I’ve always looked at mercy’s Valkyrie and never really seen what is the point of it. Lucio’s sound barrier can be more classified as a defense ult while a nano boost can be a “making someone OP” type of ability. But I could never put my finger on what Valkyrie is meant to be.
I’ve played mercy more than 400+ hours and I can never tell when is the right time to use it. I’ve always seen it as just… an ability rather than a ultimate. And I see ressurect more like an ultimate on cooldown. I would normally just use the ultimate whenever I felt like it because typically I would just get it back quickly again because of mercy’s ultimate charge.
So other mercy mains, what’s your thoughts on mercy’s ultimate and what do you think it’s best used for?
Valk isn’t a game changing ultimate. The biggest thing you could do with it is probably kill an enemy and then rez a teammate by hovering over them.
I mostly just pop it whenever I want (usually right before a fight so I can keep everyone alive and/or kill a flanker).
I actually don’t mind it being less game changing because it means I can feel free to use it whenever I want without having someone micro manage my ult or yell at me for ulting at the wrong time.
I’ve always considered it the healer version of supercharger. You use it as it gives your entire team the opportunity to have more stuff going on than the enemy team. It’s not reactionary (unless you use it for self protection) you use it pre-emptively when you think a fight’s victor isn’t yet determined, but may be determined by having more healing/damage.
People complain hard about enemies getting a Mercy pocket. Mercy pockets effectively turn a 1v1 into a 2v1 despite Mercy not shooting anyone.
With Valkyrie, everyone on Mercy’s team gets a pocket. Her value is quintupled for 15 seconds. And that’s not counting the bonuses she gains to self regeneration, stronger GA, and free flight.
Valkyrie is best used to give Mercy ridiculous survivability + a hard pocket on all her allies for the duration of an entire fight. The damage boost is big, the healing is more than enough in many cases.
The ultimate is very strong, it’s just that its output is spread out over 15 seconds as opposed to faster ults. Orisa’s Supercharger is similar, but it’s stronger with the drawback that it can be destroyed very easily - essentially it can gain the impact of a big ult while also having a long duration because of that drawback. Mercy’s ult cannot be destroyed very easily, so its team boost isn’t as effective as Orisa’s.
if the team is smart and stays together, not like platinum teams do that they separate and all you can do is fly around all the map trying to pocket 1 by 1 and praying some of them get together xD
Also when you use valks to start a fight with a big advantage and the team backs up and wont start the fight until your ultimate ends.
Man playing solo as mercy is trash xd vietnam flashbacks
Valk is a great ultimate tbf. The range extension allows mercy to be present in every fight unless it’s hidden in a corridor or something, she can boost or heal everyone who needs it at exactly the moment they need to ensure a win.
Like, people still need to play, but it’s essentially a guaranteed win in an even fight, or could turn a loss into a fair fight
That’s in timing. I will agree that guaranteed the full value for the full duration is very unlikely, but the circumstances of its maximum potential aren’t that difficult to fulfill. Regardless it allows Mercy to put exponentially more value over a fight than she usually does, allowing her to sustain the core of her team when necessary.
That’s 15+ seconds bought, if you’re talking the enemy team. Time is extremely valuable, given that win progress is based largely upon time.
If it’s your team…
The value of the ultimate is generally on par with the others.
If your team is bad, every ultimate is bad. An ill-coordinated Deadeye catches no one and claims no space, an Earthshatter with no followup is lucky to let the Reinhardt live if he wants to capitalize on the stun (since he can pick one target but the others will all gang up on him), a Nano Boost on an ally not ready for it is often fumbled.
But if we’re talking peak usage of the ultimate it’s just as good as any other.
Valk is an engagement ultimate. You use it to start a push or use it to heal your team up. It’s the most flexible support ultimate as you can do multiple things. It’s actually a pretty underrated ult. It’s an ult that powers up other ults or makes everyone charge ult faster because damage amp
Multiple heal.
Multiple power up.
Fast flight to a resurrect not easily reached otherwise.
Stable hover out of reach from enemy team to heal/hide.
Quick escape from flanking DPS.
Boost multiple targets for faster ults.
Tank saver.
Widow killer.
Phara killer.
Unlimited ammo/shield breaker/ulting Reaper killer.
Last ditch point hold.
Speed flight to get back to match from spawn.
Enemy ult baiting.
Enemy kiting.
Escape Genji ult (he’s coming for you. Always).
Escape Junk ult (that tire has your name on it. Always.)
Shortcut path around some maps.
Life saver if booped off a cliff/edge/well.
Longer beam length? (Not sure about that. It seems that way though)
My game style with Mercy, since I get my ultimate so much, is to use it early and often. It’s a team powerup for their ults. My team will always have them first if I have my way. The only time I will hold onto it is if I know the enemy Genji or Junk has their ult and you can tell they are positioning to use it.
It’s bar none, the most useful, multifaceted ult in the game IMHO. Its strength is its flexibility.
It’s situational, I tend to use after a few cool downs are used during a fight to clean up. Especially if we have brawlers and they are going in for final tick . . . Or if a HP drainer but not insta kill ult is used like Torb’s and our team has to bite the bullet to cross / contest where the spillage is at.
If my dps are ultra newbs / experimenting sometimes I’ll use it to net a few kills to help us cap or push along . . .
Sometimes I use it defensively if GA is out and someone is focusing on me.
The double beam length and mobility helps me managed multiple “teams” as in the case in my rank .
I’ve valked and dmg boosted when my whole team (except me) was caught in grav (and we got got their team killed trying to move in with one loss, which I rez’d) . Another one was dmg boosting our team caught in flux and I was hoping they’d focus him and it paid off as someone shot down sig before he could finish the ult.
Some crazy valk’s I’ve seen by my team mercy is she valks and chased the junk tire like police helicopter, and shooting at it until she got it. Then she goes after the junk rat. The junk was a really good junk rat was farming our team, every other two, he was on the kill feed. He was focusing on me (mei) but then threw the game trying to focus hunt down our mercy (but she was ninja mercy) as she and the solider both had gotten the prior rip tire. Lucky game as we barely eeked out the win.
A funny one was valk mercy tried to go battle mercy and after the enemy widow (she was getting shots in but missing) , but the widow got a head shot on her and the Zen goes, “Waste of an ult but not really.”
OW is a 6v6 where picks make the difference between wins and losses. If Tracer is lucky, she gets 1 kill with her ult. If Mcree is lucky he snags two. Most DPS ults are considered valuable if they can secure 1-2 kills.
But apparently it’s not that big of a deal if Mercy can kill 1-2 people, AND secure a super safe REZ to bring someone back to life, AND be basically immortal for 15 seconds as the team’s main support, AND provide mass 60 HPS through shields and mass 30% damage amp…
THANK YOU. I’m so tired of other Mercy mains not getting this.
Valkyrie is like if you created 5 clones of Mercy for 15 seconds and each one was pocketing someone on your team (with higher HPS) and they were all immortal. Teamwide damage amp and Mercy pocket for 15 seconds through shields while being MOBILE and having 30m beam range is crazy. It’s way more versatile than Orisa ult
Not to mention how you can secure a rez pretty much guaranteed during it and secure picks on the enemy DPS/supports
Agree 100% as a GM Mercy main with 1,000+ hours on her. I LOVE how flexible, impactful, and game changing Valkyrie can be and how fast it charges.
I can use it to stop dives on my backline with the healing, while keeping myself alive, and then damage amp my Zen/Mcree to shred the divers who jumped them
The beam and GA range buffs let you support people wherever they are on the map with no danger to yourself for once
You can pull off what would normally be risky rezzes by using regen and freeflight
Mass damage amp is good for pocketing ult pushes but also for building teamwide ult economy
If it’s not big and flashy enough, people start to lose understanding of the big picture. Most other ultimates have one specific and obvious purpose, whereas Mercy’s is a multipurpose tool that enhances all aspects of the character.
It’s purpose is certainly more vague than other ultimates, but just because it isn’t a spectacle like Beat or Trans doesn’t mean people should overlook all of the obviously good effects.
I use when my team is pushing the enemy or defending against an enemy push because of the damage boosting. I heal them if they need it but I mostly use it for the damage boost. I’ll also use it as a way to avoid certain enemy ultimates.
