Lmfao have you played Season 5? When Lucio/Zen were picked and controlled dive? It would just turn into Lucio/Zen instead of Mercy. Literally nothing special. The only way we will ever see Ana/Moira picked is if we see buffs to them or we see another Mercy rework giving her the niche of being a single target healer again.
of course she will always be popular. She’s our combat medic.
1 Like
Naw, just using a top500 icon from season 5, never played it tho. Problem with zen and lucio together is the lack of healing, it only worked with dive comps. If you played anything else, ana was needed instead of zen, or mercy, but ana was better. Now there is more dmg than there was in season 5, now hanzo is a monster, would the old season 5 dive be able to heal through dmg like hanzo? Idk. Would only dive be able to play well into hanzo and brig? Still dont know. But what we do know is that there would be more variety without mercy being picked every single game. Have I played season 5… smh…
1 Like
Mercy is just the better healer.
- Great mobility.
- Consistent healing.
- Damage boost.
- Rez as an ability.
How can other healers compete with that?
Sure, off healers like Lucio, Zenyatta and Brigitte has different roles, but I still don’t see how Ana and Moira can compete with that. Not to mention that Mercy is way easier to play than Ana. (Ana has problems on her own.)
Mercy is just a fun reliable hero to play and I don’t think she will ever be unpopular.
The only way another healers can be as popular as Mercy is if that healer can be as mobile and reliable as Mercy.
Dive will become meta again with Hammond. It would basically be get a pick on Zenyatta or overwhelm the opposing Brigitte. That is what the Meta will be if Mercy gets nerfed into oblivion like the other main supports. Speed from Lucio will take over the DMB slot as utility. Zenyatta will still remain since discord is good for dives + Trans. Best drop will be another defensive ultimate in the bank as well. So yeah I can 100% see another dive meta.
That’s if Mercy gets nerfed.
See, people want the opposite of powercreep with healers. They want all healers to be equally trash. That’s balanced though, right? They’ll all have similar statistics, and that’s all that matters. My precious statistics.
Mercy’s only the most picked healer because we’re having a barrier meta. Moira got dumpstered in this meta because dumb balance choices, and Ana is consistently trash (see, Mercy isn’t the only consistent healer). Therefore, due to a lack of healers, we’re left with Mercy. The only competent person at doing her job. It’s all Mercy’s fault though and she definitely needs nerfs, amirite!
3 Likes
How is lucio and zen going to be able to heal a triple tank dive comp? I totally agree, dive will be coming back and as it stand the same 2 meta supports, will continue to be the same 2 meta supports. If mercy was gone maybe we would see more moira to heal 3 tanks. Maybe we would see something like brig zen, or brig ana. Ana to keep up the tanks and brig could help protect her if she gets dived. Certain supports still need minor buffs, like ana, lucio, and moira. But they do not need to be buffed to be OP like mercy is, some need small buffs, mercy still needs nerfs or another rework. Assuming you want any variety or balance, but it seems most mercy mains dont want that, they are content with her being the best choice in all situations.
The playerbase can be easily swayed by numbers.
Most supports seem to have a balance between three things: healing output, ease of use, and extra utility.
- Ana: high healing output and utility, but hard to use
- Brigitte: high utility (CC + armor generation) and ease of use, but low healing output
- Lucio: high utility with speedboost and easy to use, but low healing output
- Moira: high healing output and quite easy to use, but low utility
- Zenyatta: high utility (Discord) and easy to use, but low healing output
Now Mercy seems to have some strength in all three areas. She has high healing output and is quite easy to use. Her Res gives her insane utility, and her damage boost is powerful enough to help shape our current meta (Grav + Dragonstrike = GG).
Before the rework, when Res was just an ultimate, Mercy’s utility was quite low (outside her ultimate, of course). That was her “weakness” as a support. Now, she has great strengths in all three areas, which easily enables her to shine.
1 Like
Mercy absolutely is not the one who shapes the current meta.
They competed with all of that before the rework with ease, actually. Rez on E is the killing blow.
1 Like
Only Mercy and Zen can heal Hamster without a loss if it go to triple dive tank.
No, but she is just the best support in every meta. Oh its dive, pick mercy. Oh its barriers and snipers, pick mercy.
Oh absolutely you’re right. Haha. I should’ve been more clear.
BUT she does help shape it. Her damage boost can help Hanzo’s Dragonstrike punch through Zenyatta’s Transcendence, and seeing how often people are running Hanzo + Zarya, she’s now becoming more and more of a must pick 
2 Likes
Mercy will always be (and always has been) popular, true, but that doesn’t explain her dominating in the highest ranks and pro-play as well. Pre-rework Mercy, while needing tweaks (to make mass-rez a little more "fair and also give Mercy a little more power outside of it), was statistically balanced and even a little under-powered. She dominated lower ranks (though it was still less so than now) but her pick-rate progressively fell as one moved up and was barely picked at all in pro-play.
The problem with the rework is, Mercy has no weakness now. She used to have low mid-fight utility, no aoe support, and much lower self-sustain and mobility (especially without a team specifically built to give her such) at the cost of having Resurrect, reliable single target support with no cost, self-heal, mobility, no aim requirements, and no shield weakness and realistically, no range restraints due to GA. You could massively delay Resurrect just by keeping her dead or simple trade an ultimate of your own for it.
Now? She has the best survival of any support by far, best mobility (that is no longer nearly as team reliant due to the GA buff and Valkyrie), guaranteed Resurrect every 30 seconds regardless of how well or poorly she plays, good mid-fight support with Valkyrie’s aoe healing and damage boost, no weakness to shields, no aim requirements, no limit on healing, no range restrictions. Where’s the trade-off? Meanwhile…
-
Ana is hard-countered by shields, has no mobility, no self-heal, and requires serious aim skills and ammo at the cost of having long ranged burst healing and high utility.
-
Moira is heavily countered by shields (though not quite as hard as Ana), requires some aim for her healing, has to damage to refill her healing resource, range restrictions, and zero utility at the cost of having good survivability and the strongest aoe healing.
I could go on with the off-healers as well but I’m tired and you get the point. Mercy has no weaknesses or trade-offs anymore, other supports do, there’s a problem there.
2 Likes
Hopefully you know the saying about the word “Assume.” Id liked playing my hero because she had a niche to her. She was a great single target healer she was bad at group healing and an ultimate to save her team if things hit the fan. I don’t want my hero being a must pick. But this rework is contradicting EVERY single thing it was intended to do.
Mercy doesn’t have an interactive kit. Her E ability isn’t fun and exciting to use. Her ultimate isn’t fun and exciting to use either.
So what’s left? We can’t nerf her healing because 50HPS isn’t enough for a main healer? We can’t nerf Resurrect because it feels bad enough to use it’s on the longest CD in the game. She already has a long enough cast time and a huge movement speed penalty. We can nerf Valkyrie even further to 10 seconds but what is that really going to do? Absolutely nothing. So what’s left? DMB? It’s already been nerfed from 50 down to 30? What do you propose 15%? Certainly that won’t stop her from being picked. So I’m curious what you would nerf from her?
If Ana weren’t so weak, she could just grenade the grav and negate trans entirely. I still think the other healers need buffs rather than Mercy needing nerfs.
Ideally id want to rework mercy to get rid of rez from the game entirely, or at the very least have it as part of an ult again. But if I had to just give her nerfs to the current kit, id drop healing down to 55, and prob add another 10-15 sec cd on rez. It wont solve her issues, but it would make her worse. Or instead of nerfing rez I would add another 0.5-1 sec cd on GA. Keep in mind, id ideally rework instead of just nerfing.
Perhaps, yeah. It would at least cause other healers to shine for once 
But that could possibly create a support powercreep which would in turn cause fights to last veeery long 
The devs are walking a veeery fine line when it comes to healing output. If they make the game’s net healing too powerful, fights can last forever, prompting the use of high burst-damage heroes like snipers. Too little, and you’d be better off switching to a tank or DPS.
I personally don’t fall into either the “Nerf Mercy” or “Buff other healers” camps. Rather, I believe they should both fall somewhere in the middle. But that’s just me 
So buff the underperforming supports while nerfing the over performing ones.