and she is still very much about choices, timing, and decisions.

Before her rework the best Mercy players would decide whether to tempo rez or mass-rez by tracking enemy ultimates, sometimes baiting enemy ultimates, and try to optimize their use of the ultimate based on chance for success. Mercy was easy to play and pick up, but by understanding and reading enemy movements you get really good at doing your job as Mercy.

Yeah, this is true for the most part. I’d say the most skill intensive part was constantly running away to stay alive (even more than now) because killing Mercy was basically the win condition for every fight.

The rework removed a lot of the decision making and choices.

Not really, it just made the impact a lot less by only letting you resurrect one person. You have to put even more thought into it now. There are more decisions and choices

• Do I resurrect the tank or DPS? Which has their ultimate?
• Can someone support me as I go for this resurrect?
• Can the enemy see me or am I safe? Is hog’s hook on cooldown? Can McCree flashbang me?
• Will someone die if I use this resurrect?
• Should I wait until the last moment I have to use resurrect or go for it now?
• My resurrect has 5 more seconds on its cooldown. If I fly to that teammate do I have the time to resurrect?
• The list goes on…

Valkyrie removed the need for target prioritization as chain beams does all the work for you.

I’m really tired of this intentionally superficial description of the ability.

You act like the team is always within range of each other. This is not the case!!

One of my common uses for Valkyrie is to be able to heal two groups of teammates without having to make myself too vulnerable. Both groups being out of chain healing range of each other (by necessity).

Target prioritization is easier, but it still exists with Valkyrie.

This is telling, though, because you likely have teammates that die during your Valkyrie attempts because you lazily assume it simply heals everyone no matter who you have the beam on at all times.

The choice when to use it is also relatively trivial: use if team is alive and pushing, or if team is alive and defending against push, or if you need to escape and have no GA target. So, you press spacebar and hold a mouse-button, then observe people running around on the ground - not very engaging or fun.

So, I still disagree with this superficial description, but even if it was true, why is that a problem exactly?
The time to use many ultimate abilities is trivial.
The optimal time to use most support ultimate abilities is trivial.

Even so, there are more times to use it than you describe. Besides what I mentioned above, you can use it to get back to an extremely important fight quicker.
In a game on Hanamura attack we were in OT trying to cap the second point. When I spawned I went to the left and used my ultimate to get back just in time to heal and help my team.

Perhaps you just need to get better with it and put more thought into where you can use it instead of complaining about it not being effective?

And if you seriously just “press spacebar and hold a mouse-button, then observe people running around on the ground” then you are under utilizing the ability. It’s as simple as that.
If the enemy is bad enough to not attack you then sure, that’s what you do. But that’s nearly never the case. I guess it may depend on the rank, but most people know to use Tac Visor or simply shoot the floating Mercy.

And about it not being engaging or fun. How? You can literally fly and everything else about you is better. I have a blast using Valkyrie. I’m sorry you can’t seem to have fun with a great ultimate.

It’s far more engaging and fun than “press q and watch some DPS or Tank destroy the enemy team”
Otherwise known as Nanoboost.

Or what about Widowmaker’s sight? That’s not “engaging or fun”, but it’s not a problem is it?

When they nerfed rez as an ability and gave it a cast-timer they also removed some of the decision making and target prioritization. It became less about rezzing the right target and more about rezzing a convenient target.

You’re completely wrong. It’s not less about one and more about the other. It’s both!
“Which target do I resurrect? The Zenyatta is behind cover and safe, but he doesn’t have his ultimate. We just killed their off-healer, so maybe I should resurrect Reinhardt even though he’s not in the safest location, but can I still resurrect him? He has shatter and if we lose the fight we lose… I’m going to go for it”

I’ve done this type of thinking a lot and have gotten the less convenient one resurrected many times because he was the one with the ultimate.

Mercy also lost some of her calculated bravery because healing someone in the frontline meant she might end up there alone if her healing target dies and she couldn’t instantly rez this person; so Mercy moved towards the backlines and became less engaging to play.

What? Calculated bravery lost? I can’t count the amount of times I have had a teammate say something like “That was a ballsy res Mercy! Thank you!”. Perhaps you’re playing more passive and more in the back-line, but that’s on you. Also, Mercy has loved being in the back-line since season one.

Pharmercy is still very much a thing by the way.

With the recent healing nerf you have to heal your target for longer to keep them alive, so there will be less swooping back and forth.

You know you can swoop back and forth and continue healing the same person, right? At least if you have Guardian Angel does not prefer beam target on like I do.

It makes her a little easier to play, a little less engaging to play, and a lot less fun to play.

It does none of those things. It makes healing take a bit longer. That’s it.

Swooping around is what makes Mercy really fun, and I think there’ll be a little less of it if you want to play Mercy effectively.

Again, you can still swoop around and continue healing the target you need healed while swapping if need be. This isn’t gone. I do it all the time. If you have Guardian Angel prefers beam target then this might be difficult for you though.

So, I don’t want a revert. I don’t want Mercy to be overpowered. I think if they manage to get some balance between the support heroes it’ll be great. I just wish that after the dust settles and we know how things turn out they start looking at giving Mercy a few more choices and a few more decisions to make to give Mercy players a little bit more room to use their skill… Cause right now Mercy’s skill ceiling is much too low, and that makes her boring.

The most recent support patch has been my favorite all-time patch precisely because it makes the supports more balanced. I agree I would like Mercy to do a little more healing, but honestly I play fine with her as is.

I also play the other supports as I am more of a support main and I love that I can go Lucio or Zenyatta without being told to swap to Mercy or we lose.

Her ceiling is low, but it honestly isn’t much lower than it was before. In fact, I would argue it is actually higher, personally.

[Hige-1101]

hey buddy, what do you think about this? :

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rR9OKe

[Ryan-111758]

Should be the same amount of bouncing between teammates if they are low and need the healing more.

Nope, most Tanks take an extra 2-3 seconds to heal if you do the math, squishies take 4 seconds to heal to ful instead of 3.3, etc. All that times adds up during a teamfight, and it feels horrible. You have to spend more time standing next to people to top them off and less time bouncing between teammates,

It kind of ruins the flow that I love about the hero, tbh Even 55 HPS would feel so much better, and allow Mercy players to play the way Mercy feels best (bouncing between teammates with GA).

[sinǾ-1927]

You have to spend more time standing next to people to top them off and less time bouncing between teammates,

Do I need to make a PSA that you can bounce between teammates while still healing one person?

I honestly don’t understand how 50h/s is that terrible, but I guess I did play Mercy in season 1.

[Silawatsi-1430]

@Hige-1101

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rR9OKe

Level 3 power, ACTIVATE!

My personal feelings on this:

I can appreciate the effort it took to make this card, but rez on cooldown is a deal breaker for me.