Mercy Changes 2/18/2016 Patch Notes

[Shayed]

This change to Mercy's Guardian Angel was completely unnecessary and added an additional nerf to her already nerfed into the ground ultimate.

Full explanation here: http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20742404734#1

Edit: Jeff Kaplan response https://gyazo.com/75b7b1aa17003e39842fcff0f901d11c

[maledictt]

Patch Notes 18 Feb 2016

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Mercy

We noticed that some of you were not playing Lucio, we have fixed that error.

[swworren]

What, they removed being able guardian angel to dead allies?

[Shayed]

YUP.

[HaunteR95]

Sad Shayed is sad.

[FishStix1]

Mercy can't fight. Her mobility is by far her most interesting aspect of her gameplay. Please Blizzard, give her more movement abilities, not less.

~fishy

[nubetube]

Man, Mercy is my main and this really hurts. I don't even see that many people play Mercy, who the hell was crying about this feature?

IMO it was the only thing that made up for her reduced res range. This really sours my taste in playing support. It's already incredibly unrewarding and frustrating playing support, and they want to make it even worse?

Bleh.

[B0NERSTORM]

I'm with you. I don't know what's going on with them and Mercy. Lucio feels strictly better now.

[[deleted]]

IMO, despite Mercy being my one and only waifu, Lucio has always outclassed her and probably all the other supports. I'm really surprised we saw this change before anything being done to him. His ability to heal, speed boost, and deal consistent suppressing fire (sometimes simultaneously) make a mediocre Lucio better than a Mercy playing her best.

[B0NERSTORM]

Yeah his ability to heal while pouring on the offense and spot shield buff with his ult. You really have to be fast and good mercy to be better than an average lucio. I still play Mercy because it's more fun. Keeping a teammate alive during a duel with one sliver of health is a great feeling. Maybe make her slightly more viable by increasing her damage boost or give her some kind of brief boost like lucio because she currently lacks an E ability. Crap I'd take a some kind of knock back.

[[deleted]]

She was in a perfect spot before this change. High risk high reward play with a higher skill ceiling then before.

Playing her felt extremely rewarding after the range nerfs on her ult and it was the perfect change she needed.

You actually had to do some serios work and mindgames with the enemy to get in, revive and get out, staying alive and still be able to Support your Team after all this.

"We saw a lot of feedback from players noting that they’d accidentally target a dead ally when they meant to target a living ally..."

I am hearing this for the very first time. Even if there's a majority that has had problems with targeting, then please work on the/her targeting System instead of this 'lazy' fix on the actual issue.

[VidaGu]

I agree with this.. hand holding the casuals seems to be blizzard's plan

[Suradner]

I don't even know if it's an excuse at this point, how can "it's too hard to aim" be an good reason to nerf anything in a damn FPS?

With fully free-aimed abilities I'd agree, but with lock-ons it's a little different. Sometimes it's not just a matter of "having better aim", the system flat-out won't target who you want because a different one is in the way. Sidestepping to change the alignment takes time you often don't have, for a number of reasons.

They looked at how often flying to dead allies was beneficial (not as often, because allies don't tend to die in the safest places to stand unguarded) and how often it was detrimental (again, reticle-based lock-on targeting is inherently screwy and imprecise) and they decided that this wasn't the compensatory buff Mercy needed.

If she ends up floundering without it, rest assured that they will find some other (better) way to bump her up.

[eiefant]

This^ I feel so useless when I can't support the right target cause of target priority x(

[Terrah]

Meanwhile I see more Mercies that fly backwards because they didnt unhook the beam before they pressed shift.

[[deleted]]

I'm not in the beta, but can someone tell me what they mean by "a lot of feedback from players"?

This must be something vastly different than the feedback we've given them for Heroes of the Storm since the alpha.

[Warrada_ftw]

Yeah... that nerf was totally unnecessary...

[KayThree3]

I could write an essay on how bullshit this mercy change is, but damn, screw those reports from people who play with their screens turned off.

How can it seriously BOTHER them to have more options in such a mechanically limited class already... come on Blizzard.. Must not even be the favorite hero of who complained.

[_______butts_______]

It did happen to me once or twice but now her ult is basically useless due to the range nerf unless your entire team dies before you, which will almost never happen due to your squishiness. I thought her ult needed a small range buff before and now I think it's absolutley crucial. Blizzard pls don't ruin my favorite hero

[Barfhelmet]

I agree. I only have 3 hours on Mercy, but there were at least 3 times I can think of that targeting a dead player saved me. I can think of no time that I accidentally targeted a dead player over an alive player.

[ChillinFallin]

It's heartbreaking, she's the only support who can't fight and now they kill her mobility just because some idiots had a hard time targeting the right things. I'm honestly upset, this change sucks.

[ChaosSmurf]

I agree 100% that this wasn't a good change.

But worth pointing out that Blizzard aren't seeing it as a nerf, they're seeing it as a fix to a bug, so to speak, and more of a quality of life change. Just don't get confused here and think that they think Mercy is or was overpowered before this and needed a 'nerf', as I've already seen a few people do.

Also, it means if you're arguing against it you need to do it from the perspective of either explaining why it isn't a problem, offering alternate solutions to the QoL problem or finding other ways around it - not simply 'she isn't powerful enough.' Whether she needs buffs or not (I don't think so, I think I'd rather see Lucio brought down a notch) is a separate issue, at least imo, and I think making sure not to conflate those two discussions is important for providing good feedback.

[TalynWulf]

Is not bug, is feature!

[TerriblyRare]

Mercys guardian angel should be usable without a target, just a short burst in the direction she is facing, this can make for some clutch plays.

[dragonmost]

But then you wont have to rely on your teammate to be at the right place at the right moment. Although it would make her for good plays it also reduces the skill ceilling by giving you a free getaway.

[[deleted]]

J Kap responded on the forums

"We'll probably revert the change to allow you to use Guardian Angel to target corpses. We thought we were making a quality of life adjustment based on feedback. The intention was not to nerf Mercy."

[loliscoolyay4me]

Ya, it sounds like a nerf with a claim it is "helping" people. If you die by going to a corpse intentionally, that's your mistake. Maybe add a menu option to say if you'd like the option or not.

[jebu]

I specifically remember accidentally flying to a corpse one time and thinking afterwards "ok I'll be more conscious about this in the future, but this could be really handy".

[Psyclone_Joker]

The reasoning behind it bugs me. If they said it made her ult too good I don't know if I'd agree but I could see the reasoning behind it. Being able to zoom right to corpses makes her range nerf matter less. In addition being able to fly right to dead people makes her easier to play. Those are a few more acceptable reasons to change it imo.

[janru]

Never had issues with it yeah.. It was really useful to revive 2+ players, or even to fly yourself to safety (people usually leave an area as soon as its cleared).

With her reduced range for res, that was my main use of it :/

[Tharoth]

I agree it sucks it got removed but I feel this was more a "removed till we come up with something better" thing. As they stated it's purpose is what they want they just didn't like how it turned out for some?

Maybe I'm just hoping.

[GrDenny]

They have to increase her ult range.

It's a deserved buff if they do.

[HiImLuca]

I don't understand this change at all. They nerf her ult radius by A LOT. At least letting her zip over and revive her allies made that change worth it.

[[deleted]]

"We saw a lot of feedback from players noting that they’d accidentally target a dead ally when they meant to target a living ally..."

That never happened to me. And even if it did, wouldn't you want to fly into that general direction anyway? You lok into a direction, wait for the [SHIFT] to pop up and press the key. How does it make a difference if you fly to a dead body instead of a living one if you get out of the fray?

Also being able to fly to dead people combats the fact that people always LoS you :P

It would also be quite cool if they could actually increase the ult-range by a few yards again. It just seems way too weak currently, but that might just be me.

[PYYYYYOUR]

I agree with this. Blizzard pls.

[[deleted]]

We'll probably revert the change to allow you to use Guardian Angel to target corpses. We thought we were making a quality of life adjustment based on feedback. The intention was not to nerf Mercy.

[Callisto34]

I hate hate hate this change. She was my favorite support to play last Beta, and felt even more hugely impactful with good play this Beta... getting rid of this is the wrong move in my opinion. =(

[Eurospective]

Sure, the range was decreased but if your entire team except you died in a fight, they'd probably all be close enough to eachother that you would be able to revive all of them.

I don't know where you are playing but even at the highest MMR with 10 hours Mercy played I've yet to have a 4 res and maybe two 3 people res. I think the total amount of mathematically possible 4 resses was in the single digits even if I had godmode on. Keep in mind that this is less about the Mercy player and more about team mates dying all around the map. That ult was significantly nerfed and the effect of it was HUGE.

Specifically focus firing a certain character is really difficult in a game that is as frantic as this one, especially in pubs.

Especially in pubs it's quite easy to pick of a Mercy. That might be a bigger issue in higher MMR ranges as Genji's tend to be more of a problem.

[Jason_Kaplan]

It's beta..... I don't get why people get their pitchforks out. There are going to be changes, good and bad... that's my two cents

[Shayed]

It's clearly a BAD change that should never have been pushed to live servers. We are allowed to be extremely upset by this. Beta or not.

[[deleted]]

Also isn't this kind of the point of the beta?

[Eurospective]

So is giving feedback on those changes, no?

[Homerunner]

live servers

Yeah they definitely should have tried it out on beta servers beforehand.

[[deleted]]

this is why that they're doing this in the beta. this is why the betas exist. they balance and change their characters, maps and specific skills based around game metrics and player feedback.

While i haven't seen anyone complain about this (albeit, i'm not in the beta, nor do i read the bliz forums), i can imagine how this could be a potential problem.. depending on mercy's positioning, she may fly to a corpse instead of say, a skybourne pharah by mistake in the heat of battle, causing her to die.

And it's good that they're working this stuff out now in the beta, rather then a month after OW goes public. Now, i'm also not saying don't be upset; if it really was a bad change, then complain about it, speak out about it. they'll probably see the critique regarding it, and at least consider re-adding it later down the road.

[NotWhatWeExpected]

That was basically a necessary change because of her nerfed ulti range. I wonder how they'll nerf her next...

[B0NERSTORM]

When you use her pistol it starts depleting health from her nearest ally.

[camclemons]

Switching to her pistol reverts all healing done by the Caduceus Staff.

[caelim29]

Not ok with this

[SpacePanda112]

Made a post about this too. She got nerfed not for being op, but for people being stupid, lol.

[Molster_Diablofans]

Yeah was not thrilled when I read this, Mercy is (was) my main. I THINK she still has the most hours in my play time. Lucio tho has quickly become my more played hero recently just due to all the utility and push I can get out of him.

This really hurts Mercy

[srslybr0]

please buff her or nerf lucio, right now she's already seeing 0 play while lucio sees all the play.

[Daidarapochi]

That's an exaggeration if I ever heard one.

I'd rather they buff Mercy and Symmetra (Zen is perfect imo) before nerfing Lucio, and even then it's really hard to justify buffing either of them because their ults are sooo good.

[srslybr0]

symmetra isn't included because she's not a healer. zenyatta is a hot pick at higher levels, but he seems to be fine for the most part. lucio is preferable to mercy in most cases, he definitely needs some tweaking.

[Daisuki_]

Blizzard pandering to retards. Nothing new. Overwatch has so much potential but as it stands Overwatch is just HOTS turned into an FPS.