As an ex master level mercy player, mercy is incredibly boring and easy to play and I was frankly sad that a higher skill hero such as ana was pointless to play just because mercy, a far easier hero was just simply better. So now that I think blizzard has struck a balance between ana being the optimal hero in most situations and mercy being viable in some situations is perfect for the meta we are currently in. And I don’t understand your complaint about mercy’s healing being too low, when she used to be able to outheal a winston’s damage without having to be in line of site and without reloading is just ridiculous. I think part of the reason why people think that she is bad now is because for 95% of the time up until the recent patch that changed mercy she was a must pick and now that’s changed she feels weak even though she is still quite viable, which for a long time is more than could be said about ana.
The Mercy partial un-nerf is really weak. 50 hps outside of Valkyrie is still not enough, and boosting it to 60 hps during Valkyrie is better than yet another nerf, but it is still weak. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had fun playing Mercy.
I didn’t know you could have fun playing mercy…
It’s slower if you just heal but, if you are damage boosting/dealing damage it can be a bit faster as the big healing nerf was just a big healing nerf.
I’m definitely getting valk faster on the PTR when I’ve got a good player on my team that can be damaged boosted.
That isn’t to say this is a good change.
I agree that Mercy was never to engaging for me (as I’m more of a Tank player than support anyways), but that’s not to say that some don’t enjoy her. Some like her know, and that’s fine.
Ana wasn’t meta because Mercy fit better as Ana struggles to hit snipers on high grounds, plus Grav + Dragon was an insta-win (this also came to be because with super buffed Hanzo he got Dragon way way faster).
Ana wasn’t meta in dive because of punishing using one of her cool downs was. She also struggled to keep up should the divers go to high ground. Moira also had 0 vertical mobility so Mercy was the superior choice.
Mercy’s healing has never been the main reason she was meta. In addition, we’ll never know if 60 Hp/s was really too strong because in the support patch Lucio got a bigger aoe and improvements to sound barrier and Ana was now able to use Nano in more situations than she could before. Moira also was able to pump out more heals with the resource buff. Maybe these changes would’ve been enough to bump Mercy from the top spot. We won’t know because Blizzard got desperate to get Mercy off the top and jumped the gun.
That’s the thing, Mercy’s “situation” that she excels in is a pocket hero. She’s a main healer, she always was meant to be a main healer. 50 HP/s is too weak to support a Tank. If a tank is at low health, let’s say at 100, Mercy now has to sit attached to them for 8 seconds in order for them to be full. That is a massive amount of time in Overwatch. Ana can just made and 2 shots and you already have most of your HP back. 50 Hp/s is not useful in the middle of the fight when you have to keep multiple people alive. It just takes too long.
Everyone just gets tunnel vision on Mercy balance because she was good for so long. People justify it that “because she was meta, she deserves to be trash”.
Imagine if in a couple months, Ana gets put in the same situation Mercy is in now (yes I know “but she was!”, I get it ,just stay with me for the sake of this example). where her only niche is being Reinhardt’s pocket. Would you be fine with that? Would you agree if people said Ana shouldn’t only be used because of Reinhardt? That’s that role is fine because she was meta for a couple months?
It’s the same for Mercy now, she’s just a pocket hero. Mercy’s don’t even bother healing me in most games because they know it will take to long and that I will probably die anyways. If I do have a Mercy as a solo heal I play very cautiously as I know I can’t rely on Mercy to keep me alive should I be aggressive.
it’s equally ridiculous that Zenyatta gets temporary wall hack when he discords someone (as it lingers and you can just see the icon until it disappears). Obviously I’m exaggerating but honestly this is such a non-issue as a Tank player myself. Mercy’s beam lose connection after 4 seconds out of LoS I think. Either way, a Winston should avoid diving solo. It’s called target priority. For example, if someone gets Armor Packed by Brigitte, I either back off or switch targets. it’s the same for Mercy. I either start target Mercy herself or I back off. I do the same for every support, I wait for an opportunity then go for them. If you have someone else dive with you, Mercy won’t be able to out heal that.
I never got why people keep thinking Mercy out damaging Winston is such a big deal. Winston is known to be on the lower end of DPS. So why should someone with comparatively low DPS out damage someone who’s design is suppose to be “Strong consistent healing”?
Just because one support was bad for a while doesn’t mean that it justifies another being bad. If it did many characters would have never been buffed. You know the saying “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”? That’s what happens when we justify a character being bad.
Statistically (or at least the one’s we have because Blizzard doesn’t share theirs), she is bad. I believe there was a post that said “A month of Mercy in numbers” or something like that, and it shows how bad her stats are.
I could argue the reverse and say that because she was meta for so long people refuse to believe the idea that she could be bad.
In short she feels awful to play, and to play around, I don’t like Mercy’s on my team. I don’t feel the bring anything of value besides pocketing a Pharah or their dup partner.