You keep assuming you’re playing against a team plat players in a third of your games, you absolutely are not. You’ll maybe get golds, and one plat on each team, not teams of plats. That’s not how this works.
Get an analyst not these upper layers of soothing. Query the data show me results.
Click check Profile… yes, most of them have it on public to show off their rank… I wouldn’t even mention rank if I didn’t know.
Either way rank doesn’t matter because there was a MUCH HIGHER Skill GAP. The game literally wasn’t matched properly.
It is sad that lower ratings are plagued by “if they move, your DPS cant hit them so you lose” comps but it is just a symptom of a bigger problem with OW lacking variation in their characters. Though, you can always just Torb down the pharah. Torb turret can curb stomp a pharah/mercy if its intelligently placed and not just out in the open. If you keep moving it it will force Pharah to carefully examine those blind spots making her slowdown and focus on something other than shooting which usually results in her getting gunned down by a zenny, ana, or something. I have a friend who does this to deal with echos, mercies, and pharahs. You have to understand, those Pharahs and stuff are JUST as terrible as you are in that rating they just have an additional axis up/down you don’t. Turret doesn’t give an F about that advantage. It works really well for my low rated friend. It can work well for you.
A lot of things are broken in low elo… That’s why its low elo right ?
You need to find what counters it and abuse it. Low Elo means Pharah and Mercy are low Elo too and would be easy to kill and maybe wouldn’t change even if they’re countered.
Torbjorn , Cassidy, Ashe, Widowmaker, Baptiste are your friends.
Moira, Mei, Bastion can counter them too.
Symmetra (depending on the map)
Remember to stay under cover to force Pharah and then Mercy to get in danger.
The issue with the pharah+mercy combo is that the former is already a general hard counter to a good deal amount of characters and the latter enables the former with constant heals and damage boost. Until you get to around diamond (back in ow1 at least no clue about ow2), the dps and supports who can easily shoot the mercy and pharah down quickly aren’t reliable enough. They are manageable by themselves for the most part, but together its akin to if reaper or hog had kiriko’s ult on them constantly gameplay wise (not effect wise )
yeah but dont mean the person using it will be a good player lmao
L + git gud + 20 chars
Ah you must be one of those few souls who see sojourn as perfectly balanced because she is considered pretty bad in lower elos. Just because one end doesn’t have the issues overtly doesn’t make it a nonissue for balance.
This is just strictly a mechanical issue. Pharmacy isn’t a problem in any ranks >= Plat due to players finally getting a grasp on their mechanics.
Its not as “insane movement speed”, especially in low elos, mercy players have some of the worst utilization of their movement abilities.
Soldier is a hitscan, however not a viable counter against pharmacy. Soldier has no burst damage. If you had a sig and mercy, you should’ve went ashe and asked for damage boost.
This just seriously is a “play for the map” and “pick better heroes” problem.
Then either 1 of 2 things are happening
- You’re not doing the right routines;
- You are playing into positions that are disadvantageous to you;
Positioning is still a key aspect to being able to aim. If you are front-lining trying to dink a pharah/mercy out of the sky, you’re going to have a harder time hitting those shots.
So there is a principle in OW Competitive, its called the 30/30/40 rule.
30% of your games will be instant losses
30% of your games will be easy wins
40% of your games will be fair/equally matched.
5/15 = 0.33 so… this principle still holds.
You could actually learn a lot by posting replay codes and humbly accepting advice. Most players stop improving/climbing because they decide the game is flawed rather than their gameplay.
Pharmercy is a skill check and becomes much less of an issue as you start getting into higher gold and plat levels where players start hitting consistent shots or tanks learn to go DVa if the Pharmercy is dominant.
Simple things to help against Pharmercy (or just Pharah in general)
- Play tight to corners and cover. Walls and roofs have infinite health.
- Ask for a pocket (if DPS) or pocket a DPS so you can most effectively duel/push-out the Pharmercy. The enemy is investing 2 players in 1 asset and investing 1 player to counter it is a handicap easily overcome
No it’s not. Not in my games at least. I can kill a Pharah with soldier or cassidy in one clip since mercy’s at low ELO can never stay attached to their pharah and the pharah can never use boosters properly so they just fall out of the air in a predictable arc that can be easily tracked. Dead before they get to cover. You need to learn to aim better or use VAXTA workshop code or if you are not the dps then you need to play to counter. ie Bap, mioria, ana, even kiriko with her cleanse and teleport can avoid pharah. For tank, Ball unkillable by ber, dva booster rockets & defense matrix, even winston well place bubble for your team and jump her in the air and zap her. Plenty of options. Pocket your dps that is shooting at her. Ping her or ping mercy, it takes over a third of the teams resources to keep a pharmercy in the sky and a main healer that won’t be healing the tank remember. Also mercy’s tend to go in for the rez right after pharah die remember so camp the body/take the space when you get the pick. Hope that helps. Just get better, sry what you’re saying is exactly what all low elo players that don’t know how to play against pharmercy have been saying for ages.
all these people claiming its a skill issue like she isn’t an issue in masters.
people forget that as your mechanical skill goes up, so does the pharas. and their positioning and awareness.
A good phara doesn’t expose herself long enough to be killed by anything other than a 1shot or coordinated focus fire which, in the middle of a team fight, just doesn’t happen if she is smart about where she peeks from.
if nothing else its unfun to play into.
lets not even talk about phara being so poorly designed she literally requires an additional hero slot to make her viable. oh and that hero that makes her viable? toggle m2 and press shift every now and then.
great gameplay.
pharmercy is fun for exactly 1 person and its the phara.
From the Season 2 balance section :
“Both metrics and player feedback have shown Sojourn dominating the highest tiers of Competitive ranks while remaining a challenge for players without the same mechanical skills.”
Question, since Blizzard says she is an issue at high and low ranks… Who considers her bad in low elo’s? I read “Without the same mechanical skills” as low elo ( Bronze-silver )
Twitter Spaces with Hero Designer Alec Dawson Recap : “Also, Sojourn. We hear a lot about Sojourn. It’s really interesting from a data standpoint, and from a sentiment standpoint, I think Sojourn becomes a very strong character around masters and up. Before that though, Sojourn is not doing well in some of the lower ranks. So when we think about changes for characters with these really polarizing win rate differentials, we want to make changes that affect some of that potency at those high but not make the character even work at lower ranks in particular.”. Just from the blizzard devs themselves
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And seeing that the Pharmercy interaction hasn’t been changed in years, perhaps the data suggests that the symptom is anecdotal rather than a systemic issue of the hero pair being overpowered in any rank.
just pick a better postion and learn to aim.
The issue with the balance is actually that mercy becomes less viable (value wise not survivability) in the higher ranks so pharah gets less of an out. Picking the solo target healer mercy becomes a net detriment and pocketing the pharah is much less worthwhile than speed boosting a tank and dps into the objective. Its less to do with aim and much more to do with how higher rank teams are quick to go for exposed characters (such as the solo healer or the second dps competing with the tank for heals) negating the benefit of a pharah+mercy outside of just improved aim and positioning. nerfing either of them the way blizzard tends to do would crater either one of both of their usages accross the board.
If you ask for a pocket or are pocketing a dps. That isn’t investing 1 player to clear 2 players its investing 2 players to clear 2 players. Having a widow kill them by herself would be just one killing two…
Meaning investing 1 hero to counter the pocketed Pharah is a handicap therefore you should also invest 2 heros.