Why was mass rez removed

General Discussion
61

Imho there are 3 reasons, but only 2 are really talked about.

The first and most obvious is it encourgaed a Mercy to stop healing or helping her team at times and hide so she could survive for rez, which is a bit cheap and not quite in the spirit of things.

It also felt bad getting some skilled team wipe and having it reversed instantly. Its not that different really to having a Zen ult and undoing your play in advance but it felt worse.

A big problem I always felt that isn’t talked about though it its ‘duration’. Lucio and Zen’s ults last 6 seconds so thats how long the team is safe. A respawn takes 10-12 seconds most of the time, so you can rez 2 people who dies on the same spot but 9 seconds apart, or your team is not so much protected as insured the team for almost twice as long as other fight winning support ults. The biggest and best Mercy plays imho were not hide and seek but when one after another your team tricked a point and died, no hope of winning, but Mercy then brings 4 back simultaneously, that was very strong.

62

Except they WOULD

But they’d be punished for killing her first- because outside of the obvious risks of targeting the best protected member of the enemies team,

Killing her first meant you put her on the respawn timer first

So after her you’d start killing the rest of her team

But then she’d respawn, swoop in, and revive everyone.

So the trick wasn’t to kill her first. Because she’s revive everyone.

But don’t save her for last.

Because then she’s revive everyone.

So you had to kill her second or third.

Second was a risk, because it was still “early” in the cycle. Third was ideal, as it limited her capacity to revive more than two.

Any later and shed get a lot of value out of her Ult.

This was especially true on maps whee mercy was on a defending team and they were spawning very close to the final points / objectives

Please don’t even try to summarize mercy’s changes as “cuz da dee pee Z didn’t want tuh adapt and seex her owt”. It was so much more complicated than that- and boiling it down to this is dubious under the best of circumstances. Both in regards to how “straight forward” that goal actually was, and in regards to what the reasons actually were.

8 Likes
63

lets not forget all the stolen, or hardly earned POTG

64

Mercy is actually picked almost only for her consistent healing AND survivability. This is the most picked main healer in OWL, because she works well with Zen and Dive comp AND she also works AGAINST Dive comp well.
Moira can’t Dive with her team because she can get killed easily when fade is used, Mercy has the luxury to get in and out in less than 3 seconds.

1 Like
65

I say this everytime I see a post like this.

She countered bad ult management aka teams using 4 out of 6 ults for a team wipe. People just couldn’t hold their ults for when the team was rezzed to wipe them again.

3 Likes
66

Except that’s how is it. I don’t like rank shaming but your plat showed when you called Tracer ult “bad”

There’s a thing called power budget which takes into account stuff like risk vs reward and the effort it takes to use a hero effectively to determine how powerful said hero should be. It is only logical that the easy to play with no mechanical skill required support doesn’t get a super game changing ultimate.

Visor is only better than deadeye because it’s not as situational but deadeye is way more dangerous and currently the game has less defense against it than it does against visor. Again, another clear example of risk vs reward.

67

Or perhaps a better way to describe it was that getting some clutch ultimates, like a Zarya combo, instantly erased, wasn’t all that fun to play against?

68

that’s exactly what I said though??? :thinking:

69

Because it was as unfun as scatter.

70

Thats why I said I say the same thing as you :thinking:

1 Like
71

Because DPS players claim to be expert and elite and meanwhile can’t adapt to a very basic ult concept.

6 Likes
72

Lol sorry I read that wrong. :crazy_face:

derp

73
  1. context.

Many of those “team wiping ults” are very VERY difficult to use against entire teams and require giant misplays.

Mass res did not. Even at high levels and professional levels mass res regularly got off. Mercy could GA on well out of sight lines with one of the longest range burst mobility abilities in the game (up to 30 meters)- jetting across at what? 20 meters per second? Covering that’s range in 1.5 seconds.

And then all she had to do was press Q. No wind up. No cast time. Didn’t even require LoS. Press Q. Poof. Team back.

Oh. And she was invulnerable during it too for good measure.

Even on PC with the benefit of a mouse to aim she was rarely shot down before she rocketed 30 meters in 1.5 seconds.

Let alone on console where the limitations of joystick aiming made shooting a hero who can dash 30 meters in 1.5 seconds even more problematic.

  1. there’s a huge difference between preventing something from happening- and reversing something after it already has happened.

Mass res was Frustrating for a lot of players. Understandably. Sorry mercy mains.

4 Likes
74

She was the most effective support ever. I used to play her and I still continue to play her (she is my top 2). Its good that she was changed.

75

Nice writeup.

Might even toss in that “Old Roadhog” is no longer a thing, which was one of the few strong counters to a Mercy flying in for a Rez.

Although Resource-Meter Dva would still counter that, even if it was still in the game.

1 Like
76

The thing is, it didn’t matter if the enemy team used one ult, or all six, or none. That was the greatest aspect of Resurrect, she could use it to counter any number of circumstances – reverse any number of circumstances. The enemy could perfectly manage their ultimates and get a complete team wipe minus the Mercy, and that also gets reversed. A Pharah could sneak around and make two skill shots, an environmental, and pop her ult to finish off two tanks. That’s one ultimate, five kills, aaaaand Mercy comes in and uses her ultimate, getting MORE value out of her ult than everything Pharah did, who is now weak from combat.

Thinking that Resurrect countered bad ult economy is horribly short-sighted. It did, you’re very correct on that, but it also did a lot more than just that, and that’s a problem.

But the fact that we need a discussion to explain why one ultimate can counter any six ultimates is bad game design probably means there’s more base level conversations we could have.

4 Likes
77

I’m not going to interject, seeing as this is a touchy subject and I don’t want to involve myself with it at the moment, however for the sake of discussion…

This is taken directly from the Patch Notes that introduced Valkyrie:

Developer Comment: While resurrecting downed allies is a core part of Mercy’s gameplay, the way her Ultimate functioned was causing a number of problems. It was frustrating to play against, and it incentivized Mercy players to hide away from important battles, instead of taking part in them. This version turns Resurrect into a single target ability. It’s still an important part of Mercy’s kit, but plays much better for both Mercy players and her enemies. Valkyrie, her new Ultimate, gives her the opportunity for big game-making plays and opens a number of new options for her.

Here also, is the Developer Update in which Jeff explains their point of view on the matter:

78

I remember swearing to never touch Mercy again after my group raged at me for not hiding. She was a bs character to me. Now, I actually enjoy playing her

79

The thing is if an enemy team managed their ults perfectly and they got a teamkill with lets say 1 ult, if their kills got rezzed there should be no problem wiping them again with an ult. Its potential was up there with nearly every ult in the game now but instead of killing 5 she brings 5 back to life. It emphasized on bad ult economy and thats it. Never did I ever complain about a team wipe being rezzed because it was so easy to wipe them again most of the time. No one should ever feel that they should win by default because they used an ultimate or 3. How effective an ultimate is should be determined by how it was used.

4 Likes
80

Well, it is a long story, with multiple angles to tackle.

Every body can agree to some extent that the ult itself was really, really good. You basically undo 2-3 ults with 1 button, and it felt great, for Mercy.

However, rez itself create a scenario where Mercy can hide, and rez the team when the dust settles. “So kill the Mercy first”, yeah, sorry, she can still respawn, flies in and rez. So the only way to asure a victory was to kill her second or third, like SidewaysGts mentioned, but good luck finding the angel when she is hiding in a corner somewhere, or some hard to reach spots.

And also the amount of fire each successful res Mercy gets. A 3-4 men rez will get her a full bar of fire, which means great performances, and by the SR system, that player will get a very high amount of SR per win, and lost a low amount of SR when they lose. That is why there were so many Mercy OTP back when mass rez was a thing, since either they onetrick her to GM (like a couple months ago with Valkyrie), or got themselves boosted GM (and play Mercy as a crutch?)

1 Like