Well who knows. A month from now we might all be running Hammond Main Tank, like the Korean Contenders.
Console is a different animal. It seems that Mercy didn’t take as dramatic of a hit on either console, with Playstation being the least affected. However, she still took a hit. Her win rate and pick rate have both lowered since the patch went out, and it’s worth noting that on the Xbox platform she is still the lowest win rate support in Diamond and Masters ranks despite it being a console platform.
I would be curious to know what the actual sample sizes are for the console platform statistics, because the GM vs Masters stats in general just look strange to me on console systems. Trends are not quite as smooth and easy to follow as they are on the data from PC.
I’ve followed the stats for quite some time, and aside from the anomaly that is Torb’s GM win rate on PS4 (which must be the result of players actually throwing matches), things haven’t changed dramatically. Most pick rates and win rates make sense in context. Mercy became even more popular when Hanzo was reworked and Brig was introduced. This is indeed Mercy’s lowest pick rate in recent memory but her win rate has been largely unaffected.
What I’ve found to be disturbing was that Pharah was almost always ahead of reworked Hanzo in both pick rate and win rate, even before his nerfs. On console, the meta was never Hanzo + Widow–it was Pharah + Hanzo. This was why I vocally opposed the Widow nerfs on consoles and called instead for Pharah to be nerfed in her place. Too bad we don’t really get separate balancing.
The reason why I bring up consoles in these types of threads so often is mostly because I want the devs to take note, but also for PC players to understand just how different the platforms are.
I don’t want to be judgmental. However, if you pick a hero because of aesthetics, then you probably shouldn’t be higher than gold or plat, or play competitively at all.
Plus wasn’t she meant to be a low rank healer to begin with? Just my two cents.
edit: let’s also not forget how she, a low skill/high reward hero, dominated the support role for such a stupidly long time. Let’s just…not forget that k? I was sick of seeing Mercy Mercy Mercy EVERYWHERE EVERY TIME.
Aesthetics is about more than looks alone. It’s look and feel, including the function but not including the power level of a hero’s kit. Some heroes just feel good to play because they flow well. Others feel clunky, but it’s largely a subjective experience. While I would agree with you that choosing a hero based on looks alone is definitely not a sound strategy for competitive play, there’s nothing wrong with choosing the more aesthetically pleasing hero when given multiple otherwise equivalent options.
No, she was not meant to be a low rank healer any more than Reinhardt or Winston was meant to be a low rank tank. The star rating given to each hero to show difficulty only reflects the hero’s basic learning curve, not what it requires to achieve mastery. I wrote a lengthy post already about the skill required of supports that you may find interesting here: "Supports are too easy!" - #231 by Jerant-1609
I was sick of feeling forced to play her if I wanted to win, but those days were already behind us before her most recent nerf.
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Picked because of aesthetics, no.
Picked because many people liked her playstyle and so happened to like her, yes.
She was designed with first time FPS players in mind, people who needed to slowly grasp the environment with something that they would know from other games (Like MOBAs and MMOs) which is being a dedicated support.
Just because she is meant to be a low rank healer, that does not mean someone who has worked hard should not be able excel at higher ranks but there definitely should be characters whose maximum mechanical potential truly shines in the higher ranks, whereas the maximum mechanical potential of Mercy should be fairly stagnant but a higher skilled player at Mercy should have really good awareness to be able to make her work at higher tiers. That is the difference. Mechanical Skill should separate for certain characters maximum potential at higher tiers, but all characters should stand a chance at being viable. It is why Widow, although really valuable in higher tiers is only suitable sometimes at lower tiers but that does prevent playtime of her but it just shows the difference of her use at varying levels, but that doesn’t prevent other characters of lower skill floor being used in the higher tiers either.
Old Mercy was actually a challenge to play because it took effort to survive with her when you were stuck so close to the fight and managing to get mass rez was a challenge and didn’t always guarantee success because your team could sometimes be a bumbling band of baboons after rez and not coordinate themselves fast enough. Old Mercy was more balanced.
They gave her the invulnerability buff just as they gutted Ana instead of balancing her, so of course the next and only MAIN support in line at the time, who wasn’t showing signs of being overpowered without the buff is going to end up being noticed as over powered.
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Yes, I am familiar with said thread. Winston and especially Rein are definitely harder than her, though.
My beef with that is quite a few Mercy mains get boosted. You couldn’t do the same with other supports, except Brig maybe. But even she requires some mechanics where you have to aim and time well enough.
Widow is like Tracer. The more skilled you are, the more you can do with her. And your effiency depends on many things, not just your own mechanics.
It took them almost forever to balance out the support roster. And it had to be the easiest of them that dominated the meta for so long.
Mercy was not easy to survive a rez or survive in general with, the invulnerability change and everything that came from Mercy 2.0 and beyond was literally what turned her into an OP but boring train wreck. It is so easy to survive with Mercy now, it’s a joke.
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I disagree. I think Mercy is harder to play than Winston and Reinhardt, because she has to split her attention more and has more buttons to press including a weapon swap. She also lacks the forgiveness of a 500hp health pool, and has more options to weigh against each other in any given moment from healing to finishing off low health targets. When she decides to go for the latter, her pistol is objectively harder to use than Reinhardt or Winston’s attacks.
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Diving in the wrong place at the wrong time with Winston will make you a complete feeder. Making bad calls on Rein can easily cost you the whole game. Rein also has to play the mind games with the enemy constantly.
Mercy is by far more forgiving.
Top 500 Characters >= 3% pickrate (character someone most played)
This is the % a character appeared as someones top pick in top 500 list.
| Season 5 | Season 6 | Season 7 | Season 8 | Season 9 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tracer | 20.7 | Tracer | 14.7 | Tracer | 19.8 | Tracer | 21.2 | Tracer | 24.0 |
| Genji | 18.0 | Mercy | 13.9 | Dva | 14.6 | Dva | 19.6 | Zenyatta | 17.5 |
| Winston | 12.5 | Genji | 11.2 | Mercy | 12.2 | Zenyatta | 15.0 | Dva | 16.1 |
| Soldier | 7.2 | Mccree | 8.8 | Zenyatta | 10.9 | Genji | 10.6 | Winston | 11.3 |
| Zenyatta | 6.7 | Soldier | 8.4 | Genji | 8.9 | Winston | 8.2 | Genji | 7.7 |
| Lucio | 5.7 | Winston | 6.5 | Winston | 6.0 | Mercy | 5.2 | Widow | 3.4 |
| Dva | 5.5 | Zenyatta | 5.5 | Mccree | 5.2 | Mccree | 3.2 | Mercy | 3.0 |
| Mercy | 4.3 | Dva | 5.3 | Road | 4.5 | – | – | – | – |
| Ana | 3.5 | Junkrat | 4.3 | Soldier | 4.3 | – | – | – | – |
| Mccree | 3.5 | Lucio | 4.3 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| – | – | Zarya | 4.3 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| – | – | Road | 3.3 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
You can clearly see that Mercy did not have a significant impact on the dominance of dive. Tracer, Zen, and DVa continued to dominate the meta in season 9 even though Mercy had a low impact during this season.
Flying to an ally to heal them (or res them) at the wrong time with Mercy will make you a complete feeder. As with Winston, players need to know what positions are safe and what positions are not. Winston even has an advantage here, because while his shield is available he can make his own position safe against most threats.
Failing to make calls as Mercy can get you killed, and dying as Mercy can cost you the whole game faster than dying on any other hero. If Rein makes a bad move, healers can still cover for his mistake. If Rein dies, Mercy can still Resurrect him. If Mercy dies, she’s dead. There are no second chances for healers.
The support role in Overwatch is the least forgiving of mistakes, because their entire job is to clean up after everyone else’s mistakes. They’re kind of like the goaltender in soccer or hockey. Most of the game, their job looks pretty boring until the rest of the team loses control of the game. When the goaltenders screw up, though, there’s nobody left to cover for them. They let one through, and it could cost them the game.
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You completely missed the point to go on a wild tangant about yours, so here.
Clearly dive existed before the rework. Clearly dive stayed around a lot longer than most metas, because of mercy’s rework.
Dive existed before Mercy’s rework.
Dive persisted - and even became stronger, AFTER Mercy was nerfed in season 8.
Since the season 8 nerfs, Mercy lost a lot of impact and her pickrate fell.
Since other “Dive” Heroes didn’t lose impact along with Mercy, I put forward that you can’t really claim she is the reason dive persisted for such a long time. She wasn’t a key component to the success of dive.
Dive existed BEFORE Mercy’s rework, and persisted AFTER Mercy was nerfed.
Dive stopped being used in season 10 - AFTER nerfs to Tracer, DVa, and Zen (plus introduction of Brig).
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I’m still not on that side and don’t think her healing nerf was an issue. In basically every situation I lose, an extra 10 health wouldn’t have saved it. Many times with 60HPS, I would end the match with around 40% damage healed. Now mine is around 30-40% depending on focus fire and how well I’m personally doing. It stays mostly in the low 30% area, but that is what a healing nerf will do. But even still, that extra 10 healing wouldn’t have saved anything.
People are being over-dramatic to support an agenda.
good good the game is better
With 60 hp/sec, I had many, many situations where I was barely able to keep my team alive with little slivers of health bars by micro-managing my healing. With 50 hp/sec, I can’t do that. They just die. At least at my MMR, the difference between 60 hp/sec and 50 hp/sec seems to be the breakpoint between allies living or dying against incoming damage.
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If Titanium is saying this, I don’t know if I should continue to not care or actually be concerned…
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I’m a GM player, so healing doesn’t matter nearly as much for us, which is why Zen/Lucio was a thing and is spiking back up again after Mercy’s nerf. The healing isn’t the issue because healing is a lot more minuscule for us.
I won’t lie and say it hasn’t happened. Your exact scenario is what I do as well, many times, but in the same aspect, most time that 10 healing wasn’t going to save my target anyway.
On the contrary, healing in GM is absolutely essential. If you have low heals, you’re basically a dead team. That’s just my experience in GM though… I main Moira, Zen and Mercy.