I dig her still, I guess she’s still my main, although I play Symm when possible now.
The only downside I have with her is rather personal. I choose to play QP only and that’s not exactly Mercy’s best environment lol. If my DPS is competent, I can Mercy, else Im WAY better off going with a healer that can damage and heal simultaneously.
One of the good Mercy players in the league is also known to break out his pistol more than the others. There are times when Mercy should be bringing that bad boy out.
I disagree, but I’d like to review these statistics to see if I should revise my thinking here
Got a link?
Just go to Overbuff and look at elimination stats for GM and Masters.
In GMs, Mercy gets on average less than two elims per match. That isn’t very much shooting.
Agreed, and IMO it’s partly because of the element of surprise. You’ll get whacked by a Doomfist a couple of times, get sick of not getting a peel then he comes at you again and whip out the pistol. Doom like…
Ah, Overbuff. I find that the data there is highly suspect in a number of ways.
Further, eliminations does not directly correlate to pistol use. For example, if I use my pistol to kill a turret that is decimating my teammates, or a troublesome teleporter, or Orisa’s supercharger, or widows spider, or etc etc - are those counted as eliminations? If I use the pistol to suppress a red team member from emerging from a tunnel by firing in to a tunnel exit, how is that counted in the stats?
It’s not that Mercys pistol is bad per se, it’s just better for everyone’s ult economy to damage boost instead. At least as far as I understand it (being a non-Mercy player).
Anyway, this digresses from my original point. The point was supposed to be, since fun is a subjective argument, the argument that she isn’t fun anymore really isn’t very different from my argument that she was never fun to begin with. It’s very hard to sort out “this hero isn’t fun” from simple personal preference. And trying to make her appeal to one group at the cost of another isn’t really fair, and might make her not really appeal to anyone.
#deleteMercy
In all seriousness, I am no fan of mass rez as a game mechanic (it will never work with OWL), and don’t want her to be the main only go-to healer, but she needs a buff, she is virtually a throw pick now on teams. If the other team has a Moira, blasting damage and healing, and my team has a Mercy, the balance of the scales tilts in their favor. Truly imbalanced.
I find that using damage boost can be better when I have a DPS who is very effective or can attack at an angle that the pistol cant - like Junkrat’s bouncing/arching bombs
Aside from those situations, I find that pistol use is the better choice
In my opinion, there is no such thing as a throw pick, virtually or otherwise
Players throw, not characters
Players can throw as just as easily with any character in the game
I can agree with that. I think the joy I get out of playing Mercy is complete nostalgic.
TF2 I put a ton into playing Medic… well… healing stream. Check.
BF I traditionally put a ton into Medic. In a huge chaos of players, rushing in to rez someone hoping I wasn’t going to die as a result of it… Casting Rez. Check.
MMORPGs I loved classes that could buff damage to see teammates thrilled by damage output (brings a tear to my eye when I see a Damage Boosted Hog go powertrip on hook combos)… Damage boost. Check.
Actually thinking over it all. I don’t think it’s very engaging, I think I enjoy playing Mercy as healer because it’s more nostalgic and familiar… which means safe.
God. You know those moments where you do something and say, “WHY WASN’T I RECORDING THAT!?”
Half health McCree walked up on me, I quick swapped to the pistol, magically predicted his movement, and won the duel… Then shamelessly got murdered by the rest of his team.
I felt obligated to gloat in chat though, “Then McCree learned he didn’t have the fastest hands in West. It was Mercy.”
That’s nice to say or feel, but lets be honest, some characters are currently weaker than others in general. This means that if a character is “weak” relatively speaking, then you must be extra good to get value. Many Mercy mains (like all mains) are just not that good, so having a non-damaging player when the opposing team has a Lucio, Moira, Brig or Zen doing moderate double duty tips the scales. It is naive to think relative power levels don’t matter.
Honestly, based on high rank winrates, I think the last buffs brought Mercy up to a balanced state.
Let’s balance every other hero to the effect we had on Mercy then.
See how balanced the rest of the cast becomes when we start killing off abilities and putting them on 30 second cooldowns
Haha nice. It does feel rather rewarding 
Usually someone will see that pop up in the kill log and say something NO ONE wants to die to the Mercy Pistol lol
A number of people have been making the argument that Mercy isn’t in a good place regardless of balance, including myself. I have argued for the state Valk in many posts, the fact Valkyrie was the meta at some point and was still called out for being unfun, unemgaging spectator mode should have been the red flag already.
It’s just a garbage ability with not enough room for player expression, it hardly matters how powerful it is.
I can assure you that I am being quite honest
If you think that one character is weaker than another, call it weak then
A player selecting a character you think is weaker than other available choices does not mean said player is throwing. For example, if I were on your team and I select Mercy when a more powerful healer in your eyes - lets say Ana, for sake of this example - is available, I can assure you I have picked Mercy over Ana because my aim is poor, and as such, i will be more effective for my team as Mercy than Ana
All that said, I personally do not think of Mercy as a weak character, nor do I think of her as a non-damaging character
I do not find valkyrie to be a garbage ability or a spectator mode, regardless of whether the framework of discussion is power, balance, or fun
Numerically she’s nearest to balanced she’s ever been but in game she’s just not overly exciting and doesn’t really allow you to change a games course, only supplement good teammates.