Valkyrie's flaws

[InútilApagar-1609]

That’s splitting hairs and you know it.

Minor correction. I was simply fixing the post.

What are you doing as standard Mercy? Healing and maybe damage boosting. What are you doing as Valkyrie Mercy? Healing and maybe damage boosting. If you don’t see how you’re still pretty much doing the same thing post hitting Q… well I just don’t know dude.

That’s not the point. The point is that picking a random example and saying it isn’t consistent with Valkyrie is irrelevant. Most abilities won’t be like it.

Infra-Sight isn’t an enhance ultimate. How is her rifle better? How is her grapple better? Answer: they aren’t. So it’s not a “Take your base kit and make it better” ultimate. It is something else entirely.

It makes her output better because it lets her hit easier shots. Widowmaker is the best hero with Wallhacks, that’s why it’s her ultimate.

Also post buff that argument falls apart. With a short enough CD, a 300 HP burst heal could easily be an ult. Then it also gives Ana essentially 2x healing on her nano target? Yeah… not a spectator.

How is Nanoboost not a spectator while Valkyrie is? Nanoboost has one active function (the 300hp heal) whereas Valkyrie is active for the entire 15s duration.

Why would I be staring at my teammates while in Valk?

To get maximum aura value? To heal the highest priority target? Is this a joke?

You going to say that Lucio doesn’t need that indicator that he’s got that tells him how many people are in his aura?

Considering Mercy can almost always see her entire AoE from the sky, it’s a totally different situation.

That’s literally my point. If Valk gave 50% boost, it would 100% be better than supercharger. Meaning that Valkyrie’s auras will never get enough raw number buffs to make them feel good because… well then why would you ever take Trans or Supercharger?

Because the raw outputs of Trans and Supercharge are powerful. Transcendence can block ultimates, whereas Valkyrie cannot. In a shield war (which happens very often with Orisa) Supercharger beats Valkyrie. Not to mention you get the Supercharger and Orisa’s normal kit.

[InútilApagar-1609]

If McCree shoots a Valkyrie Mercy 3 times, she will live with 10hp, even though it does 210 damage. It’s not that hard.

[QuizzyBunny-2512]

Yes, but if someone did 200 hp burst damage she would not.

[FFirebrandd-1844]

That’s not the point. The point is that picking a random example and saying it isn’t consistent with Valkyrie is irrelevant. Most abilities won’t be like it.

Did you misread that part? My point was that Nidalee’s ultimate definitely gives her something completely different to do because it replaces her kit and that’s what makes it interesting and fun to use. On the flip side, Valkyrie doesn’t do that. It doesn’t give Mercy something new to do.

It makes her output better because it lets her hit easier shots. Widowmaker is the best hero with Wallhacks, that’s why it’s her ultimate.

that’s not my point. Infrasight gives you a new tool to work with (wall hacks). It doesn’t primarily make your existing tools better (Valkyrie with chain beams, longer beam, infinite ammo). It is NOT the same sort of ultimate that Valkyrie is.

How is Nanoboost not a spectator while Valkyrie is? Nanoboost has one active function (the 300hp heal) whereas Valkyrie is active for the entire 15s duration.

Because it isn’t? After you pop Nano, you’re back to using Ana’s powerful and impactful base kit. Unless you are trying to claim that Ana is a spectator for 100% of her gameplay… Nano doesn’t make her any more a spectator.

To get maximum aura value? To heal the highest priority target? Is this a joke?

Nope, no joke. You don’t need to be head down looking directly at your team to keep track of their health bars. In Valk that’s a good way to get wrecked by Widow or Tac Visor or Deadeye.

people are in his aura?

Considering Mercy can almost always see her entire AoE from the sky, it’s a totally different situation.

That strongly depends on where Mercy is in relation to her team.

Because the raw outputs of Trans and Supercharge are powerful. Transcendence can block ultimates, whereas Valkyrie cannot. In a shield war (which happens very often with Orisa) Supercharger beats Valkyrie. Not to mention you get the Supercharger and Orisa’s normal kit.

Ok… back up for a second.

Say Valkyrie gets buffed to give 300 HPS or 50% damage buff.

IF THAT HAPPENED… why would you ever bring Zen or Orisa?

You wouldn’t.

My point that you seem to have missed twice now is that… The heal chain beams are similar to Transcendence but are more flexible. Meaning that they will never get enough HPS to be good because then you’d never want Trans.

Similarly… Chain damage boost is a more flexible version of Super Charger. If Damage Boost ever got buffed to provide a 50% boost, you’d never want Super Charger.

Meaning. BLIZZARD CANNOT MAKE VALKYRIE FEEL GOOD BY BUFFING THE RAW NUMBERS ON THE CHAIN BEAMS BECAUSE THAT WILL MAKE TRANS AND SUPERCHARGER OBSOLETE.

[InútilApagar-1609]

Isn’t hide and ult exactly what this rework was supposed to get away from?

The point was to get Mercy in the fight. Taking good positioning is not standing afk until your team dies and then pressing Q.

That perma self heal in Valk can give you opportunities for Res that otherwise wouldn’t work.

That’s the whole point.

k, then post on your main. Also having a lot of experience or high SR doesn’t automatically make you right.

Considering that they tried to argue that they’re right because they main Mercy, I fail to see how I can’t do the same.

For all intents and purposes burst damage completely negates her passive during Valkyrie

And that’s why she has insane mobility and range to avoid burst.

That would depend on the skill of the person aiming at Mercy. That doesn’t translate into “how effective” her verticality is.

Yes it does. You cannot hit Mercy with Shield Bash if she is in the air. If you’re directly below the Mercy, you can’t even hit her head.

Let’s take Tracer as an example. Against a Valkyrie Mercy, a Tracer would need roughly 92% accuracy over the course of her clip. As you will naturally be farther away from the Valkyrie Mercy, that is simply impossible due to spread. Without Valkyrie, Tracer only needs 75% accuracy, as there is no self heal and melees become possible, not to mention an easier to track target and easier headshots.

I literally play against the best DPS players in the world. Using Valkyrie drastically increases your survivability while Resurrecting.

In my opinion, there is next to no benefit to resurrecting during Valkyrie over ressing outside of it. The -75% cast time is not worth the risk in most cases.

Fortunately, Valkyrie negates that risk to such an extent that Resurrect becomes very, very consistent so long as you don’t fly into the center of the enemy.

And it is possible to get Charged, Rocket Punched and SB’d while in Valk… It’s unlikely to happen, but it’s certainly possible - and especially so when you try to res.

You can be up to 5m above your soul while using Valkyrie. None of those abilities are even close to that kind of vertical range.

her Res is still slower and her guardian angel stays the same.

Her Resurrect is 64% faster due to the base move speed bonus and her Guardian Angel is 50% faster on the Gamepedia, but I think that’s incorrect.

I wouldn’t really call that an ult that makes her “near invulnerable”.

If you can’t survive with 9m/s free flight, constant regen, 60m GA range and 30m beam range, there is something wrong with your play.

So the solution to using a rework that was supposed to solve the issue of “Hide and Res” is infact “Hide and Ressing”? Interesting. Then what was the point of reworking Mercy to have Valk again? Sounds like a failure of a rework in my opinion.

Sounds like you have completely ignored any and all context whatsoever. Hide and res referred to Mercy players literally going afk for entire fights and letting their teammates die in order to Resurrect them. Hiding in this context is hiding in the middle of a fight to get an ability off, completely different to hiding for an entire fight only to come out and press Q.

Not to mention that the single-target nature of Resurrect no longer encourages Mercy players to let their teammates die like 1.0 did.

And I suppose we’ll also act like the bolded text above just doesn’t exist either right? Either way, the point remains the same. An extra 35 hp is virtually useless in most / all of those situations. But yes, let’s continue to assume that it isn’t.

I have given two examples to how that’s absurd. 200hp is one of the biggest breakpoints in the game, and reducing shots hit + headshots hit + higher hp is massive.

Oh? Can you give me an example of how ressing while Valkying is better than ressing as normal mercy?

Look at the Tracer example above.

Or literally any time you want to Resurrect. It’s safer 100% of the time.

. I would suggest you start getting familiar with the nerfs, before assuming that she still has the “invulnerabilities” as she’s had back then before speaking on it.

I literally play Mercy at the highest level of the game.

Instead of pretending like you somehow know more about Mercy than I do, maybe you should go out and prove it.

[InútilApagar-1609]

On the flip side, Valkyrie doesn’t do that. It doesn’t give Mercy something new to do.

What is the point? It’s a completely different mechanic.

Not to mention Torbjorn literally has the same type of ability…

Infrasight gives you a new tool to work with (wall hacks). It doesn’t primarily make your existing tools better (Valkyrie with chain beams, longer beam, infinite ammo). It is NOT the same sort of ultimate that Valkyrie is.

Does Valkyrie not have free flight, a unique mechanic to Valkyrie?

After you pop Nano, you’re back to using Ana’s powerful and impactful base kit.

Good thing Valkyrie makes Mercy’s kit even better.

Nope, no joke. You don’t need to be head down looking directly at your team to keep track of their health bars. In Valk that’s a good way to get wrecked by Widow or Tac Visor or Deadeye.

If you can’t properly manage the positions of enemy DPS threats while you manage your aura positioning, it’s not Blizzard’s fault.

That strongly depends on where Mercy is in relation to her team.

Mercy’s escape relies on her teammates’ positioning. You should know where they are, especially when you have a bird’s eye view.

BLIZZARD CANNOT MAKE VALKYRIE FEEL GOOD BY BUFFING THE RAW NUMBERS ON THE CHAIN BEAMS BECAUSE THAT WILL MAKE TRANS AND SUPERCHARGER OBSOLETE

Oh I get it now. You’re not interested in whether Valkyrie is actually good or it, you just want it to “feel good.”

I remind you, how does Valkyrie feel any worse than Molten Core, Nanoboost or Infra-Sight?

[HavocS-2336]

Maybe it’s not interesting to you, it’s definitely interesting to me, love flying around freely, chaing healing/boosting from the safety of the snipers’ sight, and divebombing to rez someone in the last 2 seconds they have long forgotten about.

It’s waaay more interesting than Molten Core, that you just use every time your turret or you would die and just keep mouse1 or mouse2 pressed and walk around.

[FFirebrandd-1844]

Does Valkyrie not have free flight, a unique mechanic to Valkyrie?

It does but… thing is… as I pointed out… it gives you extra mobility then makes it so you largely don’t have to use it. ALSO extra mobility isn’t worth anything if you can’t accomplish anything once you get there.

Mobility is a force multiplier for impact. It is not impact on its own.

Good thing Valkyrie makes Mercy’s kit even better.

In a way that is largely invisible to the player or not useful.

Oh I get it now. You’re not interested in whether Valkyrie is actually good or it, you just want it to “feel good.”

Yes. Why are you acting surprised? That’s been my and a whole lot of people’s issues with the rework for MONTHS now. I said that in the first sentence of the OP.

Also last time I checked, this was a video game… something people engage with to have fun or some other meaningful experience. Overwatch cashes in more on fun… so having one of its characters be boring is a REALLY BIG PROBLEM.

I remind you, how does Valkyrie feel any worse than Molten Core, Nanoboost or Infra-Sight?

Molten Core I can’t speak to because I rarely play Torb.
Nanoboost: Regardless of how engaging or not engaging Nanoboost is… after a half second… from your point of view, it’s over and you are back to using Ana’s powerful and engaging kit. That’s the difference.
Infra Sight: Same deal as Nano honestly. Sniping people is fun. I can’t do it in this game for whatever reason, but it is fun. If you didn’t find sniping people fun… why are you on Widow? The cast time on Infra Sight only takes away from her kit for… half a second.

Valkyrie on the other hand lasts 15 seconds. Valkyrie makes it so you largely don’t have to worry about who needs which beam because… you can often beam the majority of your team and SOMEBODY probably needs healing. You don’t need to pay as much attention to where your GA targets are because you’re in the air… who can even dive you when you are up there?

I find Valkyrie less engaging than Mercy’s base kit and it hijacks your kit for 15 seconds. THAT’S how it feels less engaging than Nano, or Infra Sight, or Super Charger.

[RevertMercy-1304]

Yes it does. You cannot hit Mercy with Shield Bash if she is in the air. If you’re directly below the Mercy, you can’t even hit her head.

I’m sorry, where have I said that she would hit the Mercy in the air? If you have read what I’ve written you would have seen the following statement.

And it is possible to get Charged, Rocket Punched and SB’d while in Valk… It’s unlikely to happen, but it’s certainly possible - and especially so when you try to res. Not sure what you’re talking about there… You can’t res a soul on the ground if you’re in the skybox, so you’re still vulnerable to getting killed off when ressing while in ult form. Even more so.

So all of this is irrelevant…

Let’s take Tracer as an example. Against a Valkyrie Mercy, a Tracer would need roughly 92% accuracy over the course of her clip. As you will naturally be farther away from the Valkyrie Mercy, that is simply impossible due to spread. Without Valkyrie, Tracer only needs 75% accuracy, as there is no self heal and melees become possible, not to mention an easier to track target and easier headshots.

I literally play against the best DPS players in the world. Using Valkyrie drastically increases your survivability while Resurrecting.

You said “you can’t get Charged, Rocket Punched or even Shield Bashed if you’re in Valkyrie.” I’ve merely given you a situation that proves that claim as false. But alas, if you played with “the best DPS players in the world” you should already know this right?

Fortunately, Valkyrie negates that risk to such an extent that Resurrect becomes very, very consistent so long as you don’t fly into the center of the enemy.

Except… the cons of Valk being slower in ressing then outside of it (thanks to the -75% speed drop) makes the risk not worth it. As a Mercy, your first and foremost priority is keeping yourself alive first, and then your team (through healing). Making risky resses looks cute, but that is not what one should be trying to do in the majority of their games with her. As stated, Rezzing during valk is next to pointless of a strategy in her current state, save of course for extreme cases.

You can be up to 5m above your soul while using Valkyrie. None of those abilities are even close to that kind of vertical range.

You once again, seemed to have failed to have read the entire statement. Please go back and read again.

Her Resurrect is 64% faster due to the base move speed bonus and her Guardian Angel is 50% faster on the Gamepedia, but I think that’s incorrect.

Gamepedia is incorrect. Guardian angel does not get a speed boost in her current form.

If you can’t survive with 9m/s free flight, constant regen, 60m GA range and 30m beam range, there is something wrong with your play.

Hmmm sorry, I disagree. But thanks for offering your opinion! In my opinion there are many ways to kill a Mercy during Valk, and especially so in high levels of play, so the statement of “she’s near invuln” while having the lowest winrate among all of the supports on average, is simply not true… Valk is weak now in game, and far from invulnerable, especially when rezzing.

Sounds like you have completely ignored any and all context whatsoever. Hide and res referred to Mercy players literally going afk for entire fights and letting their teammates die in order to Resurrect them. Hiding in this context is hiding in the middle of a fight to get an ability off, completely different to hiding for an entire fight only to come out and press Q.

Not to mention that the single-target nature of Resurrect no longer encourages Mercy players to let their teammates die like 1.0 did.

You still haven’t answered the question… What was the point of reworking Mercy to have Valk again? Her impact is less than she’s had in 1.0, and she’s overall arguably less fun and engaging to play. Her pickrates are also at an all time low, and a lot of Mercy players are unhappy with her current state. Care to offer an explanation as to what is the point of Valk right now over something like mass res? Even from a mechanical / balance standpoint, mass res was never made into an OP moth for 5 months and then nerfed into oblivion, right?

I have given two examples to how that’s absurd. 200hp is one of the biggest breakpoints in the game, and reducing shots hit + headshots hit + higher hp is massive.

Here’s a fact. A 35 hp increase won’t save you from most focus fire or burst damage. What examples have you given that disproves this again?

Look at the Tracer example above.

Or literally any time you want to Resurrect. It’s safer 100% of the time.

Anytime Mercy rezzes, she’s 100% safer? Okay I really would like some citation on that… Do you have documented proof of this claim that proves this as true? Backed by hard fact? Or is this just you giving an opinion?

I literally play Mercy at the highest level of the game.

Get in line… The club has t-shirts.

Instead of pretending like you somehow know more about Mercy than I do, maybe you should go out and prove it.

Prove what? The most you have done was state your own opinions on Mercy as if they are fact. Your view of Valk making Mercy invincible is completely incorrect and false, and you assume that your supposed rank should automatically stand for you knowing everything about the hero. From what I’ve read and how people are responding to you, I have so far been proven the complete opposite. You seem to know very little of Valk Mercy in this current state, and are very uninformed to her flaws as stated in the OP… Which is a huge problem. My opinion.

But hey! If you enjoy Valk and you truly think that it makes Mercy unkillable, you keep on thinking that! The stats literally prove otherwise in terms of her drops in winrates and pickrates, but alas, I won’t try to convince you. Cheers!

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~Sincerely Yours xoxo,
a Lover of True, Fair, and Fun Balance.
xavvypls

[munky0u812-1529]

I’ve been watching this thread for a bit now so I’m just gonna go ahead and give my two cents.

At first, I didn’t have a problem with her rework but nowadays, I’ve realized that the rework hurt her more than help.

My biggest issue with it was that it completely changed Mercy’s identity.

“She is known to be the best single target healer” - Valk now introduces chain beams which kinda steps on Lucio’s shoes

“Mercy is known for resurrect, and this rework fixes hide and rez” - Now she has to hide to get rez off, and rez itself is a shadow of what it once was.

Plus back then, when she had Mass Rez, she was fun and engaging and balanced. You mainly saw Mercy from bronze to plat, and then Ana started to take over. You hardly ever saw 5-man rezzes in GM or T500 because it was too risky. Most rezzes were between 2 and 4 people.

As for the argument of Molten Core, I don’t have too much experience as Torb, but from what I have played of him, using his ult encourages a more aggressive playstyle. You have more of a reason to take his gun out, you can tank the damage for your turret while you hammer it to Level 3, and then you can charge the enemy. Valk, on the other hand, encourages a more passive playstyle. I have seen too many clips of Mercy using Valk and just goes to the skybox, and…that’s it. She might switch from heals to dmg boost depending on what the team needs, but what she does in Valk is the same as what she does normally. Just she now spreads her wings and moves faster. Molten Core makes Torbs be more aggressive, take out his gun, and makes him more of a tank. It’s easier to see value in Core than it is in Valk. Anyways, I am sure Torb mains can speak better about that than I can so I’ll leave it at that.

With Mass Rez, there was some strategy for it. Mercy’s sense of ult economy had to be on point. She had to have an almost spot-on feel for who on the enemy team has ults. Does Zarya have Grav? Does Soldier have Tac-Visor? And then she has to figure out if she should let her tanks fall first or rez and then patch them up, or if rezzing will even give them a chance to win or if it will just set them up for another team wipe.

And most of the time, the Mercy players don’t go afk and then press Q. They are healing the entire time until they can’t afford to (like if Soldier is using Visor since he could follow the beam to find the Mercy), and then when they get the chance, they swoop in for the rez. Even then, we have ults now that would counter a full Rez. Self Destruct is timed so it goes off the moment the rezzed can move. Minefield would counter Rez. Rip Tire counters it. So long as you don’t waste all your ults at once, Mass Rez could have its value completely nullified.

Last few points here: Another one of my complaints is the double standard here. We are allowed to completely change Mercy when she was balanced (even slightly UP for some people) but unfun to play against. Yet when Mercy mains complain that she is unfun to play as, that is an invalid point because she is balanced now. But she was balanced before as I mentioned above. She was only good in low ranks but was a niche pick in higher ranks.

Also, with supports, they have always kinda been treated differently. If Rein and Zarya are the meta tanks but the off tank feels more comfortable playing D.Va, the team can work around that. If the meta tanks are Winston/D.Va, but the main tank feels more comfortable playing Reinhardt, the team can work with that. But with supports, they have to play the meta supports. If the meta is Ana/Lucio, you have to play Ana/Lucio. If you play Mercy in this meta, you may as well be throwing. You hardly ever hear “Hey Winston, can we get a Rein” but hearing “Hey Mercy, we need an Ana right now can you switch” is not unheard of. The opposite happened before too where Anas were constantly told to switch to Mercy because that is what is “Meta”.

Which is the perfect segway to my last point which is not exclusive to supports or Mercy: People look at the meta to determine nerfs or buffs. One of the arguments I have seen against Mercy buffs is “She was meta for a year; therefore, she needs no buffs” or something along that vein, and pardon my French but honestly? That’s a stupid argument. The meta shouldn’t really determine nerfs or buffs. Zen and D.Va have both been meta for a pretty long time, but are they getting nerfed any time soon. Nope! The devs have said that Zen is in a good spot, and D.Va just got a buff with the shotgun changes. Hog has not been meta since S3 but did that stop them from bringing falloff to his alt-fire? Nope! So meta shouldn’t really be a factor. If they are a must-pick or they are not fun for either side, sure. We can take a look at them and try to find a change that would keep things fun and not disheartening for both sides. But just because they’ve “had their time in the sun” does that mean we shouldn’t buff them? That’s not a good enough reason to keep Mercy where she is.

Her winrate is continuing to drop, and after checking Overbuff (since that’s about the best we have in terms of stats), her winrate is now the lowest in the entire game, even lower than Bastion and Roadhog. And in GM, every hero has a 50+% winrate, except for Mercy. But Roadhog needs buffs because of his low winrate, but Mercy, who has a lower winrate, is balanced.

Okay, that’s enough ranting from me. For now, at least. This seems like a handful to read, to me at least, so here is a brief TL;DR: Mercy is a shadow of what she once was; Valk encourages a playstyle that is too passive; the rework goes against what Mercy was supposed to be; and her winrate is continuing to drop lower and lower.

[Céleste-22503]

Ana is a difficult heroine, but nano is easier and better than Valk.

[QuizzyBunny-2512]

Well, on that we can agree!