Devs, stop pushing Mercy into an off healer

General Discussion
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A developer once said, “Ashe is a buff to Mercy.” This is a terrible way of percieving the balance of Mercy. This suggests Mercy is meant to be a damage boost, pocket bot.

This is unhealthy for the hero. Mercy was previously described as the “go to healer for raw healing power” yet you’ve reduced her to nothing more than a pocket, damage boost bot.

She needs a healing buff, with a damage boost nerf to compensate.

Reducing her damage boost from 30% to 20% reduces her synergy with Ashe and Pharah. Pharmercy is already a very oppressive combo, and reducing the damage boost provided will help to eleviate that. With Pharah being buffed on experimental, she won’t need a strong damage boost from Mercy to dish out decent damage.
Note: Ashe can still one shot people with a headshot when given a 20% damage boost. This means Mercy’s synergy with Ashe isn’t affected much outside of amping the dynamite’s damage. This nerf specificly affects the Pharmercy duo.

Reducing the power of damage boost allows the developers to buff Mercy’s healing to 55hps or back to 60hps. It’s okay for Mercy to dish out a ton of healing if she has her utility reduced in compensation.

50hps wasn’t enough at launch, and it isn’t enough now.

Edit: GreyFalcon has an amazing idea that pushes Mercy back into the main healer role.

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Looks good.

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This is a very nice idea, Grey! Moves her back into that main healer role :slight_smile:

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I personally don’t think nerfing damage boost is the solution to keeping Mercy fans from holding left click the entire game.

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It’s more about reducing her utility to compensate for the healing buff. Mercy can’t have high healing and utility. Right now, the strongest part of her kit is damage boost (when utilised correctly).

Her healing is abysmal, and resurrect has been nerfed so many times that it’s extremely hard to use it during a teamfight. The average Mercy only gets 6 resurrections per game.

Grey’s proposed changes reduces her utility and increases her healing power. This is a great step in the right direction for the health of the hero.

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I think the goal should be to make Mercy stronger in Platinum through Bronze, without having another Moth Meta in Masters/GM.

Easy way to do that is lower her skill floor, and lower her skill ceiling.

Also some damage boost is better than no damage boost, if you can’t stop to damage boost for fear of losing what little healing you have to work with.

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We don’t need another Moira who’s only features are healing and survivability.

Mercy’s damage boost is amazing. Don’t pick Mercy for her heals. If you want to play healbot and not supporter, play Moira.

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But she’s a main healer? She has been since the launch of the game. May I refer you back to this quote by the head of balance himself:

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Clarification here: If I recall, she’s had both before her rework without compensations or compromises, and was still seen as a weak healer compared to her counterparts at the time.

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Yes, in a comp that doesn’t need sustain.

It’s ok if she doesn’t fit as main heal in every possible comp.
Mercy should have never been used to heal tanks.
Her res in defense is super strong and her damage boost is so much more useful than any extra 10hps could be. Don’t forget that all damage boosted heroes build up ult faster, can break shields faster, reduce time to kill…

People should get away from the idea that supports are only good for healing.
The strength of mercys healing lies in her insane mobility and consistency.

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She was #1 healer between about late May 2018 and when they lowered her HPS to 50 in July 2018.

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The problem is that she doesn’t fit as a main healer in any comp. If Mercy isn’t pocketing a DPS, you aren’t getting max value from her pick.

Note how I mentioned her strong utility here:

It’s good that Mercy has utility, but that utility is so strong that she has to suffer low healing.

Mercy can’t be an effective main healer without decent healing per second. Mercy can’t be an effective off healer without a defensive ultimate. Pre-rework Mercy had an ultimate that could be used both offensively and defensively. Valkyrie doesn’t have that benefit. It’s purely offensive, which alligns with the ultimates of the other main healers.

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Question:
If she’s not received any balance changes recently, how is she being actively pushed into an off-healer role?

Not to say I’m against having her HPS increased, quite the contrary, but it sometimes sounds like people are tying to shove a jigsaw piece into a place it doesn’t fit.

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They’re buffing the heroes she synergises with, instead of increasing her individual power. They’re also introducing Echo, another hero she synergises well with.

As stated in my OP, the head of balance has previously suggested they introduce new heroes as indirect buffs to Mercy.

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Because everytime people try to bring it up the answer received is always “just pocket”

Every strength mercy has been given is to pocket, and every time theres a change its to a hero she synergizes with rather than her actual kit.

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You can play her in dive and in spam. Unlike Moira, who is only good in Brawl on tight maps.

As I said, the no utility, strong healing pick is Moira. Why would you want a second Moira? I think it’s a good thing that good Mercys can differentiate themselves by using all of their kit in the right moments.

As I said, she can, but not in every possible comp. Which is ok.

Brig would like to have a word with you. The only real defensive ultimates are Trans and Barrier.

Yes, her ultimate was impactful, strong and I used to main that Mercy as well. I know that her previous ultimate felt way better for most Mercys.
But it was a bad mechanic for the game and unfun for almost everyone.
Your team had to hope that you don’t die. Enemy team has to always focus on the Mercy in order to actually win fights. It’s similar to the Mei situation we had currently, one hero with too much control over the game. Most of the times it was also no fun for the Mercy itself, because many teammates wanted her to hide, she got pressured and flamed if she screwed up.

Valkyrie feels less impactful and is not as easy to handle as the button press before, yes. However, it is very versatile and not only offensive. You can also use it defensively to get that extra healing out, to get that one clutch res or even in general to be able to survive better. Given how fast it charges, it is definitely not the strongest support ultimate, but it’s ok.

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Mercy only works as a dive healer if she has another main healer with her. She won’t have the healing output to keep up. Even the pros have opted into running brig + zen instead of Mercy in dive.

Running Mercy in spam comps bring us back to the problem mentioned in the OP. She needs to pocket the Junkrat/Pharah/Symmetra as much as possible for maximum value.

I’m not asking for a second Moira. I’m asking for Mercy’s kit to be aligned with itself. I’ll try to lay this out for you.

To mark Moira and Mercy out of ten:

Mercy:
Utility: 6
Healing: 3
Damage: 1

Moira:
Utility: 0
Healing: 6
Damage: 4

This is how I percieve these picks. Moira has 0 utlity, but compensates with an almost even score of healing and damage.

Mercy’s kit is very lopsided, with most of her utility and viablity coming from damage boost.

She can’t. I’m a Mercy main with over 200 hours on her on this account alone. She can’t be ran as a main healer. Of course there are very few and niche situations where it does work, but that is only when your team is putting out enough damage to compensate for the lack of healing.

I’m not trying to shame you, but your account has 9 hours on Mercy. That isn’t nearly enough to tell Mercy players how they can and can’t play their hero. For example, I don’t play widowmaker, so I can’t tell you, a widow main, which scenarios you can and can’t play her. Because I wouldn’t know from my limited experience.

Brigitte works well as an off healer and a main healer because her kit is designed to work as a mesh. Rally is mostly offensive, with scenarios where it can be used defensively.

Brigitte has a much higher damage output with the potential of putting out a lot more healing than Mercy in the right comp (I play both of these heroes a lot).

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k, maybe we have a misunderstanding here: Main healer for you is the healer with the most healing output, right?
We are not talking about main support.

But do Brig and Zen really heal more than her?
Tracer with armor is a beast and Brig can peel very well for the Zen. They don’t pick them because of the healing output.
Apart from current pro-level you can play Mercy in dive together with a zen or lucio. Dive doesn’t have sustain anyways, it doesn’t depend on burst healing. Also skye-dive without a Mercy is a wasted Pharah pick.

She is a bad choice in any brawl comp. However, she can be the main heal in hybrid comps and even spam. I think it’s good balancing that the hero with the most consistent healing gets outhealed by other healers.
Of course, you cannot only focus on healing anymore and you will have to damage boost your dps sometimes, but a pocket bot Mercy is not a good Mercy anyways. Good Mercys can determine when they have to pocket and when they have to peel for example.

I agree mostly on your list, but I would put Mercys healing output a bit higher. Especially with the new Valk buff, it can often get to Moira levels.

QP? I have over 50 hours on her, she was my first hero with which I peaked Diamond back in her weak state before the 60hps buff. :slightly_smiling_face:
And I am getting back at it on my Mercy OTP account, because I still love to play her from time to time. I adore especially the new guardian angel.

Even if I would have really only 9 hours on her, that doesn’t mean that my opinion or statements don’t count. The same goes for you in the other direction, maybe you know some things about Widowmaker I don’t. Especially Widow. Most of my 300 hours with her come from brainless playing anyways.

Yeah, I agree here, but it really depends on the setups too if they allow you to use rally to initiate instead of having to regain the upper-hand in a fight.
However, Brig is the one hero I don’t really know (I mostly played her during goats), so I can only discuss in a superficial way about her.

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I support these ideas, 10/10 :+1: :rofl:

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I see, thank you for the clarification. I still stand by my opinion against nerfing her right click, as I personally have had no issues whatsoever with said boosting of damage. Both playing with and against and before and after aforementioned healing changes. I personally feel that doing so just reinforces her already problematic pocket-bot status.