The recurring issue I’m seeing is that the developers buff or nerf characters for the sake of buffing or nerfing them without putting real thought into what they should be buffing or nerfing about them. They’re looking at a character and going, “Oh, that’s too strong/weak.” They’re not considering what the hero is actually meant to be.
As a result, we have several heroes stuck in identity crises. Mercy is stuck in limbo between a main-healer and an off-healer. Sigma is stuck between a main-tank and an off-tank. Brigitte is stuck between a backline peeler, a frontline brawler, and allied flanker support. They need to decide what each hero is actually meant to be and then tailor the buffs/nerfs according to that vision.
Well, I personally, think that was actually a success at their initial stated goals around the time of mercys rework but more solidified with symms and torb reworks.
To make a hero universal , you need them to be…bland. you eliminate the area they excel in.
I just think that basically you eliminated the flavor various heroes had. Because they been purposefully worked to be plain ol turkey deli meat on white bread.
Like, instead of people choosing what they would eat, you ordered bland food for everyone . But that honestly , imo rarely works. That’s like a soft opening or beta thing to do. I think people who get serious about anything…want niches. They want to excel in or have something they purchase more curated to their tastes.
I think blizzard succeeded… In their goal of making heroes bland.
In their balances, developers in a hurry to end Goats, started simply trying to solve everything with high / low damage, high / low healing and whether or not they have a shield. This disregarded what all the characters had as a focus and, thus, having to do everything better, thus making some heroes that are no longer good, like Symmetra, suffer from the lack of what was necessary.
For them to resolve this, they would have to review the damage and healing of all characters, then returned to giving characteristics that help the characters to perform their functions, thus differentiating them and forcing them to change characters. In doing so, Brigitte, Baptiste, Sigma and Echo lost everything that made them meta / op and will finally win their own, but not dominant, place in the game, causing Mercy to finally breathe after so long.
Actually, that vision isn’t a bad one at all. The problem is that they didn’t commit to it. They instead forced Resurrect into her base kit, and that consumed so much of her power budget that there wasn’t enough left for the actual “healing” aspect. Now Mercy’s primary functions are being a mobile instant respawn and a weapon augmentation for her DPS. She’s only able to serve as a main healer when the team she’s played in doesn’t need much healing in the first place.
There’s also the issue that there’s nothing in Mercy’s kit that actually feels powerful, like it has the ability to change the tide of a fight, except for pulling out the pistol and killing the enemies yourself. Why is the most impactful thing that the game’s one dedicated healer can do is to pull out a gun and shoot someone?
mercy has been a hot topic on these forums for years. shes one of the most controversial heroes which is crazy since she doesnt really KILL people en masse like the other heroes.
What is so frustrating about playing against Valkyrie? Mercy can’t do anything, if you decide to bombard her team with damage, besides watching from above, how they all die.
Which is why, as there are attempts to push her into killing. Pistol is nearly only part of Mercy, that received actual buffs from her pre-rework state.
I actually think Valk is broken compared to mass rez. You get AoE healing or damage boost (which in my opinion is insane) allowing you to basically win a fight guaranteed unless the enemy mass cc’s your team. Bombarding her team with damage isn’t really that consistent of a threat compared to Valks consistent healing and dmg boost.
Not to mention Mass rez only granted mercy 1.5 seconds of invuln and Valk basically makes mercy unkillable for 15 seconds unless she gets caught out (which can definitely happen but her passive healing is crazy making it so she has amble warning to get out of a situation that would kill her).
The only thing that was annoying about mass rez was that Mercy could sneak away from a fight to pull off a big rez. And this problem was treatable too… ugh I will never forgive Blizzard for this rework lol.
Would agree, if Valkyrie wasn’t so pathetically weak. Damage boost is reliant on your team’s ability to use it, and healing can be easily overwhelmed with focus fire or burst damage.
I mean most support ults power come from your teams ability to use it. Nanoboost, AMP Matrix, and even Rally. Defensive support ults are more of reactive abilities that prevent team wiping ultimates and Coalescence is and interesting idea but not for a character like Moira who should honestly have a more utility driven ultimate since she lacks that within her base kit.
But since Valks duration is so long you are almost always guaranteed value when you use it provided you have at least 2+ allies nearby. Plus it makes rez easier to pull off and … rez is still broken imo even with all the restrictions it has.
If you can’t get value from 1 ally, you can forget about value in general.
I used to make statistic of “team cooperation”. 1 player actually cooperating is most common scenario, 2 - average (40-50%), 3 and more are nearly impossible to find “in wild”.
Unfortunately, I need that value concentrated in space and time. Not thinly spread across those 15 seconds.
