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!
