Why the new Mercy GA (not SJ) is actually good

General Discussion
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INTRODUCTION
Superjump sucks but the increased mobility from Guardian Angel is incredible. This version feels more like a massive update to Guardian Angel instead of Superjump.

The main target of all the Guardian Angel changes was to make an interation of SJ as an ability that is accessible, consistent, and good to use. This newest iteration gives Mercy a LOT of horizontal movement and ultimately buffs GA in its neutral state but fails when it comes to SJ and Mercy’s vertical mobility. There’s a lot of vocal negativity around this iteration because of this but with some changes, which I’ll explain later, this has so much potential to be the best version of Mercy we’ve seen.

For anyone who doesn’t know me, my name is Skiesti. I’m a Mercy player with over 5000+ hours on the hero and I’ve never written on the forums before. I’ve been alternating between playing OW2 and OW1 every day since the Mercy GA change came out. I’ll spend 6-7 hours on OW2 playing only Mercy w/ her new GA changes and the rest of the evening on OW1 to maintain my muscle memory and movement.

I wanted to offer a perspective on Mercy’s new OW2 GA changes. I’d ask that you keep an open mind and give it a chance. Mercy is still fun and she’s certainly not dead.

MY TAKE
OW1 Superjump > OW2 Superjump
OW2 Guardian Angel > OW1 Guardian Angel

From the feedback I’ve heard, Mercy players don’t like the new changes. I’ll ask them why and they’ll very frequently bring up SJ. I’ll then ask ‘Well, what about GA?’ and they’ll respond that GA feels much better than before.

KEY POINTS

  • Buffed horizontal movement but vertical movement suffers
  • SJ is consistent but less effective as if it is an after thought
  • Keep in mind that this is the first iteration of this specific version. If changes were to be made to it to fix SJ and polish up the meter/GA, this could potentially be really good for Mercy’s mobility

GUARDIAN ANGEL
Let’s put Superjump aside and start with Guardian Angel.

PROS

  • Allows for easy backward GA which used to be unreliable
    Backward GA lets you get out of danger easily, provides plenty of opportunities for outplaying enemies, and if a teammate is committing and you GA to them but they change their mind, you can very easily back up with Backward GA
  • Directional movement allows for more opportunities to outmaneuver and outplay enemies. Also more options for plays/escapes
  • Is less predictable due to variety of movement options given
  • Better directional turning control and ability to make sharp turns. Makes it easy to break you path and make split second changes to movement
  • Can be used at any point during GA
  • Arguably gives more skill expression
  • Can still do (as far as my testing has gone) all Mercy techs except for floor bounces
  • VERY good in specific situations like: if an ally is out of your sight and you’re unable to get to them, forget walking, just GA to one teammate and then part way through the GA, launch yourself toward the teammate you need to get to so you have a sightline on them.
    ^ Stuff like this makes you more independent if you get a little creative

CONS

  • Not able to slingshot as well next to targets who are close (due to meter)
  • Not able to bunnyhop after a slingshot
  • Lack of diagonal movement before your ‘launch’ since new GA only reads the forward/backward movement until after launch

The new GA is basically a completely different way of thinking. That’s one of the reasons I initially wasn’t a fan of it and was also not feeling great about another change. The best comparison I can offer is that the OW2 GA feels like playing in a 3D perspective with more angles and another axis whereas the OW1 GA feels like a 2D perspective with more straight lines.

Getting used to the new GA change is going to take more than 15 minutes of playing Mercy. It’s going to take practice just like OW1 Mercy’s tech did and once you start getting the hang of it, she plays quite fast.

Going back and forth from OW2 to OW1 playing Mercy every day for hours, OW1’s GA feels… Flat and slow with less options available to me. Yes, we have plenty of tech there but it’s not utilized as often as OW2’s omnidirectional movement. There’s so many things I find myself wishing I could do in OW1 with GA that I can’t do but can in OW2. How GA moves in OW2 might just be the most fun I’ve had with Mercy in such a long time once I took the time to get used to it.

I know it sucks to retrain your muscle memory but if Mercy is better as a result, isn’t it worth it?

SUPERJUMP
Now it’s time for Superjump which is where this version really fails.

PROS

  • Has potential (:
  • Is consistent

CONS

  • Directional issues. Doesn’t feel good to look up or down to SJ
  • Sucks that you have to take your eyes off the teamfight to look up/down even for a moment since Mercy has a great strength in her ability to observe
  • Lack of vertical movement, you have to look exactly straight up or down to go in a straight line otherwise you go in an arc
  • Perception is distorted when you look up/down to SJ, hard to tell how far up you’re going to be going so you think you’re going further up than you actually are
  • Less height
  • Prop bouncing is a little clunky w/ it
  • Meter to height conversion is too slow:
    You have to be between 10-15m away from your target to do a full SJ
    You can’t do close SJ

There’s a lot of cons about Superjump in this iteration which is making Mercy players unhappy with the GA change in general because the ability isn’t as good as it was. I get that, I’m unhappy with how SJ is right now too despite being satisfied with the updated GA (for the most part). However, a lot of the negatives that come with this version can be fixed with just a few changes.

If this version goes into a second iteration where they adjust/polish, it’ll easily be perhaps the most mobility we’ve ever seen Mercy have and in a fast paced environment, she needs that.

CHANGES
There’s a few changes that can be made to make this iteration feel incredibly good.

  • Tap Crouch or Dbl Tap Jump (probs not bc of accidental inputs) to SJ instead of looking up or down
  • Meter charges faster based on distance between Mercy and her target.
    This should also (I’m pretty sure?) fix short SJ’s and short slingshots that are not really possible to do right now/feels bad. Should also fix clunky prop bouncing
  • Slightly buff the height of SJ since it’s def a bit lower now which doesn’t really allow Mercy to get to high grounds she used to be able to
  • Maaaaybe take a look at fixing the lack of diagonal movement

TL;DR
Superjump sucks right now, can be good with adjustments.
Give GA a chance, it’s actually fun if you take the time to figure it out.

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Every iteration in beta has made mercy stronger and screw anyone who complains about loss of niche tech only a few people know about.

This last one is good, but needs like a 25% faster charge boost.

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First off, welcome to the forums lol, it’s a…fun place!! Love your content!

I think OW1 GA feels much better than OW2 GA. It’s more fluid, doesn’t rely on a charge meter, and faster. You can use Spacebar glide at any point in the GA and go the same distance. You can use Spacebar glide on any distance GA and go the same distance.

Is OW1 GA actually BETTER? Probably not, because this new version has so many options. But it FEELS better is what I’m getting at.

There is also no “pause” like there is on the OW2 slingshot, it feels more streamlined and fluid.

I personally only like the new movement options that this change has created such as sideways sharp GA turns to juke people and consistent backwards GAs, but I still hate the overall feeling of clunkiness and slowness.

If this new GA had no charge meter and you could just go max distance/speed whenever you wanted, I think it would feel a lot better. And the distance/speed of the slingshot needs to be buffed in general because it’s too hard to reach highground consistently.

I also wanna talk abt this:

Her horizontal movement is only buffed from longer ranges. If you try to GA to someone close to you, her horizontal movement is heavily nerfed. And this is where her movement is actually valuable in a lot of cases when playing vs dive comps and flankers, being able to beam someone while using them to juke around

Yes, you can GA to them, wait a whole second standing still for the meter to charge to full, and then slingshot away, but that second is going to get you killed a lot when facing flankers IMO. I see that you addressed this point in your cons list but I really just wanna emphasize how bad it feels to me

It feels like I am forced to play at max beam range all the time now on the outskirts of the fight. I find myself often just GAing in, beaming my target, and then backwards GA-ing away to stay far away.

Like what Andriatic said:

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  1. Could also CrouchJump or dedicated button like Interact
  2. I feel like the main reason they have that meter at all is to just avoid Permaflight shenanigans. If anything they could just make it so the meter is 100% everytime if you are near to the teammate.

Example of what they don’t want, from Beta #1:

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I think the Permaflight being an issue is over exaggerated though. It’s really not that great because she still has to be in 15m beam range to be getting value so she can’t be in the actual skybox all game like she is during Valkyrie. Which means free target for hitscans and still in range of dive DPS/Dva

I mean the Beta 1 Permaflight change went into OWL for a whole tournament and she still saw 0 playtime in the dive comps so clearly it wasn’t that good even for pros lol

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Well still though, let’s say “Get within 5m range of a teammate = 100% GAJump charge”.

Combine that with making GAJump go just as high or ever so slightly higher than SuperJump.

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Changes like I mentioned such as:

Meter charging faster based on distance between Mercy and her target

  • This one should fix a lot of the problems that you mention in regard to distance/range on GA feeling bad and feeling forced to play at max range
  • Speed I think is fine, I don’t believe it’s changed from OW1 to OW2 when it comes to her GA
  • The SJ change I proposed also allows you to reach high ground consistently again
  • Also, just a note, being max beam range isn’t a bad thing, it’s good for Mercy to stay a distance from her teammates. It’s been incredibly beneficial to GA in, beam, and then go backward to be much more safe.

Also there’s only a ‘pause’ when you’re going for a SJ, the way I’ve been slingshotting isn’t causing me to pause at my target. I’m not sure if that a timing thing or not? I haven’t been standing at my teammates and waiting a second for the meter to charge when it specifically comes to slingshot. Would be nice to see a clip that depicts what you’re talking about here so I could address it properly perhaps?

EDIT
One other thing I forgot to mention about the horizontal movement is that yeah right now you can’t GA forward well when close to others but it works well when you backward GA close to others. You can use backward GA to get distance from your target and then GA forward to someone else further away. But, again, the change I proposed about the meter would fix this. This is just a work around.

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Definitely either this or remove the charge meter entirely and let us control distance by how long we hold down spacebar, would be the same for how high we go during SJ

To me it feels like the speed is proportional to the charge. Like the speed at full charge feels faster than OW1 slingshot, but at low-medium charge it feels slower? Or maybe I’m just crazy idk lol have you noticed anything like that?

Def need double tap space for SJ, especially for console players

Well if you GA to someone like 15-5m close to you, the meter doesn’t charge all the way. But if you wait a second after you reach them, the meter keeps charging up even though your GA is “done”. And then you can hit spacebar to activate the slingshot even though your GA had “finished” technically

So if you want to get max/higher charge from GAs that are closer range targets, you have to essentially stop at the target for a second to gain more charge before you slingshot

You can just insta spacebar slingshot like in OW1 but you get much less distance bc the charge isn’t as full. Obviously this doesn’t apply to longer range GAs that fill the bar up regardless tho

Backwards GA in general feels faster/further distance than any other direction, I think they added like a small boost to it maybe? I’ve been doing backwards GAs in directions I want to move it just for the extra distance lol, and backwards SJs feel way more consistent

Maybe if they made the normal GA slingshots have that same boost it would feel great

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You’d think they should just make an Advanced menu option which allows people to customize anything input-method related to GAJump.

Rather than trying to figure out the one perfect input method.

That way people have a lot more sense of control on how mechanically tedious/comfortable the button layout is.

Gurdian Angel
Cancel Guardian Angel
Gurdian Angel (Jump Directional)
Guardian Angel (Jump Vertical)

For instance, what if somebody wanted a pure comfort build, and just put

Gurdian Angel: Shift
Cancel Guardian Angel: Control
Gurdian Angel (Jump Directional): Shift
Guardian Angel (Jump Vertical): Spacebar

Or maybe something more legacy

Gurdian Angel: Shift
Cancel Guardian Angel: Shift
Gurdian Angel (Jump Directional): Spacebar
Guardian Angel (Jump Vertical): Control

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I’ve really warmed up to the new GA but on console it could definitely use a few tweaks.

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Once above a target, even with the meter, you have enough distance to stay in the air with this latest iteration. You just keep reverse SJing to the target below you. And since you’re high enough, looking down to get max height is natural. I would do this a ton over the tank if they went too solo.

IMHO they put it the meter just to be a nerf to Mercy’s GA. Maybe for console players that seem to have a problem with a constantly moving Mercy player? They wanted to add in moments where GA just didn’t work, or was less effective, to give people a shot at killing her. They even put a looooong pause in, where you can still get max charge from the meter at close distance, but you have to stand in one place while you wait for the elevator to arrive.

IMHO, this latest version is just, OK. It’s not great. It’s not even really good in most fights, especially in the close-combat of 5v5’s new maps.

Just on the reality that the old GA mechanic alllllllways worked to get you the range and separation you needed, no matter the distance to the target, and this new one does it “mostly” but not always, makes it an interesting, but lesser alternative in many ways.

If they wanted to make this last iteration a winner?
Remove the meter.
Remove the distance requirement.
Lower the angle a player needs to swing the mouse up or down to get max height, so you don’t have to look completely away from the fight, but you can still vary your angle of flight or height with the mouse…say 60 degrees up or down instead of 90.

Then it’s pretty cool, and allows for cool movement tech the other iterations don’t allow, while letting Mercy still feel like Mercy…IMHO.

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I still hold the same opinion that the new version is/feels better for everything but diving and the meter needs to charge fast enough so that slingshot is effectively in game.

That being said:

One of the benefits of the new GA is that is is beta and people are not used to it. The whole thing still feels pretty slow though. Once people get the hang of it, assuming the meter does not charge faster, they will simply wait for Mercy to choose a direction and then put damage and cds into her; As opposed to going all out and trying to hit her mid GA and getting juked.

I agree on a tap or button for sj as well. Every movement besides looking literally straight up or down feels fine for me.

I also find myself turning around and doing a backwards ga 70-80% of the time.

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1st off: Super Jump (launching yourself into sky) is niche at best. (how often do you see it in high skill play?)

A mercy in the air is prime meat for a hungry sniper/hitscan dps.

It does have some uses but again 9/10 its not the answer to situation.
(they could of had an option in settigns to make it simpler to do liek they have setting for her GA prefers beam target setting)

They murdered slingshotting, which was MUCH more valuable and used much more.

it could save you from aoe/dives/etc (heck if targeting at higher target it was basically ur superjump). its sees frequently use in all tiers of play.

Heck they could of not messed with GA at all, added SJ to be used on crouching and hittign spacebar, and it would of been fine (as that combo wouldnt efefct normal usage at all while makign ti on demand w/o having to learn it normally)

OW devs changed what didnt need changed, made it more cumbersome, harmed the actual slingshot for niche sj, and again nobody asked for this change.

Mercy has ACTUAL issues why are they wasting resources on a niche mechanic instead of fixing actual problems she has doing her job?

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Add the con that it’s harder to pull off with a controller. Once more Blizzard just keeps putting ***** in console players’ salads.

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Came on to say this exact thing. I play PC and console, and from what I’ve read on how it works it’s going to be hard to pull off on a controller without jacking the sensitivity up.

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The last iteration of GA can be best summed up in a couple of ideas.
(1) Its great not traveling in a straight line anymore. People trying to predict your path now have to account for the fact you can instantly change directly at any moment.
(2) The downside. Many time sthe best way to escape enemies is by getting to high ground in a very tight scenario. Where you are like <5m away from an ally who is backing up. You have cross fire in multiple directions. The charge prevents Mercy from getting max jump height in such a tight space requirint you to back up from an ally very far before getting max height.

+1 buff
+1 nerf

Which to me is easily fixed with a single change. Increase charge speed a bit more. Probably 25%-50% is more than enough to get max jumps off in tight spaces.

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You know, this would be a lot fasters and less painful if the Mercy community posted more “This is how you implement it properly” posts and less “I demand a revert” posts.

Incidentally this current post by Skiesti is one of those rare “This is how you implement it properly” posts.

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I’m just wondering why it needed changing at all. What is the rationale? I wish the devs were more communicative about what their intent is in doing stuff like this, because at the moment it just looks like they’re forcing changes to something no one had a problem with in the first place. GA on Live is fun and easy to use, presents no balance issues, has unique techs and quirks for those who want to learn them, and above all has been a staple of Mercy gameplay from the very beginning.

Are they going to replace Wrecking Ball’s physics based techs with a one-size-fits-all charged ability as well? Why is Mercy being singled out for a weird rework of a movement ability that didn’t have any issues? Some more communication from the devs about why they’re pursuing this idea that GA needs to be dramatically altered, whether they intend it to be an option or the only way to play, etc. is all I ask for, because I’m puzzled as to what the point of it is. In the first Beta it seemed like they were trying to add accessibility options to Mercy, but now it looks like they’re just stripping options away.

The devs will do what they want to do; I have no delusions about being able to make them stop, I just want to understand why they’re doing it. More transparency about their plans and the reasons behind them would probably also help ease tensions among Mercy fans who hate having their main* messed around with.

*I feel I should point out that I am not a Mercy main, I mostly play Ana, and this post isn’t intended as whining at the devs for a revert, even though I would much prefer to keep the existing GA.

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I mean Moira has free directional change by using WASD during fade… Why can’t they just implement the Moira movement to Mercy using GA? After you have pushed space bar upon reaching your GA target, the directional keys that you have pushed down will move you in that direction. Then bring back the crouch key press to jump vertically. Problem solved, then move on to issues that are more important about Mercy’s kit. Lack of utility being the main issue.

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I’ve even seen it suggested to have WASD, with diagonals, but have it that pressing no direction and jump does a vertical-only jump.

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