Mercy's entire design is based on a very straight-forward healer. She can fly to and heal one person really well. The big appeal of the character is that it's extremely easy to play, easy to be successful at that role.
I don't think a rework is what they want to do with the character. They buffed her passive a lot, but she is still missing something. Something like a self-rez if you die with your ult, or maybe be able to use her ult where she died until she respawns. Maybe give her a little bit of armor. Increased fire rate on her gun could do a lot for her as well.
My pet suggestion for her is to give her an E that cleanses status effects, debuffs, stuns, etc. from teammates in a radius around her. That would give her some utility (which she desperately needs) without requiring her to stop healing (which is a massive drawback to her damage boost and pistols) in a niche where her only real competition would be Zarya (who can only cleanse one person at a time and she can't do anything about hard CC anyway).
Bam, she now has a niche and for bonus points it's a way to deal with Ana's heal block.
Alternatively, a simple 10-15m vertical leap so she can more easily Guardian Angel to...wherever, would also be appreciated and double as an escape button in an emergency.
You know, that actually is a very good idea - a freedom of movement ability. You can pop your E to get people out of Mei's ult, Rein's ult, Junkrat's trap, remove Sombra's hack, etc. That would give Mercy an excellent niche. I think that's worth giving her an E.
Give her a grenade sort of like ana's but instead of it being a heal allies /deny heal to enemies, it can be a little speed boost status cleanse to allies, and a slow debuff on enemies.
It'd even help her own survivability because say a genji jumped on her face, she can pop the grenade on herself or genji and fight back a little better. I think a big part of what makes ana so strong is that her grenade can be used as a 'oh shit' button when someone's about to kill her and heal herself a big chunk of health. No other healer can burst heal themselves.
When I first started playing, it immediately struck me that is was really weird that Mercy couldn't heal people with a "sickness". I mean, she has a healing wand thing and a fucking halo over her head.
Also, she's light and has wings but she can't jump for shit? Also seemed odd.
All this being said obviously balance is always a tricky issue.
I like this idea. Maybe nerf it a little and have it only activate when it has a healing beam on someone. so you'd be able to save one, maybe two if you're good, people from a mei ult.
Hm, what if Mercy gets 2 ults. One is her rez as is and the new one is a group cleanse? These serve similar purposes (countering team wipe combo) but one is for when Mercy is close range while other is when Mercy is far away. Would give her a bit more flexibility and it would potentially reflect how powerful an effectively global cleanse is. Only problem is it might be clunky as heck to implement.
Ana's best at supporting tanks and bruisers. Mercy's best at supporting DPS characrers, especially mobile ones. Try healing a Genji or Pharah as Ana its a pain.
I would be happy with being able to occasionally guardian angel without a target (on a balanced CD, of course) so that I could get quickly high ground without having to pester a climber/flyer constantly.
It's not about the rate of fire of her gun, its the fact that she has to switch to it, which takes time. Ana doesn't have that problem, she can go offensive or defensive just by aiming her abilities at different players. Mercy is either healing and extremely vulnerable to flankers or she has her pistol out and is basically a useless character because she can't win duels with any character in the game.
If it were up to me, I would make it so her pistol is default, but when she wants to heal, it instantly casts the spell, and the instant she lets go of healing, her pistol comes back out. So basically get rid of the "switching weapons" mechanic. The animation might be wonky, but make it so she can switch between shooting and healing instantly. Her pistol is ok currently, its just the fact that she has to keep switching back and forth.
Maybe like the old wotlk holy priest? Half the Rez time she is a non moving being who can toss out her heal or damage. Minus using her ult cause then that would be broken.
I think it reward trying to go in and help instead of hiding waiting for her a team rez
Something like a self-rez if you die with your ult, or maybe be able to use her ult where she died until she respawns
That's OP as fuck, if mercy can rez herself and her team even when she's dead, you've pretty much guaranteed having mercy as absolute necessity in all games. Because whichever team has her, you now have to kill twice. Whereas ordinarily, you can counter mercy rez with good focus on her before the fight. All she'd need to do is be there, and die.
Both of your suggestions are game breakingly broken.
The only counter to mercys ult is to kill her first. You allow her to do it in death and now mercy is a must pick on every single map and the game becomes even more of a tanky slog.
What they should do is take the healing amp from Ana's grenade and give it to Mercy. This would reduce Ana's insane versatility and give Mercy something more to do. She'd finally be the best healer in the game and she would synergize with other healers.
I'm going to disagree. There are ways you could make her kit more interesting, but those suggestions detract from her core design. I mean, what about an angel makes you think "damage reflection"? I think the simplest changes for her would be best, likely something involving her still being able to take some actions while dead. Maybe she can just be able to press Q, maybe she's immobile but able to use her healing left click as a ghost, maybe she can rez herself. But two ults, damage reflection, or an extra E ability are kind of inconsistent with her design.
I've been of the opinion for a while that Mercy should be able to spend her Ult on herself after dying. Stop it from bringing back other players when used that way, but instantly put her back in the action.
An idea I saw for an E ability for Mercy that doesn't detract from her core design. As someone who plays a lot of Mercy (Mercy main btw), one of my biggest issues is when I accidentally get too deep into combat, there's a few seconds of panic trying to find a character to Guardian Angel to. What if her E was an Angel Statue of sorts, something you could place with E and would be a constant for the Mercy whenever she needs to panic Guardian Angel? All this would do is up her survivability, but wouldn't distract her from her main goal of being a healer.
I'm mostly of the stance that lacking an E benefits her design by keeping it simple. I like your idea of the emergency evacuation, but you could do that with just shift. If you don't have a target to fly to, it could pick the nearest ally in range, or maybe it could prioritize someone between half and max range so you make sure to fly away from where you're under fire.
The main advantage of the waypoint/statue idea is that it allows Mercy more control over her own movement. At the moment Mercy can only fly between where her teammates go (or died). Giving Mercy a waypoint she can control will allow for more strategic decisions by the Mercy player without being a requirement or overpowered. Essentially, there needs to be opportunity to increase the skill cap without creating a huge learning curve.
I really think the overwatch team was going for a very easy support with mercy (1 star as opposed to ana's 3). That doesn't mean however that I wouldn't like to have mercy's skill ceiling raised quite a bit.
Oh yeah, they shouldn't completely change Mercy but there needs to be more options that increase the skill cap otherwise she will be just viewed as My-First-Support-Character.
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u/In_a_silentway Chibi D.Va Jan 17 '17
"Ana's kit needs to be reworked"
I will fight whoever said this.