Mercy is a little over the top

[Wondercrab]

I have a lot of issues with the Mercy rework. It seems like it was done with inadequate testing, minimal response to feedback, and in a way that damaged an iconic character's identity while also dramatically raising the skill floor on the game's most accessible (arguably only entry-level) healer.

On top of all that, it also seems like she's too strong now, with the stats seeming to indicate that she's being played in almost every match. I don't think there's been a single change to Overwatch that I've been less happy with, and I really think they should've taken Mercy back to the drawing board rather than pushing this version of her live.

[Jessicka]

Pulling data from here; https://www.overbuff.com/heroes
And looking at "last week", "competitive", and "all ranks", and the top winrate is Symmetra. Then Torb, then Junkrat, then Orisa, then Zenyatta, and finally Mercy. And that generally holds true at most ranks; at all ranks from Platinum up, Zenyatta's got the higher win rate, not Mercy. At Grandmaster, Mercy's win rate craters, while Zenyatta's rises to #2.

If we look at tie rate, where if Mercy was that super-effective we should expect to see her much higher, since two Mercy-running teams should stonewall each other, Mercy is again not in the top 5.

The data isn't showing what you're claiming. She has a high pickrate, and that's it. And if you look at "last 6 months", Mercy's pickrate only drops from the current 16-17% down to 12.5%. She was ALWAYS stupidly popular. All that really happened is that she's seen a bit of a bump because she got some good changes; there's no evidence in the data here to suggest she's swinging matches as extremely as you're claiming she is.

That people are picking Mercy over Ana could simply be that Ana's been frustrating since her nerf (she was my first Golden Gun, and I barely ever play her now, I definitely prefer the new Mercy over her), and new Mercy is just more fun. This is an issue of Ana being meh, not Mercy being OP.

Ana's low win rate also isn't new; go to the last 6 months in the same link above, and Ana is 2nd from the bottom in that time frame. She's been performing poorly for months, it isn't because of Mercy, it's just that some Ana hangers-on have given up because the new Mercy is more engaging.

So the obviously niche heroes outperform the more generalist heroes, because they're generally only used in their niches. They also have very low pick rates. Zen, yes, I've been saying he's low key really strong for a while, I'm not surprised about that since he makes his team better. But all that said, I'm not sure what win rates tell you about a hero that's always on both sides? The fact she is actually up there in spite of one of them having to lose, well... Yeah. You forget to mention Lucio's win rate though, which has dropped since these Mercy changes.

I don't have a personal issue with Ana's 'fun' factor, she has a much more interactive kit which makes her a lot more rewarding in terms of what you do; she is more of a true 'support' hero than any other. The thing that makes her less fun, is, objectively the lack of success to be had with her. She's always been my favourite support, but I don't play her at all hardly now, because of that lack of success. The lack of success is because she's missing something, she's weak.

Anyhow, turns out they're nerfing Mercy on PTR, so I guess they agreed something is off. Clearly, as ever they've gone for fixing completely the wrong problem in the wrong way. I am seriously losing faith in this development team, the last 2-3 patches haven't done anything to make the game better.

[Seifa]

Typical Blizzard balancing that even Riot used. It is a rollercoaster of changes that is getting tiresome.... The new Mercy made the "focus the healer" mini game even worse, expecially when she is free flying, keeping all the team alive, resurrecting the off position team member and sling shotting away with guardian angel.
But this nerf? Nice way to gut a hero again, Roadhog says welcome.

They could have tweaked the numbers a bit, lowered the fly speed, maybe increased the ress cooldown, made ress start with 30 seconds cd at the start of the match to reward early picks or even lowered the duration of Valkyrie....

I just think this game can't have stability with such drastic changes in a matter of few week and poorly PTR testing; i've returned to TF2 few days ago to remove the rust on my aiming before OW's Halloween event... but i'm having more fun in Valve's game even if it is the same stuff from years ago, but at least it's familiar and "stable".

[Hctaz]

Typical Blizzard balancing that even Riot used. It is a rollercoaster of changes that is getting tiresome.... The new Mercy made the "focus the healer" mini game even worse, expecially when she is free flying, keeping all the team alive, resurrecting the off position team member and sling shotting away with guardian angel.
But this nerf? Nice way to gut a hero again, Roadhog says welcome.

They could have tweaked the numbers a bit, lowered the fly speed, maybe increased the ress cooldown, made ress start with 30 seconds cd at the start of the match to reward early picks or even lowered the duration of Valkyrie....

I just think this game can't have stability with such drastic changes in a matter of few week and poorly PTR testing; i've returned to TF2 few days ago to remove the rust on my aiming before OW's Halloween event... but i'm having more fun in Valve's game even if it is the same stuff from years ago, but at least it's familiar and "stable".

I definitely think they overnerfed her now. Why did they just like... gut literally everything about her? Rez should still reset on ult activation. I'm fine with mostly everything else. But having the ult to rez immediately was a good design I thought. It let you save your ult for a time when you for sure needed it... I don't even know if it has enough impact to really be a support ult anymore. It feels more like something you just pop when you are about to engage the enemy team now, not something you use to turn the tide of a losing battle or to stave off death from other player's ults. Getting the rez into ult into rez was so good I thought. Really felt like a real defensive ult. It didn't save anybody from dying, but it brought back two members and then let you potentially turn the tide.

[zito]

I definitely think they overnerfed her now. Why did they just like... gut literally everything about her? Rez should still reset on ult activation. I'm fine with mostly everything else. But having the ult to rez immediately was a good design I thought. It let you save your ult for a time when you for sure needed it... I don't even know if it has enough impact to really be a support ult anymore. It feels more like something you just pop when you are about to engage the enemy team now, not something you use to turn the tide of a losing battle or to stave off death from other player's ults. Getting the rez into ult into rez was so good I thought. Really felt like a real defensive ult. It didn't save anybody from dying, but it brought back two members and then let you potentially turn the tide.

they should have either nerfed her ult duration or changed rez CD from 10 seconds to 15 seconds which would cut 1 rez out and make her max during her ult a 3 rez instead of a 4 (which you could have 5 rez with her old ult so in that regard it was already nerfed) and then fixed the guardian angel momentum and then buff the other healers to actually be meaningful

[Woobels]

I haven't played or seen these Mercy nerfs in action but reading official forums and the main Overwatch reddit threads on this is absolutely hilarious.

The amount of people that are convinced that there's some huge DPS player conspiracy is amazing, aswell as people who have convinced themselves that Mercy takes more skill than "Genji spamming shurikens till he gets ult and then presses one button to team wipe" (actual post found on bnet.)

On a more serious note, the patch note..s(?) are a mess as is the state of PTR right now, there's a bunch of stuff wrong/changed with other heroes but Mercy and this current nerf might be too heavy handed, hope they actually listen to some feedback now because while I fully believe Mercy is beyond broken right now I don't want to see her be made completely obsolete.

[zito]

so they buffed genji (for whatever reason) and nerfed lucio wall riding speed?? and reverted junkrats buff to his ult

ok blizzard what are you doing. Junkrats ult going to be useless again? Lucio speed on walls has been a thing for half a year WHY IS IT NOW A PROBLEM? Nobody has issues with it. Then you make mercy worse then what she was before the buff.

[Woobels]

so they buffed genji (for whatever reason) and nerfed lucio wall riding speed?? and reverted junkrats buff to his ult

ok blizzard what are you doing. Junkrats ult going to be useless again? Lucio speed on walls has been a thing for half a year WHY IS IT NOW A PROBLEM? Nobody has issues with it. Then you make mercy worse then what she was before the buff.

Genji's is confirmed to be a bug, wouldn't surprise me if Lucio's is too because they have been messing with Mercy's momentum.

[Deleted]

Where do you people find these documented changes anyway?

Regarding Mercy's ult now, it's shit. I absolutely hate the way the current Mercy is on live. Keep res on a 30 sec CD, but reset her res CD when she ults. That way you can res 2 people max in a short time frame. Right now it's just a boring ult, you're not excited to use it all.

[zito]

Where do you people find these documented changes anyway?

Regarding Mercy's ult now, it's shit. I absolutely hate the way the current Mercy is on live. Keep res on a 30 sec CD, but reset her res CD when she ults. That way you can res 2 people max in a short time frame. Right now it's just a boring ult, you're not excited to use it all.

yup her ult is the most uninspired thing right now.

It's a weaker Zen ult or a weaker Orisa ult. I guess the upside is you can switch between the 2..... but that's not really going to do anything. For healing it's not going to out heal any sort of ultimate like solider or anything like Zen can and damage wise it's the same deal.

As for using it not against another ult, the answer is why. There's no point to this ultimate it's the most uninspired ult since Orisa was released.

[Honik]

Pre-rework: ''Her ultimate ressing 5 ppl and being invulnerable while doing so needs to be nerfed''
After-rework: ''OMG she can ress 2 ppl at the time if she has ult ready and 3rd in 10 seconds after that, who cares she can be killed now while ressing ITS STILL TOO MUCH''

Like.. cmon people, you will still bitch about something. Mercy being in most of games isnt her being OP its because she is kinda easy to play and because game lacks supports.
Blizzard needs to put 2 more maybe even 3 supports to mix things up.

Only thing I'd nerf on Mercy is her hp regen while she is ulting

[Jessicka]

Pre-rework: ''Her ultimate ressing 5 ppl and being invulnerable while doing so needs to be nerfed''
After-rework: ''OMG she can ress 2 ppl at the time if she has ult ready and 3rd in 10 seconds after that, who cares she can be killed now while ressing ITS STILL TOO MUCH''

Like.. cmon people, you will still bitch about something. Mercy being in most of games isnt her being OP its because she is kinda easy to play and because game lacks supports.
Blizzard needs to put 2 more maybe even 3 supports to mix things up.

Only thing I'd nerf on Mercy is her hp regen while she is ulting

The res in ult is not what people were complaining about. It was her hit box which is designed for a predominantly ground based hero with a small head (by comparison Pharah’s is larger to make up for having to shoot up at her), and her constant regen which gives you no room to miss shots against a fast moving target.

That’s what’s most ridiculous. The ‘bug fix’ aims at the speed issue, but they want to bring that back with consistency. Yet the major nerf is way off target and the compensation in extending the range is a QOL issue she probably deserves baseline because the current range has terrain issues.

[Thelxi]

At least they are acknowledging that removing her mobility is not the way to go. I had no idea "most" mercy players were "intensely frustrated" with her increased mobility, but I can see how losing control over her can be a problem for some. Let's see what they do with her.

In case Blizzard is reading this: keep nerfing the shit out of rez. Also go ahead and noob-proof her mobility but DO NOT reduce it. Momentum gliding was not just "fun", it gave Mercy far more independence and room to take risks opposed to having to sneak around, hide behind her team and meekly rely on them for survival.

[Eapoe]

Think the nerfs are too much. She will still have good survivability during her Ult at least as far as the reduced damage, but slowing her movement during it is going to nullify that reduced damage. She's not hard to focus down if she's flying out in the open, and now with reduced movement she's going to be even easier.
The Rez not resetting is understandable, but I will miss it. Felt great being able to get 2 rezzes off quickly. Losing the reduced CD is going to hurt also. If they go thru with those, it feels like they should slightly, SLIGHTLY, buff her healing during Ult. Some coordination on focus targets can still kill people during her Ult as 4-6 will outdamage Mercy's heal.
Feel like all the nerfs are mainly due to the lower levels. Bronze thru Gold I can see all the issues people have with her, and let's be honest, that is probably the range most players sit. Getting Plat and higher, with high skilled players and focus teamplay she is pretty easy to shut down. I don't mind Blizz changing things due to the majority of the player base (it's not a bad policy), but I wish they would do small changes over time instead of major changes once every 3-6 months. Nerf one thing about her, if it still seems like a problem 1-2 weeks after nerf her a bit more. Don't change her entire ability range over 1 patch.

[Endus]

In case Blizzard is reading this: keep nerfing the shit out of rez. Also go ahead and noob-proof her mobility but DO NOT reduce it. Momentum gliding was not just "fun", it gave Mercy far more independence and room to take risks opposed to having to sneak around, hide behind her team and meekly rely on them for survival.

She's not supposed to be the "highly mobile" healer, though. Lucio is. Right now on live, Mercy's got better mobility than the mobility healer. AND better healing, AND rez, AND a more-useful ultimate. So the only reason to go Lucio, really, is because A> someone else already picked Mercy, or B> boops.

I'd be all for letting her keep the momentum, but if that's the new level, the other healers all need buffs up to that point. Lucio needs better healing (and they're seemingly nerfing his mobility, along with Mercy's, so this remains true even if the changes go live as-is), Zen needs a useful mobility feature or some kind of defensive boost/ability and maybe some slightly improved Harmony orb healing, and Ana needs, just, like, a lot of love. Revert the damage nerf at least on her primary fire, give her either the ability to shoot through enemy barriers or mobility tools to climb to shoot OVER them, some kind of improved self-healing other than her 'nade (since I think reducing its CD is a bigger issue for other reasons).

That's the big issue with the new Mercy; most of the healers are one-trick ponies. Lucio is a mobile boop machine. Ana is a (bad) sniper. Zen is all about the deeps. And Mercy is a mobile strong healer, damage-booster, who can rez to prevent picks from collapsing the team, and dials everything to 11 when she ults. She as good or at least 80% as good as any of the other healers in their respective niches, while remaining king in her own uncontested niche (rezzes), and while the other healers are poor substitutes at anything BUT their niche.

[Deleted]

She's not supposed to be the "highly mobile" healer, though. Lucio is. Right now on live, Mercy's got better mobility than the mobility healer. AND better healing, AND rez, AND a more-useful ultimate. So the only reason to go Lucio, really, is because A> someone else already picked Mercy, or B> boops.

I'd be all for letting her keep the momentum, but if that's the new level, the other healers all need buffs up to that point. Lucio needs better healing (and they're seemingly nerfing his mobility, along with Mercy's, so this remains true even if the changes go live as-is), Zen needs a useful mobility feature or some kind of defensive boost/ability and maybe some slightly improved Harmony orb healing, and Ana needs, just, like, a lot of love. Revert the damage nerf at least on her primary fire, give her either the ability to shoot through enemy barriers or mobility tools to climb to shoot OVER them, some kind of improved self-healing other than her 'nade (since I think reducing its CD is a bigger issue for other reasons).

That's the big issue with the new Mercy; most of the healers are one-trick ponies. Lucio is a mobile boop machine. Ana is a (bad) sniper. Zen is all about the deeps. And Mercy is a mobile strong healer, damage-booster, who can rez to prevent picks from collapsing the team, and dials everything to 11 when she ults. She as good or at least 80% as good as any of the other healers in their respective niches, while remaining king in her own uncontested niche (rezzes), and while the other healers are poor substitutes at anything BUT their niche.

Damn... do you even play OW? You want a Lucio in KotH because of his speed boosting. He's so good in combo with loads of other heroes (Tanks mostly, but also specific DPS like Reaper greatly benefit from him). His speed boosting is also really good to just dive into a team and beat them by sheer force and aggression.

The other healers don't need a buff. Lucio is capable of AoE healing and he has sick mobility if you know how to play him (Everybody can wallride, but not everybody can stall like the best Lucio's can). Zen doesn't need a healing buff, his Harmony orb is sick for flankers like Genji and Tracer so they can fight longer. He heals people when other healers can't reach him. And discord orb is one of the most powerful abilities if applied correctly. I do agree he could use a little bit of a mobility buff. Would be fun if he can just hover over a Junkrat trap for instance, or just make him move a little bit faster.

Ana is still one of the strongest heroes in the game, offering a huge and useful kit. Her grenade messes up so many people and it allows you to defend yourself against Genji's and Tracers. You don't heal yourself with it since in pretty much most games (Atleast where people are competent) you have 2 healers anyway. You use it to mess their team and hope that your own team zergs the enemy team. So many times I see Ana's who heal themselves when there's no need to. She's also a huge counter to Roadhog now, who you see in a lot of games again. Her damage is fine aswell. You shouldn't focus damage with her anyway. Also Ana is the best at healing Genji's, Tracers and Pharah's who are far away and harassing their backline. Mercy can't heal them, Zen's orbs can't reach them, but Ana can always reach them regarding of distance. You don't really snipe with her unless it's in those cases. Ana's stay with their team to make the best use of their grenades.

Not even going to talk about Nano and Sleep Dart, 2 more very powerful tools in her kit.

[Endus]

Zen doesn't need a healing buff, his Harmony orb is sick for flankers like Genji and Tracer so they can fight longer. He heals people when other healers can't reach him.

For 3 seconds. Then they're around a corner and Harmony falls off. If Harmony stuck to its target regardless of LOS (even needing LOS to be attached first), I'd agree, but they deliberately nerfed that away early on.

I main Zenyatta. I know he's got strength, but I'm also very aware that he's not particularly flexible. And that's what I'm talking about, mostly; adding flexibility to most healers.

Ana is still one of the strongest heroes in the game, offering a huge and useful kit.

The numbers we have available do not back this up.

https://www.overbuff.com/heroes

Check the win rates; Ana's at the absolute bottom in the "last week" and "last month" valuations, and 2nd-last in 3-month and 6-month analyses (Sombra takes over the lowest, at that scale).

Is it just that she has a high skill cap? Let's check Master stats only. Dead last in all but the 6-months range. Grandmaster? Dead last in the last month, but climbing to 3rd and 5th lowest in 3- and 6-month scales, respectively.

Ana's not performing well. Beyond her low pickrate, she has the lowest win rates of any hero. She was doing well, until her nerfs. The most recent of which was March, past that 6-month range; she's been performing exceptionally poorly since that point.

[Deleted]

For 3 seconds. Then they're around a corner and Harmony falls off. If Harmony stuck to its target regardless of LOS (even needing LOS to be attached first), I'd agree, but they deliberately nerfed that away early on.

I main Zenyatta. I know he's got strength, but I'm also very aware that he's not particularly flexible. And that's what I'm talking about, mostly; adding flexibility to most healers.

Atleast we can agree on Zen getting a little bit more love, atleast in terms of mobility.

The numbers we have available do not back this up.

https://www.overbuff.com/heroes

Check the win rates; Ana's at the absolute bottom in the "last week" and "last month" valuations, and 2nd-last in 3-month and 6-month analyses (Sombra takes over the lowest, at that scale).

Is it just that she has a high skill cap? Let's check Master stats only. Dead last in all but the 6-months range. Grandmaster? Dead last in the last month, but climbing to 3rd and 5th lowest in 3- and 6-month scales, respectively.

Ana's not performing well. Beyond her low pickrate, she has the lowest win rates of any hero. She was doing well, until her nerfs. The most recent of which was March, past that 6-month range; she's been performing exceptionally poorly since that point.

She was doing well, even with the nerfs. The nerf to her damage on her gun wasn't ground breaking. And the nerf on the nade was actually pretty justified, since the healing it did was pretty sick. If you nade a low Winston now you get him back up to max in just a few darts. Ana's pickrate has nothing to do with her nerfs, but it has everything to do with Mercy and her being easy mode low skill cap hero. If Mercy's upcoming changes go live (Although I do believe they might add a CD reset on her popping Valkyrie only, just as it is now on live, minus the 10 sec res CD) we'll see Ana more again. Playing Mercy isn't rewarding to me. I just play Mercy sometimes in QP because it's so chill and easy (And I play in the ~4000 range on QP). Playing Ana is a lot more engaging, and dependant on skill that she's a lot more fun to play with her.

I'm not amazed by GM Mercy's. You see them so often now it's absurd. I'll take a high skilled Ana over a Mercy any day. But with the amount of resses going on now, you're going to lose if you don't have a Mercy of your own countering theirs.

[Endus]

She was doing well, even with the nerfs. The nerf to her damage on her gun wasn't ground breaking. And the nerf on the nade was actually pretty justified, since the healing it did was pretty sick. If you nade a low Winston now you get him back up to max in just a few darts. Ana's pickrate has nothing to do with her nerfs, but it has everything to do with Mercy and her being easy mode low skill cap hero. If Mercy's upcoming changes go live (Although I do believe they might add a CD reset on her popping Valkyrie only, just as it is now on live, minus the 10 sec res CD) we'll see Ana more again. Playing Mercy isn't rewarding to me. I just play Mercy sometimes in QP because it's so chill and easy (And I play in the ~4000 range on QP). Playing Ana is a lot more engaging, and dependant on skill that she's a lot more fun to play with her.

I was carefully not referring to pick rate. I was pointing at her low win ratio. And this doesn't change when you look at the top ranks, all that significantly, so it's not a skill cap issue, or if it is, her skill ceiling is still below the comparable ceiling of, say, Mercy. And that predates the recent Mercy changes.

Ana is the single hero most likely to lead to a loss, going by the stats.

[Jester Joe]

I'd be all for letting her keep the momentum, but if that's the new level, the other healers all need buffs up to that point. Lucio needs better healing (and they're seemingly nerfing his mobility, along with Mercy's, so this remains true even if the changes go live as-is)

A bit old of a post, but still going to drop this here because for some reason I don't see anyone posting that the Lucio change was a bug-

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/over...page=3#post-46