Hello everyone. I thought I would share with you all the reasons why I think Mercy needs another rework. I’ve broken this down into what’s wrong with each part of her kit. You’ll notice her blaster and GA aren’t on here. They’re fine. They need zero changes.
Her healing.
The problem with this is threefold.
Firstly, like all main healers Mercy cannot use both her primary healing and primary damage at the same time. However, both other main healers have short cast time, decent duration CD abilities that allow them to kind of do more than one thing at a time. Mercy doesn’t. If she’s healing, she’s only healing and nothing else.
Secondly, Mercy is the only healer in the entire game who does not have a consistent way to either significantly increase her healing output or provide a teammate with a burst of sustain. Moira has her Orb and Ult. Ana has her bio nade and ult. Zen has his ult. Brigitte has armor pack and rally. Lucio has amp and ult. Mercy has to rely on Resurrect or face tanking damage so regen starts but neither of those methods are consistent in the slightest.
Thirdly, despite the previous two points, Mercy’s base healing per second is ridiculously low. Like seriously… It’s only 20 higher than Zen’s, Lucio can hit E to (nearly) match it, Moira can kick out triple Mercy’s healing in an AoE, Ana can nearly put out twice as much and has 2 burst heals as well. It’s… bad. It’s real bad.
Her damage boost.
It has the same problem as her healing’s first problem. If she’s boosting, she’s not doing anything else. Beyond that… 30% damage boost is trash and has been pretty much forever. Almost no heroes can hit the DPS needed for it to just be more raw damage than her blaster. There are very few guns in the game where 30% more damage actually lets them hit important breakpoints. Why? Because most damage values where 30% more would help against a 200 hp target can one shot with a headshot or two shot body shot Tracer. The devs don’t want to invalidate her… so damage boost is stuck being terrible on most of the cast. It is useful on some burst damage abilities and is somewhat useful for helping a teammate get their ult faster… but… it’s still not useful enough. Side note, I realize that Ashe is coming out and damage boost is great with just about everything she does. It being good with one or two heroes doesn’t make it a good ability.
Resurrect.
This is her most powerful ability. It’s on E. She’s the only hero in the game where her most powerful ability is not on Q, which is the designated Ultimate Spot. That’s a problem.
The other problem is the cast time and slow. In case you couldn’t tell… Mercy is supposed to be very mobile and very consistent all the time. That’s why she has GA. That’s why she doesn’t need to aim her healing. Using Resurrect brings the rest of her kit, the rest of what she’s supposed to be good at to a screeching halt. That’s a problem.
Valkyrie.
Mercy’s kit is not very mechanically challenging. For some reason they decided that they needed to take Mercy’s easy kit and give her an ultimate that makes it even easier. What? Now that makes a certain amount of sense on a DPS. Soldier’s ult makes it easier to use his kit. Difference here is that even good Soldiers get on average 50% of what they could out of his kit… so tac visor represents a 2x power increase. Not so for Valkyrie.
Valkyrie gives AoE healing. There’s a problem with this too. AoE damage works because oh hey, you get 3 targets in the AoE? Congrats, you got 3x the damage. Even if you get all 5 teammates in Valkyrie’s chain healing… how much are you actually healing? You can’t heal uninjured targets. If only one guy is taking damage, Valkyrie isn’t helping.
Valkyrie is a wild departure from old Mercy’s play style. When Mercy is in Valkyrie mode, one of the most impactful things that I’ve found to use in for is… kinda pretend that she’s a tank. Hang out in enemies’ sight lines, get them to waste their time, bullets, and sometimes ults trying to shoot you down and use Valkyrie’s mobility and regen to not die. That’s… weird to say the least. Most healers want as little enemy attention as possible. That went double for old Mercy. New Mercy though? Not so much.
Lastly… it is a game designer’s job to make the most fun way to play the game also the most effective way to play the game. Valkyrie is an absolute failure in this regard. The most fun way to use Valkyrie is definitely to pull your blaster and throw hot plasma at fool’s heads. However… the most effective way to use Valkyrie is probably either chain heals or chain boost and hold space so you are much less likely to get your “ultimate” interrupted… but that’s boring. Seriously… that’s boring, but arguably the most effective way to use Valkyrie. That’s a problem.
Conclusion:
Honestly Mercy’s first rework has turned into an absolute mess. No amount of numbers changes is going to fix this. The problems are way to widespread and deeply rooted into Mercy’s current kit to just be ironed out. She needs another rework.
