It was a risk to chase that Widow, but I needed her gone because she kept sneaking up there and getting picks. It might not’ve been the smartest decision, but I committed to it and got back in time to finish the fight out. I had my back to the team, so I couldn’t monitor their health while I was shooting, but I took a chance and trusted the frontline. Normally, it’d be less risky because I’m not usually solo healing stage 3 on that map. You might be right, but that’s why I like Valk so much. There’s no one way to use it.
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Okay Gold, I’ve watched your clips.
I want to preface this in that I am glad you went and got the videos like you said you would. I think that is super cool of you, honestly, and it helps spark good discussion. So good on you.
Alright, with that out of the way, I feel I have to reaffirm my position I’ve had for awhile now about Valk. I absolutely disagree with people who say it is just spectator mode. This is a criticism I cannot get behind as Valk should have you very active and constantly moving around. You shouldn’t be just sitting up in the air.
However, I do agree with the criticisms that it is a bad ultimate. Now, balance wise the ult is completely fine. It actually provides a lot to the player and does its job rather well. Which makes it rather impressive that it’s hated as an ult.
My thought on why it’s hated as an ult, is that a lot of the power and utility from Valk is not immediately apparent to most players. Her ult’s strength is rather unintuitive.
It doesn’t seemingly change what Mercy does, it doesn’t give her anything new, and it certainly doesn’t feel flashy, even if you’re going and getting a kill with it. As an ultimate, it is just genuinely difficult for a lot of players to appreciate.
Fun gameplay mechanics such as an ultimate should be intuitive for players. I don’t think Valk actually accomplishes that for the vast majority of players which is why I think it is a bad ultimate.
I don’t think if it were heavily changed that it would be a bad ability necessarily. But as an ultimate, it doesn’t go and get people excited. It’s not obvious what you should do with it. And it doesn’t feel immediately impactful even though it is often making a huge impact.
I think it’s one of the major reasons we see so many mercy threads (along with design issues with her rez but that’s for another post haha). I feel very strongly that from a design perspective, Valk works, it is strong, it does its job well, but despite all of that it fails many tests that helps make an ultimate feel fun which just stinks.
That said, I do love zipping back and forth with it. I don’t think a heavily changed version would be a bad ability. As an ultimate though, it feels unrewarding to the vast majority of players and it’s no surprise they feel that way. The power of the ultimate is not one people are going to be aware of or even know how to take advantage of because it isn’t obvious.
Edit: Sorry if this post wasn’t clear or came off as rambling. I’m a bit tired. I do appreciate the thread and the videos, Gold.
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I don’t agree with this sentiment. When people (falsely) say that Mercy used to “hide and rez” they’re generally referencing Mercy leaving the battle for an extended period of time after she gains ult. Of course, I don’t think it happened all the time like some people say, but “hide and rez” during Mass Rez in that instance isn’t the same as clip #9.
I mean, was OP supposed to just stand in front of BOB while rezzing and dying? No, they took cover, rezzed, and went back to healing their team.
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This is a really good point. Especially since Mercy is designed to be one of the more easily-accessible heroes for new players, it is odd that she has one of the more obscure and flexible ults that has less than obvious functionality. Like when you pop transcendence with Zenyatta you go “Oh, dang this does a ton of healing. I know how to use this.”
I can see why that might make the ability an odd fit. It’s definitely unique, though, and I still hope they don’t change it.
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This is why it won’t get changed…because the argument isn’t “hey do something about this thing people are doing that is creating an unpleasant game experience for everyone”…it’s “hey I tried this thing and I just can’t find it fun…therefor change it” while many are saying the exact opposite”
I imagine the same debate happens at blizz hq within their discussions…how are they going to change something if no one can agree there’s an issue to begin with
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I highly doubt it’ll be changed any time soon, if ever to be honest. There’s many more characters in a worse spot than Mercy who have been left in a bad spot for ages due to their own design flaws.
I do think Mercy is a flawed character. But I think they finally managed to get her into a balanced state. Which is good. I think she’ll probably be left with the curret design for awhie.
Or unless Blizz decides to listen to the constant stream of complaints about her I suppose. I know I’m being a bit hypocritical as I just put forward my own views / criticisms of her ult haha.
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Nice post, imho closer to reality than other portrayals of Valkyrie here on the forums.
p.s. the formating of the post is a bit off because you use ‘:’ on points 1-3 and ‘.’ on points 4-10
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Sorry but this thread doesn’t conform to the general idea of valk being a unimpactful spectator mode so its automatically wrong.
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I’m just frustrated because any ultimates that are similar to Valkyrie are just… Better. Waking-focused ulimates such as Transcendence and Coalescence are able to sustains allies through focus fire with their higher healing output. They are both fully capable of pumping out much more healing over the course of their ultimates than a Mercy ever could. Not only do they provide more instant healing, but they also pump out much more healing in less time than Valkyrie can over the course of her entire ultimate. Supercharger also provides a higher percent damage boost, and lasts just as long as Valkyrie.
I believe that Valkyrie’s overall impact has been watered down because they tried to make her kit too versatile. She has a very strong ability on cooldown, and an ultimate that tries to improve too many aspects of her kit.
I was never a huge fan of Mass Rez, and I’m not a huge fan of Valkyrie, either. I do, however, feel as though Valkyrie could be changed in order to fix her current issues. She needs a tiny bit more immediate impact, and should be encouraged to properly prioritize targets during her ultimate. Those are the main issues I have with her currently.
I also want my 60hp/s back 
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Thank you so much for posting these clips! the community needs more active Mercy players and less sit and press a button ones, you are one great example of the things you can accomplish if you use Mercy’s whole kit!
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Mercy does have her moments in Valkyrie, nobody is disputing that, but overall, she never gets to whip out her pistol or be the hero. It is far and few, while being a GM Mercy main, I can attest that most of Mercy’s Valkyrie is just to make your team perform better, not Mercy. She doesn’t get her moment, she just continually boosts her team’s performance.
The biggest argument for changing (not even reverting) Mercy is to make it more of her moment. This can be with Valkyrie or without.
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That has always been the case for Mercy though, I mean before you were able to rez everyone or whatever but then the impact and the possible win/loss was on them so your so called personal moment was more of a: I’ll give everyone a second chance at being impactful on their own
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I think so, too. I don’t think the ability is portrayed accurately on these forums at all most of the time, so I wanted to offer a competing perspective to show that there are all kinds of players. Ha, I was wondering why it was doing that. Thanks!
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In rare instances where the stars line up sure, I can go for kills but in how many of them is Valk gonna save your team and more importantly save them fast enough in a team fight to leave you room to go for the fun kills without leaving a teammate to die?
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This is also one of my personal gripes I have. I think there’s some legitimate criticism to be had about the ability. But I cannot wrap my head around the specator mode opinion that seems so prevalent. It just makes my head scratch.
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Thanks for your perspective. I understand feeling less traditionally impactful than the other supports. It’s true that Valkyrie doesn’t offer nearly the immediate payoff that those do, but I’m ok with it because you can (and should most of the time) pair Mercy with another support who CAN keep the team up through ults. If there are every any changes, I hope they’re around finding a nice middle ground. I don’t want Valkyrie to just be another transcendence or sound barrier.
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But you saved them. You gave them a second shot. Like today I played Lucio cuz I can’t stand being impotent with Mercy anymore in comp and I managed to farm my ult and I did not let the enemy genji get a single blade kill, even when Ana nanoed him. I heard the soundbite of an angry Japanese cyborg and my finger was on the Q. Sure I didn’t get POTG and I didn’t even ge a gj Lucio but I made a big impact because I effectively made the enemy genji useless. Mass Rez was her big play and her moment to save the team and make the enemy useless but that is gone and if we aren’t getting it back, it should be something better than this. I’d actually prefer to have Nano instead of Valk. It’s more in line with Mercys kit, boosts damage, heals and is quick and single target focused and doesn’t hold my hand for 15 consecutive seconds.
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Admittedly, those situations probably will never be the norm, but they can happen. The fourth clip I posted is an example of this. I couldn’t save my team from a D.Va bomb, but I saved the fight by killing three of them to deny them their opportunity to push in and capitalize on the kills D.Va got. Fun and impact!
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You knew exactly when Mercy did the res. It was her moment to shine and she her ult. Nobody asks if Valkyrie is ready because it’s an overall unnoticeable ultimate because it overall feels unimpactful. It IS impactful, but doesn’t feel that way to literally anybody on the team. You never hear a “nice Valk, Mercy!” It’s always res. Because res has that immediate impactful feeling. Valk doesn’t. It’s just Mercy doing what she always does. Mass Res is different because it had a strong impact immediately. You knew exactly when Mercy ressed and it felt great for everybody involved on your team.
Valkyrie is Mercy just doing what Mercy always does, while res was completely unique and had a different effect on your team than just healing/damage boosting, as she always does.
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On console QP. Idk why you keep leaving this out. If I play QP on PC all I do is battle mercy and rez if I feel like it and more importantly it’s not your job to get kills. You’re the healer/support. It should be the last thing on your mind after healing/utility.
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