She seems to be the hero people complain about the most. And I can understand why as someone who also mains support. She’s been constantly targeted over and over by the nerf hammer, and doing this has arguably made her less fun (at least to some, she was never fun to me lol).But you have to understand these nerfs are necessary and they honestly do make sense for the most part.
What you have is the only character in the game who can give consistent strong heals through enemy shield. And from a reasonable distance. 50hp a second, and you don’t have to aim your beam or manage any resources. It’s consistent and can’t be interrupted besides by you or your target dying. That one trait alone makes her a strong and safe pick for support.
Plus she has arguably the best support survivability in the game as well. She has a great passive heal on herself, and the ability to fly to safer teammates on a very short cool down. Plus she can glide across gaps and far distances on no cooldown. Characters like Moira and Ana have to use their own cooldowns to self-sustain. Cooldowns that are likely much more valuable to a team.
Mercy also has a 30% damage boost, that requires no cooldown at all. She can give this to anyone she wants at anytime as long as they are within 15 meters. That’s a really nice bonus to her kit, without having to worry about managing any sort of resource.
I really don’t need to regurgitate how good RES is. It’s the best cooldown ability in the game, period.
I’d argue her ult, while no interesting is still better than Sound Barrier and Nano Boost. The latter of which requires a ton of coordination and piggy backs on the fact that the player given the ability can put in work. And the former basically only potentially blocking 1 ult and wearing off super quick, also it can be super easily interrupted as it has to actually completely the hitting the ground animation to activate. At the end of the day, Valkyrie and Sound Barrier are pretty much just bad versions of Transcendence. But at least Valkyrie as more utility overall, as you can use it to get back to a fight faster, or even chain damage boost like Orisa’s ult.
She’s not a weak character or choice, and never will be. Her kit is just too good. I think she’s in a very fair place right now, that gives other supports a bit more viability. Her changes were necessary for the time being. Perhaps they could find a way to make her more fun to play, but I think buffing her DPS capabilities would kill the point of her character, the point of being the strongest most consistent 1on1 healer in the entire game.
The reason for that to me is simple. You have to play smarter to be more effective with Mercy now. Her skill floor went up slightly.
You can’t just Leeroy Jenkins yourself in for RES anymore, you have to assess if your own self-preservation is worth risking to get a RES off and how much value it will provide your team if successful. I see Mercy’s die all to often going for
very risk or low-value resurrections.
Plus you have to be a bit more cautious of your healing targets now, as it will take slightly longer to top people off.
With that said, I still think she’s one of the most accessible characters in the game, but I think her changes actually create a more tangible skill gap.
Another thing to consider in regards to her winrate and pickrate is just to take a minute and think about all the times you have pretty much just picked Mercy to fill or because your team was begging for one or thought you needed her in your comp.
How many people are forced into a situation where they pretty much have to pick Mercy and maybe aren’t actually that good with her?
The amount of times you’ll hear “can we get a Mercy” through an extended play session is very abundant. But not everyone is good at playing support just because the team needs a fill. And Mercy tends to be the go to fill hero.
And yet why does it feel like she cannot possibly keep up with ana and moira? Ana especially is super dominant right now and has replaced her almost entirely plat/diamond and above.
Fade isnt valuable to the team, antinade sure, but if the ana stays near the zen or lucio or even Brigitte she will be fine without wasting cooldowns. Not to mention the meta is tank heavy as of recently which is also in anas favour. Goats comps are very popular.
Discord orb has no cooldown as well and it is basically a way better version of damage boost. Lets not forget how her damage boost numbers have dropped by 24% after the nerf because mercys cant keep up with the heals.
Ok you lost me with this, when do you use valk? When the enemies commit or your team does. Now when do you use nano boost? The exact same situtation. It doesnt really require much except “my ultimate is ready” and then your genji to go like “my ultimate is ready”. So you mean valk doesnt require your team to do stuff? Your 50hps wont do anything against simple enemy focus fire let alone enemy ults. Your team has to act fast because of your limited ability to heal at only 50hps. Sound barrier being a worse version of trascendence is an extremely debatable subject. Sound barrier blocks huge bursts like meteor strike and rip tire, while zen can save your team from long lasting ults. Both if them can do stuff valkyrie wont ever be able to achieve.
Yes thats why Ana took over.
In gold? Sure, people land way less shots there which means 50hps is just enough to keep you alive. Im willing to bet theres 0 focus fire as well 90% of the time which is why you think valkyrie is so impactful.
Mercy cannot keep up with the other supports. She needs 60hps back and valkyrie to be removed.
That time spent on Mercy for OP in quick play is just downright impressive! None recorded at all! Most anti-Mercy folks have at least a token 2 minutes on her. There’s a whole 4 hours in Gold-level competitive with a platinum badge, though. Credit where credit is due.
Ana is the best support at high level. Moira is the best support at lower levels where players’ aim isn’t as good. Mercy continues to be the worst support in the game by win rate. OP got one thing right: Mercy is the most consistent support. She’s consistently weak.
Mercy still has the highest average healing output in the entire game and the least amount of deaths on average as well. Moira has closed the gap a bit, but Mercy is still consistently higher.
She’s not strong enough in my opinion.
On paper she’s enough. 50hps uninterrupted? Wow!
Thing is it just never ends up being enough anymore with all the damage.
I find Moira to be the best and most reliable main healer now that its a lot harder to run out of resource.
