Papa Kaplan's post on the forums:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20760637413?page=6#post-115
I suspect many people will have a knee jerk reaction to these as is usual for popular heroes, but i'm hoping it helps make some heroes less mandatory and bring others back in line.
I tested on the PTR so if anyone hasn't seen these already...
Mercy:
Junkrat:
I don't play either of these Heroes so I'm 500% biased when I say that I like the changes.
Valk was nerfed, but Rez is still as strong as it was. At worst we get more options, otherwise she'll still continue to get picked, just less.
I assume that she'll remain a really strong option on payload/hybrid defense and Assault point A defense. There's just going to be more opportunities for counter play, otherwise I'm pretty confident that she won't be "unusable" for the vast majority of the player base.
Until they remove rez it's still going to be an ability that requires you to outplay it more than her to outplay you, imo.
These nerfs are very much along the lines of what the community wanted and I personally am pretty satisfied with them. This is a step in the right direction, the issue is that like Torbjorn, Symmetra and Bastion, Mercy is inherently a bad hero for the game, which is why I hope she is just slightly underpowered to where she is not necessarily meta, but you dont auto lose if you have a Mercy one trick on your team.
Here's a vid if you don't want to log onto ptr to see them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDn1uhQunzc
The mercy changes are a bit too far. Any 2 of those 3 would be fine but now when you get a mercy onetrick you're gonna be screwed. Remember the objective is to make ALL the supports somewhat competitive with eachother. Getting screwed because nobody picked mercy or because you have a mercy onetrick does not feel like a satisfying mechanic and it goes equally both ways.
Junkrat gets a much needed skill cap increase. It's only when the mines are right up against the outer edges of their damage radius that the dmg goes below 100. Tire speed would be fine just a little above the old speed. I think it needs to be higher than the old speed to really be useful in gm games.
honestly guys, i kind of liked the mercy meta more then dive because it brought more heros like Orisa, Mccree, Widowmaker, Roadhog, Junkrat, and even Reaper in a little bit back into a meta. My favorite time in Overwatch was during the World Cup in 2016 when the meta included almost all the heroes. In dive, its just 7 heroes in the meta: Soldier, Tracer, Genji, DVA, Rein, Zenn, and lucio. It makes it much more to watch when you can see more heroes being played
But mercy and junkrat are such unfun heroes to play, rez as a mechanic is just pesky and annoying. Junkrat getting kills from spam is random and easy to do. Btw rein wasn't in dive meta it was Winston that was main tank. I do agree that the meta had to change from dive but I would have rather it been to some comp without mercy or junkrat.
Unplayable is most likely a stretch. She still has rez, it's still the most powerful non ult ability in the game. She's still as hard to kill in Valk but now at least she wont swing fights as much when she ults.
I don't see her pick rate falling like Lucio's did. she's still by far the easiest support to get value out of, and rez is no weaker than it was before. Really need to see how this plays out before we start yelling bloody murder.
P.S.: Overbuff tweet showing an example of Mercy clearly not dying after the first round of nerfs:
https://twitter.com/Overbuff/status/949079082121224193
I'm not convinced that these ones will do her in either.
Man the official forums is honestly overreacting with the Mercy nerf. It's like they don't want equal pick-rate among healers.
On the other hand, OW Comp Reddit and over.gg are actually relieved Mercy is getting nerfed. Interesting how 50/50 the community is on Mercy. Jeez the OW community can be a sore sometimes.
Alright, as a Mercy main and after derping around a bit on the practice range and failing to set up a custom game with bots (PTR is buggy), let me enter my two cents on Mercy 4.0 (? I'm bad at versioning) (don't worry, I'm not as toxic as bnet):
I don't believe that anything can be really a nerf, just a shift in playstyle. That happened with Mercy 2.0 (the one that moved rez to an ability from an ult), and I believe that is gonna happen now.
I will address three points: Guardian Angel, Valkyrie, and potential support duos.
Guardian Angel
GA was a Mercy's only way of surviving from enemy fire, her walking in heels ain't gonna cut it in the battlefield. This thus pains me to hear that GA movement speed (including when not in Valkyrie) has been reduced by 50%. I just do not see the need of reducing the GA movement speed when not in Valkyrie.
GA has a pretty predictable straight line to her target, and the bunny hop is not something many people will use instinctively. So it's not like you can't kill a Mercy when gliding, many people have done that to me in QP. The new GA movement speed felt like the movement speed back in Mercy 1.0 (the one when rez was an ult), when Mercies (I think this is the proper plural form) were dying left and right due to them not being evasive enough. This problem is only exacerbated when heroes with high movement speeds (Genji, Tracer, Winston, D.Va) came into the meta.
Now in the first paragraph I've highlighted when not in Valkyrie, and that is because the GA movement speed in Valkyrie should definitely be reduced. Her movement speed was so fast that if you clipped the top of a door you would be basically stuck there. It was extremely hard to get used to, because none of the other heroes have that kind of movement speed for that kind of duration, ultimate or not (maybe Winston's Primal and Genji's blade comes close, but not in the duration department).
Tl;dr, they should've only reduced the GA movement speed in Valkyrie and kept the speed when not in Valkyrie.
Valkyrie
As per my opening statement, nothing is ever a nerf, just a change in playstyle. Now that Valkyrie doesn't affect Resurrect at all, it will be a dramatic shift on when Valkyrie will be used. I believe, that instead of being a defensive and reactive ultimate Valkyrie will be used as a proactive ult. In other words, you use Valkyrie when initiating a fight, instead of saving (or trying to save) a lost fight. This once again shifts when her kit is effective. In Mercy 1.0, her kit was useful in the late-game. In Mercy 2.0 and 3.0 (the one with the rez cast time), her kit was useful in the mid-game. Now her kit is useful in the early-game. This shift is less pronounced amongst aggressive Mercies (like me), and they would be more adept in adapting their playstyle to better fit the new Mercy. Perhaps this is where Blizzard wants to take Mercy.
Support duos
As I've said before, I believe Valkyrie will now be used proactively. What this means is that the team will require a second support with a defensive ult that can sustain them through heavy fire (i.e. Lucio, Zenyatta, maybe Moira). This also means Mercy/Ana will not be a viable comp. Their combined healing is too much for all of it to be used effectively. Plus neither gives a defensive ult, meaning your team can be wiped out with heavy enough fire, regardless of support ults used. Mercy/Zen is probably still as effective as before. Mercy/Moira depends on the Moira player; if she focuses more on healing, then maybe it's not viable (same reason as Mercy/Ana not being viable). I still believe in my world where Lucio/Mercy is the support meta, but a man can only dream. A tank-heavy comp would likely run Lucio/Ana, since they have more useful stuff in their kits than Mercy's (speed boost, heal-deny nade, sleep dart compared to a 30-second rez).
Tl;dr, if Mercy remains solidly in the meta (which I doubt), then Ana's not coming back anytime soon.
#ISupportLucioMercySupportMeta
Ana for sure is going to be more prevalent in the meta (which to me is exciting because seeing Chipshajen, Jehong, and other very skilled Anas not have to play zen for most of the time makes me incredibly happy, not that zen isn't exciting) but I'm still unsure about Lucio's usage. He might be used more for koth/control maps and dive comps but that to me seems like all that he's going to see since his healing still is subpar compared to the other healers
As long as Winston is the most used Tank Ana is going to continue being weaker than Zen imo. Barriers really hurt her so if Mercy isn't a must pick I see Lucio/Zen being the pair that gets used the most with some variation depending on what situation teams are facing.
The absolute top tier Ana players that can make good use of her might decide to go with her but I think orb/speed is more likely to come back.
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