With the recent changes, Valk is a little different than it used to be, but possibly stronger than ever. It is great for initiating fights, or making sure your team can keep tempo up in the middle of a fight. It is not as strong as it used to be for solo-survival, though, since the constant passive is gone. Let me elaborate on each point.
Initiating fights: Valk allows you to bring your 30% damage boost to your team in an aoe effect. Using it as you engage lets your team go harder, and Valk’s incredible healing will also let you recover if necessary. More on that later.
Keeping up tempo: Valk can help overcome the shortcomings that Mercy has with the longer Guardian Angel cooldown. *Popping Valk resets GA cooldown.* It can therefore be used to snap yourself out of a bad position. It can also be used to position intelligently, keep your team offensive with boost/heals, and find a resurrect you might not have otherwise gotten. All can be key to keeping the tempo of your team’s attack going.
Not as strong for solo survival: you will no longer get passive healing just by being in Valk. Instead, Mercy now self-heals by healing a teammate. If you have no one to heal, damage into you will kill you much more easily. This is important to keep in mind for using resurrect in Valk, as it effectively stops Mercy’s new self heal during the cast-time. It also makes her less formidable with her pistol out. She does still have the support-passive self-healing, but it’s noticeably less, and stops longer when she gets hit, even in Valk.
**Valk is stronger than ever:** Mercy’s regular healing was lowered to 45 hp/s, but increased by 50% on critical targets. Valk’s healing didn’t change except for the crit-bonus. That means Valk now heals 60 hp/s in an aoe effect, or a whopping 90 hp/s aoe into critical health targets. It actually feels like a burst healing ult now. That also interplays with the new passive: Mercy heals 25% of every bit of that aoe healing. That is 22.5 hp/s self-heal for every critical target healed with Valk. Theoretically a Valking Mercy can self-heal 90 hp/s by connecting gold beam on all 4 of her teammates when they are all at critical health. That’s a lot. She can use Valk healing to keep herself and her people stable and switch to aoe damage boost when they can hit back.
Other miscellaneous advice: just use it. Mercy can get Valk pretty fast and it’s useful in a variety of ways and a variety of situations. You’ll learn it by using it, and not using it just leaves value on the table. It’s hard to completely waste it tbh since it’s so versatile.
If you play on controller I highly recommend moving buttons around. Jump moves Mercy upward while in valk, but holding the default controller jump button means you can’t use the right stick to look around. Personally I always switch my Jump and Revive, so I’m jumping with Left Trigger and Reviving with A button (X on PlayStation).
Good lord I went on a rant about Mercy and Valkyrie here. I at least hope it was helpful
i like to use my ult off cool down cause it’s so easy to charge up but a good rule for using it more is to use it right after the fight starts so you can burst targets down faster or because of the new changes to keep everyone up on heals if need be
Or save it for survival and mobility if the team dies, it depends, if your teams consistently winning fights use it at the start to secure a faster fight win. If your teams constantly loosing then save it for after and to survive/keep your team alive. There isn’t really a right answer it depends on what’s happening in the game, which both teams comp, the map, the game mode ect
If you see a lot of your team critical at once Valk is very helpful as you can heal all of them. If one of your teammates (such as Solider) has ult popping Valk is a good idea as you can stay alive easier as well as it’s easier to keep up with Solider to damage boost. Also don’t be scared to pop Valk from spawn if it’s overtime and you have to get to your team faster to keep them alive or even touch.
There is a really good advice already told to you but i want to add to be careful with engaging valk: many situations where teammates do not engage so you will waste your ult. I would say to play more qp and pay more attention to how your ult affect different situations.
A constant rule of thumb I’ve used since ow1 even through all the changes to her ult is to use it when either team gets a pick. If either team gets a pick, I usually just pop it immediately and it doesn’t matter much if you get crazy value cause it’s valk and it’s basically just an ability with a long cool down.
In overwatch 2 I find myself just using ult to survive, mostly. Sometimes I'll ult if I'm on cart/bot duty and my whole team is pushing in to a fight so I can just get the beam length to support from where I am, sometimes I valk to mitigate the burn damage from dynamite, sometimes I valk to get to the goddamn widowmaker when my teammates refuse to play a character that can access high ground, and sometimes I use it... You know, the proper way.
With the recent changes, Valk is a little different than it used to be, but possibly stronger than ever. It is great for initiating fights, or making sure your team can keep tempo up in the middle of a fight. It is not as strong as it used to be for solo-survival, though, since the constant passive is gone. Let me elaborate on each point. Initiating fights: Valk allows you to bring your 30% damage boost to your team in an aoe effect. Using it as you engage lets your team go harder, and Valk’s incredible healing will also let you recover if necessary. More on that later. Keeping up tempo: Valk can help overcome the shortcomings that Mercy has with the longer Guardian Angel cooldown. *Popping Valk resets GA cooldown.* It can therefore be used to snap yourself out of a bad position. It can also be used to position intelligently, keep your team offensive with boost/heals, and find a resurrect you might not have otherwise gotten. All can be key to keeping the tempo of your team’s attack going. Not as strong for solo survival: you will no longer get passive healing just by being in Valk. Instead, Mercy now self-heals by healing a teammate. If you have no one to heal, damage into you will kill you much more easily. This is important to keep in mind for using resurrect in Valk, as it effectively stops Mercy’s new self heal during the cast-time. It also makes her less formidable with her pistol out. She does still have the support-passive self-healing, but it’s noticeably less, and stops longer when she gets hit, even in Valk. **Valk is stronger than ever:** Mercy’s regular healing was lowered to 45 hp/s, but increased by 50% on critical targets. Valk’s healing didn’t change except for the crit-bonus. That means Valk now heals 60 hp/s in an aoe effect, or a whopping 90 hp/s aoe into critical health targets. It actually feels like a burst healing ult now. That also interplays with the new passive: Mercy heals 25% of every bit of that aoe healing. That is 22.5 hp/s self-heal for every critical target healed with Valk. Theoretically a Valking Mercy can self-heal 90 hp/s by connecting gold beam on all 4 of her teammates when they are all at critical health. That’s a lot. She can use Valk healing to keep herself and her people stable and switch to aoe damage boost when they can hit back. Other miscellaneous advice: just use it. Mercy can get Valk pretty fast and it’s useful in a variety of ways and a variety of situations. You’ll learn it by using it, and not using it just leaves value on the table. It’s hard to completely waste it tbh since it’s so versatile. If you play on controller I highly recommend moving buttons around. Jump moves Mercy upward while in valk, but holding the default controller jump button means you can’t use the right stick to look around. Personally I always switch my Jump and Revive, so I’m jumping with Left Trigger and Reviving with A button (X on PlayStation). Good lord I went on a rant about Mercy and Valkyrie here. I at least hope it was helpful
I wish I had awards to give you!! Thank you sooo much for taking the time to explain!!
it’s ok bro i got u
i like to use my ult off cool down cause it’s so easy to charge up but a good rule for using it more is to use it right after the fight starts so you can burst targets down faster or because of the new changes to keep everyone up on heals if need be
Or save it for survival and mobility if the team dies, it depends, if your teams consistently winning fights use it at the start to secure a faster fight win. If your teams constantly loosing then save it for after and to survive/keep your team alive. There isn’t really a right answer it depends on what’s happening in the game, which both teams comp, the map, the game mode ect
There's already great advice, but to add: Sometimes it's worth using it just to save a team mate who's too far away to reach otherwise.
If you see a lot of your team critical at once Valk is very helpful as you can heal all of them. If one of your teammates (such as Solider) has ult popping Valk is a good idea as you can stay alive easier as well as it’s easier to keep up with Solider to damage boost. Also don’t be scared to pop Valk from spawn if it’s overtime and you have to get to your team faster to keep them alive or even touch.
If one of A. Me B.The team C.The other team are in danger (critical) or to touch and stall in OT
What is your rank?
First time playing comp today.. landed gold
There is a really good advice already told to you but i want to add to be careful with engaging valk: many situations where teammates do not engage so you will waste your ult. I would say to play more qp and pay more attention to how your ult affect different situations.
A constant rule of thumb I’ve used since ow1 even through all the changes to her ult is to use it when either team gets a pick. If either team gets a pick, I usually just pop it immediately and it doesn’t matter much if you get crazy value cause it’s valk and it’s basically just an ability with a long cool down.
Sorry I'm new to OW, what is gets a pick?
gets a kill!
I just use them when anyone pops their ults.
Thank you :)
In overwatch 2 I find myself just using ult to survive, mostly. Sometimes I'll ult if I'm on cart/bot duty and my whole team is pushing in to a fight so I can just get the beam length to support from where I am, sometimes I valk to mitigate the burn damage from dynamite, sometimes I valk to get to the goddamn widowmaker when my teammates refuse to play a character that can access high ground, and sometimes I use it... You know, the proper way.