Mercy’s ceiling is slightly underrated yes, but it’s not high as some are saying. It’s medium and that’s fine.
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Best hero in the game 
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and you keep avoiding the main point in bringing that up is to lead back to the discussion about how most of mercy’s abilities don’t let the mercy player have much self agency over their value whether if that’s in terms of opportunities of use or in terms of the actual mechanics of the ability.
quite obviously you’re the one ignoring how there objectively is less self agency for value if you can’t see the difference:
the only thing mercy has that’s equivalent to that is her healing.
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res is direct application but you legit have very little say over whether a corpse is resable or not. if a corpse is too dangerous to res, in most situations there is nothing you as mercy can do to make that corpse resable.
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damage boost isn’t a direct application at all because it doesn’t matter how you as mercy apply the beam to the target, how much value that boost is getting is completely determined by the target’s ability to land shots and target prioritisation. you could be breaking your mouse holding down the button, in the open like an idiot, in cover like someone smart, etc. it doesn’t matter to that instance of boost in determining whether if that boost did something. you could be boosting at all the moments that you can afford to and you could still end up with 0 damage amplified.
- that’s not the case with various other support abilities which allow the user to utilise it themselves for value or that simply don’t take allies’ inputs into account when trying to apply it.
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valk not only as the problems above, but also the fact that whether you can go damage boost, res, or pistol is gatekept by how easy it is to force the mercy to heal and force her to keep healing with how low the hps is. this is esp because you can only do 1 of those use cases at a time in valk.
it legit doesn’t
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the sleep still interrupted the nanoblade which stops a swing/dash and giving an opening to kill him despite being woken up. and again, the value achieved instantly upon application (i.e. the shot landing) without needing input from allies to land that shot.
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they’re out of the fight for the duration of sleep… how is that no value gained? and again, legit depends on no-one else but the user to make that shot which immediately applies that effect
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given the 300hps from trans + higher move speed + range of trans, it’s very hard to have a situation whereby someone dying through trans that was specifically used to “save them” isn’t due to either misuse of trans or the person that died was literally throwing to die. i.e. in most situations, either
- zen threw leading to that result as a direct consequence of the mistake (and no-one else), or
- the high sustain was applied and achieved from the zen, but the ally thew by going into a threat that’s not healable like a OHKO.
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except you got x amount of time of them in the radius before they left because you decide where to put lamp, and how it gets there is all on you throwing it there. no-one elses’ button presses has an effect in how that lamp is thrown or flies.
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as explained before:
- you got the burst 250hp heal that legit saves lives (unless you intentionally nanoed an anti’ed target in which case the loss of that is on the user for that timing),
- and again, assuming you didn’t throw and that you nanoed for a push, the enemy has no choice but to focus on the nanoed target as they impose an immediate and significant threat to them
- e.g. if a winston, flanker or rein, etc. got nanoed and they were moving into you, you simply can’t ignore that threat, which is going to take longer to deal with due to damage reduction + being more healed up, unless you want to get steamrolled.
- of which immediately gives the team more breathing room (less damage heading to other teammates, 1 teammate having damage reduction that’s probably healed to full from the burst heal immediately alters the triage heal priority)
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I’ve already explained this alongside various other boosts and debuffs: the user can utitilise the boost (or for the case of debuffs, take advantage of the enemy being debuffed) themselves.
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this is probably the only valid counter example you’ve provided so far. but even then, unlike mercy’s kit, the rest of lucio’s kit has more self agency for value.
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brig has higher movement speed in rally + the fact that rally has a recent radius (range), if she wants someone to get armor, she can go to them if she wanted.
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zen can walk btw (i.e. he can move closer if needed i.e. he has a say over orb travel distance) + he could’ve also tried giving orb to them earlier. not to mention it’s got 40m range (which isn’t small btw) and it travels 90m/s, i.e. the max delay you can possibly experience is ~0.44s which legit isn’t a lot (again, that’s the max delay, i.e. most of the time it’s less).
is res instant or near instant for the movement to matter (i.e. for simply only the movement to be enough to force out an opportunity)? no.
is the amount of damage amplified or the level of burst with damage boost actuated from the simply mercy moving around? no.
as explained earlier, it doesn’t matter where you are, how you move, where you’re looking, how you’re pressing the boost button, etc. none of that has a direct input into how the boosted damage is actuated. how it’s actuated is in the hands of whoever you’re boosting.
you’re the one missing out details here. I’m saying the reason the stall was successful was pretty much because the enemy comp (i.e. heroes picked) was inherently bad at dealing with flying enemies.
4s TTK with moira is long. and before you try to raise damage orb to combine with her grasp: 1) no damage orb was used then, and 2) orb doesn’t get much tether time on a flying enemy in an open airpspace.
you acknowledged that rein firestrike is inconsistent to land on flying enemies.
you also acknowledged that reaper does low damage when at range.
lucio primary legit isn’t “consistent at range” and even if it is by your low standard, it doesn’t do a lot.
legit those 4/5 of the heroes that were there deals either really inconsistent or low damage to a flying enemy. had there been more ranged hitscans or anything that can do significant damage to a flying target, that “expert dodging” (which was pretty much just strafing) would’ve failed.
any ana worth their salt is doing the latter whenever they reasonably can. and such an option isn’t available for mercy res.
how about you look frame by frame from like around 1:28.5 (like after the orisa halt) onwards and look at where the red team is looking.
legit from 1:28.5-1:33 no-one on the red team batted an eye on the the mercy. heck the reaper hard tunnel visioned on the blue orisa even though the mercy failed to superjump ga at 1:30 in his field of view.
1:33-1:35 until the ga onto the platform legit was more of them not paying attention to the mercy (they can defs see the damage boost beam that leads to mercy seeing as they’re shooting the boosted blue orisa) despite her being in the open in the air.
and they continued to not pay attention to her from there onwards despite mercy’s beams showing where she is which should make them weary of res, but they continued to ignore mercy for the mccree res despite how legit 2 enemies that could do something about it being so close and right in front of her.
again, her superjumps didn’t force them to “switch focus to someone else”. the res on mccree only happened because the red team ignored her from like 1:28.5 all the way up to the res.
and the fact that you need to rely on arguments like “they needed to kill super charger so that she could move somewhere where they’re not looking to then ga somewhere to then get a distraction from her teammate that then finally gets a chance to res” kinda demonstrates my point about how little self agency mercy has over the opportunities to use res.
the mercy player does not have significant input into making them not pay attention to her .
I’d like to remind you that the “creative GA movement” you were pointing to was:
i.e. you were only pointing to the final escape after res’ing mccree (i.e. only after the 1st res) as being the “creative GA movement”.
and again, you were initially claiming that such “creative GA movement” would allow making an unsafe corpse somewhow safe to res which is obvs a completely different direction to what you were pointing to as “creative GA movement” just above.
res has a 5m range. her hitting res at like the 5m away mark doesn’t mean the superjump res was needed esp when the important thing is really the horizontal distance which you could’ve achieved if you just did a normal ga with maybe a bit of glide/bunnyhop.
heck the corpse orb was at the right of the doorway and you’re saying she’d just be in range of swing if she was on the left side. how is this not demonstrating my point about how that she only was able to avoid the rein swing due to the corpse simply being that far away in the first place?
look again, the red orisa was shooting the blue orisa ult (possibly tracer just before that), before seemingly moving onto mercy who already finished the res. but I honestly doubt the orisa was going for the mercy considering orisa fires 12 bullets per second and mercy got hit by none of them throughout (by the time she ga’ed through mines she had taken 150 damage which is exactly 2 rein swings back then which we defs knew she got hit with).
are you just deliberately making wild inferences or do you actually have trouble reading? because I honestly can’t tell at this point.
I didn’t say she doesn’t heal herself. I said the purpose of the heal on nade isn’t to let her be able to sustain herself for a long stall.
and here I thought everyone knew that most of the game isn’t point stalls. 
I like how here you go “all you need to do is just fly to them and you’d be able to res” but before you were like “first you need a distraction so you can get into cover, then you need another distraction to let you fly to the corpse and res”.
you fail to realise there’s 2 matters for self agency:
- opportunities of use, and
- the actual ability mechanics in how value is attained
you need BOTH for something to have good self agency.
the quote you’re replying to was about the 2nd point, which yes, applies to res, but res does not have the 1st point.
damage boost has the first point, but doesn’t have the 2nd.
valk is a mix of both because it includes base kit and the added issue on top (pertaining to the 1st point) in terms of which use case of valk you can afford to do at any given point in the duration of valk because of how easy it is to force a mercy to heal in valk and how you can only do 1 thing at a time in valk.
various other support abilities have both. hence why objectively, mercy has lower self agency over her own value compare to other supports’ for theirs.
except you weren’t looking at how her kit (well here nano specifically) gets value in general at all and instead just cherry picked a situation.
pretty sure I already did explain this in the previous reply whereby I explained how coal and window allow the user to be able to force out an opportunity to damage, zone, etc. because their hps aren’t terribly low that various things could easily leave a surplus of damage that take long to heal back up to safer levels of hp before being able to do something else.
not to mention those heroes can do multiple things at once (effectively for some and literally for others) unlike mercy.
considering the conditions to res, no not really.
As for the 2nd line: other supports can do things in parallel better and the point with what I said there was to emphasise how dependent valk value is on allies being alive and how you can’t stubbornly not heal.
yes the concept applies to other supports, but they can do more things at once or can force out opportunities to do something else instead of healing (e.g. as explained earlier with window and coal).
what makes you think you can’t save 3 with a high single target hps (that legit outnumbers many sources of damage in the game) that you can quickly switch between targets to maintain a certain level of hp on all of them (if not incrementally increase all of them depending on damage numbers)?
except mercy likely isn’t the one getting the kill (someone else likely is esp given 1s weapon swap time) and she can’t necessarily “boost allies to chase” when whether she can boost in valk is easily and often flipped because of how little hps valk healing is which makes you need to be more early/proactive with healing to ensure teammate have enough sustain.
it’s legit moira heal orb tier (technically 5hps less than a moira heal orb). like it simply is low hps for an ult.
I find it really weird how you know how you need to be early/proactive with valk healing because of how low 60hps is yet somehow you don’t see how that’s exactly why it’s so easy for enemies to force mercy in valk to heal instead of boost, res or pistol which are more valuable use cases.
at this point I think you’re just not actually reading what I’m saying and just running along with your own headcannon of what you think I’m saying 
idk why you’re acting like a condition of having 1 up in teammates (a significant advantage) as a condition to ult is any indication of how good an ult is tbqh 
other supports’ ults don’t have a majority of their use cases being gatekept by 60hps.
except it legit isn’t the same for mercy. mercy legit can’t move corpses with her own movement to force out an opportunity to res. she can’t force enemies to ignore her to res an unsafe corpse. she can’t force teammates to cover for her to res an unsafe corpse.
that legit doesn’t change the fact that mercy isn’t having input into how much value boost is getting. it’s legit analogous to betting on a sports game you’re not playing or horse racing etc.
you may observe or get word that a team, horse, whatever, is doing well and you may choose to bet on them for a seemingly higher chance of winning bigger, but at the end of the day, whether you got the top prize, second prize, or last, etc. at the end of the is all on whoever you bet on, while you have no input on that process/determination.
In terms of the mechanics of other support abilities for this analogy, you’re both the person making bets AND the sports team, player, horse or whatever in the sport/race.
with sym orbs you want direct not splash otherwise you’ll end up with <=43dps (60 max splash damage / (1s charge time + 0.25s wind down). with nade, you don’t care about directs because there’s no splash falloff nor distinction between direct vs splash for effects and damage/heal.
how that plays out can be seen in this post (compare dodgeable direct range of sym orbs vs dodgeable splash range for ana nade):
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I totally get it. I have over 100 hours on widow, stopped playing for like 3-4 months, and I literally can’t even body shot anymore…
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I respect a good Mercy player… I try to play as Mercy and I screw everything up
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Current rez still has impact. The player must use their agency to decide when, how, and who to rez.
The same is true of other support abilities–like Discord, Window, and Nano. Can you explain how the abilities I listed are different in terms “teammate’s aim?”
Ana’s minimal impact from throwing a nade can be absolutely nothing. The minimal impact of a rez can also be absolutely nothing. If you land the nade some value can be had, but not always as you often need follow up from your teammates [gatekept]. The same goes for rez. If you land the rez you can get value, but not always as you often need follow up from your teammates [gatekept].
I have explained why and how this perspective is erroneous over and over. Given your argument, logically you must accept one of the propositions below:
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All support abilities require input from other players which the support player does not control. This necessarily means that all support kits have “low agency.”
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You’re contending that support agency is really a metric tied to aim and/or autonomous damage output. Because Mercy doesn’t require strong aiming skills and cannot, herself, output much damage, she therefore has low agency.
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In your opinion, burst healing is the metric of “agency” for the support class. Because Mercy doesn’t offer burst healing, she therefore has low agency.
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In your opinion, abilities with longer cast timers are the metric of “agency.” Because Mercy has a long cast timer on rez, she therefore has low agency.
Pick one.
The same argument can be applied to Biotic Grenade. Please explain why anti offers more value in dangerous Biotic Grenade usage.
The value of damage boost is directly controlled by Mercy. You cannot pretend that everyone on your team is doing zero damage. Someone on your team is doing damage and good Mercy’s figure that out. That’s how you get value from damage boosting. This is exactly analogous to using a Nano. You aren’t going to use your Nano on a useless teammate. Ana’s choices surrounding the use of her Nano are what give it value–this is exactly how Mercy’s damage boost works.
This directly applies to all supports and is a non-argument.
Completely gatekept by your teammates. You are literally describing a gatekept mechanic while trying to pretend it’s not contigent upon the actions of others. That’s patently ridiculous. Concede the point.
If another player–someone that you do not control–instantly breaks your sleep and that Nano Blade wipes your team, there is ZERO value gained. Literally none. This happens ALL the time with enemy ults–Primal is another example.
Exactly like using Mercy’s ult. If you don’t misuse it, it works wonderfully.
Another example of a support kit being contingent upon the actions of others which the player does not control. Concede your point.
Your argument thus far: “Mercy depends on her teammates to do the right thing. Other supports don’t.”
20 minutes later: “Zen’s Transcendence is only useful if your ally does the right thing; and, that’s totally different.”
Hint: It’s not different at all.
Exactly the same as all of Mercy’s abilities. Concede your argument.
You would fail any standardized test module requiring the correct evaluation of analogous pairs.
At this point you’re making anecdotal assertions over what you find value in–whether that’s CC, damage, or burst healing. You’re acting like these scenarios are any different from Mercy utilizing her abilities effectively.
Mercy can also Valk if she wants to heal herself or she can Valk and use the movement speed + increased GA radius to heal/boost/rez. Please exactly explain why you’re asserting these two abilities have differential agency.
Again, properly using abilities is what garners value and impact. This is the same for Zen as it is for Mercy. Here, I was specifically referring to Moira–but Zen also works.
Great, so agency in your mind is a metric of cast time? Care to engage with the actual analogy made about “easy to kill and inherently really niche?”
You are objectively and grossly mistaken. If that’s your view, then you do not know how to play Mercy. That’s it.
Except you are objectively incorrect. The height for contest on this point is 8.7 meters. All the enemy heroes here–save Rein–can deal effective damage at this range. It’s also obvious in the video that she nearly dies. Even for Reaper, the falloff range starts at 10 meters. Your point here has no practical relevance to the situation.
I’m aware that no orb was used. You commented that Moira can only manage 50dps and that’s untrue.
And hilariously, I killed an airborne moving Pharah with a Firestrike at ~35 meters in a game yesterday. It happens and is possible.
Lower damage, but non-trivial damage nonetheless.
Rank 20 Lucio. If you think a Rank 20 Lucio can’t hit shots, you’re misinformed.
Not at <8.7 meters–which is the contest range. If Mercy had not been in Valk (not receiving the 20 HP/s), she would have died. Keep pretending that doesn’t add value and impact.
Maybe in your low elo world, but not at higher levels.
As I painstakingly explained:
Because Mercy’s Cree just murdered Reaper’s Reinhardt and Orisa just murdered Reaper’s Moira. Cree is the greater threat to him than anyone else on or near the point during this time–as is the Orisa ult. It’s also not clear if Reaper could even see the pull on Brig/Mercy as he is likely trying to peel for his Moira.
They prioritized the most dangerous targets first–the Orisa ult and the Cree. You’re trying to argue that Top 500 players are unaware of Mercy’s presence here and are “just ignoring her.” That viewpoint is ridiculous as they clearly turn their attention toward her as she lands on the platform but they now need to deal with DF–who can 1 shot and turn the fight even faster. Once Ball shows up, they simply can’t afford the resources to try and get Mercy down.
Cool story. Let’s see how impactful and how much “value” Ana gets in this situation:
-She dies to the Rein at 1:10 loses the round while the enemy has 4:30 on the clock. Awesome value and agency there.
The fact that you keep trying to ignore and downplay what she did is astounding. You probably get carried all the time in games by Mercy but don’t realize it.
That let’s me know that you don’t understand the game very well if you aren’t aware of how to manage enemy attention.
I’d like to remind you that I explicit referred to the entire sequence of both rezzes.
Cool story–please tell me more about how “safe” that Cree was to rez without her GA movement. Please tell me more about how “safe” that Orisa was to rez without her GA movement. Give me a break. Concede your argument and drop the nitpicking.
Do we need to talk about forward momentum and triangles here?
Hint 1: The left side of the door is closer to the enemy Rein.
Hint 2: The right side of the door is further away from the enemy Rein.
Hint 3: The hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is longer than the other two legs
Hint 4: GA super jump rezzes follow the trajectory of the hypotenuse
Hint 5: GA super jump rez carries forward momentum
She gains more distance during the rez cast time–allowing her to not die.
If she stands still at the left-side door when the rez starts at 1:53, she is dead. Period.
She is absolutely shooting at Mercy by 1:56.
You’re claiming Mercy’s kit has low value, agency, and impact. I compared it to Ana’s ability to do what Mercy does in the video. Mercy’s kit offered massive value, agency, and impact–something Ana would be unable to do.
Lol–I can’t take you seriously anymore. You’ve got to be trolling. Objectives are how you win games. You win objectives by being the team to contest the point and prevent the other team from touching. I’m floored that you don’t understand this.
There’s no way you aren’t making the connection here. You claimed part of Ana’s agency was repositioning to set up abilities. This exactly parallels Mercy’s agency to reposition and set up her abilities–in this case rez. If you somehow think LoSing enemies and managing their attention is specific to Mercy, I would hate to suffer you as a support on my team. Mercy has far greater agency and creativity to position for abilities than Ana does. Period.
Explain how Mercy “doesn’t have opportunities for use.”
Explain how Mercy’s value is not dictated by “actual ability mechanics.”
If what you’re saying is true, then there is no discernible difference between a Mercy in Top 500 versus Bronze. That is a patently ridiculous and demonstrably untrue belief.
Again, for the 3rd time–if you believe rez “doesn’t have opportunities for use” through self agency because it relies on where/when/how your teammates died; then, you must necessarily concede that this logic applies to all support utility.
You have not a single time rationally demonstrated this point. Not once. You have expressed opinion after opinion built from your low-elo experiences.
Demonstrate the quantifiable delineating factor for value, impact, and agency. Then, show why Mercy’s kit does not qualify.
There is absolutely no difference in what you’re saying about Mercy that doesn’t also apply to Ana. Stop denying this.
You’re failing to show how this is different from Valk forcing out a rez or heal or damage boost forcing out enemy cooldowns or survivability to stall or land a kill. So no, you haven’t explained it whatsoever, you just keep saying, “it’s different because of cast time” or “it’s different because it’s not burst healing.”
Neat opinion, but neither response demonstrates lower agency, lower impact, nor lower value.
Give me a break.
Literally straight denial.
Tell me what “more things at once” is happening with Moira during Coal? What “more things at once” is happening with Window?
Maybe they’re all taking AoE damage and need to be healed simultaneously or else two die. Do you think AoE healing has poor value?
A non-argument. Valk damage boost is mobile and Window damage boost is static. End of story.
And again, if you’re using Valk as a “burst healing” tool because you don’t understand how to use the ability–that’s a user error not a “lower agency and value” error.
So what? Mercy’s healing isn’t limited by resources like Moira’s or needing to reload.
Because the most effect uses for it are rolling enemies with damage boost, sustaining fights longer than the enemy can handle, and making a safe rez during a fight. Again, you seem to think it should be countering a Grav/Drag combo like other support ults can, but that’s not how you should be using it. If you’re not using damage boost at all during Valk, while not solo stalling, you’re incorrectly using the ability–which is probably why you have such warped views about her kit.
What you’ve been writing about Mercy and how to use her kit demonstrates you don’t know how to play her very well.
Probably for the same reason you think winning objectives and clock time “isn’t most of the game.” Numbers win fights.
By your logic, all supports are gatekept by the actions of other players.
It “legit” is the same. If you would think about it for 2 seconds you would realize this: Ana can’t move enemy players around to land a sleep either. Ana can’t move her teammates around to land a nade or nano or healing either.
It is the same thing across the board and I don’t see how you are possibly ignoring this fact.
SHE ABSOLUTELY DOES. If you’re blue beaming a D.Va that is shooting at enemies from 20 meters away, your garbage decision making [input] is directly causing [agency] you to lose value. What you should be doing [input] is following your Rein around [agency] and boosting him as he swings on enemies so he wins the tank brawl and gets shatter 30% faster. If you can’t figure out who on your team is doing damage, that’s a player error not a “lower kit value” issue.
This is EXACTLY the same input and agency that Ana has with Nano. This is exactly the same input and agency that Bap has with Window. This is exactly the same input and agency Zen has with discord targets.
For what you’re saying to be true, your teammates must be doing literally ZERO damage–which means they are hard throwing or AFK.
The analogy is: “If you’re dumb enough to waste your money on bad bets, you deserve to lose.”
Doesn’t matter, the point still stands: All projectiles can be aimed and dodged. Arguably Nade is easier to dodge because it’s not spammable due to its cooldown.
Cool story, let Stevo know he’s not allowed to absolutely rail people with Sym orbs anymore.
Player doesn’t decide, how teammate will act, neither can increase probability of desired behavior.
Discord and Window you can use yourself, Nano has guaranteed impact in form of “teammate takes 50% less damage”.
Damage boost doesn’t have any of that - can’t use it yourself and it doesn’t have any guaranteed impact either.
Not, you can’t. Unlike nade, value of resurrect is 0, until teammate you bring back does useful things. With nade, impact is up to user - with resurrect, impact is up to player you bring back, but execution of res itself is on user.
If you land nade, you will get value, no matter circumstances. If you land resurrect, you may not get value, and it’s not up to you to decide either.
I was expecting fun and interesting comments, but I wasn’t expecting people writing entire books about Mercy’s skill ceiling.
It’s not that high and there’s nothing wrong with that.
See? It only took me 1 sentence.
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Dude if you’re expecting fun and interesting comments you could at least try writing some yourself. Smh 
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More like it’s in wrong area.
Skill ceiling in Mercy’s movement - somewhat high.
Skill ceiling in assisting your team - low.
Which is why I will never love Valkyrie, as I didn’t have many issues with flying around with GA to need free flight, but keeping teammates alive was constant issue, which only became worse.
Honestly tho dude people have put wayyy too much thought into this post.
I wasn’t saying she was the hardest hero in the game who required thought into every single action she does with perfect mechanics required, I just think her skill ceiling is underrated and good mercys deserve more respect lol.
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none of them because the “metric” is legit the following 2 characteristics:
- how much are the factors that determine whether the opportunities of use for the ability/action dominated by the inputs of the user?
- how much does the user’s inputs the dominate the factors in getting value and controlling/determining how much value?
legit other support abilities have more of these 2 aspects for their abilities than mercy has for hers.
this doesn’t mean it has to be an aimed shot as shown by mei wall, discord, and sombra hack.
nor does it mean that it has to be instant or near instant cast time as shown by sombra hack and sym tp.
being a shot, burst or instant cast time are simply designs that help achieve it (namely achieving the first characteristic) but doesn’t necessarily ensure higher self agency for its value.
damage boost is instant but has low self agency for value because what actually controls how much value that boost gets is the boosted’s capability in landing shots well and on the right target which mercy’s inputs have literally 0 baring over (i.e. lacking the 2nd characteristic). similar can be said about lucio speed.
and even if damage boost or lucio speed boost was aimed or even a high burst amount of those effect, it still wouldn’t have the 2nd characteristic.
you’re not being clear in what “dangerous biotic grenade usage” means.
because teammates’ performance throughout the match is 100% deterministic and constant… /s
what I’m saying about how mercy’s inputs while boosting someone literally has 0 baring over how well the boosted can make use out of it (which is the only way that boost gets value) is legit 100% true irrespective of good or bad teammates.
just because you picked a more likely target that’d be able to make use of your mercy boost doesn’t mean you actually had an input to the actual process that’s getting value i.e. just because you picked a healthier looking horse, doesn’t mean you have any input into how that horse races to get whatever place they got.
that’s not the case for nano or window whereby there’s more capability in achieving value as direct consequence of their input: bap can amp his own bullets/heals, nano has additional effects on top of the damage boost (which are also instant) that immediately gives direct value (burst heal) and forces the enemy to behave differently (focus on nanoed target) which also drastically changes heal priority.
i.e. they’re placing bets in a race/sports game that they’re also participating in.
in a situation whereby mercy is boosting Player A (let’s assume they’re the best choice), do explain what inputs does mercy have to directly make Player A shoot better.
because in that situation, that interaction, how much damage is amplified, how much ult charge is achieved, etc., if any is achieved at all, is all riding on Player A’s shots. That is simply the objective fact about mercy’s damage boost unlike pretty much the rest of the boosts whereby the user can utilise it themselves.
oh and before you go “mercy can make callouts to effect target priority”, no that is not direct input. X telling Y to do B is not the same as X doing B.
TIL ana can’t kill /s 
huh? 
so like can it be followed up on or not? please stick to a premise or like be more clear about it.
what are the set of things that can burst through trans?
what are the set of things that forces valk mercy to heal (which is lower value compared to the other use cases) or can burst through valk?
pretty sure the latter is much larger —> lower self agency over own value.
that’s absolutely not the case for damage boost, and by transitivity, valk.
except your acclaimed “analogous pairs” often aren’t analogous.
>“she broke off sight from them with movement”
>continues to explain how they never had had her in sight from the start of like 1:28.5 because of what people other than mercy player is doing
>further continues to explain how red team couldn’t cancel res because of what everyone else on blue team was doing that covered for the res
>“ShE fOrcEd oUT an OPporTunIty fOr ReS pUreLy FroM hEr MoVemEnt”
also legit the red team 100% didn’t turn to the mercy post on platform unless that was in the 4s or whatever that was cut out.
except “how much value ana gets in this situation” is completely irrelevant here. may I remind you that you brought up specifically that res (and the stuff before it from the halt onwards) to try and show me how a mercy can force out an opportunity to res purely from movement (i.e. how to make an unsafe/unres-able corpse safe/res-able).
yet very clearly all that you’ve done is reinforce what I said are the dominating factors to what makes a corpse resable (whether corpse is near cover, whether enemies are negligent of mercy when it’s not near cover and/or whether allies cover for her when it’s not near cover) all of which she has little input over.
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the gap between sym orbs is like 1.25s * 25m/s = 31.25m, possibly more depending on your angle between shots. trying to argue “spammability leading to being more consistent” for a weapon fire that’s legit got as low firerate as a sniper weapon fire is just being disingenuous
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“all projectiles can be aimed and dodged” is also disingenuous because it’s legit all about range, projectile speed, projectile size, target hitbox and reaction time.
e.g. if you were 21m away from an ana. even if you had a pinpoint hitbox + instant reaction time to try walking out of the ana nade trajectory, it mathematically is impossible for you to escape from the nade splash (and remember, directs for nade don’t matter unlike sym orbs) from a nade that was aimed dead center on you i.e.
- time for nade to reach you = 21/30 = 0.7s
- distance you can travel in 0.7s = 0.7 * 5.5 = 3.85m < nade splash radius of 4m.
i.e. at that range for ana nade, it 100% is about ana’s aim rather than the target’s capability in dodging. contrast to the calcs for sym orbs whereby a much different conclusion is attained.
And this is exactly why nade is 100% not the same as res. you can’t move corpses with mercy mobility, but you can force targets into that aimable range (which is by no means short at all when you factor back in target hitbox size + reaction times which make it longer) by moving around with ana.
I engaged it ages ago when I explained how ana can break shields/walls or abuse trajectory so that the nade goes over obstacles, or take up diff angles, etc. all of which she can autonomously do to force out an opportunity to get the nade off.
stalling != “winning objectives”
and the logic of “an ult is only good if you already have a large advantage over the fight” is like saying “water is wet because it’s wet”.
no I don’t think it should be used to counter ult combos. I’ve clearly framed my arguments at how even WITHOUT ults, enemies can easily force a valking mercy to heal instead of damage boost, pistol or res. Me saying “any ult can overwhelm valk” wasn’t directed at ult combos, but rather talking about any individual ult (including support ults which can outsustain whatever mercy in valk can do and/or also force mercy to have to heal instead).
I repeat: it’s simply low hps for an ult.
“I don’t accept your valid point so I’m just going to make a strawman to make you look like you’re talking about something else”
let’s try this:
do you think mercy in valk can realistically afford to be boosting as often or as long as current if healing in valk was 40-50hps instead of 60hps?
do you think she could boost more often and longer if instead she had 70 or 80hps on valk healing?
both can provide sustain at the same time as damaging and/or zoning the enemy simultaneously.
coal literally heals and damages at the same time (esp with orb in the mix) and whether you can is basically a question of positioning and geometry.
bap can provide sustain with regen burst and lamp that runs simultaneously as he damages and/or zones the enemy (if doing that while window is up).
I should be saying that about you tbh.
Hint 1: The left side of the door is closer to the enemy Rein.
Hint 2: The right side of the door is further away from the enemy Rein.
Hint 3: a normal GA or GA + slight momentum carry through (i.e. slight bunnyhop) to reach the same X,Y coordinate if not further to be closer to the soul orb
Hint 4: soul orb’s X,Y coordinate is already outside of rein swing range
rather than starting a res at max res range for a superjump res, a more plain GA to simply get closer to the soul orb’s X,Y coordinate to then start res would’ve done the job. superjump res was superfluous and what actually mattered is how far the orb was.
I like how you talk about triangles later in your reply but then conveniently didn’t include it here despite being relevant in judging the range (hypotenuse) between mercy and the red team 
not to mention reaper uses shotguns i.e. even if his falloff damage per pellet starts at 10m, he still is losing out damage before that from the weapon spread. so no he’s not dealing “effective damage at that range”.
like the fact that it took 5 heroes (played by top 500 players) >3s to kill a lone 200hp hero that’s legit mostly only strafing is kinda pretty indicative of how it’s really likely that the only reason she lived through that is because the 5 heroes weren’t that effective at dealing damage to a flying enemy.
and I was assessing the situation whereby only grasp was being used on mercy.
possible != consistent or likely.
I like how you play the “they’re top 500” card only when it’s convenient to you.
like you use it for talking about lucio to support your points, but when it’s that orisa who legit landed 0 shots on mercy from 1:54-1:57 despite firing 12 shots/s with low spread while already starting off at an angle that doesn’t need much turning at all to aim at mercy.
what do you think is more likely:
- the top 500 orisa player not actually aiming at mercy but at the orisa ult through the doorway (which from the red orisa’s view, is right next to mercy), or
- the top 500 orisa player aiming for mercy but landed 0 bullets on her for 3s despite how consistent orisa’s weapon fire is?
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Quoted for emphasis.
No this is false.
These are excellent videos, but they don’t quite encapsulate the highest tier Mercy plays. This is not to diminish, only to say that there are still avenues which the Mercy player(s) here can still improve.
Most of this is false.
It’s true that actions have value to them, but those actions still require input and agency.
This is false.
This is also false.
Valkyrie improves Mercy’s general gameplay by a huge amount. You’re looking at 5x improvement in healing alone. To say nothing of the mobility, duration, and offensive improvements.
Correct.
Ehhh… Mercy overall isn’t difficult to master and understand. It’s just an unwillingness or inability to understand risk and the rewards that come from it. Movement isn’t really difficult and all the tools you need to make good plays are there for you by default (one of the positive things about OW is a solid healer HUD).
Now this is strictly based on just healing and damage-boosting and general supporting. Mercy, overall, is easy to get into and reap great success from, as your videos above point out. Nothing there is truly noteworthy (but still very solid). Balancing that with more offensive play through the use of pistol and weapon switching takes a lot more complex skill that would par up with Baptiste. But, overall, Mercy doesn’t really need that to still excel and support well. Or for that matter, carry.
A good Mercy will always force it into at least 2 opponents or 1/3rd of your team in this case. So 2vX can be quite common and more difficult to deal with. Which is fine.
No this is false. It is absolutely and objective entirely up to Mercy.
This is false; it’s not that binary.
Correct. There’s a small caveat with number 1, though. Originally, Ana’s Nanoboost doesn’t grant her much value and it is dependent on the target applied, however, this largely fixed with the healing added to Nanoboost. And… it could also be argued that the defense boost through Nanoboost is value enough as it makes the target much more difficult to kill (though it largely benefits Tanks).
Mercy is glass, Genji is concrete.
So glancing through the rest of these posts it’s pretty clear the argument is going nowhere.
I still have to agree with Violence here, he’s more or less correct on a lot of things and is able to think critically and argue effectively here. Well done.
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By that logic, no support decides when or how or who to effectively use abilities on. If that’s your perspective, that’s fine.
Mercy’s passive, GA, and Valk are also used on herself. Nano doesn’t have a guaranteed impact if your teammate doesn’t take damage.
No support ability has guaranteed impact–even if used on yourself. Each and every support ability requires the player to make effective choices and exploit opportunities. Mercy is no different.
How are you viewing rez as zero value? Your arguing that landing a nade has value because it’s up to the Ana to use it effectively.
In Mercy’s case, it’s up to the player to use rez effectively. If you’re rezzing otherwise useless teammates, that’s on you. The same goes for missing a nade or landing a nade with your teammates unable to follow up.
It sounds like you’re emphasizing what the rezzed player does after being rezzed. Think about Ana’s kit from this perspective: If she nades a teammate to heal–she has contributed her value to the heal target. However, using your same argument, this has zero value because it’s up to the player you just healed to do something.
Do you see how your argument applies to other support abilities?
I disagree in the cases of healing a teammate or using it to anti. Both situations can garner zero value if the players on your team cannot follow up. This is the same situation for rez. Nading yourself to heal is essentially guaranteed provided you aren’t anti’d. In the same way, Mercy’s passive has guaranteed self value.
It doesn’t seem like this conversation is going much of anywhere and it’s becoming quite cumbersome. I’m going to respond more briefly to the main issues. If there are more pressing points that you’d like me to respond to, please let me know.
All supports have opportunities for use that are dominated by the player’s input.
Do you agree that supports create, recognize, and exploit opportunities to use their abilities? Do you agree that these aspects are intimately tied to the user’s input?
The potential value of all support abilities is contingent upon the support player. The decisions made by the player regarding when to use abilities, how to use them, and who to use them on garners that value. Each of these aspects is explicitly controlled by the player.
If Mercy has low agency and value–being completely contingent upon other players–wouldn’t that mean a GM Mercy is locked into her teammates’ SR? That is, a GM Mercy would not be able to reliably climb out of Bronze/Silver/Gold/Plat elos, right?
Here’s an example:
I have an Ashe and Hanzo. I briefly boost the Ashe and notice she misses dynamite and doesn’t land any hit markers. I swap my boost to the Hanzo and notice there are hit markers. My input of boost targets garners value. Later on, I’m mentally calculating the number of fights we need and prioritize boost targets that need ult charge for those fights.
Would you agree that I provided more value by boosting Hanzo over Ashe and that my input resulted in that value?
I’m putting my money on the horse I know wins races over the healthy horse.
And what if neither gets hit markers?
Because you may not have any teammates, that can make a difference in solo.
Taking damage is guaranteed in this game, no one is safe.
Her skill floor is absolutely rock bottom. She’s the most accessible hero in the game.
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Then I find my tanks and see if they’re doing anything. If that fails, I check out my other support. No team is doing 0 damage unless they are actively throwing or AFK.
This applies to every support though, right? For example, why even bother trying to heal someone if they can’t make a difference?
Taking damage at some point during the game is inevitable. That doesn’t mean your teammate will take damage during the Nano duration. Meaning, not even Nano has guaranteed value.
Even if they don’t follow up, you still got value.
Yes it does, as you use it under fire, obviously.
As Mercy I got zero way to ensure, that my efforts won’t go to waste; as Ana, I got plenty of such ways.
What value are you envisioning?
Imagine a situation where your ult is charged and your team is dead. You throw an anti at the enemy team and hit two people, dealing damage and preventing healing. What’s the result?
-Your nade is now on cooldown
-You can’t follow up
-You didn’t gain ult charged
-The damage you did gives enemy supports ult charge
By using your nade in this situation, you get negative value.
No, not in all cases–obviously.
You have no more control over your value on Ana as you do with Mercy–it all boils down to decision making and ability usage.