i don’t think she’s awful but she’s essentially where she was before the rework in pro play (the pocket healer) but is better on static defenses and is a tad better overall but is generally worse in pubs where people want to play her as a generalist
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![:thinking:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/thinking.png?v=5" ":thinking:")
it’s almost like blizzard shouldn’t have reworked her because she was “unfun to play against”
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Well that part feels right.
Ok, I have several problems with this video.
Number one, it talks about glitches and exploits like those were there from the beginning to define the character. The GA glitches that allow for better repositioning are fine, but they were not meant to be in game. Super jumping is not explained in the game at all, so it’s pretty common for low level Mercy mains, or even Mercy mains that don’t watch guides to not know it even exist.
Luminum can’t just go like “I feel like people don’t even know this exist”. Of course not. It was not meant to be there, and the game never even acknowledges its existence.
But that’s the least important part. Talking about swapping to reset Resurrection’s cooldown is what actually made me feel kind of awkward.
It’s an exploit. Am I supposed to use that to my advantage? Am I a worse Mercy if I don’t know about its existence? This is kind of like the GA glitches. If Mercy’s supposed to use that, the game should acknowledge it somewhere.
Don’t get me wrong, I use the super jump a lot, but saying “Mercy is not bad because she has beneficial glitches that people aren’t aware of” sounds really weird to me.
Number two, the whole “go for risky plays”. That’s great and all - I even try to do this every once in a while when I feel the reward would outweight the risks I’m taking - but:
1 - Supports are supposed to be protected, with the exception of Brig and Lúcio, both of which have tools to push people away and even duel them.
2 - If we put Mercy as an exception to this, considering she doesn’t have tools to protect herself, that means that you’re disposable and trying to pull of that risky play is already better than not trying to, and you’re doing things wrong by staying back and healing like the other supports do because you’re pretty much a resurrection dispenser and have no other use.
If making these kinds of extremely risky plays is the only way of making Mercy viable, then yes, she’s that bad. Encouraging these kinds of plays without analyzing the situation case-by-case means that Mercy is either disposable or, if she isn’t, that you’re going to become a liability to your team for throwing the game.
Finally, the whole pulling out the gun.
This makes sense. You have to pull out the gun every once in a while to protect yourself, but the reason why she has the power up beam is because using the gun is suboptimal and Mercy is entirely built around being defenseless and latching onto a teammate to increase their performance.
If pulling out the gun feels more adequate than empowering your ally, then yes, Mercy is that bad.
Also, using Valkyrie to kill the Widow is a good idea, and I do that too, and it even is pretty funny. But:
1 - Doesn’t make thematical sense for Mercy, considering she was meant to be protected and she’s meant to feel like flying away is a better option than fighting, because she doesn’t want to fight and that’s why her gun is supposed to be her last resort.
2 - The whole reason why Mercy was reworked was because she stopped healing because of her ult, and that’s exactly what Luminum is suggesting to do now to make her viable.
So yes. Mercy is that bad.
She doesn’t make sense. Gameplay and thematics collide with each other. Some people play her like this and feel like that’s the way to go, some people play it like that and feel like that’s how she’s supposed to be played, but whatever you choose to do, you’re playing her wrong, therefore you would be better playing someone else with a better defined kit that makes more sense and feels more impactful.
The only thing keeping her relatively viable and fun are glitches. And that’s a sign of her being in an awful spot.
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They are not glitches. They originally were bugs, but were then added as features way-back because it was fun. Super-jumping however, is pretty debatable, but for now it’s good tech so why not?
He can, he’s trying to help people find better ways to play the hero.
Luminum basically addresses this throughout the video. Mercy has insane surviveability because of her insane mobility, which is what “protects” her in these risky plays. Not to mention, due to her easy healing output, she can pull off these risky plays without stopping healing her team.
These points are irrelevant to the argument, that being whether or not she is “bad” not “thematically consistent” or “contracting past intentions for reworks”
That is true. I apologize for that. I’m extremely tired and it’s hard to put my thoughts in order.
However, while you can disregard the fact that makes no thematical sense, the last point is kind of relevant. She was reworked because we couldn’t have the dedicated healer stop healing. Therefore, if you want to use her ult to deal damage, you’d be better off just picking a flanker altogether, but if you want to use the ult just to heal, then you’d be better off picking any other support.
Heck, Moira does a better job at both at the same time with her ult.
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Actually your argument is secretly a straw man as well if you think about it. You say “but Mercy players already did all those things Lumi mentions…” First of all, no they didn’t, EeveeA barely used Mercy’s pistol, she relied on call outs to win her games. Second, let’s take D.Va for example. People used to call her trash when she went from 400/200 to 200/400 because they thought they were supposed to play her like Winston. Then people adapted and a few months later she was considered the best hero in the game and had almost 100% pickrate in the pro scene. Maybe people need to realise that Mercy’s old playstyle is no longer viable, but that doesn’t mean the hero isn’t. Maybe Animetic and Eevee are just salty they can’t play Mercy the way they used to. Your argument proves nothing.
I don’t know if anyone told you this but Animetic has always been an aggresive Mercy player with most of her popular video’s being pistol whipping reels. This is far from a “You can’t adapt” situation. I’ll also throw in these 2 reasons that further disprove this argument:
- It’s been more than two months. This would be enough for normal heroes but Mercy is, objectively speaking, an easy hero to use. It does not take more than 2 months for players to adapt to such a mechanically forgiving hero.
- You’d see an increase in her winrate as her pickrate decreased if people are just losing because they aren’t adapting. This isn’t the case though. The hero you’re looking for that fits this description to the T is Zenyatta.
𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽 
2 Likes
Most of her videos I’ve seen where she pistols she’s in QP and it’s usually in order to defend herself. Lumi talked about proactively pressuring the enemy supports.
Those are the majority but she has a large amount of Competitive combat reels as well.
I see the opposite really. Most of the time, she is pressuring the enemy team with her pistol.
𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽
I like this video a lot! My complaint is closely related… I’m good at surviving with her. But I’m always the last one alive and it feels silly and like I couldn’t do anything to save my team or help the fight :<
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Statistically, Mercy is worse than many characters traditionally considered troll picks.
So if she’s not that bad, then most of the rest of the cast must be OP.
Then what is her problem exactly? Did her winrates drop dramatically?
Ever since the nerf, she’s had a negative winrate. She’s slowly losing more games than she is winning games.
𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓘𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓜𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽
That could be because people are playing her too passively. Did you watch the video?
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Mercy previously had 2 prominent playstiles.
Aggressive and passive.
Most people played a passive Mercy. Passive is when you are the healbot of your team. You spend most of your time healing, only dmg boosting when everyone is full HP and ultimates. Those would probably only have 500-800dmg amplified per match. This playstile worked because Mercy was capable of being a main healer, so these people played Mercy like she was a main healer.
Not many people played an aggressive Mercy. Aggressive is when you prioritize dmg boost over healing, even when a few teammates are quite low. This playstile workes because it helps your team secure kills fast, before they have time to die. Mercy is not being played like a main healer, rather like Zenyatta to amplify damage and heal a bit. Mercy then heals her team up during downtimes.
Now, the passive playstile is not really viable anymore because Mercy is nomore capable of being a main healer. So the only playstile that works now is aggressive. She plays differently now, if you used to be a passive Mercy, like the majority was.
I’m not saying she’s fine, I personally would like to have some changes done to her (amp healing in Valk, remove chain heals, base 55hps), but I wouldn’t say she’s bad and unplayable. I still manage to heal a 3 tank comp with Mercy + Zen in my 6 stack, because we play very aggressive and kill the enemy before the tanks get low.
I still manage to solo-heal a 2 tank 3DPS comp.
Mercy is bad at healing Zarya and Reinhardt, which are currently almost at a must-pick status. Mercy though is really good at healing an Orisa + Hog comp. Even Winston + DVa works pretty well (in Dive they had Lucio + Zen as meta healers, which both heal less than Mercy at a base). I also think the META is really not in Mercys favour at the moment and strongly plays into Anas hands.
Who knows, with changes to Hog, we might see a new META emerge (I hope so).
That’s why Animetic is still able to pull Mercy off in GM. EeveeA does too because she is an insane shotcaller and groupleader.
If you’re not an aggressive Mercy, you have a bad time playing her these days.
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They didn’t.
It encouraged a certain kind of playstyle.
What do you mean 7 -> 14?
She was the highest for some quite alot of time. Let her be in the bottom and leave space to other heroes for some time 