For the first three days of the Overwatch 2 beta, Mercy could not heal properly. The game’s most popular healer had a bug that prevented her healing ray from chaining to allies during her Valkyrie ultimate, shattering any hope of rescuing her team during a hectic battle. Blizzard released a patch that fixed the capability today, but there is still a list of issues for the support rating described in this Reddit post by user ihatemouthwash.
I even noticed Mercy’s crooked behavior while playing the beta this week. Valkyrie is supposed to increase the healing speed of Mercy’s ray and spread out across your team, while allowing you to freely fly around the map. Still, it’s not uncommon for your allies to die under it, but it was hard to say why Valkyrie was less effective than in the original game. The time to kill in Overwatch 2 is noticeably faster without an extra tank to turn around and help you, so I attributed that originally. Now that it’s fixed, Mercy should at least be able to keep up with the rest of the support list, but that’s not the end of the story.
Mercy’s signature name, Resurrect, is also inconsistent in the beta right now. Players report that it will not work within the intended range, its cooling is sometimes reset for no reason, and that the animation to it may stop and interrupt the ability. Nor does the new, controversial scoreboard seem to reflect the amount of damage that Mercy’s beam has amplified while attached to another hero. An alternative setting that allows Mercy to fly to teammates while healing someone else also seems to break down occasionally.
Outside of the now-corrected Valkyrie bug, none of Mercy’s problems are game-breaking in themselves. It is possible that they could be corrected before the beta ends in May, but they are pulling the character down in a beta that already seems to have it out for support players. Much of the feedback over the last few days has been that playing a healer in the fast-paced Overwatch 2 beta is an ungrateful, cumbersome job where you are repeatedly crushed by the enemy’s DPS and tanks. The most popular thread on the official beta forums is simply called “Support Feels AWFUL”, with many players discussing how difficult it is to survive in the game’s much more deadly 5v5 format.
“In OW2, I just can not heal enough, no matter how well I do,” SkillNoKills wrote in the thread while I was on the topic of Mercy. “I get almost no chance of harming the boost because there is always more healing to be performed.”
“Now Mercy can not continue to be attacked by a DPS, and it’s more like delaying the inevitable,” they added.
Serten1tynow, a Mercy lead player who plays her in the game’s highest competition ranks, told me that the Valkyrie bug was manageable for experienced players because they are used to juggling their allies’ health, but that it does not address the current state of the supporting role. .
“The support is generally tough compared to the rest of the roles,” he said.
“Most places fill Zenyatta Mercy’s space better,” he said. “That’s why we saw Brigitte Zenyatta [compositions] be so dominant. He has fantastic damage, a good defensive ult and Orb of Discord. Mercy has been a niche choice for a very long time, though you can make it work if you adapt, there are just heroes who do it better unfortunately. “
“Removing tough crowd control from the game did nothing but make supports feel worse to play,” argues Reddit user Sushi2k. Many players, including myself, have found that highly mobile supports like Lucio and Moira can safely zoom around the map and avoid being caught by an enemy DPS. Blizzard removed most types of stuns from damage characters, such as Cassidy’s Flashbang and Mei’s freeze, which were often used to help protect their healers. Now healers must defend themselves. The only answer, in many scenarios, is simply to kill your attacker before they kill you. Damage figures all move faster and tanks have increased mobility. Supports now have a rebuilding health, but that rarely matters when it’s so easy for enemies to jump on you.
It leaves heroes like Mercy, primarily created to heal and harm boost allies, feeling too weak to play. More aggressive healers like Zenyatta and Moira, on the other hand, are better equipped to chase eliminations down while also healing. It’s a shift from the live game, which currently favors a mix of dedicated healers and damage handlers. Across Reddit and forums, support players seem in doubt as to whether they should heal or do harm. And without a new hero to experiment with, they struggle to make their current favorite heroes work in Overwatch 2.
if the next overwatch 2 character is not a support, support mfs should start protesting or something in being abused, it’s sadApril 28, 2022
“If the next Overwatch 2 character is not a supporter, please support MFs to start protesting, or something you’re being abused, it’s sad.” wrote professional Overwatch player Apply. For reference: the last support added to Overwatch was Baptiste, a healer / DPS hybrid, in early 2019.
The reason for a beta is to provide feedback on the game, so it is possible that Blizzard will take this into account and adjust the healing so that it soon becomes more useful. The Mercy Valkyrie fix is a step towards balancing the role, but it’s clear that something needs to be done on a larger scale. The Overwatch League’s 2022 season, which will be the first professional event in the beta version, starts next week. Even in the hands of the game’s most skilled players, the battles can help reveal why support needs some help.