I certainly use it as a protection for the team.
BUT I do agree that in that moment its healing is not as strong as say Zen/Lucio’s ult, but then I never expect(ed) it to be. Theirs are more focused and one sided, where Mercy’s has more versatility, so is less powerful in raw healing but has more applications throughout the fight then those others.
It always felt like a fair tradeoff to this Mercy main, but my tastes lean towards having more options in how and when I use my ult. Than raw one-sided power.
For me, I’m constantly trying to power up my entire team in preparation for the enemy ult(s), so we have all of ours before they have theirs. I’m not really saving my ult for say, a Genji counter, like Zen or Lucio would be. Instead I’m using my ult(s) almost as fast as I get them to power everyone up as much as heal them up. That’s my style anyhow. I cast that thing a good 3-7+ a round, sometime 2-3 times in one protracted fight. I love it.
I don’t think she’s overtuned, but I don’t think buffing healing when they’re toning down overall healing is a healthy approach.
If it was increased healing during Valkyrie or buffing Valkyrie a bit, sure. But people keep wanting these remnants of Mercy’s old kit back, and you give them one piece, they’ll ask for more. It happened with them reverting her healing back to 60 HPS during Valkyrie - people kept asking to just do a full revert.
I’m personally fine with how Mercy is right now, though. I’d take a buff to Valkyrie because that’s not messing with her base healing, where she isn’t really lacking since it’s sustained, unlimited, etc.
I agree, I don’t want 60HP/s either, Mercy has laundry list of issues not even remotely related to balance, the last thing I want is a pitty buff so Blizz can pay themselves on the back. My intention was to dispel this notion that Mercy could not possibly have 60 HP/s when she can barely fit the primary healer slot right now thanks to how much more healing everyone else can do and that has been the case since patch 1.27. Even in 3 DPS she was used with Ana.
Thankfully healing is being toned down and that’s great, but Ana should be in the spot light now as well, not just Bap, Moira and Brig.
As an Ana player as well, I would not mind if they reduced the healing boost on Nano or her Biotic Grenade, honestly. I think denying enemy healing is, in itself, ridiculously impactful. Adding a healing boost on top of it that is pretty wild, too.
It’s a bug and shouldnt be in the game. If it remains, give Symmetra Turrets in Walls again.
And it is not something like Widow’s Grapple Jump or Moira’s Fade Jump. That is keeping the momentum, not flying off in a completly diffrent direction.
It has been confirmed to be an intentional use of game mechanics:
And even if it weren’t, it is a good thing and there’s zero reason to remove it. It only makes the game better, whether you call or a bug or a giraffe.
I don’t think 60hps or at the very least 55hps would make her outclass other supports. I think she would become more what she’s intended to be, more or less the strongest healer but I don’t think she’d be the strongest support. I think Moira would still out heal her, which she should since she only provides healing and damage, and I think Ana would still out class her since Ana has strong heals and very strong utility. Mercy would have the best heals as far as it being consistent and uninterruptible, but she would still struggle against burst damage and still be lacking a ton in her own damage output. Upping her heals would help place her back in a main healer role. It wouldn’t change her core issue though at the moment which is her lack of carry potential. While rez can be a very strong form of utility, it’s very situational and on a very long cool down. It can change the tide of the fight, but really only if the person who gets rezed does something. It’s very 50/50. Overall though, I think she needs more heals. People keep stating it’s just “not her meta” but no one really will say what her “meta” would be in her current state. I don’t even think she needs to be “meta”, she just needs to be a more viable option. She’s too much of a liability at the moment as she can barely be run as a main healer and without a defensive ult she can be a really dodgy pick.
Exactly this. Anyone who thinks 55 or 60 HPS would make her the best support is just flat out wrong. 60 HPS Mercy was already falling out of meta HARD before her 50 HPS nerf, it happened the week or so before her nerfs went live as the meta shifted away from Widow/sniper meta to be more brawly. In a dive meta, sure, but dive hasn’t been meta in almost 2 years and won’t ever be truly meta again with Brig in the game. Ana will always reign supreme over Mercy in deathball/brawl, Moira would still have the most raw healing output, and Lucio would still outclass Mercy with speed in most situations.
It’d just make Mercy a more viable pick and also boost Zen’s viability as well.
She was literally meta with 60 HPS in Hanzo triple support comp alongside Brig and Zen. She fell when her heals and damage boost were nerfed and other supports were buffed
I think part of the issue confronting Mercy and requests for more raw hps is simply people keep forgetting quality over quantity.
It doesn’t matter if you can heal 300k damage per match if you can’t help someone survive a normal firefight.
The stats we have unfortunately don’t have any data that expresses that nuance. But it’s something we as players should remember as it is a thing that strongly impacts how a fight plays out.
Even with double sniper, back then Hanzo’s dragons could be damage boosted which could out damage trans, that was nerfs or “bug fixed”. She should be good with snipers though since she has vertical mobility but now if you run double sniper Ana is still a better main healer. Ana got buffed when Mercy’s healing was nerfed. A lot of Mercy staying in the meta wasn’t even necessarily because she was better either, we also have to take into account player perspective and after the big Valk nerfs there wasn’t much time in between before people got a chance to realize other supports are better or can be run. I also agree, it would boost Zen’s viability because they have a lot of synergy and Mercy can peel properly for Zen but with Mercy’s heals being pretty crap you can’t really run them together without completely gambling. Like sure, I’ve won a few games with Mercy/Zen with current Mercy, but that doesn’t make it viable or a good heal comp.
She literally hardcore fell out of meta after her 4 valk nerfs in January and then was heavily outclassed by Moira for most of season 9 until the Hanzo rework happened and Grav-Dragon became meta, whereby she became a “must pick” in the meta to purely right click Hanzo ult so it could kill through Trans and in the double sniper meta. As soon as this interaction was removed in a “bug fix” and Grav Dragon and Double Sniper died she promptly dropped back out of meta even before her 50 HPS nerf hit live, as shown in this video from the week it happened:
6:30 timestamp
"Now a Hero that didn’t get any changes so far was Mercy. The Mercy nerfs (50 HPS) are still on the PTR as I said, yet Mercy was played very very little. She was not seen at all in these games we’ve seen so far (pro matches)). She was picked up a couple of times on point B defenses, but really that was it. But why, Ryan, if she hasn’t been changed why has she been played so little? Well it has to do with Widow maker, another hero who rarely reared her head in these games. She was only really played on Gibraltor, those kind of maps where she’s going to be really good and was good before the double sniper meta. And guess what, Mercy was there too alongside Widow enabling her with the damage boost and the rez.
This of course is a big concern because Mercy has a pretty heft nerf on the PTR, so that could really sort of knock her into obscurity if the pros aren’t even playing her now."
And wowee, they were right! She was out of meta before the HPS nerf even came, and then the 20% nerf to her primary fire and output (healing) cemented her grave as a trash pick in 99% of situations. She had literally only been held up in the meta for a bit because Hanzo and Widow were dominating and Mercy was the best main healer to pair with them. Mercy wasn’t outclassing all the other supports, she was just the only one that worked in double sniper.
Fast forward a year and a half and she hasn’t been viable since. Almost like the HPS nerf made her really, seriously bad. Not to mention Widow and Hanzo have both been nerfed pretty hard since then (WIdow grapple nerfs, now the charge nerf. Hanzo storm arrow nerfs and arrow speed nerfs) and with the D.va booster buff Double Sniper is probably never coming back as a big meta.
Any high rank support player can tell you Mercy is not a good nor viable healer and hasn’t been for a while. Especially not as a main support. If you think the 10 HPS was making her a must pick then you are insane and blatantly ignoring the actual balance history at the time, as shown in that video which is from those weeks.
The sad thing is that 60 HPS Mercy might’ve helped keep Sniper comps adequately viable that GOATS wouldn’t have held such a total strangehold on the meta. Not that people liked sniper comps all that much, but it would’ve been an alternative to GOATS. Also, Quad DPS might’ve been a little more than a first-point meme Mercy enables DPS, and when she’s good, DPS-centric comps are often good or at least respectable… so as much as DPS like to gripe about her, it’s in their interest that she be a strong main healer. Which, she isn’t. She’s a pretty solid off-healer, but it doesn’t bear the same benefit
Mercy enables DPS, and when she’s good, DPS-centric comps are often good or at least respectable… so as much as DPS like to gripe about her, it’s in their interest that she be a strong main healer. Which, she isn’t. She’s a pretty solid off-healer, but it doesn’t bear the same benefit