New Mercy Rework on PTR

[Jessicka]

In my experience Lucio and Zenyatta players play Lucio and Zenyatta. Met plenty of them in Grandmaster who have 70+ hours on Lucio/Zenyatta and close to no hours in anything else.

It's the same BS internet myth that "rewards one tricks" in general, then the forums are full of one-trick DPS who are put in groups of one-trick DPS all the time and can't climb because they lack the necessary skillset to be a bit more flexible. And the reality that the 'skill' part of the SR reward for that particular hero amounts to about 3-5 SR difference per match; the biggest impact being made by the hidden MMR value and the odds the system gave you when the groups were formed.

[Graeham]

They're pretty great changes as far as I'm concerned. It makes Mercy more engaging to play and allows for various strategies to be adopted as needed. Her infinite pistol fire for the duration of her ultimate will be especially great at choke-points, especially with a second healer. Lucio and Zenyatta are already encouraged to dish out damage when they can so it's only fair that Mercy gets to indulge in that too.

Decent and great players will thrive and adapt to the situation as needed. Terrible players will screw themselves over.

[Derah]

No word on what's gonna happen to Mercy's achievement? I've been trying to get it for ages (The one that requires you to rezz 4 people at once. Rewards the Cute Spray)

[NoiseTank13]

It's the same BS internet myth that "rewards one tricks" in general, then the forums are full of one-trick DPS who are put in groups of one-trick DPS all the time and can't climb because they lack the necessary skillset to be a bit more flexible. And the reality that the 'skill' part of the SR reward for that particular hero amounts to about 3-5 SR difference per match; the biggest impact being made by the hidden MMR value and the odds the system gave you when the groups were formed.

Not a myth.

https://clips.twitch.tv/HotFlaccidFriesWow

Mercy OTP's were an issue early on in the current season. It's why people were so down on Mercy's kit because if you were one tricking to that level with no experience in any other hero, if you couldn't play Mercy you couldn't do shit with anyone else, which was primarily the reason she was derided. There were a lot of gold and plat level players were suddenly elevated to Master/GM just for specializing in a mechanically simple Hero, hiding in spawn after the team fight is done as show here;

https://gfycat.com/UnselfishSnoopyKilldeer

And rezzing when everything is all said and done. Not compelling gameplay, frustrating for 11 players (six being on the enemy team having their hard work and coordination nullified, five on your team because of your absence and obvious attempt at SR inflating.)

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No word on what's gonna happen to Mercy's achievement? I've been trying to get it for ages (The one that requires you to rezz 4 people at once. Rewards the Cute Spray)

No word yet. It'll likely get reworked to rez 5 people in one life more than anything.

[Endus]

The Mercy one-trick climb strat boils down to the fact that;

1> Mercy isn't hard to play; you don't need any skill at aiming whatsoever. Most of the skill component comes in battlefield awareness and ensuring you have an escape route.

2> Mercy is almost totally reliant on her team, and acts as a force multiplier for that reason; if her team is amazing, even a meh Mercy will help them shine; damage boosting that laser-accurate Soldier 76 makes you both look good and takes zero skill as Mercy. So there's less impact on her for climbing above her player's "real" skill level.

The 5-man rez thing is honestly secondary to that, and these changes aren't going to make it totally go away. It'll just end the stupid-ass "hide and wait for a team wipe" mechanic that's going on now, because deliberately losing a fight is bad gameplay (and it's the Mercy that's making that choice, not her team, by her not actively contributing).

[GennGreymane]

My fav thing on the official forums right now is the amount of plats and below talking about skill ceilings and what needs skill.... (with a vast majority of them being DPS insta lock shimada mains)

[Jessicka]

My fav thing on the official forums right now is the amount of plats and below talking about skill ceilings and what needs skill.... (with a vast majority of them being DPS insta lock shimada mains)

Yeah, same ones that say 'DPS didn't get Tanks and Supports nerfed, it was because Tanks and Support ruined DPS's fun'. :S

[NoiseTank13]

My fav thing on the official forums right now is the amount of plats and below talking about skill ceilings and what needs skill.... (with a vast majority of them being DPS insta lock shimada mains)

Master/Grandmasters seem to be giving the same feedback as those "ShimadaDPSBros," as well, if we're about to pull rank into this.

[GennGreymane]

Master/Grandmasters seem to be giving the same feedback as those "ShimadaDPSBros," as well, if we're about to pull rank into this.

Don't worry, I am sure those guys running dive really do care about Mercy mains. I mean if they get a Mercy main on their team, it means they cant run full dive. Boo hoo. Same reason why top widows, torbs, syms, all get reported as throwers.

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Yeah, same ones that say 'DPS didn't get Tanks and Supports nerfed, it was because Tanks and Support ruined DPS's fun'. :S

Unfun is code for "It slows my DPS down"
Engaging is code for "more dps for my lizard brain"

Oh my new favorite is
"I flex"
has 70+ hours on various DPS (DPS with similar roles)
maybe 10 tops on a tank and a healer combined.

[NoiseTank13]

Genn I'd appreciate if you'd stop shitting up the topic with your little pity-party 'oh woe is me the DPS boogeymen is ruining the game and my fun' nonsense.

Thanks.

[GennGreymane]

Genn I'd appreciate if you'd stop shitting up the topic with your little pity-party 'oh woe is me the DPS boogeymen is ruining the game and my fun' nonsense.

Thanks.

I call it when I see it.

[RadasNoir]

I gotta say, between this and the D.va changes, really not liking the mindset of making more defensive or support characters "engaging" by giving them abilities to make them more aggressive. Unlike the folks who instalock the dps characters, I usually pick Tank or Support characters specifically because I'm more interested in helping my team win, as opposed to running around and trying to get kills. Even if I agree, for the sake of argument, that Defense Matrix and Mass Resurrection need to be nerf/removed, I guess I would have personally preferred that D.va and Mercy had instead gotten more defensive or support abilities to make up for these nerfs, instead.

And yes, I'm aware that Mercy's new ult will also improve her support capabilities, but already we're seeing folks (that I suspect normally play dps) getting excited over the prospect of "Battle Mercy", which I feel doesn't bode well for how the community as a whole (also mostly made up of dps players) will view the changes....

[Endus]

I gotta say, between this and the D.va changes, really not liking the mindset of making more defensive or support characters "engaging" by giving them abilities to make them more aggressive.

It's an aggressive game. This isn't "hide behind cover and poke at the enemy until you weaken them enough to move up" like some other FPS games. If you're holding a point, it should be because you outshot the enemy team and had better coordination, not because you both bunkered up and took potshots at each other for 5 minutes without much happening. Which is where a defense-oriented game will take you; see what happens even in Overwatch when you play Capture the Flag, and your team needs to handle both at once; 9/10 games turn into two bunkered defenses who sit and wait out the timer.

[NoiseTank13]

And yes, I'm aware that Mercy's new ult will also improve her support capabilities, but already we're seeing folks (that I suspect normally play dps) getting excited over the prospect of "Battle Mercy", which I feel doesn't bode well for how the community as a whole (also mostly made up of dps players) will view the changes....

I don't see this at all. What I see is people's kneejerk reactions to a sweeping rework + gfycats/Twitch clips of a world reknowned top 500 player using a non-nerfed version of Mercy's ult in addition to Ana's nanoboost on the PTR against unorganized randoms. Which is what you should be doing to see what crazy bullshit you can pull off so Blizzard can see what should remain and what shouldn't. They already said they were going to nerf the pistol damage and I can't fathom that being the only change they make to her.

[RadasNoir]

It's an aggressive game. This isn't "hide behind cover and poke at the enemy until you weaken them enough to move up" like some other FPS games. If you're holding a point, it should be because you outshot the enemy team and had better coordination, not because you both bunkered up and took potshots at each other for 5 minutes without much happening. Which is where a defense-oriented game will take you; see what happens even in Overwatch when you play Capture the Flag, and your team needs to handle both at once; 9/10 games turn into two bunkered defenses who sit and wait out the timer.

If this is such an aggressive game, then what is the point of characters like Reinhardt and Orisa? They enable a "bunkered defense" playstyle far more so than characters like D.va or Mercy ever did. Mercy's Resurrection Ultimate might have made it so that breaking that bunkered defense was harder than it needed to be, but Reinhardt/Orisa are still the characters that make it possible in the first place. Ironically enough, part of the reason why I like playing D.va is that she has the capability to play more aggressively if need be, if either team is getting too bunkered up and not getting anything accomplished, and my problem with the nerf to Defense Matrix and the addition of Micro-Missiles is that it pushes her too far into being an exclusively aggressive character, with Defense Matrix back to seeing only situational use.

And as for Mercy, more than likely, she will still play mostly the same as she did before minus being able to rez everyone, but again, my concern is more just the mindset of making defensive/support characters more aggressive, even if it's in minor ways. Part of the appeal of Overwatch is the fact that the wide variety of characters provide for a wide variety of playstyles for different sorts of people. Some of us prefer to play more cautiously, in more of a supportive role, partially because we don't have the aim or reflexes to play more aggressive characters, so I hope people can understand why there are so those of us who become concerned or upset when we start to see the characters we like to play as being changed, in either subtle or more overt ways, into more aggressive-style characters.

[Woobels]

If this is such an aggressive game, then what is the point of characters like Reinhardt and Orisa? They enable a "bunkered defense" playstyle far more so than characters like D.va or Mercy ever did. Mercy's Resurrection Ultimate might have made it so that breaking that bunkered defense was harder than it needed to be, but Reinhardt/Orisa are still the characters that make it possible in the first place. Ironically enough, part of the reason why I like playing D.va is that she has the capability to play more aggressively if need be, if either team is getting too bunkered up and not getting anything accomplished, and my problem with the nerf to Defense Matrix and the addition of Micro-Missiles is that it pushes her too far into being an exclusively aggressive character, with Defense Matrix back to seeing only situational use.

And as for Mercy, more than likely, she will still play mostly the same as she did before minus being able to rez everyone, but again, my concern is more just the mindset of making defensive/support characters more aggressive, even if it's in minor ways. Part of the appeal of Overwatch is the fact that the wide variety of characters provide for a wide variety of playstyles for different sorts of people. Some of us prefer to play more cautiously, in more of a supportive role, partially because we don't have the aim or reflexes to play more aggressive characters, so I hope people can understand why there are so those of us who become concerned or upset when we start to see the characters we like to play as being changed, in either subtle or more overt ways, into more aggressive-style characters.

I know there's a strong anti-dps brigade here but you have to ask yourself if it's fair that a hero that in your own words doesn't take as much aim or reflexes can deny any action that does take a lot of skill.

Some Genji could have the best dash reset streak of his life, a Tracer could land a sick PB, Widow could get 3 picks with one of them being an airshot and all Mercy has to do is ..not be there, crouch and be in a somewhat sneaky position so she can res and all of that work the other team did is gone, granted things like 76 or Reaper ulting don't take much mechnical skill either but there's stronger countermeasures to those than there are to Mercy res.

Personally I don't believe a playstyle like this should be rewarded in a game that claims to be competitive and it sure as hell is rewarding right now.

I do agree the game needs more defensive options, a lot of people do, dive is getting fairly obnoxious and just about every change they make seems to push the game towards that style of play more, defense heroes have been pretty much garbage since season 1 and I'd love to see more use for them, this includes things like Orisa.

[RadasNoir]

I know there's a strong anti-dps brigade here but you have to ask yourself if it's fair that a hero that in your own words doesn't take as much aim or reflexes can deny any action that does take a lot of skill.

Some Genji could have the best dash reset streak of his life, a Tracer could land a sick PB, Widow could get 3 picks with one of them being an airshot and all Mercy has to do is ..not be there, crouch and be in a somewhat sneaky position so she can res and all of that work the other team did is gone, granted things like 76 or Reaper ulting don't take much mechnical skill either but there's stronger countermeasures to those than there are to Mercy res.

Personally I don't believe a playstyle like this should be rewarded in a game that claims to be competitive and it sure as hell is rewarding right now.

I actually agree that Mercy's Resurrection ability was too powerful. Forget about a single dps getting lucky with their Q or a great kill streak; it can be utterly soul-crushing when your entire team has worked to kill off the entire enemy team...only for all that hard work to be undone in a few seconds thanks to a mass rez. It's actually something that I feel has been a long time coming. My main point of contention is what Mercy is getting to make up for the nerf to Resurrection. I'd have preferred something a bit more overtly defensive in nature and perhaps more unique than "I now do everything I could do before, but better", which is what Valkyrie seems to be. And again, I'm worried that the buff to her damage during Valkyrie will either encourage more aggressive Mercy play and/or make it so that people expect more aggressive Mercy play, at least while Valkyrie is popped.

[Jessicka]

I know there's a strong anti-dps brigade here but you have to ask yourself if it's fair that a hero that in your own words doesn't take as much aim or reflexes can deny any action that does take a lot of skill.

Some Genji could have the best dash reset streak of his life, a Tracer could land a sick PB, Widow could get 3 picks with one of them being an airshot and all Mercy has to do is ..not be there, crouch and be in a somewhat sneaky position so she can res and all of that work the other team did is gone, granted things like 76 or Reaper ulting don't take much mechnical skill either but there's stronger countermeasures to those than there are to Mercy res.

Personally I don't believe a playstyle like this should be rewarded in a game that claims to be competitive and it sure as hell is rewarding right now.

I do agree the game needs more defensive options, a lot of people do, dive is getting fairly obnoxious and just about every change they make seems to push the game towards that style of play more, defense heroes have been pretty much garbage since season 1 and I'd love to see more use for them, this includes things like Orisa.

Mercy takes more situational awareness than any other hero, you need to know where everyone, both teams, are at all times so you can avoid them and fly to the next. You need to know who's getting the kills so you can get the most from damage boost. You need to know basically everything that's happening, all the time. Meanwhile 99% of DPS heroes get by with tunnel visioning their reticle and being reasonably good at pointing and clicking. Aim is not the only skill in this game, only a fucking retard would think it was; and if it was, then shit, Widow would be a must pick, all the time, every time, and nothing ever could change that.

You claim you want more defensive options, but you've been the prime cheerleader here for cutting DM entirely. And that was the most high skill defensive option in the game. You don't want defence at all, you want to point and click adventure through.

Oh, and they've also nerfed D.Va's new missiles already.

[TriHard]

The game is undergoing some insane changes now tbh, Officer Dave getting missiles and shorter defense matrix, Junk getting double mines, Widow being able to see through walls when someone triggers her trap and now they're changing Lamborghini Mercy.

I like the changes though. Season 6 gonna be lit

[Woobels]

Mercy takes more situational awareness than any other hero, you need to know where everyone, both teams, are at all times so you can avoid them and fly to the next. You need to know who's getting the kills so you can get the most from damage boost. You need to know basically everything that's happening, all the time. Meanwhile 99% of DPS heroes get by with tunnel visioning their reticle and being reasonably good at pointing and clicking. Aim is not the only skill in this game, only a fucking retard would think it was; and if it was, then shit, Widow would be a must pick, all the time, every time, and nothing ever could change that.

You claim you want more defensive options, but you've been the prime cheerleader here for cutting DM entirely. And that was the most high skill defensive option in the game. You don't want defence at all, you want to point and click adventure through.

Oh, and they've also nerfed D.Va's new missiles already.

A lot the claims you're making here are dubious at best and you sound slightly frustrated to say the least so I'd recommend you chill.

D.Va's DM is not the highest skill defensive skill option in the game, Zarya's bubble is because it has far more applications, generally more things to consider, and her base gameplay is far more difficult than D.Va's, but you're not going to accept this anyways because you have a clear bias towards D.Va, holding RMB and having a >15 yard barrier extending from you isn't that hard to do, but sure it takes more skill then blocking shit with Rein I guess? Maybe? I'd argue Mei and even Symm's defensive options take more skill to get anything done with too.

Mercy does not take the most situational awareness in my opinion but I know this going to attract a lot of shit from everyone who adores their cute female hero healslut so I won't go into too much detail, almost every DPS takes more though because they have to actually be aware of things while they are aiming/playing the game, something Mercy doesn't have to do.

Also playing Tank/DPS/any flanker into Mercy takes a dumb amount of awareness because you need to not only do all your regular shit, you also have to pretty much guess and hunt down the Mercy before she resses and undoes all the work your team does, because according to a lot of you 'just killing her' is really the best way to deal with her, too bad the only level of play this consistently happens in is fucking professional play, not even in Grandmaster do teams have the coordination to deal with Mercy hitting a 2 button combination to completely flip a map.

And I don't think I'm a 'fucking retard' for thinking aiming/mechanical skill is pretty important in a videogame of the first person shooter variety.

But this is pretty much the exact response I was expecting from this part of the community, touching Mercy, D.Va and all the other cutesy girl heroes that anyone's mom can pick and up learn to play is sacrilege because you might eventually get left behind if the game keeps progressing the way it does.

Anyways have a good day, I'm going to play some more DPS on ptr so I shit on some D.Va players, peace.