Unlike the past four iterations of this thread, I had more resources to draw upon while creating this post. Specifically, I had the ideas and feedback of 45+ other Mercy players. Collectively, we created a 20-page Google Document with new ideas for ultimates, basic abilities, and modifications for Mercy’s passives. We then voted on those ideas through a survey I created to determine the best modifications to Mercy, or to rephrase and be more direct about our objective, the ideal Mercy rework.
Here are the results from such endeavors:
Valkyrie:
Resurrect:
- Removed as a basic ability and placed as Mercy’s ultimate ability.
- 15 meter range.
- Line of sight requirement. Does not apply to destructibles, payloads, or non-fundamental map obstacles that are too small to actually obscure a player. In other words, none of that BS where a player can move behind a lamp post to evade a nuclear explosion.
- 1 second cast time. Basic movement is unrestricted while casting, but all attacks and abilities are disabled for Mercy during this time.
- If Mercy is stunned or killed while casting, Resurrect does not activate and Mercy loses all ultimate charge.
- All living allies within range and LoS of Mercy once the cast time ends receive a burst heal of 150 HP. Mercy also receives this burst heal.
- All dead allies within range and LoS of Mercy once the cast time ends are revived at full health and receive 2.25 seconds of invulnerability (same as current Resurrect and Resurrect pre-rework).
- Mercy does not receive invulnerability upon Resurrect’s activation.
- Resurrect does not require dead allies to be activated.
- 1625 ultimate charge requirement (the same as Mercy 1.x’s Resurrect).
Most importantly, this takes Resurrect off one of Mercy’s basic abilities and places it into a position that matches its ultimate-like behavior. On top of this, various trade-offs were made to the ability to allow for the healing burst and the introduction of a second basic ability.
The healing burst, post-rez vulnerability, cast time, and LoS requirements all incentivise using Resurrect to revive 0-3 players rather than 4+ players. Attempting to use it on four or more players runs a greater risk a failed resurrect attempt due to the cast time. If Mercy manages to use Resurrect, there is a greater chance that she missed some allies due to the LoS requirement. If those two drawbacks do not drag her team down enough, there is also the fact that Mercy is vulnerable post-rez while her teammates are still reviving.
The healing burst and fire-at-will mechanics on Resurrect make the ability more flexible and open up some unique uses for it. For example, Mercy could use Resurrect to grant her team a burst of healing in the middle of the teamfight to keep their momentum going rather than waiting for an ally to rejoin the fight after being killed and revived.
New Basic Ability - Pacify:
- After a .5 second wind-up, Mercy launches a single hitscan attack from her left hand.
- The projectile’s hitbox size resembles that of Symmetra’s secondary fire.
- The projectile deals no damage upon impact with an enemy. Instead, it applies a debuff that reduces the base damage dealt by the target by 33%. 100 damage is reduced to 67 damage before other damage amplifiers/reductions are factored in.
- This debuff lasts for 4 seconds.
- The projectile does not persist once it hits an enemy. It is only able to affect one enemy for each use.
- The projectile is blocked by barriers, Defense Matrix, and Particle Barriers. It can be deflected by Genji’s Deflect ability.
- 10 second cooldown. The cooldown begins after the ability is cast.
- There is a .25 second wind-down time after Pacify is launched.
- During the wind-up and wind-down times, Mercy is not able to use her staff, her pistol, or Resurrect. She may use Guardian Angel, however.
- Does not affect non-player entities and constructs (turrets, Rip-Tire, Supercharger, etc).
This ability functions similarly to Ana’s Sleep Dart in its cast, but the projectiles and effects are very different. Because Mercy is supposed to have a low skill floor, the hitscan weapon type and large hitbox make the ability mechanically forgiving. As a result, Pacify’s 33% damage decrease for 4 seconds is less effective than Sleep Dart’s disable for up to 5.5 seconds.
That said, Pacify still has a lot of playmaking potential when mastered. For example, when used on a target that has been Nano-Boosted or Supercharged, the damage increase that Nano-Boost/Supercharger has on that target is completely negated for the next 4 seconds (100 DPS -%33 = 67 DPS + 50% = 100 DPS).
Pacify also drops Widowmaker, Hanzo, and Pharah’s weapon damage below the 2-shot (body shot) range for 200 HP heroes. If used at the right time, it can potentially save an ally’s life.
Caduceus Staff:
- Healing beam’s rate of healing remains at 60 health/second.
Angelic Descent:
- For the first one second of Angelic Descent’s use while airborne, Mercy does not lose altitude. After one second of this, Angelic Descent decays into the featherfall currently provided by Angelic Descent.
- This effect can only be used once while in the air. If it has been expended, Mercy must first make contact with the ground before using it again.
Mercy’s midfight mobility potential will not be increased by much through this change, but it does allow Mercy to reach more positions prior to engagements without help from allies. Moving from ledge to ledge is made easier by these changes.
Credit goes to Brawl for the Resurrect and Pacify ability ideas and to Silawatsi for the modifications for Angelic Descent.
