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

General Discussion
1566

Can you elaborate on that? I would like to know why you think that.

Current res has also many other things which make it far stronger than Mass Res ever could be, like the CD and the unpredictability.
We never had a real cast time on Mass Res and after looking at many complains of Mass Res, all falls back to it not having preemptive counter play.
That is very fixable and i think that invulnerability res would have been very well balanced with a cast.

Also
1.x res was not even close to be the same as 2.x res, in terms of the issues/requirements. That gambling factore is only on E res for example.

I don’t see that. Calling res the only thing which is undoing something is just wrong. All supports remove progress, Zen’s and Lucio’s Ult even better than Mass Res.
On top of that, Mass Res was always very predictable, but easier to use than the predictability could make it difficult. The higher risk not only eliminates issues like the myth of hide&res, it also makes the overall skill requirement to play her properly sharper while keeping her easy to pick up.

The risk is only there to make it harder to use for that. Because not only do you need to time the res, you also have to aim it. The fact that it’s not as railroaded as the old res makes waiting for 4+ ress almost too risky, but still possible (with a lot of awareness and thinking). If the Mercy player thinks he/she can just fly in and out for a win, he/she would be very wrong.

But anyway, the higher risk is only to make it more difficult, the healing burst is the thing which encourages midfight use and discourages waiting for a dead team. Just think about Zarya. She loses her charge if she dies, so it would be better to use the res in the fight to keep the power up continuously. As an example.

The only 2 problems of that (Mass Res) are hide and res and no preemptive counter play. Both (One for sure and one would need long time testing) would be addressed with the suggested rework, with out making Mercy feel dull, boring or unimpactful to play.

Glad that you like it.
But the amount of resed players should stay at max 5, to avoid confusion and stiff gameplay. Her charge rate as well. It’s good how it is. Pacify wouldn’t offer much more charge anyway.

We had that in mind while making this concept. If you overread it… No ability in the suggested kit slowes or stops her movement.

3 Likes
1567

Well then they are gonna lose popularity and the OW department of blizz will be called “The first failure of blizzard” as the game’s almost-dead body is already rotting away, waiting for the peaceful death.

2 Likes
1568

Ain’t gonna be peaceful :stuck_out_tongue:

1569

How should I put this… with Pacify… it is a nice idea because right now there is only a handful of Buff and debuff and status effects… but I feel that Buff/Debuff should NOT become a core feature of Mercy’s kit.

Instead we should have a Mercy/Zen hybrid that specialises in Buff/Debuff/Status abilities whilst able to deliver stronger support or healing that gives people a reason to select them over Mercy.

At the moment, the closest thing to replacing Mercy as a Main Primary Healer is Moira and Ana and they have their down downsides which makes them not ideal for certain situations.

The burst Healing and Overheal idea was suggested quite some time ago… about half a year ago in fact.

The idea was passed onto Brigitte it seems…

In terms of the instantaneous Burst Healing, maybe this might not be a good idea unless they nerf her healing more.

50HPS was her former and current healing. If we were good enough to solo heal in Season 2/3/4 then have 50HPS is just going to add frustration when she suddenly burst an entire team to full health and then works on gaining a 2nd burst.

She will not have to hold back like she has too with Res nor does she have to ignore her ult like she does with Valk.

It be charge, seems ok, burst, rework a 2nd charge, burst, rework a 3rd charge, burst, 4th charge… in the worst case scenario… you could end up with an undying team with only Ana being her effective counter.

1570

I love this breakdown! Tho if possible we can combine valk and res in one ability. Like res can’t be activated without valk. Then revert to 60-65hp/s.

1571

Unlikely… considering the problem with mass res was the fact that Mercy wouldn’t die when invulnerable was around.

Reverting back to death on res is basically sucking up to their own mistakes and going back on their words

Tempo res mechanic doesn’t work because Blizzard clearly did no foresee how OP it was and they don’t want Valkyrie to be focused on res

1572

I meant the current state of valk and res combined as an ult tho. Like single res just how vulnerable she is rn but during valk.

1573

Even in that case… Valkyrie wouldn’t be Valkyrie, but Resurrect. You would only use Val (or better said Resurrect in that case) for Resurrect. That just shows how badly Valkyrie fits Mercy’s kit.

3 Likes
1574

If you get hit by it while looking at an enemy and their HP bar, it’s hard to tell how many more shots it would take to kill something, especially if there’s armor or healing on the target. In some cases TTK would be substantially longer depending on if you rounded up or down to the nearest full point of HP. It’s like if you’ve ever tried dueling Pharah as McCree at long range prior to the falloff damage buff; you’re never quite sure if 6 shots can kill or if it’s worth shooting at the target, and the only way to find out is to keep shooting and pray.

That’s not quite the problem. With Trans or SB, you can burst through either, block the effects with barriers, CC or reposition to get things out of range, counter ult, etc. Similarly, there are many ways to counterengage when a DPS ult goes of and plenty of ways to change the outcome.

With mass rez the outcome of the fight pretty much comes down to if you kill the Mercy or not. The effects are too decisive for a single interaction like that, regardless of how hard or easy that is.

That was true of 1.0; I’m not convinced that additional risk will stop people. I foresee people trying anyway since it’s not extremely and undeniably obvious that tempo rez gets much of the reward for substantially less risk, and it absolutely should be. IMO the best way is to cap the number of rezzes and rebalance accordingly.

Current rez and pre rework pro usage of rez in Pharmercy comps show that tempo rez, often single target rez, is more than sufficient to get the intended effect. I maintain that being able to mass rez encourages hide and rez and suboptimal gameplay regardless of how effective it actually is.

I did overread it but the cast time still interrupts the fluidity of the character; if you’ve ever played a character with a long reload time it’s pretty much the same effect; about 1 sec where you can’t use abilities or shoot but have full movement control and it’s still very annoying.

I like this idea; I’ve previously suggested what was basically the offhealer version of that using AoE lingering heal/buff/debuff/damage over time. Having them as main heals would be interesting.

Pretty sure it was 60 for most of 3/4, and I’m not sure solo healing capability is the best metric. Bursting through 60hp/s, or even 80hp/s is quite doable. Like Ana’s recent nano buff is hardly out of place and no one really complains about the increased throughput during coalescence. This could probably use further iteration regardless but like, I like the direction it goes in, at least in terms of giving the ult more tactical flexibility, especially when using it offensively.

1575

The same stuff, provided that Mass Res has a cast time, applies to all 3 in the same way.
You don’t kill them? You have to deal with the effect.
You don’t CC or stop them? You have to deal with the effect.
If you have to deal with the effect, you have to change your strategy.
Be it bursting through it, CCing it or counter Ulting it.

I do see that if Mercy gets the res off, That it’s conclusive. But for that, the effects of it are really short (not more than 2.5s) other than SB and Trans.

If the informations of the healing burst are accordingly displayed, players would know that just waiting for everyone to die is a bad idea. Sure they will try, but the succeed rate will drop very hard, telling the players that it’s unviable to do that.

The higher risk should also not just stop them from taking cove, to avoid death. It only makes it harder while discouraging leaving the team. On top of that the new E ability would be very pointless if you just hide all the time, discouraging it even more.

I see your point, but then again, this version of Mercy is made to be like all the other heroes in the game. To be able to have an impact and not a 24/7 assist bot.
You see… If we make res a solo target Ult, i could see why. But that would leav Mercy in the same spot as right now. No game changing impact which feels good.

It’s still a game after all and with the changes she would feel good for casual play while beeing balanced and would be useful, but not a MP in pro play.
Reading a bit in the book from Nintendo.

I don’t see that to be honest. I for one have nothing against cast times because they make you think about, how you will use the ability. I only have something against them if they stop movement.
The gameplay would still be very fluid. Just think about that: Mercy always had a 1s animation in which she couldn’t do anything with Mass Res and that worked as well as a clockwork.

2 Likes
1576

There are many ways to mitigate the effects of SB and trans before, during and after cast and plenty of options for both sides. For mass rez it’s pretty much kill the Mercy within a 2-5 second window, or CC the Mercy within a .25~.75 second window after accounting for reaction time and projectile travel.

Suboptimal play shouldn’t feel good, that’s poor design. There’s certainly room for ideas here; personally I really like the idea of dual wielding during ult but it doesn’t fit the current demographic.

Being able to actually save people with that burst is going to be hard with a cast time; people complain about Lucio’s ult regularly. Also hide and rez had a low success rate regardless; as long as it feels good to do so people will try for it.

1577

I don’t really agree with you on that. Lucio’s and Mercy’s Ult would both be preemptively counterble in the same way (Killing, stuning, hacking and so on).
Zen’s Ult can’t be countered preemptively, that’s a fact. But the effect can be out played with CC, Burst or Anti nade. The only real counter to Lucio’s Ult is Hack. Everything else would be just the same as with Mercy’s. The fact that Mercy’s effect can’t be countered gets balanced by the very short duration of it.

If you mean with Suboptimal play Mass Res than i disagree. It was not Suboptimal, but very well placed and worked out.

Well… Transformation Ult’s are no realy fit fofr Mercy so i would say no to that. I also don’t like the concept of Mercy dual wielding.

Players would need to play her like old Mercy, but a bit more skillful. The fact that you need to hard track every player in the match was one of the most enjoyable things about Mercy.

I know that. But if it’s discouraged in so many ways, I think it will quickly die.

1 Like
1578

Considering the amount of stat debuff and and status effects a specialised Cleansing healer that can remove or protect people from status effects.

Or even a more versatile Damage over Time Support that specialised in poisons or something, though I guess Moira would be that…

As for the 50HPS thing… yeah I can’t remember which season it was changed lol

1 Like
1579

Hi, I do think the cooldown for pacify should be higher like minimum of 12 seconds and it’s effect should be a 30% damage reduction, blizzard doesn’t work with broken nunbers.

1580

The same patch Ana received her major first buffs, like 1 week after her apperence on live?

1581

Then why do we have Hanzo’s Storm Arrow?

2 Likes
1582

Ana has a nade that can deal 60 damage in an AoE, heal 100 hp, amplify all healing 50%, and deny all healing for 4 seconds.

On a 10 second cooldown.

Zen has an orb that increases all damage to a target for 30%.

On 0 cooldown.

Just for perspective.

5 Likes
1583

On top of that, Pacify is hitscan, meaning you have to have pretty decent aim to even land it.

1584

Not sure if anyone pointed this out before, but the math regarding Pacify doesn’t match it’s description.

In its description, it’s stated that:

Yet, in the explanation, it’s said that:

In these calculations, Pacify is applied last, not before other abilities, as stated in the description. You might want to clear this up.

3 Likes
1585

Pressuring out transcendence is a fairly standard practice; Zen has much less mobility and survivability than Mercy or Lucio. Also it doesn’t matter if the duration of rez is short, or that the effect can’t be countered; the important thing is that the teamfight is far from over despite SB or Trans successfully going off. A successful mass rez it basically instantly wins the fight barring someone that preemptively positioned to ult, and that doesn’t work as often as it should for a planned and well executed ult investment.

In most cases an earlier tempo rez would have worked better.

As for pulling it off, it usually requires hide and/or rez, or hoping that the enemy team makes a mistake. I suppose it could be well placed if the enemy team has previously demonstrated poor ult usage and never positions to interrupt but in most cases it’s simply an unwillingness to simply die and reset with the team and yolo ulting accordingly. At tiers where people don’t yolo ult on other characters, people nearly always tempo rezzed.