#mercy ptr

[thetrueenemyofhumanity]

Wow I hate this new Mercy. The complaint was about Mercy's stopping healing and hiding to get the rez. Like sorry for being aware of our game surroundings and realising when the enemy has ult. Sorry for realising that when said ults come, we can't possibly save our whole team just by healing (since Mercy is the only one that can heal one at a time).

We are being punished for knowing how to play our character. And the punishment is completely ruining that character.

Cheers Blizz.

[dukefavre]

[wailord]

D.Va & Mercy: I am SO Bitter

They took my two mains and have made them both completely and utterly useless. I was hopeful when I heard about these changes, but now I am fuming. And it doesn’t seem like the devs are listening to anybody who shares my opinions. Despite being a console player, I HAVE played them both for a couple of hours on the PTR. I’m going to put my full points (I’m trying to be more rational than rant-y but I’m still incredibly bitter lol) under a cut, so that I don’t crowd people’s dashboards, but because of that, I’ll give a tl;dr right here. - D.Va has been nerfed so hard that she is in the same position now as Roadhog and doesn’t have a defined role in the game, nor will she be viable in upcoming seasons. - Mercy has been put into a spot where she can no longer fulfill her role adequately when compared to other supports or even characters with a blended role, making her worse even than Sombra, a DPS, and Orisa, a tank. Picking her is ultimately almost pointless. - OW is becoming a game catered solely to DPS characters, and protecting your team is a thing of the past. FEEL FREE to reblog, post your thoughts, message me privately, send me asks, etc. I don’t have many followers, but I encourage it.

I’ll start with D.Va. DM uptime reduced by 50% - Now, for every 10 seconds (plus a delay in recharge), I can protect my team for 2 seconds instead of 4. D.Va can no longer counter the brunt of any ult, nor can she successfully protect herself or her healers, which was something she excelled at. Without having her cooldown, critbox, or delay reduced, and without having her HP altered or increased, D.Va now becomes, like Hog, a walking ult battery for the other team. Her mech can be destroyed in quite literally a second if focused down and you will spend more time out of mech and dying than you will doing anything useful. Short of Zen’s Transcendence, if the enemy team is any good, you’re fucked. In addition, the only decent protection your backline healers had from Tracer and Genji have been removed. IN PAINFUL ADDITION, know who can protect from damage, ults, and even redirect them? Fucking Genji. And now he can do it better and longer than D.Va can. On a shorter cooldown!! That’s fucking right, folks. A DPS character is now better at protection than a goddamn tank. Let that sink in. Added Missile Attack that can be fired every 8 seconds. - D.Va ca now use a missile attack that deals a total of 200, no, 160 (lol they nerfed it too) damage in total, with very minimal splash. - These missiles can be shot while boosting. - These missiles can be shot while firing her regular cannons. Cool, missiles! Not really. Contrary to her cannons, these missiles are projectiles, and require good leading skills rather than the tracking skills her cannons require. Because of this, firing them together is clunky and awkward. You cannot lead and track at the same time. Because of how the missiles are fired (a few on each side in a line, rather than in a burst like Pharah’s ult), any player who is good at straffing can take potentially little to no damage. Firing them while boosting is risky; if you’re too close to the enemy D.Va damages herself, making her mech melt even faster. On the last patch, they actually nerfed her damage, solidifying her role as a protector tank. Why give her something clunky and potentially self-damaging when they could have just upped her regular damage and gotten rid of some of the fall-off? If they wanted to give her another ability, it should have been a utility - that way she wouldn’t have had to rely on DM so much (since apparently it’s a problem). Can now shoot while flying. This is self-explanatory. Despite having learned to use the fire button to cancel flight, this is actually a welcomed quality of life change. Of course, it doesn’t nearly make up for how hard they’ve killed her. Let’s move on to Mercy. I won’t put this in point form since it’s just a doozy. I’m more bitter about this than D.Va, surprisingly. Her rez has been moved to an ability on a 30 second cooldown, which averages more rezzes per game than having it as an ult. In THEORY, this is really cool. In THEORY, this will end the “hide and rez” Mercy tactic the DPS players whine about (isn’t backing off when you hear a teamwipe coming common sense???). However, it completely falls apart when you take a good hard look at her ult. Also her new rez voiceline really just sounds like she doesn’t even care. It’s watered down and uninspired. VALKYRIE, the name of the suit and the reason we’re all here. They have removed what made this character iconic, and given her a bit fat nothing in return. While ulting, for 20 seconds, Mercy can fly, shoot with infinite ammo (because they removed the firerate as it was too strong), move slightly faster, and her beams can chain amongst her team. In addition, her rez is reset, and cooldown while ulting is down from 30 seconds to 10. Yes this sounds super cool! But it’s not. Despite her beams chaining, they do not get buffed. Mercy still heals 60hp/second, and still damage boosts for 30%. If we’re comparing ults, Zen heals for 300hp/s over 6 seconds and is completely invulnerable. Orisa’s ult boosts all your nearby teammate’s damage by 50%. If we’re looking at numbers, Mercy can potentially heal 1200 hp over 20 seconds for each teammate. Zen, while invincible, heals 1800 hp over 6 seconds for each teammate. He can save his team from all high-damage ults that aren’t instakill (Junk and DVa, both of which are easily avoidable). Mercy, while ulting, cannot even outheal anything except a non-ulting Winston. She cannot protect her team from ults. Take 10 damage. A 50% boost puts it at 15, and a 30% boost puts it at 13. Orisa, over the period of her ult can boost 220 damage. Mercy, in 20s, can boost 260 damage. Only more because of the duration; more impact yeah, but over way more time.  With the added firerate of her blaster removed, she no longer has the same DPS addition to her ult (which isn’t really her character’s purpose to begin with anyway so to me this is negligible). But KENDRA! Her rez resets and the cooldown is lowered! Yes, very true! However, what good will this do in a team wipe? You rez once, ult, then rez again. But then you gotta wait 10 seconds. By this time, the other dead souls have respawned and you and 2 teammates are standing there, acting as further ult charge for your enemies. But she can fly and escape! This becomes irrelevant when you have to literally be on top of the soul you want to rez (and you no longer have invincibility frames! This is true even without ult. Rezzing a teammate will literally get you killed unless no enemy is around). The restricted distance is a meager 5m. And despite being able to fly and having your regen be uninterruptable, you still only regen 20hp/s. While for Huge Rez you were invincible, during this ult, any 76, McCree, or Widow worth their salt will still demolish you, especially if the first two ult, making any impact you WERE going to have null and void. LITERALLY, taking all this into consideration, the only thing Mercy is good for anymore is healing outside of her ult and damage boost. And if you thought people yelled at you for not rezzing before, be prepared to be yelled at by every player you choose NOT to rez (or can’t rez because of the cooldown). This leads me to my conclusion; that Overwatch as a game is being changed to cater solely to DPS players. “It’s not fun to be oneshot by Hog.” Nerf. “It’s not fun to have my ult eaten by DM” Nerf. “It’s not fun to have my teamwipe reversed.” Nerf. It’s a disturbing trend that any type of character that can oppose and counter a DPS hero will get nerfed if enough people complain about things being not fun. However, Scatter Arow has yet to be nerfed (”he needs a way to defend himself!” so did D.Va). Symm’s melting capabilities have yet to be nerfed (”she wasn’t strong enough before in a fight!”). Pharah, Reaper, Soldier, McCree, and any ults in combination with Grav or Blizzard can all gain team wipes (”ults are meant to be gamechanging!” mercy’s no longer is tho). Someone on the forums worded it nicely: Overwatch is meant to be a Rock-Paper-Scissors game.You’re supposed to switch it up on the reg to counter your opponents. But because paper beats rock, rock complains and paper gets removed. Rock will now always beat Scissors, and so a new meta is born whether you like it or not, and you have everyone picking rock. This is how the game becomes stale. With D.Va’s new rework (cough, nerf), there is no longer any way to protect your healers from backline harrassers like Tracer, Genji, Pharah, or Reaper. Short of Zarya’s bubble (which only lasts a second under heavy damage), Rein staying back to beside the healer (ill-advised), or Winston’s dome (which can be walked into), anyone getting harrassed will be killed unless another DPS (or a charged Zarya) saves them by killing the enemy first. Hog can no longer punish harrassers completely, and the most Orisa can do is briefly mini-gravi them away (and that’s only if she isn’t paying attention to the frontlines, where she should be). Honestly at this point, the best protector is Mei, who can freeze and secure a kill (except against a really mobile Tracer or Genji, and except Pharah who’s in the sky), but then has to remain with the healers. Very rarely have I seen a DPS player who stays back and helps protect the healer (but yes I know you guys are out there). DVa can no longer counter (despite the amount of characters who can ignore her DM), and Mercy can no longer reverse the tides of battle.  The majority of the roster is meant to secure kills. With the new deathmatch mode being introduced, and characters being reworked to fit a mold, I fear this will only increase. A diverse game that I loved is slowly being changed to accomodate esports and pro-players, and it’s incredibly disheartening.

[joe-verwatch]

I’ve already posted my thoughts on the recent onslaught of Mercy changes here and here, and feel they’re still pretty relevant in regards to attitudes concerning her changes. Let’s move on. Here’s what’s going to need to happen: In a game about teamwork and coordination, communication and peer support is going to be all the more important. Remember in the Uprising Event when everyone could revive a downed character? (You could. Most people it seemed weren’t aware of this, even though it was explained in dialog. Oh well.) It was important to keep the reviver covered, otherwise they too were prone to falling. It is now more important than ever for team mates to protect their healer, because it’s going to take at least two characters to revive a fallen team mate now.

Mercy’s latest PTR nerf is yet another in a continuing series of nerfs designed to place her on the same tier as other support heroes. While Ana’s healing rate is superior to Mercy’s in exchange for the high level of skill required to utilize her effectively, and Lucio and Zenyatta have other utilities, they were often paired together to meet the bar set by a single Mercy. Mercy’s ability to give players a second chance made her an effective support even if she failed to help her team mates survive. The famous Huge Rez was the first thing to be stripped down, due to the frustration it caused among opposing teams. The new single fire Resurrect could not necessarily undo the effects of team wipes, but it made it easier to maintain steady pushes by negating single kills and requiring opposing teams to focus on coordinating ultimates. Mercy became a more popular choice because single Rez effectively made her a faster healer than Ana, plus her new Valkyrie ultimate had several utilities. Despite the outcry of the Mercy Main community, the new Mercy’s gameplay actually made her Mercyer. But it was only a small step towards the balance Blizzard was hoping to achieve. From a sociological standpoint these changes that have recently gone live in the PTR will have a major impact on players once they almost inevitably reach the main servers as they always do. Because of Mercy’s superior abilities, the expectations placed on Mercy players was very high. Many people believed that if they had a Mercy they should never have to face the indignity of respawning. Even when players weren’t cussing at their Mercy over mic they would spam “thank you” in the chat wheel every time they died out of spite. The advent of the E Ability Rez made this behavior worse. Players felt more entitled to being revived and verbal abuse increased. With the single Rez now requiring a casting time of nearly two seconds, the likelihood of a Mercy risking their life to resurrect a fallen team mate will drop significantly. Surely more abuse will follow, but if people are more understanding of the new changes something very interesting may happen that could change Overwatch for the better. People who play support almost exclusively, whether it’s Mercy or otherwise (though Symmetra is likely an exception), play support for a very specific reason: they value compassion. The Mercy Mains I’ve described in previous posts, the ones who are more likely to be up in arms over each successive change, play her specifically because they don’t have that killer instinct that draws so many to standard first person shooters, and would rather carry their team another, more peaceful, way. Understandably, having a support on your side is helpful, and many people recognize that. I’ve had many team mates who, when presented with an all-offensive team, request someone switch to a healer for that very reason. Someone. Not necessarily themselves. Rarely if ever themselves in fact. Even players who understand the significance of the healer role don’t find it in themselves to take the time to learn how to play healers effectively because they honestly don’t care. Jack-of-all-trades players who can and are willing to fill any role rather than focus on one or two mains also demonstrate this compassion for others by caring enough about their team to switch and fill in gaps in their offense or defense. The key to playing support, and perhaps even Overwatch in general, is caring about your team. One of the biggest complaints from healers regarding their team is not being protected. Some have taken it upon themselves to become more skilled offensively in response to this common problem, even if it’s not necessarily in their nature. That way, no thanks to their team, they stay alive and are able to do the job their team mates take for granted, thus provoking less trash talk over the mic. Zenyatta can do the damage of a McCree, Lucio has his environmental kills, Ana’s kit is all about mixing damage with healing, and Mercy’s pistol is surprisingly effective. Still, the problem remains that supports are often singled out by the enemy and they can’t always keep themselves safe. Now that Mercy’s resurrect makes it harder for her to defend herself for two seconds, it is imperative that players protect her if they want her to feel safe enough to Rez regularly. In this way Blizzard is actually manipulating the Overwatch player base into growing more compassionate towards their team. One could only dream of a world where everyone groups up rather than trickling in and dying one at a time, focuses on an objective rather than overextending in order to rake in eliminations, and everyone makes an effort to keep their supports from harm. If you watch grandmaster gameplay online that is what teams do. If players learn to care about the people they fight alongside more than achieving personal glory, they will be rewarded with even greater glory. It is my hope that these changes, after a period of struggle, will help encourage players to play Overwatch the way it was intended. As I often tell people when I play: If you want Mercy, then earn it. In the meantime, Ana’s getting a damage buff and my aim is improving. Grandma wants a new gorilla-skin rug for her den.

[dykecious]

does everyone think that all Mercy players all hide for a 5-man rez because holy fuck you are dumb as shit.

This rework wasn’t wanted by us but by shitty dps and streamers who don’t fucking prioritise a Mercy who probably has rez. Secondly, other heros hide for their ults so don’t even fucking bring up trying to get a 5-man rez, because majority of the time a 5-man rez is rare. 2-man/3-man are more common, you pissbabies. 

the rework also butchered Mercy character as well so fuck you blizzard

[star-pup01]

New overwatch meta

6 dps since the Devs don’t like tank and support heroes

[thatguyjye]

All aboard thE MERCY TRAIN AHHHHHHHHH

[important-beef]

Mercy nerf...ಠ╭╮ಠ

Ok wow so they nerfed Mercy's damage when using her new ult... Why tho? You want her to heal and not kill things? Then boost her healing when she's in Valkyrie form. And why can't we go on killing sprees?! I wanna get multi kills with mercy just like with my other mains. DPS Mains™ just gotta GIT GUD and kill the mercy before she rezzes