They made it so damage boosts only apply to projectiles when they’re being fired not when they make contact
I’d make it shorter, and either make it stronger, or better, just make her base kit stronger. I got sick of putting my healing beam on someone, and then watching them die.
I expect they did that because it made Pharmercy weaker, without impacting the rest of the combinations.
It means they are more free to buff Pharah or Damage boost (or both) without Pharmercy becoming even stronger.
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Oh yeah, completely forgot about that.
Honestly not sure how I feel about it…
if it were up to me, base healing would be buffed to 55, her original 60 might be overkill.
As for Valk, I agree with you on making it shorter and more powerful, but I also really like Megadodo’s “Big mains / little chains” proposal, which makes the main healing/damage-boost beam be much more powerful than they are currently, while making any chained targets receive a smaller buff. Don’t remember the exact numbers, and that doesn’t really matter, cuz the important thing is that this gives you something to prioritize, to strategize, rather than just hovering and holding left/right click to absentmindedly aid your whole team.
While I resent mercy being nerfed as a means of nerfing Pharmercy, if it means they’re ready to buff Pharah so that she’s independently viable without needing any more Mercy nerfs, I’m fine with the latest damage boost change. I don’t feel like it’s affected me that much tbh.
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IMO, I would make Valk beam be greatly improved on the main target, and make the branching beams weaker.
Eg, the main target is healed by 90 HPS, but the branches only get 30 HPS. Damage boost on main target becomes 50%, but on branches become 15%.
This would give Mercy back target prioritization on her beams instead of “target anyone in the middle and it’s done”. 90 HPS is also strong enough that it might help keeping a main target alive, but not strong enough to overshadow Coalescence, or be a major problem on low ranks.
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It wasn’t back in v1.0, so they it is possible to make it not now, but, I’m not sure if they would have to change Rez.
I don’t see eye to eye with Megadodo often, but, big mains / little chains is an amazing suggestion, and I am a huge fan of it. If we are to keep Valk, it is a good change.
That is pretty much how I feel about it.
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This proposal is definitely older than this thread. I think I read about it shortly after the rework, but people were more worried about Rez being too strong at the time (and it was) than making Valkyrie more decision-based.
But yeah, this specific change is probably the most accessible way to make Valkyrie more fun. I love that more people are accepting it as a viable option.
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No argument there, I’m thinking back to early Valk when Mercy was undeniably OPAF. they kept gutting her to make her fair, and I think they finally went too far when they dropped her from 60 to 50 and buffed every other healer in the same patch. Because they did both at the same time I’ll never know whether 60 would have still been too much even after buffing everyone else. I offer 55 as a more reasonable compromise if the majority opinion is that 60 was still too much, but I’m not strictly against giving her back the 60.
It’s the best suggestion I’ve ever seen in the forums. On any topic.
Megadodo admits that this has been a working idea for a while, inspired in part by even earlier posts. This is merely the latest revision of Megadodo’s take on the idea. I don’t agree with all of it, but the chaining thing is brilliant and i can’t imagine ever going back to thinking Valk is better off the way it is than it would be with those changes.
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correction the devs said they are monitoring her to ensure she is still the top consistent healer which is in contention sometimes. So no not “fine” but not as bad as people make it out to be.
She’s definitely not awful, she just don’t feel good in a number of ways. For a handful of different reasons, to a variety of people… Some complaints are more reasonable than others, but everyone is entitled to think that Mercy isn’t as fun as she used to be, or as she should be, without it having to mean that she isn’t technically balanced.
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Mercy has always been a problem for them to balance, to be fair. They had to abandon their Time played vs SR balancing because of her.
The theory was people roughly gain skill at the same rate as each other.
So, as people play a hero, you would expect them, on average to gain roughly the same amount of SR as people playing other heroes in the same rank.
You could plot a chart with average SR, vs time played on hero for their one tricks, and all the heroes SHOULD end up looking roughly the same.
But, Mercy was a TOTAL outlier in how she was played. The Mercy mains would wrack up CRAZY hours on her, far far far more than anyone else.
Which would mean, you would expect, if the game was balanced correctly using that method, that GM would be packed to the brim with Mercy mains, after all, they put in the hours getting good with her more than anyone else did.
You can see the issue there right?
From that point of view, Moth mercy MAY have been actually balanced. But in reality, it just couldn’t be the case.
What WAS funny was the ones who played her a lot previously went up a lot of SR, and the people who claimed she lacked in skill expression, but never played her before came on, and was in direct competition with people running 500+ hours on her, and sank like rocks.
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Statistically she is balanced, however the flow of her kit is awkward to use-which can give the impression that she’s not “as good”.
With the fact that her healing was reverted to 50hps (when it was buffed to 60hps when Burst Damage wasn’t as common as it is now) really showed how awkward the power balance is for her kit.
Blizz likes to mention how her mobility along with consistent healing is what makes Mercy an interesting healer to play. However although her healing output may be greater over the span of the match, it really cannot do much to sustain against burst damage, or focus damage.
Her mobility is hindered by her “big power move” when it’s actually in use. I still firmly believe any basic ability (ie not ults) that FORCES you to slow down/nearly come to a stop comes off jarring and can ruin the flow of a character (Mercy’s Rez, Reaper’s Shadowstep [though yay finally it’s being addressed] and Symm’s current TP) for example).
Her rework shows that they really didn’t know how to properly balance the power of her kit-and sadly it still shows. A lot of Mercy players I’ve watch still treat Valk as an ability over as an ult because they tend to find it more effective that way (in a similar vain that DeadEye was used as a reload [though seeing that lessened ever since the nerf to FTH] and Meteor Strike as an additional mobility move).
In addition to that, I’ve been seeing more Mercys SAVE rez for Valk since the speed reduction has been adjusted in Valk-and this was something Blizzard wanted to PREVENT from happening.
I honestly think Mercy was the worse handled reworked character not only with how awkwardly balanced her kit is, but with how the rework was presented and announced. I think THAT is the biggest reason for why the Mercy posts are still active. The explanations and reasoning seemed to fall to only one end of the spectrum and not cover it as a whole (I’ve been playing since UPRISING when it first came out and I never had to deal with a hiding Mercy nor have I had the deal with a “press Q and win Mass Rez” either).
I do hope they take a chance to look over her kit and possibly rework the balance of it so it actually flows nicer.
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Thats the problem right there. The devs think she is balanced because some numbers in a spreadsheet line up the way they want.
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Whaaaaaaat? You mean, when she was weak and underpowered there was an option other than to give her INVULNERABILITY then give up and change it completely…?
You should look up “tyranny of the majority”
Looking through the responses you’ve given it seems you think that your not really interested in why people still post. Or maybe you just don’t understand that someone can have a different perspective to you and that neither are necessarily right or wrong.
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I don’t think they actually think she is fine, but they don’t have a good answer right now, and don’t want the media buzz around a problem they don’t have a solution for.
So, she is ‘fine’
Statistics are good to have, however if a character plays and handles poorly people will either stop playing them or adapt and play in an “unconventional” method.
Lets use Reaper as an example. I can understand why they made Shadowstep to function the way they did; he’s incredibly powerful at close range and if Shadowstep didn’t have set limitations he could become very OP and broken. However instead of finding a way to have it flow with his kit and playstyle, there were and I believe still are Reaper mains who’ve learned to play WITHOUT ever needing to use Shadowstep.
An ability that is ignored/not bothered to be used just show’s it’s a badly designed ability.
Again this falls into Rez and how I’ve been seeing a lot of Mercys hold off on it until Valk so that they can keep the flow of their play and not have the as jarring slow down.
(Lets also not forget that her rez is officially Moot in UPRISING since ally-rez is just better all around with the greater area, the better consistency, the no slowing down, and that you can do other things while using it.)
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They actually think she is fine. They are treating game balance as an accounting spreadsheet. As long as certain numbers line up everything is fine in their eyes.
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these mad conspiracies going on yo
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Mercy 1.0 racked up an incredibly loyal playerbase because she had an addicting, immersive “flow state” that no Overwatch character has been able to come even close to. Not even Mercy herself, after the rework.
There was a ying and yang of internal, high pressure puzzle solving and external “survival horror on steroids” that was largely enabled by how multirez affected your gamesense and enemy reaction to you. Once it was replaced by Valkyrie, that in-the-zone feeling of “open your third eye and ascend to a higher state of being” was just… gone.
Loss Aversion is a powerful thing. The Mercy rework caused a reaction that would not be dissimilar to if the church found the holy grail, but then it got stolen. There’s going to be a crusade to get that precious thing back, and it’s not going to stop until their goal is met or everyone is dead… or in the Mercy rework’s case, burnt out and left Overwatch for other games.
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