The areas that I think mercy needs for a rework are res, valk, and damage boost. I think that healing beam is fine how it is because ideally mercy should be more focused on providing utility, which is the goal of the rework. Pistol I think should remain untouched because it isn’t problematic and isn’t used that often. GA is the reason that I love to play mercy, and while it isn’t perfect and could maybe use some tweaks, I feel like it isn’t one of the big problems with her kit. And lastly the passives are good as they are and think they should probably stay.
First up, res. My biggest problems with res is that often times it feels like an empty ability slot that gets used maybe twice per game. It either is pointless because the fight is already won or already lost by the time you get an opportunity to use it. My suggested idea is to make it a valk only ability. In valk it is fairly easy and consistent to pull off while also being less frustrating for the enemy to see mercy res only during her ultimate.
Instead of res I propose that mercy gets a new form of utility that would work somewhat like the soul bomb from mirrorwatch. This ability would have the same type of cast as soul bomb, would do maybe 25 damage, and create an aoe slow where the soul was, similar to rammatra’s vortex. The ability would be in cooldown for somewhere between 8-12 seconds. My thought with this ability is that we want mercy to be able to provide some utility to her teammates that feels impactful and fun to use. Mercy would be able to help teammates catch and confirm kills on grouped up enemies or hopefully trade an ally that gets killed.
Next we have damage boost. There are so many complaints from non mercy’s that damage boost is unfun to go against, which it most definitely can be, but it also is what allows mercy to show some skill, and we want to keep that. I think the best course of action is to give mercy a damage boost that fades over time when held on a target for too long. I think that if the damage boost would go from 30% for the first 2 seconds of being on a target before fading down to only 10% over the next 2 seconds would be fairly balanced. The beam would go back to full efficiency once mercy stops using any beam on the target for 4-5 seconds. We would have a more impactful beam at the start of its use, but would punish mercy for pocketing a single strong dps, which is what the biggest complaint seems to be. This might still have blue beam be an unfun ability, so if there’s any better suggestions let me know.
Finally we have valk, which is a fun ultimate to use, but feels like it lacks impact when compared to every other support ult because it doesn’t have the same utility, kill power, or healing that other support ults have. The first valk change I have goes back to my change for res, in which mercy unlocks res during valk. By pressing the ultimate ability a second time during valk while in the current range to res someone, mercy will cast res exactly how she does currently. Second we have blue beam not being on the fading resource meter that we changed it to. We want to be able to push blue beam during valk to make an impact on the team fight, and making it fade if we use it too long would feel bad. Third, I think that valk should work similar to Moira’s ult where her beams combine into one beam that has both effects at once. This makes it so mercy doesn’t have to decide whether to try and save that one ally that is low or push damage boost on the rest of the team. To make this be more balanced we would cut the extended beam range that mercy has during valk from 30m down to only 20m. Finally, we would increase the cost of Valkyrie a little bit if this version would be a little to strong, but I don’t see it being that way when rush is as strong as it is.
Overall I’m hoping that these changes would remove the frustration that now mercy players have with her while giving mercy players more utility, skill expression, and strength during ult.
Personally, I think Mercy’s entire kit is flawed. The devs have said multiple times that the hero fantasy for Mercy is being a “triage healer” that flies around the battlefield to help those in need. Currently, this just isn’t what Mercy does because simply pocketing the best DPS hero in the lobby provides a lot more value than using your wings to help other people. This creates an anti synergy in the character’s kit, where she has some of the most unique, interesting and fun mobility options in the game that just aren’t used to its fullest because it’s not useful to. I think this is a massive problem with Mercy that mostly comes from her lack of synergy with any character that isn’t a highly specific DPS hero. Tanks don’t benefit from damage boost almost at all due to their damage being at its best when closer to the enemy, and pocketing a Rein, for example, when he’s swinging his hammer is good, but he does that way less often than holding his shield up. My point is, Mercy is at her best design wise when she’s forced to use GA to get her value, which happens a lot more playing with, or against the comps she’s most bad in. I don’t know if people agree with me on this, but playing Mercy into dive has gotta be some of the most fun I’ve had on the character in my 600 hours spent on her. She’s so bad in those comps, but I find it so rewarding to outplay the Winston Tracer on me, even if it comes with the cost of my entire team’s lives. That being said, these would be my ideal changes for Mercy:
I think her beams are probably the biggest problem in her kit. Her healing is terrible, but it makes sense because it’s incredibly easy to use. I still think it deserves a buff with my changes, so it would go 60 hp/s. Damage boost is another big problem. It’s way too easy to use for the value it provides, as well as it’s not fun for anyone that’s not Mercy and the pocketed. My first change would be reducing the damage boost efect from 25 to 20%, but giving it an additional 10-15% movement speed increase so that it’s a lot more useful on tanks. Secondly, I think it should be put on a resource meter similarly to DM, but it would recharge on it’s own a lot slower. However, healing a different target than the one you’ve used “damage boost” on would recharge it much faster.
Now onto Resurrection. I would call it the most frustrating ability in the game. You use it almost never, usually it’s just a taxi from spawn, and when it’s actually useful, the enemy team is having some of the most frustrating time in OW. Sometimes you don’t get to use it at all. I would make it as a one time use per Valkyrie. Instead of res, I would replace her E with a skill shot similar to Sombra virus for teammates, that when it hits does three things:
1. Gives a 20% damage reduction
2. Gives a 10% movement speed increase
3. Increases Mercy’s healing on the target by 20%
I think it’s just a good versatile cd for Mercy to have that helps in a lot of situations, as well as it gives her more direct skill expression.
For GA, I would give the slingshots the 1.5 seconds cd, but reduce the slingshot superjump height to around 5-6 meters, and keep the crouch superjump at its current cd. It makes the ability less spamable, without restricting the more fun parts of it too much.
For Valkyrie, I think it would be fair to increase its cost by a bit given her increase in healing and the fact that it also gives a new ability to the kit. Otherwise, I think it’s fine the way it is. Maybe if you think it’s too weak you could increase the healing to 65 hp/s, but I don’t think it’s necessary.
People saying Mercy needs buffs are ignoring that in the highest ranks mercy is the highest pick rate support by a MILE and has a 51% WR. That's insane. Mercy is strong because she's NEVER alone and has permanent value. If you're locked onto a target shields can't stop the beam. You don't even have to aim your beam. As long as you exist, you get value which other supports just don't have.
You can buff mercy but actually give her a skill floor. She is the easiest character in the game, and has some insane movement abilities. If she needs a buff, then she needs a nerf in her consistency.
Swaping res and valk as abilities I probably the easiest fix. Mercy would get burst healing (something she doesnt have compared to most other supports), it would help her survivability after the global projectile change, and it would help her damage with infinite ammo on glock allowing her to valk mid fight to clean someone up possibly. Keep it's 12 seconds like it is now but it has a meter that gets used up when you heal or damage boost that lowers your valk time, so it's 6 seconds when healing throughout valk and 4 when damage boosting (just for refrence). Making res an ultimate would make it more satisfying to play against since when it goes off it's "They used an ultimate to undo that" rather then "they used an ability that they'll have again next fight to undo that". Rez shouldn't be made instant though, keep it the way it is now exactly but as an ultimate since you'd have valk as a cooldown to help get it off and theres still counter play like boop abilities and baiting the mercies valk out. (The cooldown on valk should probably be either 20 or 25 seconds, it should only appear twice in a team fight like this if it's being drawn out). This way mercy has a new way to express skill with guardian angel as well as resource management while keeping res as fair as possible. (Honestly I really like the way res feels when using it rn, as in how weighty the animation feels, so I personally don't want to see it change to much)
I have 500 hours on mercy and have been playing her since launch. I think the last thing we truly want to change drastically is GA. Having a lot of mobility has helped her engage in her team a lot more. I would like there to be more advanced tech with it, but I'm unsure how to implement that.
I think valk ultimately is what needs to be changed the most. It doesn't do much in a team fight beside provide extra cushion. It'd be interesting to see her do something outside of dmg boost, heal, and rez. Other supports have ults that provide something new to the battlefield. I would still love to keep her flying during valk though.
As for her healing beam and damage boost, it would be nice to see some form of burst healing in her kit. Damage boost isn't some I find much issue with, however I did like the idea of having the pocket's gun overloading.
Rez is mostly fine to me. Usually shooting her or using CC can stop it. I think honestly I'd just love a way for a dead teammate to cancel your rez. It can be frustrating when you're trying to change heroes then you get rezzed.
To me, mercy mostly needs utility buffs as opposed to anything else, which is why I think valk needs to be changed. Other supports tend to provide more beyond healing which is why they tend to be better picks.
>I would like there to be more advanced tech with it, but I'm unsure how to implement that.
What do you think of making it a 5 second GA, **but you have 3 stacks of it like tracer.** You can do double or even a triple GA then becoming a sitting duck, or decide to use your GAs slowly.
* boost a DPS on highground for some time = 3 GAs ready to escape / do something cool
* use 1 GA to position in the prefight = 2 GAs to use on the real fight + maybe 5s past and you do a 4th GA
* use 1 GA to get to highground -> use 2nd GA to get to the soul to res -> 3rd GA to leave
* Use 3 GAs to spam super jump for no reason -> flanker comes and you have no cooldown and feed
>To me, mercy mostly needs utility buffs as opposed to anything else
Did you mean buff res, or give her a new ablity to use that provides utility? idk where to put it maybe blaster secondary fire?
I think that would be an awesome idea. It'd be engaging, require a little bit of thinking (game sense and such), and create more opportunities for the enemy team to create a stragedy regarding GA (granted they're paying attention). As long as the longer jump stuff isn't removed, changes like that would be amazing. (Mercy before the accidental bug that evolved into GA as we know it now was extremely clunky and encouraged being in the back of your team which wasn't fun imo)
>(granted they're paying attention).
Make the wings light up based on how many charges of GA you have, that way the other team can see. Just like how zarya/sojorn glows when they have high engery.
Maybe the other team will start calling "mercy low GA" like they already call "moira no fade"
The best thing Valk is for is to watch your entire team wipe while youre flying in the sky :)
Mercy really lacks burst healing and needs it. I love your input on mercy changes though! Id welcome them. I love GA how it is.
Special melee attack with Caduceus Staff: Mercy should be able to do something additional while melee attacking with the staff, something like Zenyatta's kick.
But for example hitting with the staff could do more damage, or move the enemy backwards, stun for a second a DPS or Support, etc. It would be more useful for situations where you are being flanked
Also...for the love of god let us lock a Venture that is underground with GA, I have died so many times trying to help a Venture for them to bury themselves and leaving me with no one to grab onto
Its not even a problem with the Venture players, its an issue with Blizzard making that choice for some reason. I get not being able to heal them, but why cant I grab onto them with my GA
I may be alone here but I feel like Mercy’s kit is generally fine? Her movement could use some small tweaks to make it feel better, and I think 60hps is needed again due to the DPS passive hitting her quite hard. But her overall design feels fine to me
Heal
I think Mercy's healing is bad. I definitely agree that Mercy shouldn't healbot but I think that Mercy can guarantee that her pocketed hero doesn't just fall over most of the time.
The amount of times that someone I pocketed just dies almost instantly the moment I switch to damage boost is so sad. I know it's my teammate's fault for that but sometimes the enemy burst damage is just too great for Mercy to keep up.
I think Mercy should have some sort of burst heal or a conditional heal that can only be activated in certain scenarios. Critical healing/Triage is a good example of that. Her heal time from 0-full is the same before triage happened plus it helps the team in critical scenarios. Let's face it, Mercy's healing without Valk barely helps in critical moments.
Damage boost
Just add the Mirrorwatch damage boost buff that damages nearby enemies. It also helps in peeling for your second support when someone attacks them. During Mirrorwatch, I found it more effective to use damage boost to quickly kill off tracers and sombras.
Resurrection
I think Res should be removed. I know Res is super impactful but the community hates it so much to the point that it promotes hate to the Mercy community. Enemy team uses a lot of resources to get a kill and Mercy just uses 1 button behind a wall and gets value. It's super impactful but you barely have those moments and people always watch for a Mercy res and you can probably get 1-2 good res in higher ranks
I suggest we create a utility ability for Mercy. Soulburn gave us an idea about exploding souls doing damage. What about doing 25-50 aoe damage (the father you are to the soul the less damage you take) and enemy hit by the explosion gets vulnerability or increased damage taken like a zen orb. It could last for 3 seconds and could be 15-20%. Teammates can also get a heal buff like Ana nade if they are in the vicinity. (This could be overkill but it allows Mercy to burst heal) This should not heal but allies should get a Yellow aura
This makes her a deadly opponent in critical fights. 1 soul could potentially change the tide of the fight.
GA
I think GA is good right now. You get punished for your bad plays and you have enough time to react to certain things. Honestly if I want to be greedy, I want GA to have a double movement is you use Superjump. I've accustomed myself to not rely on using the crouch button because normal slingshots gave me more options and CD management. Double movement in using SJ allows her to change directions twice. Give it more CD if it's too OP.
Valk
Her ult is the least impactful ult right now. Probably next to Zen ult because of Dps passive. What if we add overhealth during heal kinda like LW tree and add vampirism during damage boost.
Damage boosting during Valk encourages the whole team to do damage to heal themselves and healing during valk adds another defensive mechanic to it because of overheal.
I wanted it to be atk spd boost too but Kitsune already exist and people don't want double speed because it's probably broken.
P. S. A lot of these are just me being delusional. I just want her to be more impactful because I'm tired of people saying she's useless and just holds mouse buttons.
Meme buff
Change her rocket launcher instead of pistols during Valk so everyone knows that Hurricane Katrina is coming.
I know this is probably gonna be kind of broken, especially since mercy is already in the higher tier of winrates at a lot of ranks. But what if damage boost and heal beam were kind of mixed? That way you dont have a binary decision to heal or damage boost a team mate. Like maybe when healing you give 10% dmg boost in addition to the heal beam, and when dmg boosting you heal like 50% of what you would when using heal beam.
Didn't think of what numbers would make any of this balanced but here's a concept that I think would bring mercy closer to the "triage healer" hero fantasy:
What if they removed rez and replaced it with a pharah boost/bap shift combo that granted a small amount of vertical mobility and an AOE burst heal. Maybe it's called wing flap and that's the animation
Also since you'd be remove the high risk/reward of rez, l was thinking you could incentivize a riskier use of GA by applying any ally she flies through with some short passive heal over time and maybe SMALL dmg boost or move speed? She could be sprinkling angel dust on her teams as she GAs by them. (This would probably need to be paired with valk nerf bc it'd be so powerful constantly reapplied during free flight)
Also compensate the extra healing with a valk build rate nerf
My suggestion: secondary weapon rework
Sometimes there are tiny timing windows where the best move for mercy is to fire 3-7 blaster shots down range rather than hold damage on a target who isnt ready to shoot anything yet.
* The mercy blaster automatic reload is cool (blaster reloads itself if you use staff for 1.4srcs)
* all 25 ammo rarely gets used up (useless you shoot at shields)
Therefore mercy should have a very powerful rife that is good in poke battles, balanced out having very little ammo (1-3 ammo?) and taking a very long time to reload. Make it the longest reload animation in the game so the best way to reload it is the "auto reloader" while using staff (maybe 5 second reload? or even 8).
Make it really powerful but you only got 2 or 3 shots, it doesnt have to be raw damage but include some kind other effect too.
* some kind of debuff?
* scouting effect like sonic arrow?
* damage overtime (like virus/TNT) so mercy doesnt become mini widow?
* speical interaction vs shields/turrets?
* Make it 1 ammo, do a alot of raw damage but cant one shot tracer?
tbh I would just make it possible to hold both beams on one target, but with an overheat resource meter that would disable the staff completely if overused and force you onto the pistol for a few seconds
I love the idea of GA being more like tracer blinks, so you can actually meaningfully pressure red mercy
also wouldn't mind if rez was less binary.. like you had to hold the button to restore hp and when you let go it revives them at that particular hp and not just max - also means that rezzing tanks doesn't have disproportionate value
Ill be honest im not a huge fan of the rez suggestions so im gonna take a suggestiion on the subreddit i saw earlier but modify it
Almost like the experimental we had a few years ago i would do this
Valkyrie
• Removed as ultimate, now a seconday ability
• on a 20 second cooldown
• healing goes from 55 HP/s to 70 HP/s
• Omni directional flight speed now 10 m/s
Caduceus Staff
• increased healing from 55 to 60 HP/s
Ressurect
• Removed as an ability, now the ultimate.
• cast time is 1 second
• Radius increased from 8m to 23m
• Requires line of sight
• can now ressurect a maximum of 2 souls
• Ressurectees will now get a boost for the first 60 seconds after being ressurected, 20% more damage and 30% faster.
Developer comment: I didn’t want to do away her old ressurect, as i find it her most iconic ability, therefore i made it her ultimate ability, sort of mass ressurect but not at the same time. I want her to have a game changing ultimate but no the same "oh god we have to win another battle" game changing, its almost like tempo rezzing back in ow1. So as a compensation for her only being able to ressurect 2 people with her ult, ressurectees will do more damage and go faster for 60 seconds. I feel lile this change will make mercy play smoother.
my mercy rework:
* GA mechanics entirely back to end of OW1 GA mechanics ENTIRELY
* no it won't be worse than now and if anything probably better than now because atm you have to rely on hard no-tech GAs to keep up with say ally flankers or so, but old GA you can keep up fine with 1.5s cd AND still have tech being used AND can even start cd early without speed loss because higher initial GA momentum.
* res now as ult but is now a very arced projectile that doesn't interrupt GA
* single target res only
* resets GA cd upon cast
* "instant" cast time (i.e. like 0.4s cast time or so)
* can be eaten deflected or blocked by shields
* hitboxes can be adjusted to allow for some leniency in aim
* new e ability being a sojourn E but has impact damage (like 40) and the lingering field isn't a DoT but reduces enemy damage by like 15\~20% if they're inside
* can be used to get picks, zone for a pick or to peel
optional: replacing damage boost beam with her pistol that can be used simultaneously to her yellow beam and GA for full on battle mercy
What this does is makes skill expression on mercy actually matter more for what value they get.
Want to pull off reses on corpses in more open areas without endangering yourself? you can if good enough with GA tech + aiming the res to do so.
Want to peel off enemies? you now have an ability to play around zones, timing and macro strategy to preemptively deny burst thresholds or to deny engages. compared to GA away + beam and pray.
Its a good idea but personally, i donf agree with rez being single target. Say that in a game you get 3 ults, wouldnt it be kind of sad to only rez one person per ult? I feel like having a small case mass rez would be better like 2-3 people or 2 people with extra buffs
how many times she could res all ends up being number tweaks honestly.
and it's not like she has 0 playmaking outside of res unlike basically now, because with the new e ability there's a whole new avenue to make plays with (whether to get a pick or to peel an ally or to assist an ally in getting a pick).
esp if going the option of letting her pistol along side yellow beaming.
all of which also plays into how much ult charge she would get and thus be adjusting how many reses she's do in a match on average.
The areas that I think mercy needs for a rework are res, valk, and damage boost. I think that healing beam is fine how it is because ideally mercy should be more focused on providing utility, which is the goal of the rework. Pistol I think should remain untouched because it isn’t problematic and isn’t used that often. GA is the reason that I love to play mercy, and while it isn’t perfect and could maybe use some tweaks, I feel like it isn’t one of the big problems with her kit. And lastly the passives are good as they are and think they should probably stay. First up, res. My biggest problems with res is that often times it feels like an empty ability slot that gets used maybe twice per game. It either is pointless because the fight is already won or already lost by the time you get an opportunity to use it. My suggested idea is to make it a valk only ability. In valk it is fairly easy and consistent to pull off while also being less frustrating for the enemy to see mercy res only during her ultimate. Instead of res I propose that mercy gets a new form of utility that would work somewhat like the soul bomb from mirrorwatch. This ability would have the same type of cast as soul bomb, would do maybe 25 damage, and create an aoe slow where the soul was, similar to rammatra’s vortex. The ability would be in cooldown for somewhere between 8-12 seconds. My thought with this ability is that we want mercy to be able to provide some utility to her teammates that feels impactful and fun to use. Mercy would be able to help teammates catch and confirm kills on grouped up enemies or hopefully trade an ally that gets killed. Next we have damage boost. There are so many complaints from non mercy’s that damage boost is unfun to go against, which it most definitely can be, but it also is what allows mercy to show some skill, and we want to keep that. I think the best course of action is to give mercy a damage boost that fades over time when held on a target for too long. I think that if the damage boost would go from 30% for the first 2 seconds of being on a target before fading down to only 10% over the next 2 seconds would be fairly balanced. The beam would go back to full efficiency once mercy stops using any beam on the target for 4-5 seconds. We would have a more impactful beam at the start of its use, but would punish mercy for pocketing a single strong dps, which is what the biggest complaint seems to be. This might still have blue beam be an unfun ability, so if there’s any better suggestions let me know. Finally we have valk, which is a fun ultimate to use, but feels like it lacks impact when compared to every other support ult because it doesn’t have the same utility, kill power, or healing that other support ults have. The first valk change I have goes back to my change for res, in which mercy unlocks res during valk. By pressing the ultimate ability a second time during valk while in the current range to res someone, mercy will cast res exactly how she does currently. Second we have blue beam not being on the fading resource meter that we changed it to. We want to be able to push blue beam during valk to make an impact on the team fight, and making it fade if we use it too long would feel bad. Third, I think that valk should work similar to Moira’s ult where her beams combine into one beam that has both effects at once. This makes it so mercy doesn’t have to decide whether to try and save that one ally that is low or push damage boost on the rest of the team. To make this be more balanced we would cut the extended beam range that mercy has during valk from 30m down to only 20m. Finally, we would increase the cost of Valkyrie a little bit if this version would be a little to strong, but I don’t see it being that way when rush is as strong as it is. Overall I’m hoping that these changes would remove the frustration that now mercy players have with her while giving mercy players more utility, skill expression, and strength during ult.
Personally, I think Mercy’s entire kit is flawed. The devs have said multiple times that the hero fantasy for Mercy is being a “triage healer” that flies around the battlefield to help those in need. Currently, this just isn’t what Mercy does because simply pocketing the best DPS hero in the lobby provides a lot more value than using your wings to help other people. This creates an anti synergy in the character’s kit, where she has some of the most unique, interesting and fun mobility options in the game that just aren’t used to its fullest because it’s not useful to. I think this is a massive problem with Mercy that mostly comes from her lack of synergy with any character that isn’t a highly specific DPS hero. Tanks don’t benefit from damage boost almost at all due to their damage being at its best when closer to the enemy, and pocketing a Rein, for example, when he’s swinging his hammer is good, but he does that way less often than holding his shield up. My point is, Mercy is at her best design wise when she’s forced to use GA to get her value, which happens a lot more playing with, or against the comps she’s most bad in. I don’t know if people agree with me on this, but playing Mercy into dive has gotta be some of the most fun I’ve had on the character in my 600 hours spent on her. She’s so bad in those comps, but I find it so rewarding to outplay the Winston Tracer on me, even if it comes with the cost of my entire team’s lives. That being said, these would be my ideal changes for Mercy: I think her beams are probably the biggest problem in her kit. Her healing is terrible, but it makes sense because it’s incredibly easy to use. I still think it deserves a buff with my changes, so it would go 60 hp/s. Damage boost is another big problem. It’s way too easy to use for the value it provides, as well as it’s not fun for anyone that’s not Mercy and the pocketed. My first change would be reducing the damage boost efect from 25 to 20%, but giving it an additional 10-15% movement speed increase so that it’s a lot more useful on tanks. Secondly, I think it should be put on a resource meter similarly to DM, but it would recharge on it’s own a lot slower. However, healing a different target than the one you’ve used “damage boost” on would recharge it much faster. Now onto Resurrection. I would call it the most frustrating ability in the game. You use it almost never, usually it’s just a taxi from spawn, and when it’s actually useful, the enemy team is having some of the most frustrating time in OW. Sometimes you don’t get to use it at all. I would make it as a one time use per Valkyrie. Instead of res, I would replace her E with a skill shot similar to Sombra virus for teammates, that when it hits does three things: 1. Gives a 20% damage reduction 2. Gives a 10% movement speed increase 3. Increases Mercy’s healing on the target by 20% I think it’s just a good versatile cd for Mercy to have that helps in a lot of situations, as well as it gives her more direct skill expression. For GA, I would give the slingshots the 1.5 seconds cd, but reduce the slingshot superjump height to around 5-6 meters, and keep the crouch superjump at its current cd. It makes the ability less spamable, without restricting the more fun parts of it too much. For Valkyrie, I think it would be fair to increase its cost by a bit given her increase in healing and the fact that it also gives a new ability to the kit. Otherwise, I think it’s fine the way it is. Maybe if you think it’s too weak you could increase the healing to 65 hp/s, but I don’t think it’s necessary.
People saying Mercy needs buffs are ignoring that in the highest ranks mercy is the highest pick rate support by a MILE and has a 51% WR. That's insane. Mercy is strong because she's NEVER alone and has permanent value. If you're locked onto a target shields can't stop the beam. You don't even have to aim your beam. As long as you exist, you get value which other supports just don't have. You can buff mercy but actually give her a skill floor. She is the easiest character in the game, and has some insane movement abilities. If she needs a buff, then she needs a nerf in her consistency.
Swaping res and valk as abilities I probably the easiest fix. Mercy would get burst healing (something she doesnt have compared to most other supports), it would help her survivability after the global projectile change, and it would help her damage with infinite ammo on glock allowing her to valk mid fight to clean someone up possibly. Keep it's 12 seconds like it is now but it has a meter that gets used up when you heal or damage boost that lowers your valk time, so it's 6 seconds when healing throughout valk and 4 when damage boosting (just for refrence). Making res an ultimate would make it more satisfying to play against since when it goes off it's "They used an ultimate to undo that" rather then "they used an ability that they'll have again next fight to undo that". Rez shouldn't be made instant though, keep it the way it is now exactly but as an ultimate since you'd have valk as a cooldown to help get it off and theres still counter play like boop abilities and baiting the mercies valk out. (The cooldown on valk should probably be either 20 or 25 seconds, it should only appear twice in a team fight like this if it's being drawn out). This way mercy has a new way to express skill with guardian angel as well as resource management while keeping res as fair as possible. (Honestly I really like the way res feels when using it rn, as in how weighty the animation feels, so I personally don't want to see it change to much)
I have 500 hours on mercy and have been playing her since launch. I think the last thing we truly want to change drastically is GA. Having a lot of mobility has helped her engage in her team a lot more. I would like there to be more advanced tech with it, but I'm unsure how to implement that. I think valk ultimately is what needs to be changed the most. It doesn't do much in a team fight beside provide extra cushion. It'd be interesting to see her do something outside of dmg boost, heal, and rez. Other supports have ults that provide something new to the battlefield. I would still love to keep her flying during valk though. As for her healing beam and damage boost, it would be nice to see some form of burst healing in her kit. Damage boost isn't some I find much issue with, however I did like the idea of having the pocket's gun overloading. Rez is mostly fine to me. Usually shooting her or using CC can stop it. I think honestly I'd just love a way for a dead teammate to cancel your rez. It can be frustrating when you're trying to change heroes then you get rezzed. To me, mercy mostly needs utility buffs as opposed to anything else, which is why I think valk needs to be changed. Other supports tend to provide more beyond healing which is why they tend to be better picks.
>I would like there to be more advanced tech with it, but I'm unsure how to implement that. What do you think of making it a 5 second GA, **but you have 3 stacks of it like tracer.** You can do double or even a triple GA then becoming a sitting duck, or decide to use your GAs slowly. * boost a DPS on highground for some time = 3 GAs ready to escape / do something cool * use 1 GA to position in the prefight = 2 GAs to use on the real fight + maybe 5s past and you do a 4th GA * use 1 GA to get to highground -> use 2nd GA to get to the soul to res -> 3rd GA to leave * Use 3 GAs to spam super jump for no reason -> flanker comes and you have no cooldown and feed >To me, mercy mostly needs utility buffs as opposed to anything else Did you mean buff res, or give her a new ablity to use that provides utility? idk where to put it maybe blaster secondary fire?
I think that would be an awesome idea. It'd be engaging, require a little bit of thinking (game sense and such), and create more opportunities for the enemy team to create a stragedy regarding GA (granted they're paying attention). As long as the longer jump stuff isn't removed, changes like that would be amazing. (Mercy before the accidental bug that evolved into GA as we know it now was extremely clunky and encouraged being in the back of your team which wasn't fun imo)
>(granted they're paying attention). Make the wings light up based on how many charges of GA you have, that way the other team can see. Just like how zarya/sojorn glows when they have high engery. Maybe the other team will start calling "mercy low GA" like they already call "moira no fade"
The best thing Valk is for is to watch your entire team wipe while youre flying in the sky :) Mercy really lacks burst healing and needs it. I love your input on mercy changes though! Id welcome them. I love GA how it is.
they can at least up damage boost back to 30% while they find out what they want to do with her
Special melee attack with Caduceus Staff: Mercy should be able to do something additional while melee attacking with the staff, something like Zenyatta's kick. But for example hitting with the staff could do more damage, or move the enemy backwards, stun for a second a DPS or Support, etc. It would be more useful for situations where you are being flanked Also...for the love of god let us lock a Venture that is underground with GA, I have died so many times trying to help a Venture for them to bury themselves and leaving me with no one to grab onto
I've been that venture a hundred times and I am so sorry it's nothing personal I'm just really unaware and bad at the game lmao
Its not even a problem with the Venture players, its an issue with Blizzard making that choice for some reason. I get not being able to heal them, but why cant I grab onto them with my GA
I may be alone here but I feel like Mercy’s kit is generally fine? Her movement could use some small tweaks to make it feel better, and I think 60hps is needed again due to the DPS passive hitting her quite hard. But her overall design feels fine to me
Heal I think Mercy's healing is bad. I definitely agree that Mercy shouldn't healbot but I think that Mercy can guarantee that her pocketed hero doesn't just fall over most of the time. The amount of times that someone I pocketed just dies almost instantly the moment I switch to damage boost is so sad. I know it's my teammate's fault for that but sometimes the enemy burst damage is just too great for Mercy to keep up. I think Mercy should have some sort of burst heal or a conditional heal that can only be activated in certain scenarios. Critical healing/Triage is a good example of that. Her heal time from 0-full is the same before triage happened plus it helps the team in critical scenarios. Let's face it, Mercy's healing without Valk barely helps in critical moments. Damage boost Just add the Mirrorwatch damage boost buff that damages nearby enemies. It also helps in peeling for your second support when someone attacks them. During Mirrorwatch, I found it more effective to use damage boost to quickly kill off tracers and sombras. Resurrection I think Res should be removed. I know Res is super impactful but the community hates it so much to the point that it promotes hate to the Mercy community. Enemy team uses a lot of resources to get a kill and Mercy just uses 1 button behind a wall and gets value. It's super impactful but you barely have those moments and people always watch for a Mercy res and you can probably get 1-2 good res in higher ranks I suggest we create a utility ability for Mercy. Soulburn gave us an idea about exploding souls doing damage. What about doing 25-50 aoe damage (the father you are to the soul the less damage you take) and enemy hit by the explosion gets vulnerability or increased damage taken like a zen orb. It could last for 3 seconds and could be 15-20%. Teammates can also get a heal buff like Ana nade if they are in the vicinity. (This could be overkill but it allows Mercy to burst heal) This should not heal but allies should get a Yellow aura This makes her a deadly opponent in critical fights. 1 soul could potentially change the tide of the fight. GA I think GA is good right now. You get punished for your bad plays and you have enough time to react to certain things. Honestly if I want to be greedy, I want GA to have a double movement is you use Superjump. I've accustomed myself to not rely on using the crouch button because normal slingshots gave me more options and CD management. Double movement in using SJ allows her to change directions twice. Give it more CD if it's too OP. Valk Her ult is the least impactful ult right now. Probably next to Zen ult because of Dps passive. What if we add overhealth during heal kinda like LW tree and add vampirism during damage boost. Damage boosting during Valk encourages the whole team to do damage to heal themselves and healing during valk adds another defensive mechanic to it because of overheal. I wanted it to be atk spd boost too but Kitsune already exist and people don't want double speed because it's probably broken. P. S. A lot of these are just me being delusional. I just want her to be more impactful because I'm tired of people saying she's useless and just holds mouse buttons. Meme buff Change her rocket launcher instead of pistols during Valk so everyone knows that Hurricane Katrina is coming.
I know this is probably gonna be kind of broken, especially since mercy is already in the higher tier of winrates at a lot of ranks. But what if damage boost and heal beam were kind of mixed? That way you dont have a binary decision to heal or damage boost a team mate. Like maybe when healing you give 10% dmg boost in addition to the heal beam, and when dmg boosting you heal like 50% of what you would when using heal beam.
Didn't think of what numbers would make any of this balanced but here's a concept that I think would bring mercy closer to the "triage healer" hero fantasy: What if they removed rez and replaced it with a pharah boost/bap shift combo that granted a small amount of vertical mobility and an AOE burst heal. Maybe it's called wing flap and that's the animation Also since you'd be remove the high risk/reward of rez, l was thinking you could incentivize a riskier use of GA by applying any ally she flies through with some short passive heal over time and maybe SMALL dmg boost or move speed? She could be sprinkling angel dust on her teams as she GAs by them. (This would probably need to be paired with valk nerf bc it'd be so powerful constantly reapplied during free flight) Also compensate the extra healing with a valk build rate nerf
My suggestion: secondary weapon rework Sometimes there are tiny timing windows where the best move for mercy is to fire 3-7 blaster shots down range rather than hold damage on a target who isnt ready to shoot anything yet. * The mercy blaster automatic reload is cool (blaster reloads itself if you use staff for 1.4srcs) * all 25 ammo rarely gets used up (useless you shoot at shields) Therefore mercy should have a very powerful rife that is good in poke battles, balanced out having very little ammo (1-3 ammo?) and taking a very long time to reload. Make it the longest reload animation in the game so the best way to reload it is the "auto reloader" while using staff (maybe 5 second reload? or even 8). Make it really powerful but you only got 2 or 3 shots, it doesnt have to be raw damage but include some kind other effect too. * some kind of debuff? * scouting effect like sonic arrow? * damage overtime (like virus/TNT) so mercy doesnt become mini widow? * speical interaction vs shields/turrets? * Make it 1 ammo, do a alot of raw damage but cant one shot tracer?
tbh I would just make it possible to hold both beams on one target, but with an overheat resource meter that would disable the staff completely if overused and force you onto the pistol for a few seconds I love the idea of GA being more like tracer blinks, so you can actually meaningfully pressure red mercy also wouldn't mind if rez was less binary.. like you had to hold the button to restore hp and when you let go it revives them at that particular hp and not just max - also means that rezzing tanks doesn't have disproportionate value
Ill be honest im not a huge fan of the rez suggestions so im gonna take a suggestiion on the subreddit i saw earlier but modify it Almost like the experimental we had a few years ago i would do this Valkyrie • Removed as ultimate, now a seconday ability • on a 20 second cooldown • healing goes from 55 HP/s to 70 HP/s • Omni directional flight speed now 10 m/s Caduceus Staff • increased healing from 55 to 60 HP/s Ressurect • Removed as an ability, now the ultimate. • cast time is 1 second • Radius increased from 8m to 23m • Requires line of sight • can now ressurect a maximum of 2 souls • Ressurectees will now get a boost for the first 60 seconds after being ressurected, 20% more damage and 30% faster. Developer comment: I didn’t want to do away her old ressurect, as i find it her most iconic ability, therefore i made it her ultimate ability, sort of mass ressurect but not at the same time. I want her to have a game changing ultimate but no the same "oh god we have to win another battle" game changing, its almost like tempo rezzing back in ow1. So as a compensation for her only being able to ressurect 2 people with her ult, ressurectees will do more damage and go faster for 60 seconds. I feel lile this change will make mercy play smoother.
my mercy rework: * GA mechanics entirely back to end of OW1 GA mechanics ENTIRELY * no it won't be worse than now and if anything probably better than now because atm you have to rely on hard no-tech GAs to keep up with say ally flankers or so, but old GA you can keep up fine with 1.5s cd AND still have tech being used AND can even start cd early without speed loss because higher initial GA momentum. * res now as ult but is now a very arced projectile that doesn't interrupt GA * single target res only * resets GA cd upon cast * "instant" cast time (i.e. like 0.4s cast time or so) * can be eaten deflected or blocked by shields * hitboxes can be adjusted to allow for some leniency in aim * new e ability being a sojourn E but has impact damage (like 40) and the lingering field isn't a DoT but reduces enemy damage by like 15\~20% if they're inside * can be used to get picks, zone for a pick or to peel optional: replacing damage boost beam with her pistol that can be used simultaneously to her yellow beam and GA for full on battle mercy What this does is makes skill expression on mercy actually matter more for what value they get. Want to pull off reses on corpses in more open areas without endangering yourself? you can if good enough with GA tech + aiming the res to do so. Want to peel off enemies? you now have an ability to play around zones, timing and macro strategy to preemptively deny burst thresholds or to deny engages. compared to GA away + beam and pray.
Its a good idea but personally, i donf agree with rez being single target. Say that in a game you get 3 ults, wouldnt it be kind of sad to only rez one person per ult? I feel like having a small case mass rez would be better like 2-3 people or 2 people with extra buffs
how many times she could res all ends up being number tweaks honestly. and it's not like she has 0 playmaking outside of res unlike basically now, because with the new e ability there's a whole new avenue to make plays with (whether to get a pick or to peel an ally or to assist an ally in getting a pick). esp if going the option of letting her pistol along side yellow beaming. all of which also plays into how much ult charge she would get and thus be adjusting how many reses she's do in a match on average.