Hello everybody !
As we finally got something new about Mercy, I wanted to take a step back, try to sum up the Mercy rework and express all the problems I have with the current Mercy.
Why did Mercy got reworked ?
This, to me, is the most important part.
Why did the developers decided to change Mercy in the first place ?
0:41 âWhy are we changing Mercy in the first place ?â
1:33 âWe think itâs wrong to tell a main healing character to go off an hide somewhereâ
2:02 âItâs pretty disheartening to have Mercy just erase that moment with a full team rezâ
So according to Jeff, there were two reasons for this rework.
Hide n rez
This one is the most commun misconception about Mercyâs old ultimate.
While hide and rez did exist, the problem is that it is often communicated or remembered as something that happened every game, and every fight which is blatlantly not true. It is most of the time implied that this strategy was impossible to deal with, and that it would instantly grant the Mercy player the win.
The strategy consisted of âŚdo I really need to explain ?
It was just Mercy waiting for her team to lose the fight and die only to resurrect as many people as possible. The goal was never to win the fight, and it was extremely unlikely to win any fight.
It was a very predictable strategy as you knew the enemy would be doing it the moment you realised you were fighting only 5 people because Mercy was missing. And this is where most people would make a mistake.
As Mercy is hiding, she isnât healing her team which means her team is fighting without her main healer. Without her 60hps. In this scenario you shouldnât need any ultimates to win the fight. If youâve played any ranked match where one player quits (which I donât wish to happen to you) you should probably know how easy it is to take a point against a team that has a constant one man disadvantage. No ult is needed unless to counter the oppositionâs ults.
Then Mercy flies in and does her big Resurrect, and you now have 2.25s to prepare to unleash the ults you kept (and charged by killing 5 people) and setup an instant teamwipe.
Hide n rez did exist, however all it took to counter it was some game awareness.
Letâs also remember that people who were using and abusing this strategy were doing so for one single reason. SR. They were selfish enough to willingly let their team lose every fight, and therefore every game in order to maximise their sr gains. These players had about 30% winrate but would still climb because of how sr was distributed.
As the strategy would most of the time result in a loss for the Mercy pulling it, it was strongly discouraged by the game, just like waiting in the spawn room the entire game would be likely to result in a loss, and discourage you to do so the next game.
If there wasnât any reward for the player to play this way, hide n rez would have simply died. But there was. Unfortunately.
People were gaining so much sr with it that it was worth abusing it to climb the ladder.
And what did Blizzard do to fix this ?
They reworked Mercy.
Disheartening to play against
So apparently the ability was considered âdisheartening to play againstâ.
Thatâs a laughably terrible reason to rework a hero.
Mass Rez is often seen as âunfun to faceâ or even âunhealthyâ because it was able to counter ultimates. Which is literally the point of a support ultimate: limiting the value of the enemyâs resources therefore forcing them to spend more.
The actual reason behind this belief is a psychologic bias that everyone should be aware of known as loss aversion.
If I give someone $1 000 only to take it back later, chances are this person is going to be upset or at least confused.
But thatâs not a reason to get rid of the ability. Others support ults could do exactly the same as Mass Rez (or even better). The only difference being that I never give you the $1 000, while the result remains unchanged.
Of course the enemy team being resurrected can be disheartening because that means they can get value from it, but it is just as disheartening as having the enemy team buffed with insane healing or shields. Not to mention they can still fight when healed/shielded while they are immobile and unable to act when resurrected.
If you donât want to face a supportâs ultimate, just make sure to kill him before he can use it. If not, then be prepared to have to spend more resources to outdamage said ultimate.
It is not fair to claim Mass Rez to be âdishearteningâ while not even blinking an eye to the literal aimbots and wallhacks that the game have.
Mass Rez could have been tweaked. Removing the ability isnât fixing any problem. Thatâs called giving up.
What are the issues about current Mercy ?
This has already been covered countless times.
If you havenât yet, I would suggest you to take a look at Titaniumâs post, itâs really worth reading.
Overall, Mercy has become the most disheartening character to play as, with and against. Securing an important pick only to have it resurrected is not fun, and neither is having to activate your statue mode to correct an allyâs mistake.
Resurrect
The new core concept of Resurrect being single target encourages a very counterintuitive playstyle. Having to wait 1.75s to use a heroâs signature ability is not fun, goes against the concept of a mobile, dynamic support, and prevents Mercy from doing her job as a healer.
Resurrect went from a powerful, iconic ultimate to a bland, unfun self punishing ability. Itâs no longer an impressive play that requires a good amount of game awareness and thought process to pull of, itâs a death wish.
Valkyrie
It was supposed to incentivise a more engaged gameplay, yet it does the opposite. I learnt how to juggle beams and prioritise my targets, so why does it grant me chained beams ? I learnt how to use GA to avoid dangers and survive during a fight, but why bother when I can just press space bar and fly away ? I learnt how to play Mercy, so why does my character turn into a spectator camera ? I was promised an impactful and engaging ultimate. Valkyrie is none of that.
Why is this buff actually not a buff ?
While this buff is technically a buff, it is in fact a partial revert to a previous state. A previous state where we were already unhappy with.
We didnât like the reworked Mercy with 60hps. Thereâs no way we will like Mercy with 50hps except during Valk.
We donât care about Mercyâs viability. All weâre asking for is a fun Mercy.
This has been said countless times in the megathreads since the begining of the rework. How is it possible to never acknowledge this despite âreading the forums dailyâ ?
For those of you who are still reading, get ready for some memes⌠in a video ! Hope youâll enjoy it !
Note: this video is not meant to be inflamatory. It is nothing more than a parody that is, by essence, supposed to be humorous. It is by no way a rant or a form of communication of any feedback, criticism or thoughts related to Overwatch. I guess I shouldnât have to explain this but I wanted to be clear about it.