Why I Have Yet to Not Despise Mercy's Current State

Yes, because Valk wasn’t worth much outside of rez.

Guess if you play Mercy in regular game, not some extra coordinated environment, you should forget about rez. It doesn’t exist anymore, E ability is a myth.

Exactly. What I said was taken out of context. My next couple of sentences were conveniently left out even though they were in relation to what he quoted.

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More like all of her nerfs and buffs were a result of her entire kit, and not just one part of it. Basically Mercy was just perfect for any team comp ever, which can’t be said about any other hero, especially healers.

Yeah honestly the only buff I agreed with during that was Lucio’s, he desperately needed his aura range back. Ana’s was certainly not needed.

She wasn’t best for any team comp, but she could work with any comp. It’s never been a problem: other healers still were better choice for their comp.

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Rez and Valk were the only two parts of her kit that really changed with the rework. 60 HPS was never a problem. Rez and Valk have a power struggle, which was predicted almost a year ago.

Ana needed a buff. I’m okay with what she got, although some would rather have more survival.

My comment about the healers was more… they either could have nerfed Mercy’s healing or buffed the other supports. They did both.

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Semantics aside, I agree. The only team comp she wasn’t bar none the best at was quad tank, ironically the only time Moira has been meta in a team comp.

… I don’t know if you realize what the word “omit” means. Of course I “omitted” it from my first “argument”. Because I immediately talked about it in my second paragraph. That’s how this works. Typically to make several points in quick succession you have to start with one then go to the other. Shocking. Anyway, I’m being overly fastidious here.

I played her because I love healing classes. Was a resto druid for ten years. Loved Blizzard. Went “meh” at Overwatch initially because I’m garbo at FPS. Then discovered Lucio and Mercy on the beta. I could be impactful while not worrying too much about my aim! This game is incredible! It was made for people like me! I can work on my aim now that I really love this game and the characters. This is really neat.

But man, I just love Mercy. I love her mobility and how could anyone not feel freaking awesome getting a successful rez off and turning around a fight? People forget, in their crying about “negated moments of awesome,” that a rez was a HUGE moment of awesome for Mercy and her team. Nothing will beat that. But even without, I just loved zipping around the battlefield.

If people wanted a pocket, then I wasn’t going to be a great partner for them. Sure, if I was playing with friends I may have paid a little more attention to boosting their DPS but also I may kiss the behind of the blessed soul who came to spawn to pick me up.

Thing is, I had a choice. Mercy was fantastic at taking care of entire teams, entirely solo, OR if there was another healer (rare when there were only three initially, then we got Ana which was great!) I could go “hey this Hanzo is doing really well, let me take care of him.”

C H O I C E. We don’t have much of that with Mercy now. “Should I damage boost or heal?” Probably heal, honey, because that tank’s healthbar goes up slower than molasses. “Who should I prioritize my beam on?” Nah, Valkyrie just covers everyone, no reason to do anything but skybox and put a paperweight on M1. “Should I use my rez?” This, granted, is still a decision to be made, but it was always a heck of a lot more interesting to think, “Should I rez the tank or save my ult for if we lose another person? Does that Zarya have Ult and will she kill us immediately after this rez? Where is the Reaper?”

Versus “well this is a safe rez I guess let’s go for it.”

Actually, I guess her new ult does have some decision making to it: “should I use Valk to fly back to spawn faster or to kill this Widow?”

Except she had all of this utility before. She could rez as a reward for good healing or clutch boosting and/or staying slippery and alive. She had both beams, it’s not like they added those. Her mobility has always been incredible and imagine if they replaced Sound Barrier with an ability that let Lucio fly. Lucio already had fantastic mobility and some of the time they wouldn’t even have to touch the ground at all. This would be the same with great Mercy players who could stay in the air regardless of if their ult let them fly around.

The only thing Valkyrie changed in terms of “utility” is obviously the chain beaming, but as I said previously, this takes away a lot of the thought process behind her initial kit. Other ultimates can also do what she does in Valkyrie better without immobilizing the character completely (save Zenyatta of course, but Lucio and Orisa are just fine).

Valkyrie is hardly an ult in its current iteration. No, I don’t want the 30 second long double rez charge OP monstrosity we got initially (although I miss the speed) but Valkyrie functions wayyyyy more like an E ability than rez does. What gamemaking plays have you made with Valkyrie lately?

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I’m hella rambling. I need ice cream, not debates. Can’t we all agree to disagree agreeably and understand that all of our times could be better spent playing Monster Hunter World? Yes? Good.

She wasn’t best with other comps either, other healers still had more healing/utility. Her strength was in her versatility, and healers are not that common to be picky.

It’s always better in uncoordinated games, when players can pick whatever and not worry about healer being unable to heal them.

Get me some ice cream too. I’ll take a black raspberry cone from Handels.

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The entire games moment was changed specifically to give mercy more fluid mobility. Then they created the slingshot glitch which was then turned into bunny hopping which drastically increased her mobility.

I disagree. Rez a really strong ability, with a heavy risk for using it wrong. Valk is an offensive ult with defensive capabilities. As they are now, both of them mesh well with her design.

I also disagree with this. Ana’s biggest problem, albeit, after they gave her back her 3 combo, was that she was competing with mercy, who was just better at everything. Triple support was a great example of that, with grav+dragon combo.

almost a year of being a must pick through multiple meta’s with very different team comps kind of disagree’s.

If you can just pick Mercy and allow your team to be flexible, why go against that?
She is dedicated healer, after all, which means she isn’t contributing in damage, unlike every other healer.

Resurrect as ability is either brokenly overpowered or pathetically weak. It was ult for a good reason.

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Her GA bug doesn’t have anything to do with the mess this rework has been.

Valk is a regular ability that lasts for 15 seconds. Rez is so horrible in terms of how it feels to use and how restricted it is in use. The changes for the two abilities are incredibly drastic overall. I absolutely hate how it has turned out. I hate Valk so much that I’d rather she not have an ult at all. It’s pathetic.

I don’t feel like discussing Ana, tbh.

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No one asked for the Mercy Meta. I hate the argument that this is what Mercy “deserves” after it. Although I know this is not what you said exactly, you can find that exact phrasing all over the forums, YouTube commentary, the main OW subreddit, the comp OW subreddit, and let’s not even talk about the circle//jerk hate subreddit.

I don’t think anyone would agree that Ana “deserved” anything after her domination of the meta for quite some time. Yet she was ignored for an unbelievable amount of time unjustly. The difference here is that the playerbase gives a flying fuzz about Ana’s viability, while Mercy players are told to “adapt,” “learn another hero”, “guess you can’t be boosted anymore,” “stop crying cos your angel isn’t OP anymore,” “this is what you deserve.”

If OWL hadn’t taken up such focus, the Mercy Meta trainwreck would hardly have lasted quite so long and I think the game as a whole would be much more enjoyable right now. The best thing to happen to me in that meta was when other support players went, “Oh thank god I don’t have to play her.”

No one wanted any of that. All we want now is a little bit of fairness. Maybe even some dev response, but I know, easier to expect a unicorn.

Edit: actually, Mercy was viable in many comps because she allowed for many comps. She could solo heal, which meant if you wanted two tanks, 3 dps, one Mercy, you weren’t immediately crippling yourself by not conforming to 2/2/2. Furthermore, has Zenyatta ever not been a fantastic choice on any team? Where’s the outrage for him?

( don’t get outraged at zen I love him )

Admittedly, I quit some time ago so I don’t actually know how well Ana can do solo healing. I imagine fairly well but her survivability would make me far too nervous.

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More importantly, even PTR feedback on rework had warning: resurrect is NOT balanced as ability. Some players thought it’s overpowered, some that it’s underpowered, but no one called it balanced.

Yet Blizzard still went through with it, and somehow it’s Mercy players to blame. Same players, who were screaming: It’s not balanced, don’t release that.

What happened next, we all know: Mercy meta for 6 months, angry players, and Blizzard throwing nerf after nerf to put genie back in the bottle. It’s not like no one was warned, that it may happen, but warnings were falling on deaf ears.

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My point exactly.

Well when you pick apart a point and ignore the full of it it, yeah it is omission.

I honestly completely sympathize with you, and I’m right behind you in the whole blizzard did Mercy mains dirty by completely changing her entire playstyle. I just want to clarify there’s a big difference between the casual player and the more hardcore scene. The hardcore scene is what typically flocks to the esports scene of the game. Now, when I said “the reason you pick mercy to begin with”. I wasn’t talking about any specific person for the reason they love her and enjoy her as a character. I was specifically talking about the hardcore scene. I’m sorry if that caused confusion or struck a nerve of some kind, i honestly didn’t intend to.

See, this is a big problem that I’ve been trying to explain to titanium a few times now. I know for a fact people do pop valk specifically to fly back to spawn and regroup because they think it’s useless, which drastically lowers her overall healing average. Meanwhile in high elo, people who make the most use of valk for initiation, damage boosting their entire team for 30% offensively and then falling back to healing their entire team through trash damage in that same initiation, those numbers will spike considerably. It’s because of this reason some of the best Mercy players were doing 15-17k average healing, when Moira was at 14k and Ana was 10k. In that perspective, mercy by all accounts had an insane amount of healing, even more so than Moira who I hope we can both agree has nothing going for her but healing. This is one of the biggest reasons for bringing her healing down. Even after the nerf, Mercy’s healing average in GM is pretty much par with Moira.

I’m not saying I agree with it, though I will say it was one of the better options to balance her new kit.

The entire momentum for the game was changed to make mercy’s ga more fluid, as well as giving her the ability to fly. She gained an extra mechanic to her GA in bunny hop that increased her overall mobility ten fold. Damage boost has always been strong as it synergises with many hero’s and like I just tried to explain above, Mercy had an insane healing average compared to the healer that only can heal. With much easier mechanics that don’t include a resource to achieve that kind of healing average. On top of all of this. Res on E was brand new, and deffinitly needed tweaks as by all accounts it is powerful and could be ult worthy, which is why all of the nerfs to it have tuned it right down.

She’s gained a lot more that you should really give some credit too.

I never said anyone did. I was pointing out what happened because of a result of her new kit being unbalanced. She was in fact the go to healer through multiple meta’s. That’s not a dig or saying she deserves being nerfed or deserves to be unfun. That was exactly what it was saying, She was the go to healer. No reason to get up in arms here.

I do agree this was a pretty big factor, but I think it should also be pointed out just how much backlash blizzard got everytime they tried to balance her.

Just like she always was in tiers, where Ana couldn’t be played for different reasons(bad aim or lack of team coordination).

You know how bad of a rework is if the only good thing that came out of it was a bug.

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So much PTR feedback gets ignored, it’s sad. I’m actually surprised though when Mercy had a really weird rez during Valk bug back in the day, a blue actually acknowledged it with a blue post and they fixed it.