What happened between then and now?

[Xaron-1831]

@JeffreyKaplan

Mercy is the 3rd most played hero in the current competitive season and in the game for the past month. Her win rate hovers very close to 50%.

We don’t feel like Mercy needs changes right now.

@GeoffGoodman

Mercy

• Primary fire healing beam reduced 17% from 60 HP/s to 50 HP/s.

So, what happened in the last two months that took Mercy from “she’s fine cuz pickrate/winrate, we’re not changing her” to

@GeoffGoodman

Mercy is intended to be able to consistently pump out more healing than any other healer over the course of a match. While this is currently true, the difference in healing is so significant that it makes it very difficult for other healers to compete with her for a spot on a team. Reducing her healing output will close this gap a little, but she will still maintain her status as the go-to pick for raw healing power. We’ll keep an eye on her to make sure she is still a strong pick.

[Positive-11139]

Butcher supports which will make Tanks even more nonexistent. Damage power creep is coming.

[NoMercy-12994]

People started crying for no reason about her on forums. So Blizzard responded with a nerf that nobody asked for.

[AzshFayd-21844]

The rework happened

It’s just the ongoing effects of this trainwreck of a rework

[DarkElixir-2124]

I’m guessing they don’t have a good understanding of how balance changes affect the game so their predictions are generally wrong and statements they make about balance changes have little data backing them up when they are written.

Which means you can’t trust what they say as being the actual truth of the situation.

Effectively don’t take anything written to heart as sooner or later it may be contradicted.

[Positive-11139]

Also, Doomfist will must likely get an nerfed in the near future.

[Nebula-11568]

They knew she was still op, they just wanted to pretend the rework was still a success.

Lol how ignorant. Give us the revert.

[Fruitslayer-21286]

OWL started playing more solo healer comps with Mercy.

[Orion-1432]

I’m not really sure what happened, because she’s been neck and neck with Moira’s healing from the stats I can see while Moira also provides orders of magnitude more damage. This nerf will most likely cause Moira to overtake Mercy’s healing output. A hybrid main healer will overtake the game’s pure healer, and Mercy will fall into obscurity in high-ranked play where people actually care about winning.

People started crying for no reason about her on forums.

There was a reason. It was Mercy’s pick rate. It doesn’t matter that she isn’t actually the most powerful support (which is Zen, by the way, who is not receiving changes). It doesn’t matter that people pick her just because they like her appearance. It doesn’t matter that she isn’t actually a must-pick to win. The simple fact that Mercy was the most-picked support was enough for people to complain, nevermind the fact that damage heroes STILL have vastly superior pick rates compared to Mercy relative to the other heroes that can fill the same slot in a team.

So Blizzard responded with a nerf that nobody asked for.

No, people have asked for this. The same people who keep crying that Mercy is a must-pick, when she isn’t, have asked to nerf her healing beam.