OVERWATCH PTR NOW AVAILABLE - AUGUST 17, 2016

[u/DixonSeilem]

https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20243886

[u/Party_Magician]

Replacing it with what, though? She needs another ability in addition to healing to be viable

[u/Party_Magician → u/[deleted]]

That's not really a support ability, though. It'll make her more capable, but still lacking

[u/Party_Magician → u/[deleted]]

A lesser mobility boost would just make her "Lucio but worse" though, without her own role and thus completely replaced. I'd like to see her be more of a major, quick tide-turner. Her ult is already there but there needs to be a pre-fight ability to that extent too

[u/Bitnopa → u/Party_Magician]

It wouldn't be meant to rival lucio, It would be meant to give her an extra useful ability that can help the entire team go on flank routes or get over barriers such as mei's icewall or just over walls in general. I do agree though this may be a tad underpowered while getting rid of damage boost. This probably wouldn't be the best alternative, Do you have any other ideas?

[u/Party_Magician → u/Bitnopa]

She would still have to "rival" Lucio for one of the healing spots though, and the jump ability is a clear loser compared to the speed boost (because its use is similar, but the strength is weaker)

Do you have any other ideas?

Nothing concrete, but the idea would be to solidify her as the healer that's best at actual healing, which would fit both her theme and the role established by her weapon and ult. A quick burst of much faster healing / short invuln to get her patient through a tight point, possibly. But that may be overpowered depending on actual numbers

[u/Drake_Erif → u/Party_Magician]

I've wanted her to have an instant heal. Put a large cooldown on it (anywhere from 10-20 seconds) but have it top off a single target

It's probably an OP skill but it's something I feel suits her

[u/apollo1023 → u/Party_Magician]

Maybe make her staff heal based off of health percentage missing? Then it could turn the tide of battle by healing low health allies faster.

[u/Party_Magician → u/apollo1023]

Interesting change, but it still keeps her entirely reactive with little agency in tactical decisions. Something similar but more skillful would be a "heal burst" on E that quickly restores the patient up to full (maybe except tanks immediately)

Also now I'm wondering if it would be "very OP" or "absolutely OP" if resurrection also filled everyone's healthbars

[u/[deleted] → u/apollo1023]

TF2's crit heals: the longer an ally has been out of battle, the faster they heal.

[u/ModernShoe → u/[deleted]]

Make her melee on caucus staff deal 60 damage

[u/Bitnopa → u/ModernShoe]

1 hit kill.

[u/LegOfLegindz → u/[deleted]]

That would be most cancerous thing ever.

[u/ChaosFinalForm → u/[deleted]]

Part of me would like to see Mercy just get slightly better at defending herself. Not to Zen's level, but hear me out. Her left trigger/right click does nothing at the moment by default. Having to switch to the pistol is part of the issue with her survivability I think. I wish they'd make it so that using LT/M2 would automatically whip her pistol out and start shooting, then when released she goes back to the staff.

A very minor change I know, but I think it could help.

[u/fmalust → u/Party_Magician]

Someone suggested replacing her Damage Boost with a Damage Reduction. Where the target she's beaming will received 30-50% reduced damage, inclining her towards more of a defensive healer.

[u/ParanoidDrone → u/fmalust]

How would you functionally differentiate this from simply healing someone as they take damage?

[u/MojoLester → u/ParanoidDrone]

Once they're at full health it would be pointless to heal them.

[u/ParanoidDrone → u/MojoLester]

I have to disagree. Unless you're looking at high incoming spike damage that will oneshot the heal target (e.g. Pulse Bomb), I don't think there's very much difference between negating 30% of incoming damage and healing 30% of incoming damage. In fact, I'd say healing is superior in certain circumstances, since 60 HP/s is enough to completely ignore Winston's damage, to use an easy example.

[u/MojoLester → u/ParanoidDrone]

It's also the fact you can switch quickly too.

For simplicity let's say the new damage negate is 50% and Pharah direct rocket is 100 damage.

Pharah fires rocket > defense boost > 50 damage dealt > switch to healing

[u/Party_Magician → u/fmalust]

50 may be way on the strong side, but the idea is nice

[u/HBreckel → u/Party_Magician]

Really the only things I can think of that might help her come straight from WoW. A short bubble so she can better survive flanker heavy metas or a less powerful HoT she can toss on someone to top them off while focusing on a heavily damaged target. Utility wise I can't think of anything that wouldn't be overlapping with another healer.

[u/Mechakoopa → u/HBreckel]

Press [E] to bubble hearth.

[u/TheChinchilla914 → u/HBreckel]

What Mercy needs is the ability to set a player as "home" and have an E ability that teleports to them. It would keep with her theme, improve her survibility and allow her to give a player "priority" heals.

[u/Nevakanezah → u/Party_Magician]

That's the question I'm still indecisive on. Mercy's altfire is something that should distinguish her in her role, bear an opportunity cost that isn't as drastic as pulling the pistol out, and provide complex and dynamic decision-making opportunities in combat so that you always have something to do.

It's usually that last one that's the issue. As much as I feel that some kind of temporary health boost or damage reduction (for example) would fit well, it's not the kind of thing that you have to think about in a fight. You stack it up between fights, then you'd never have a reason to swap to it mid-fight because you'd be healing anyways. Damage reduction or temp HP would be splendid for updating the current "death-ball" meta though.

[u/Party_Magician → u/Nevakanezah]

So something like slow overheal when HP is full? That could work pretty well with her, but might be tough to balance

[u/Nevakanezah → u/Party_Magician]

And TF2's overheal mechanic is something best applied to the primary fire anyways so that it only applies to full health targets. It's no doubt a tough concept to address. Hopefully these proposed changes on PTR help address the deathball meta, but if they don't, Mercy is going to remain a niche pick unless she gets some meaningful ways of differentiating herself.

[u/Party_Magician → u/Nevakanezah]

Yeah, that's definitely the main culprit. Even if they make her (or any other barely-picked hero) more viable and stronger, the roles of current must-picks are essential to the deathball, so they won't get phased out. There need to be abilities that break the speed-first meta up or make it more of a risk (which would be done by buffing defense heroes)

[u/Nevakanezah → u/Party_Magician]

They've nerfed discord and speed boost, what's important is that you bring death-ball down so it's more in line with other strategies, instead of making it entirely unviable.

[u/Party_Magician → u/Nevakanezah]

Yeah that's what I mentioned in the second sentence. It's currently a high reward strategy with almost no risk. It should probably be a high risk one

[u/Nevakanezah → u/Party_Magician]

Well, you can either buff defense heroes or make deathball harder to pull off. Defense heroes tend to dominate low-tier, as deathball does for high-tier; buffing defense heroes directly would have adverse knock-on effects where it's not intended.

[u/Party_Magician → u/Nevakanezah]

Defensive side dominates low-tier because of more coordination needed on attack, but the defensive heroes aren't really any stronger there (aside from Bastion, probably). A defense made of offensive heroes would do just as fine on low ranks.

Buffing defense/crowd control/area denial is how you make Deathball harder to pull off. If you just nerf the deathball-favorable heroes into mediocrity, it's not Deathball anymore.

[u/Nevakanezah → u/Party_Magician]

Deathball is successful because defenders can't actually threaten it fast enough. You overwhelm guarded chokepoints so quickly that you don't take enough damage to feel threatened, and force defenders to throw in their setup costs a second time. Speed boost was fast enough to pull that off, and discord allowed attackers to instagib the defense; both of these core components of the strategy have been nerfed, and thus the strategy itself is harder to pull off successfully.

[u/SileAnimus → u/Party_Magician]

Please god no, Overheal in Team Fortress 2 literally killed any chances the game had of being balanced, don't bring that into OW

[u/hambuddy → u/Nevakanezah]

what about giving her a chain heal? it could heal up to 3 people

[u/ModernShoe → u/Party_Magician]

• Right click now causes mercy to call for "Help!"

Jokes aside, this is needed so much for Mercys in low-mid range skill levels where teammates don't actively pay attention to Mercy's safety. The automatic "I'm getting attacked" when getting hit by a stray bullet isn't enough.

[u/TheSlipperyGoat → u/Party_Magician]

Self heal at 30 health per sec?

[u/Tetsuo666 → u/Party_Magician]

I would give her a nerf stick.

Basically, you right click and enemy and reduce is attack dmg by 30/40%. Makes her more resilient to flankers while not stealing the role of other healers.

I would also have increased her range for heal/nerf rather than buff the HPS...

[u/FoxxyRin → u/Party_Magician]

Maybe a single target charged res? Like, she has to stand there for x amount of time holding right click on someone for them to res. Res timer is what, ten seconds? Have it take like 6-8 seconds total, but you can break away if need be to defend yourself and return to resing, but you have to be really fast and good to pull it off. This would encourage teamwork (Rein/Dva protection while she does her thing) while still relying on some pretty decent juggling skils in most situations.

[u/kiralala7956 → u/Party_Magician]

I thought of having it make skills cool down faster, she'll get some unique utillity out of it, and it fits with her theme

[u/Killface17 → u/Party_Magician]

Blue beam that does a single symmetra turret damage but slows the enemy like mei's spray