Firstly, I’d like to preface this by saying that I’m not a mercy main. So those of you expecting someone who is a support trying to defend their “precious angel healer”, you won’t find it here… However, I do want to offer a perspective from someone who isn’t a support and also someone who hasn’t sold their soul to the side of “Support vs DPS” lol. Either way this is just my opinion from what I’ve observed both here and in game since I’ve been playing, and everyone else seems to have a view on her in one way or another so I guess I’ll just give mine.
You don’t have to agree, and please don’t come here wishing to start a fight, this is just an opinion, let me repeat, this is JUST AN OPINION. So just take what I say here at face value.
I think that Mercy has been, by far, both an op hero for the longest amount of time, AND the hero that’s received both the most nerfs and the most changes within a span of a year.
Since before she was given a rework, we finally reached a point where she is almost perfectly hovering at a 50% win rate from silver, and it climbs up to about 55% in Grandmasters (taken from overbuff as of right now).
So technically she’s mechanically balanced as of now. Yes she may not be the most fun to play, and yes her pickrate is still really high and her win rates could be lower in higher ranks, but arguably she still isn’t a must pick like she was when she first got her rework.
Honestly I don’t believe that pickrates tell you how powerful a hero is. I think it’s just a way to show popularity in that rank. For example Symmetra has pretty much the highest winrate among the heroes, but also one of the lowest pickrates. Reasons like these is why I don’t think that going by pickrates is reliable enough to balance a hero.
Afterwards, Jeff also already stated that she’s fine and that they’re not thinking about changing her. I find the reactions to this statement interesting, because before brigitte, people who didn’t want her changed were copying-pasting this all over the forums every time someone asked if Mercy should be looked at again to be fun / engaging or reverted, but now that Brigitte and “New-Hanzo” are here, those same people are asking for Mercy to be changed now and nerfed. Huh?
I don’t think nerfing Mercy is going anywhere. She was nerfed 8 (nine?) times to get to this point, and now those people who main her are saying that she isn’t fun to play. It may seem like a whiny thing to hear, but after looking at Mercy’s history, I can’t help but sympathize with them, even though I don’t personally think that she needs any sort of buffs.
I think the reason as to why she’s so powerful still is because of her res ability, since it was an ultimate, I would suggest moving it back to where it was previously, as an ultimate. Maybe then they can nerf valkyrie as needed to compensate including how fast her ult with charge, but atleast her res would be earned and not handed out every 30 seconds.
The other option would be to take res out altogether and replace it with a different ability. Personally I’m for this, but since Jeff already said that they’re not going to take res out of the game, I don’t think that’s an option. They’d also need to think about what to give her in it’s place that’s just as impactful but not OP or anything.
In closing, I think that the issue isn’t Mercy. I think she’s in a good place right now. But I also don’t agree that she should be nerfed. If she’s going to be reverted, she needs adjustments that balance out her ult gain and how her valk would work that would still make sense to her and whoever plays against her, but I think instead the focus should be on other support heroes, and the ones who require more pressing matters (Ana) to be viable again before working on her.
But yeah that’s what I think about it, thanks for reading! 