I am supp main who sometimes plays dps. Pocketed phara/echo by mercy is at once a really good thing the team but at the same time to make this effective you make this mercy mostly focus on this one dps so other teammates healing is put on shoulders on second support.
How do you counter that or suggest team comp agaisnt it. I hope for something except “amazing” advice that is “just pick hitscan” 4head . What if I am not good hitscan player? Worse if two dps players just are not good hitscan players? I don’t like cree/ashe or widow. Do I deserve to lose because I am not flexible enough?
I find soldier better at dealing with a pharmacy than McCree, BUT if you really can’t aim you can always put increased pressure on the rest of their team. A tracer harassing the lone healer can help a lot, or a reaper dishing out alot of dmg on tanks etc.
You definitely need to play a hitscan DPS, or encourage one of your teammates to switch if you’re on Support unless your aim is good enough on whichever Support you’re playing.
Focus the Mercy first. ALWAYS FOCUS THE MERCY! - So many teams get regularly rolled because Mercy is a smaller, mobile targer which makes her harder to hit. Most players don’t seem willing to put in that extra effort to deal with her, so they just focus on dealing trash damage to Pharah as she obliterates them.
If nobody is competent enough to deal with a PharMercy duo, though, then I don’t know what to say. Hope they switch…? Really the only person who can make you get better is you, and that is done through practice.
Being told to use McCree is probably unhelpful, so here’s a few ideas. Keep in mind these both have pretty big asterisks because of individual skill of either the Mercy or the DPS, and also whether or not Blizzard’s terrible matchmaker hates you enough today. I digress:
1: Your target is the Mercy, not the Echo/Pharah. The DPS in this situation have far more mobility than the Mercy does, chained eternality to however the DPS move and therefore a lot easier to predict if you know what you’re doing. This, paired with the very common likelyhood that the Pharrah/Echo are really, really bad without the Mercy eternally shoved up their backside, disposing of the Mercy first is the best bet.
2: As far as supports go, Zenyatta or Bap are likely the best bet for actually dealing with them. The former can not only weaken the Mercy with Discord orbs, making it easier for even your aim-challenged DPS to deal with her, but he can also attempt to dispose of them himself. Bap can often leap to Pharah’s elevation, making it harder for the Pharah to actually hit the in-air enemy and hopefully deal with the Mercy, or the Pharah in this case.
Support: Ana or Bap. Keep a position where you have good cover and a health pack OR where your off tank can easily help you. Go for the Mercy first. After she is dead or had to retreat pressure that pharrah. Depending on your elo that mercy might be gone bfore pharrah even knows you are even aiming for them.
Alternatively. Go Zen, put discord on her and communicate with your team. Even a bad D.Va or Hitscan player can deal with a discorded mercy and then pharrah.
Tanks: D.Va is my first choice to fight most pharmercys. Just be aware to not drop right into the enemy team qhen going for that duo. If D.Va isn’t doing to hot Hog and his hook might do the trick. If you hook and oneshot pharah most Mercys wont dare to rez right in front of him.
DPS: If you don’t want to go hitscan how about you go echo? She stands a chance against them and Hanzo also can take them on if his Aim is decent.
You can burst Pharah down. It just requires you do 2v2 rather than 1v2. Mercy sort of fails to heal Pharah when she’s getting hit by say an Ana + Ashe or something.
If you have zero good hitscans on your team (including yourself) then its going to be an uphill battle because that’s the most reliable way of pressuring or killing them. If you absolutely cannot do that, then the next best option is to organize with your team and try to take the 6v4 on the ground and hope that the flying duo won’t tear your team to shreds in the fight. Try to position yourself in places where they can’t safely go (or will take too long to reach) and try to communicate with your team how you plan on rotating/moving.
Sadly if you don’t have good hitscans and your team is completely disorganized you’ll just have to take the L. I think its absolutely worthwhile to learn how to play a hitscan though because shutting down fliers isn’t as intimidating as it might seem to be once you have consistent mechanics.
I consider myself a pharah main…Nd i really dont like a mercy pocket. Not because she keeps me alive but because i4 makes me a huge target for the enemy team making it sometimes harder to do my job. But the best way others counter me when a mercy dos do that is they switch to zen and discord me everytime i pop my head out AND the 1 or 2 hit scans focus me as well. Have to remeber that u cant expect or be expected to be the ONLY one to take down a pharmacy cuz if its 2v1 its not going to end well for the 1 player unless they are crazy t500 aim or something. U eifher have to out number the pharmacy or make it an even 2v2. But the zen thing helps the hit scan a crap ton vs pharmacy.
As for whe ur left to heal ur team cuz ur mercy is up ur pharahs…armor…i say go something like bap or moria that can heal the resr of ur team together ana is nice and all but u have to have good aim but she will struggle to heal multiple teamates without using ur nade for that (better to use her nade for anti or emergency situations not for just a group heal. That would be my suggestions
The simple truth is you will not win the 2v1, especially if your team pretends it is solely your job to handle it. You have two options, be better than their duo and knock them out of the sky, or pick a more competent dps and focus on what your team is focusing on to win that battle faster than the Pharmercy can carry. Sadly that is all I got for you because you need teammates to help, but they often pretend the hitscan alone needs to deal with the comp and won’t even peel for you when their tanks or dps focus you too.
I would argue that you do in fact deserve to lose if you or your team are not diverse enough to play different heroes.
The obvious advice here is shooting Mercy before Pharah, as support you don’t have too much sway in that fight, but Ana can make shots, and zen can, alongside Zen’s discord making it easier for a coordinated effort to take pharmercy down.
As damage, my favorite is Ashe or sombra. Ashe can negate mercy’s self heal with her dynamite, as well as make those shots to take both heroes down. Sombra can hack either target to remove them from the air, or to stop mercy from rezzing, or dealing petty damage to her to stop her self heal. With translocator and stealth you can easily flank or get up to high ground to reach them
Kill the core, which consists of literally everyone that’s not in the air
2 is really underrated. Let’s say both teams have rein/Zar but you have a torb and genji, while they have a pharmercy with something else. Just tell your rein and Zar “Just run into them, they can’t win because we have more people”. Pharah and Echo both need time to get value and poke, so don’t give them time. They like long fights: make fights short. Get a reaper or even a junk and just kill their core: no matter what the fliers do, they’ll feel useless because they won’t have a team.
Usually when i have a enemy Phara+Mercy in the enemy team i just wait for my friend with Sombra to put down Phara or Mercy, then i just go to meet her with my dear Reaper face to face
That’s on them to not die. The same could be said if they have a tracer or a widow: part of learning the squishy roles is learning to not die instantly, and you have to do that if you can’t just kill the flier.
