I feel like the logic behind the 3 “big heals” supports is very straightforward:
Ana – best single-target HPS. Tradeoffs: can’t pass through shields/DM, has to be aimed, is either a projectile with travel time or a hitscan with trace lines, has ammo and a long reload time, has to decide to heal or to damage.
Moira – best group HPS. Tradeoffs: can’t pass through shields, has to be aimed (though considerably less so), has a short range, has a resource that depletes quickly and it regenerates slowly.
Mercy – most consistent healing. Never runs out, can be used outside of LoS briefly, isn’t cut off by shields or defense matrix, is impossible to miss the target. Tradeoffs: much lower than Moira or Ana’s HPS.
Now I don’t think Blizzard has ever really addressed the correct problems with Mercy, (clearly it’s rez, not healing) but that doesn’t mean her healing is too low let alone that it should be buffed significantly lol. Remember it was only increased to 60HPS back when Ana actually had a higher healing output as to help her compete.
Now you have all 3 “main healers” best suited for different situations. Moira is best for beefy compositions that stick close together, but doesn’t offer much utility. Ana has powerful abilities in her grenade and sleep dart, and also has really long range healing, but has by far the most glaring weaknesses of any support. Mercy now pairs best with the highest damage characters (Pharah, JR, the snipers) and with defensive comps because damage boost and Res work so well within those.
50hp/s with no other burst healing potential just isn’t enough. So often I am healing a squishy who’s fighting someone, I’m literally holding M1 nonstop staring at them but I watch their HP go down slowly until they die, you can’t even outheal a Winston damaging someone. That does not happen when you play Ana or Moira, just with their normal healing mechanic alone you can keep a single person alive. On top of that you have more burst healing if needed like grenade or yellow orb. Mercy’s healing just feels wimpy compared to theirs
She feels like a ‘i’ll top you off’ healer instead of the angel ‘my heroes never die’ woman we once knew at launch
Mercy’s healing was 50HPS at launch lol, that’s the thing. They buffed it from 50 to 60 and have brought it back down again. Also, that quote is definitely about resurrect, not her healing.
And you bring up that Winston example. Yes while it’s true that she can’t outheal Winston anymore, Winston can simply put a bubble in front of his target to block off Ana and Moira’s heals completely. This is a problem Mercy does not have.
The fact is that it’s not enough to justify Mercy’s existence. As we can see from 76’s current pickrate compared to Widowmaker, consistency (consistent damage) is not adequate. This game is all about bursts, whether they be damage or healing.
Moreover, Moira and Ana’s weaknesses can be overcome by positioning and other skills. In that case, Mercy’s “strength” no longer exists and she is plain weakness. Which is the current problem.
BTW especially for Moira, it’s far better to run past shields and top up your team, putting yourself at risk with 1 escape ability, than play as Mercy, standing behind enemy shields but doing nothing as they wither and die. You legit don’t need to aim at all with Moira and Mercy’s damage boost doesn’t matter if the team is dead
Boring af to play and feeling like a sidekick no matter how hard you’re popping off.
If Mercy’s gonna have lower healing as a “main healer”, she’s gonna need more utility to compensate. Having an E on a thirty second cooldown that you can’t even use most of the time (because you’d die just for trying) won’t cut it. #ReworkMercy.
Mercy’s winrate being extremely low is probably tied more closely to how often she’s played in suboptimal situations. Ana’s win rate is only 1% higher than Mercy and their pick rates are similar, yet nobody is calling her “dumpster tier”
at which tiers are you looking at? looking at everything above plat, Ana has better winrate and way higher pickrate.
In GM and Masters, Mercy has quite low pickrate AND one of/the lowest winrate
Their pick rates are not similar. Ana has the highest pickrate of all supports, overall. Mercy has a slightly higher pickrate in bronze and silver, but falls off hard as you move above those ranks. (Similarly, so does the winrate disparity increase).
At diamond and above, Ana has more than double the pickrate of the next highest support (Moira, Zen, or Lucio depending on the specific tier).
Mercy was D tier before, but also maintained a decent pickrate back then too. She’s a popular character no matter if she’s good or not, that much is readily apparent. But saying she is ‘balanced’ is easily observed to be false.
No, but she should have the most healing overall thanks to her consistency & the fact that she spends the most time healing compared to the other main healers.
She’s almost a dedicated healer, & that definitely deserves being the “go-to for raw healing” if you ask me.
If you make her the go to for raw heals, meaning the heal queen, then I’d ask to reduce her utility even more. She still has rez which is and forever one of the most powerful utility in the game.
Sleep and nade help get kills, Mercy can just reverse it.
Exactly. Every character should be giving roughly the same amount of ‘value output’. If I play Mercy and I can do 5k healing and 0k damage, but if I play Ana or Moira I can do 8k healing and 5k damage, I’m getting more overall ‘value output’ out of Ana and Moira. They are both out damaging Mercy and outhealing her right now, which is crazypants since she doesn’t do damage herself.
She performs extremely well as a pocket healer. Moira is ran in tank heavy comps at the high end of the ladder, so ofc she will heal more. Just how it is.
But, she was the go to for raw heals xD pretty much all she does is heal!
She shouldn’t have the best burst healing or healing values per second, but she should heal the most overall across matches due to her being a dedicated reliable healer.
Res is essentially a healing utility & most all of Mercy’s kit revolves around helping others out. Whereas, Moira & Ana have the potential to be more self-sufficient & have different impact on their own terms.
Ana’s nade also has far more utility than just getting kills & sleep dart is more for survivability than anything. Also, see Carver’s post.
Rez is not the most powerful ability in the game, I’m sorry. Rez is a crap shoot. Rez is just having someone avoid having to come back from spawn, that’s literally all it does. It doesn’t give your team insta kills, it doesn’t heal up your team or make you invulnerable - it’s literally entirely reliant on the person you Rez (assuming you pull it off with those cement shoes!) managing to pop off and win the overall fight. Which is a gamble. It’s a good ability sure, but the most powerful ability in the game? Really? I think everyone is conflating the power of old Mass Res and new Res simply because they are mechanically both ressurect, but they haven’t mentally truly processed new res and just how weaksauce it is.
