Honestly, the notion of the floor and ceiling in terms of skill for Mercy is a red herring. There are already plenty of things within Mercy’s play-style that can separate good players from bad players.
The main issue is that the bulk of that skill cannot always directly translate into perceived team benefits. Say your team’s Mercy is excellent at never exposing herself to the enemy line of fire because she always chooses the right length of GA. Long, regular, or shortened. Meanwhile another person on your team never gets it right and ends up dead for overtextending.
Its a subtle thing that is something to set players apart that hardly anyone will notice. Meanwhile, everyone will see when your Widowmaker get x3 headshots in under like 5 seconds.
Mercy needs more tech like GA super jump. You know, indicators that can differentiate a good Mercy from a bad Mercy. Obviously a Mercy main who can consistently do super jump doesn’t directly translate to being a good Mercy, but it makes you go “Hey, they do the super jump tech consistently, I know for fact that they must’ve put in a considerable amount of hours on Mercy and are pretty good at her.”
Contrary to what people might think, Mercy does have quite a high skill ceiling, mostly on GA and Rez target prioritization
She is a beginner Hero because she’s easy to pick up but learning correct positioning and battle flow can take quite a bit, timing valk at the right time can also be pretty tricky
Yes you can play Mercy somewhat effectively by bashing your head on the keyboard too and you’ll have mild success, however, when you put two Mercies on different teams you can always tell who’s the most experienced one and who is simply winging it
I’d say look at Widowmaker. There is a bias among people that Widowmaker is going to most likely be a weakness on your team due to the inability to hit something.
In which case, its good that if you really are exceptional at Widowmaker people will get off your back generally once you can nail some pretty apparent proof. Huh… Widowmaker is carrying our team.
Sort of similar with Mercy where people tend to see her as not as good compared to Moira/Ana. If one can explicitly display they are making an impact on their character choice people will generally leave you alone.
It would be nice for Mercy to have a high skill ceiling so you can differentiate good ones from bad ones, yes. Isn’t that what Mercy mains want? They want to be noticed.
Ehh, if they can raise her skill floor and ceiling to the point where there’s more room for mistakes i wouldn’t mind her presence at the higher ranks. But as it stands now, she and Moira are just way too simplistic and reliable compared to Ana. (Not saying that she’s perfectly balanced at the moment by any means)
I’m probably one of the most known Mercy haters on these forums.
But this is as honest and positive of an answer you’re probably going to get from us. From a balance perspective, she’s right where she should be right now.
A very reliable main healer that falls off the higher up the ranks you go.
Her consistency and reliability comes with the price of less potential.
That being said, there should be room for potential reworks or changes.
Then they should both be the same SR. But alas they are not, this means they are doing things differently. To the untrained eye a Bronze Genji and a GM Genji do the same things, but would you agree they do?
But they’re not the same SR. Meaning no matter how good you are on Mercy, you can still be in any SR range because Mercy has minimal control over a game.
I can use this argument on any hero, because all Symmetra’s aren’t the same SR she has no control over a game, because all Genji’s aren’t the same SR he has no control over the game. I can go on and on.
I missed the high risk / high reward gameplay that occurred during her mass rez days (before the invincibility), and while it may not be seen by many as the most “skilled” ultimate, I would certainly take it over her current ultimate which essentially does everything for her.
I would totally love for them to somehow give her something that makes her both more engaging, rewarding, and impactful to play, while also raising her skill floor. Hopefully, with the more of the community coming to the general consensus that Mercy needs a little more added to her kit, we will get to see something like that happen with her in the future. Here’s hoping! Great post OP.
~Sincerely Yours xoxo,
a Lover of True, Fair, and Fun Balance. xavvypls
