I've been playing Blizzard games for the past two decades, during which I always had a strange feeling in my stomach whenever I see the new patch notes. Every time Blizzard announced them, it was usually my main class that gets nerfed to the ground or gets redesigned, so it doesn't feel like I'm playing the same game anymore... I had those kind of feelings about patch notes until Blizzard started balancing certain heroes in Overwatch. Let me elaborate...
A few months ago Lucio was a "must pick" in the meta, and Blizzard decided to nerf him. Apparently he was "too powerful" and I must admit - I was kind of looking forward to those changes. A few days later we finally got to taste the new Lucio on the PTR, so what did we get? Well we got new Lucio that is faster, does more damage and healing. In another words - we got Genji with healing. Thanks to these "nerfs" Lucio is a high mobility healer, that can two-shot you if you're not careful enough. Not to mention, he's super hard to kill. They only nerfed the range of his auras. It was such a big nerf, that most famous Lucio in the world DSPStanky created a video with a title "New Lucio is insane". These days so many players are playing him in the new Deathmatch mode, 'cause he is perfectly capable of engaging in 1v1 combat with dps/tank characters. So, what does all of this have to do with Mercy? Why am I even talking about Lucio nerf? Well, the same pattern was applied again...
Many people are complaining that "Mercy is overpowered!", that "Her resurrection has too much value!", that pharmacy (Mercy & Pharah) is too strong etc. So what did Blizzard do? They gave her more useful tools, helped her to dominate even more. Mercy's resurrection is no longer her ultimate, it's now an ability that can resurrect a single teammate instead of five, and has a 30 second cooldown. Since the most of complains were aimed at her resurrection, I suppose this is what they should've balanced the most, right? Well no, not really..
Need a ress? Don't worry, I got you bro!
If you ever watched GM Mercy gameplay, or some of the pro Mercy's on tournaments, you would've noticed that the best resses are those that brought back one or two teammates. These so called 'tempo resses' have such a big value when they're executed right, and now Mercy has the ability to do that at the start of the match. Something once only pro players did, everybody has a chance to do now and it's on a 30 second cooldown. That's super broken, if you ask me! If pharmacy was strong before, now is even stronger... Imagine being able to resurrect Pharah every 30 seconds? Scary, isn't it? Okay, let's talk about her new ultimate! It's called Valkyrie, and it turns Mercy into this god mode, super saiyan beast! This form lasts for 20 seconds and while in it, Mercy can literally fly around really fast, chain heal her whole team, damage boost her whole team, has an infinite amount of ammo, her passive regeneration is increased and can't be interrupted while taking damage, and her resurrection cooldown is reduced from 30 to 10 seconds!? Last but not least, she can reset her resurrection coldown as soon as she activate this god form. Shortly put, Mercy can now ress five times in less than a minute and if that's not crazy talk I don't know what it is! What were they thinking? Jeff, my lord, are you feeling alright these days? How is this "nerf" supposed to tune down an already strong Mercy? I'm not getting it... At least when it comes to Lucio it's clear enough - by reducing the range of his auras, they increased his skill cap. I just don't see that's the case with new Mercy. You can literally spam ress every 30 seconds and get a great value for your team... Mercy was the most played hero in the last season, and if this goes live, we are going to see her even more. Don't get me wrong, I am not a Mercy hater, I've been playing a lot of Mercy myself. It is a lot of fun to fly around, feel like a goddess and dominate, but I doubt these changes are good for the game and I hope they won't go live. Maybe it's just wishful thinking.
Valkyrie Mercy skin in Valkyrie god mode.
In conclusion, redesigned a hero and increasing their skill cap is not a nerf, in the long run it's a huge buff. In the right hands, it's a weapon to dominate the other teams. These days when it comes to Overwatch, I'm not sure what the word "nerf" even means... Let me know what you guys think about the new Mercy? And also thank you for reading, if you made it this long! Cheers!
Hi, check my blog if u are interested by video games ;) Nice post
Do you play wow 7.3 ?
nice blog you have there, mate! got yourself a follower :)
Started in vanilla and I stopped playing wow after Ulduar. Played a bit casually in cata and mop, after that I just lost interest. Maybe I'll return one day, just cause I am lore addict :)
Nice! I upvoted. Follow me if you're a gamer :)
Did it :)
Not much of a gamer myself but this post brings back the gaming memories. Might as well play something myself :D Quality content @linoxx followed, upvoted and resteemed!
its never late to start you watch, the world needs more heroes :)
https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/
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STOPOoh there are fellow overwatchers on here! I agree that the mercy update really wasn't a nerf since I'm actually getting more resses and healing done now than I was before (I was a tempo resser myself) so there's really been no downside for me. But I guess the thing a lot of people had a problem with was the big teamwipe resses and it's solved that at least. Actually I wasn't a fan of being expected to "hide" while all the action was going on in case of a teamwipe and then being blamed if I got found haha so there are certainly some benefits on both sides.
I do think it has increased the skillcap though, you can't just ress every person that dies because often they die out of position and you practically have to "touch" them to bring them back.. which often causes both you and them to die again. Also you have to be super careful with when you use her new ult because if you're too low or the enemy team has say soldier's tac visor or mccree's high noon then you're kinda dead before you get to use that second res.
But anyway I totally agree it wasn't a nerf for players like me and she's certainly the new "must pick" support, which is great for mercy mains like me :D
Great post @linoxx! and sorry for the super long comment haha. I actually posted some of my own mercy 2.0 gameplay and highlights on here which you could check out if it wouldn't make your blood boil too much ;)