The time has come. Mercy has been the dominant support ever since her rework, throughout a Spam meta, a Dive meta, and a Deathball meta. She has truly become one of the most dominant heroes in Overwatch history, and it’s time for it to stop.
On the current patch, Mercy is ran mostly alongside Zenyatta, supporting all types of team comps, from Spam to Dive to Deathball. Currently, the most popular composition is Reinhardt-Zarya-Hanzo-Widowmaker-Zenyatta-Mercy. The patch before? Winston-D.Va-Genji-Tracer-Mercy-Zenyatta. Before that? (not including Dive) Orisa-Roadhog-Widowmaker-Junkrat-Mercy-Zenyatta. Mercy has truly become a hero that is above the meta, and it is time for it to end.
”But Mercy has already been nerfed!”
Characters who are broken are broken, regardless of previous patches. Mercy with two instant Valkyrie Resurrections was broken for sure, yet she has already received multiple nerfs.
”No, other supports just need buffs!”
Ana and Lucio were both perfectly viable before Mercy 2.0 came into the game. In fact, Lucio was still considered a near must-pick, and Ana was still compeating against Zenyatta (especially on Defense) before Mercy began to force Ana out. Buffing the rest of the supports to reach Mercy’s level would simply be powercreep.
”Another nerf would make Mercy un fun to play!”
While I might not agree with this sentiment, I do think it’s important that such a large portion of the community (those that play Mercy) are considered. This is why instead of simply nerfing Mercy, we should give her a rework.
Mercy
- Caduceus Staff
- Healing per second reduced from 60 to 50
- Valkyrie
- No longer an ultimate ability
- Duration reduced to 5 seconds
- No longer increases beam length
- No longer enables constant passive regeneration
- Chain Beam now max out at two bonus targets (total of three)
- Cooldown is 15 seconds, starting at the end of the duration
- Resurrect
- Now an ultimate ability
- Remains single-target
- Ultimate cost reduced to 1500
- Cast time and move speed reverted to previous, however Resurrect now only goes through after cast completion (instead of instantaneously)
- Range increased from 5m to 10m
Developer Comments: While the Mercy rework was a step in the right direction, we feel that Mercy was becoming to overbearing on the game while also feeling clunky from the player’s perspective. These changes should hoepefully address the balance issues while also helping make Mercy more fluid to play.