Here, I am going to try to address a simple problem people seem to have. It ties into Mercy but it touches base with every hero in the game. What makes a Hero a No Skill Hero?
With Mercy a lot of people claim she requires little to no skill to master, stating that it isn’t intrinsically hard to just hold Left Click while standing behind your allies. And if you’re playing like that, you’re right. At that point Mercy IS a No Skill Hero. But at the same time, there is also the loss of base knowledge that would essentially make her a little trickier than at first glance. You will notice that at this point the player isn’t incorporating Guardian Angel, Valk, Damage Boost, or her pistol. Rather, focusing on the belief that Mercy is a heal-bot. If you were to just use Mercy’s healing beam, then you won’t be in the fight much and mostly be running away from skirmishes. And when the community scorns anybody that attempts to even pistol whip some Soldier trying to kill them, they will be discouraged to defend themselves, reverting to Hide-and-Seek tactics and calling out to allies to help them.
Playing Mercy changes the way you view this game. The prospect of combat seems to just be a far off dream, being snapped by the reality that you don’t kill, you help. As a Mercy, your options for a normal team fight changes drastically. As a DPS, when confronted by enemies such as Winston, Widow, Mei, or even Brigitte or Ana, your subconscious thought, your instinct, is to fire. Kill and conquer. But as a Mercy, that is entirely flipped. When the time comes, any enemy who can halt your mobility, or keep up with it at least, is a death sentence unless the player whips out her pistol. At which point the option is weighed; Is it better to just die while healing or to stop healing and potentially not only save myself, but gain a benefit in a numbers game? Sometimes quickly whipping around and firing a few times will startle some players. Since when does Mercy fight back? This buys vital time for the Mercy to escape rather than shoulder her way through an enemy. You’re nothing more than target practice for enemy Widows, and a bonus coin for Ulting Soldiers.
The skill that Mercy possesses isn’t something that can be seen in a kill feed or in a PotG. It’s a skill that many FPS players don’t seem to grasp. Evasion, Situational Awareness, High Reflexes, Target Flexibility. Each of these skills have little impact for a normal FPS game, spare the Reflexes and Awareness. Evasion being nearly unique to Mercy alone. While Lucio can harass by booping and wall riding, or Ana can shut down an entire push by Anti-nading, Mercy simply has Guardian Angel and her pistol if things get dicey. The ability to hop through the map isn’t very hard at all, but doing it effectively while keeping your team alive is.
So I ask again, is Mercy truly ‘No Skill’? Or is it just misunderstanding of a different mentality and playing method, seen as lazy and easy. And what classifies a hero as ‘No Skill’ anyhow?