Mercy Was Just Played On Both Teams in OWL

General Discussion
1

In Shanghai vs Spitfire, both teams had a Mercy for the first two rounds of Illios. Alongside her was Zen, Winston, Dva, and various DPS (Pharah, Widow, Tracer, Hanzo, etc.).

And the crowd and twitch chat were going wild, the casters too even, all talking about how it was so nice to see DPS comps being played, to see “real games finally” and the crowd going wild at DPS plays/kills. But so many of those DPS don’t have the space to get those kills without a Mercy. And then on the third map, when they swapped off Mercy and DPS and back to GOATS, everyone was really dissapointed in twitch chat.

I think it’s just interesting to point out, because so many people like to say that Mercy should never be viable or meta in OWL/high sr’s, but that’s literally where she thrives the most and enables DPS comps, dive comps, sniper comps, anti-GOATS comps, etc. She also enables a lot of DPS that aren’t as viable without her, like Pharah, Bastion, Junkrat, Widowmaker, etc.

So I think it’s safe to say, that its good for Mercy to be viable and playable in OWL high sr’s. Just because her kit isn’t mechanically aim intensive doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a place at being played in the highest tiers.

Of course, she shouldn’t ever be overpowered or meta-dominant, but it’s healthy for the game when she is viable. She enables a lot of comps and playstyles that wouldn’t work without her.

Jeff even said it himself when doing an interview with Emongg on twitch, he really enjoyed OWL season 1 because of all the Mercy + Widow + Tracer + Dive being played. It’s fast paced and fun to watch.

The reasoning behind this post is because I think Mercy will probabaly see a lot more playtime once the PTR changes go live and make their way into OWL, and I just hope we don’t see people start to spam for her to get nerfed just because she starts getting played more.

EDIT: I also know that many people want Ana to be super meta, because she’s “the most skilled support”, but I don’t think they realize that the team comps she enables and promotes are NOT DPS-oriented. Deathball, triple tank, etc. are all enabled by Ana, and she just doesn’t synnergize with most DPS. I love Ana, she’s my second most played hero, and I like when she’s strong, but if she’s meta dominant it’s usually a very un-diverse meta. I think the Devs need to make sure that all the supports are on pretty equal footing, as when the supports are all viable, so is everything else. Support balance leads to meta diversity.

And for anyone asking my opinion on current Mercy, I think she’s in a pretty great spot, although I am glad Geoff came out and said this:

The possibility of getting a potential heal buff or burst heal ability, as well as potential damage boost changes, is exciting. :slight_smile:

66 Likes
2

Every hero works good enough on their own, but they shine in certain situations/comps/teams. GOATS isn’t where she shine, but other comps…absolutely!
I was so happy to see Mercy work so well!

14 Likes
3

Agreed! I think it’s great to see Mercy and Mercy-comps be viable, but I am also glad that she isn’t a must pick every game. It’s nice seeing a variety of supports being played!

7 Likes
4

Mercy is the best support for healing DPS. If people want more DPS to be played either Mercy’s pick rate needs to go up or more support characters need to be made that work well with DPS.

18 Likes
5

Thought this was going to be another post about how “Mercy is viable enough, she saw the light of day sometime this season, so stop complaining!”

Was pleasantly surprised, though, and I agree. Her being a viable choice in the League isn’t a bad thing just because by herself she isn’t that exciting to watch (which is easily solved by watching literally any of the 5 other players on her team).

I’d very much rather watch a various bunch of DPS who happen to have a Mercy behind her than a single Ana who happens to be supporting a various bunch of deathball tanks.

18 Likes
6

Honestly I wouldn’t mind if Ana was changed a bit to function better with dps and Mercy was buffed back to 60 hps. Make Ana’s hitboxes bigger or leave a risidual Heal over time that doesn’t stack so missing isn’t as punishing. Ana is high skill cap sure, but her,Moira and Mercy all pay for it.

3 Likes
7

Irony is people were booing at seeing this comp (bar Hanzo and Pharah) last year. People were sick of those mirror comps and widow 1v1’s.

5 Likes
8

I hope this’ll happen more often with the new changes ^^

1 Like
9

lol yep

Yeah, that could be super interesting, to even the playing field. Supports would all be viable in the same situations kind of, but would have individual niches to fill.

Me too!

1 Like
10

several GM’s in diamond are triggered lul

11

Anas friendly hitboxes are forgiving enough already. I think thats all the forgiveness that arguably the hardest hero in the game can have. More forgiveness to her makes her even stronger than her current OP kit.

1 Like
12

And Mercy is special because…?

13

Ana/Lucio and Zen/Lucio dive have existed prior to the Mercy rework. Was a really fun meta until dva started making dive oppressive.

1 Like
14

Personally I’d love some sort of ban system for professional play.

I don’t personally believe that GOATS is an inherently boring style of play, sure there aren’t any micro moments, like a Widowmaker popping off and killing half a team, but the macro play from the best GOATS teams is superb.

I think the problem lies more in the fact that Overwatch metas for their propensity to simply be mirrors gets boring REAL fast, no matter the team comp, and novelty, whether it be in the form of picking Torb or Bastion comps, or even simply not playing GOATS will get cheered on when people are bored of the meta.

I think a ban system is the best way for a single meta entrenching itself, whether it be in the game as a whole, or on specific maps. GOATS would massively suffer without a Lucio or Zarya, Dive would suffer without a Dva or Mercy (for most iterations), old Triple/Quad Tank would have suffered without either Lucio or Ana and so on.

A ban system would allow us to see different comps without having to wait until the next season when the balance changes go through and Blizzard dumpster a comp and then we’re stuck with whatever arises from the ashes.

And it would help whenever you’ve got teams who are struggling simply because their player for whatever OP hero isn’t as strong as the other teams. Houston lacking a decent Tracer player was a pretty good example of this. They could play basically every other DPS, but they suffered since Tracer was by far the strongest DPS at the time.

15

I love Ana to bits but she’s simply not designed to be an all-purpose healer. She’s great in spamfests and tank-heavy comps, which is fine. Trying to force her into dominance has proven extremely unhealthy for the game. Meanwhile a more versatile hero who could enable a variety of teamcomps has to be nerfed until she’s only viable in the rarest of circumstances because, um, reasons.

But whatever. This community will throw a fit the minute Mercy starts to look like she’s anything more than a niche/subpar pick, but is perfectly happy to allow Ana to have mustpick status. Apparently she ‘deserves’ it because she has to click on her teammates to heal them. So I ain’t even mad. An eternity of 3-4tank metas is exactly what this community deserves.

8 Likes
16

Its almost like Mercy is perfectly fine, just not good in tank heavy comps :thinking:

2 Likes
17

So what? OWL is a highly team based experience compared to most everyday matches in Overwatch itself. They play out completely differently. In OWL the person playing Mercy can rely on their teammates more to help them out when they need it.

1 Like
18

The thing is there was a zen with her in the league, well below plat you often struggle to get a second healer. Also good luck trying to get a barrier tank. Then there’s the matter that Mercy is an enabler, we have plenty of gm mercy players saying that she is viable (and she can be - but only if their is some support from the rest of the team)

In higher tiers dps players have far better positioning, reflexes, map awareness, aim, gamesense so they take considerably less damage and therefore are easier to just keep topped up. But he bulk of the player base are not near that level, so it become a full time job just to keep them alive let alone be able to damage amp.

As for consistant high healing, I beleive their is such a thing as trash healing like in dps you get trash damage - lot’s of it but it never gets converted into meaningfull kills. She can’t keep up and certainly has no answer to burst damage.

1 Like
19

If the crowd was getting more excited about the DPSes being played, why are you making it sound like they were getting excited specifically because of Mercy? Why couldn’t the title be “DPSes were just played in OWL” or “Finally a non-GOATS comp in OWL”

20

I already speak about this in other threads but the mercy haters just refuse to see the truth. They want dps comps to be viable but they strongly refuse to enable the only support that hard-enable dps.

Some people just too hard headed to be able to see the facts.

Agreed, they do that to themselves but then cried “i hate goats”

As long as mercy is a subpar pick compared to tank heavy healers, we’ll always see tank heavy comps everywhere.

1 Like