I’d rather have Mercy be a strong pick than Ana a must pick tbh. Ana enables very specific play styles and narrows the possibilities way too much.
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Agreed. If you don’t believe this take a look at S11 Hanzo.
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would you say that to someone like dafran who gets bested by brigitte often? Dafran who has the perfect aimbot like aim and still get shut down on sombra or soldier against brigitte. Or mccree. Let me tell you, brigitte only needs to hit you 2 times with her melee thing before she can do the combo and kill you. Her swings are fast and her movement speed while holding up her shield is somehow faster than rein’s. So no, i disagree. If a hero like brigitte that doesn’t need aim is outperforming you on a hero that requires aim it’s up to bad design.
So if i’m better than you, i should still lose?
Absolutely not necessary.
Why should the much easier option be viable at the top anyway?
If this game still followed it’s casual business plan, i would have agreed.
But we have a dedicated competitive mode and an esport now.
Competitive games aren’t about inclusion. It’s about being the better player.
If we’re lowering the skill floors of difficult heroes, we’d have to completely redisign them. Looking at previous reworks, i’d rather get more skillful heroes to compete at the top. So things stay competitive.
I’m not saying that Ana should be a must pick, but i don’t think Mercy belongs at the high skill brackets as much as she belongs in the lower skill brackets.
Similarly, i think Ana belongs in the high skill brackets rather than the low skill brackets.
Mercy provides a stable, consistent stream of healing and she’s hard to kill.
She has a very low margin of error. So it makes sense that she’s the go to pick in the hands of less skillful players. But Ana has a much, much higher skill floor.
We can’t just ignore that. She has plenty of errors to make. She can miss shots, she doesn’t have a free out of jail mobility card, she can’t heal through barriers…
So she also has to know a lot about the game and maps she plays in.
So yeah, to be completely honest, i’d rather get new, high skill supports to compete with Ana at the high skill brackets rather than M1 and the occasional shift button press at the high skill brackets. Really, you have to work your buttox off to play Ana to the level of those ranks, and to stay in those ranks.
What would be the point in that if you could just pick Mercy and hold M1?
If I counterpick you, yes, regardless of the supposed “skill requirement” of the heroes in question. To start winning again, you then have to counterpick me.
We appear to simply have different design and balance philosophies. You appear to want a traditional FPS setup that only accounts for personal skill.
As I see it, in a hero-based game balance is about the heroes themselves, not the players, and diversity should be the highest priority. If you want to win, make a good comp and counterpick. Work with the roster rather than relying on superior skill to carry. Personal skill plays a role, but not such a large role that it overshadows the heroes. It’s about every hero being a viable choice at all levels completely regardless of any aspect of their play style because THEY deserve to be balanced, and when you look at a roster of 28 there should be 28 choices, not 6.
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Anything that counters Mercy also counters Ana.
They’re both healers. They have very similar jobs.
I should not have to switch to the insanely easy option if i mastered the more difficult one. In this specific instance, one will Always be better than the other.
I’d rather not have to ever play Mercy at all now that i’m in Masters, thank you.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with either ideal.
But if Mercy’s super low skill ceiling were to yield equal reward to Ana’s again, i’d drop this game in an instant. You have to work your *** off as Ana, whereas Mercy mostly just holds M1.
I see it so many times, but why are people so opposed to skill in a competitive game? Why should something i could do with one hand while looking at my Phone yield equal reward to something that requires a lot of thought, attention and mechanical skill? I’m sorry, i just can’t get behind this.
I don’t see the problem with that.
Ana is worthless below mid ranks. Why is it so bad that Mercy would be inferior to Ana at the high ranks? It balances itself out.
Only DPS can be high skill!!! Supports are easy picks!
Wait, I meant hard picks. Very hard to kill Zen as Tracer. Wait, a support killed me?!
No skill hero.
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Out aiming is not a crutch.
It’s just outplaying . Outplaying is also not a crutch.
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So you’re saying it should be impossible for someone to beat Dafran? Or does he lose every time he engages against a Brig?
It’s more likely that the few times he made a mistake against one and died it was blown out of proportion by his fans while they ignored every other time he came out on top.
Even the best players in the world make mistakes and die because of it.
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High skill herors should always dominate if played good, no way someone would pick that hero if you get the same value out of another one that requires very little skill.
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Heros not as mechanically demanding are undoubtedly easier than heros that are. Why? I’m not saying they take no skill, I’m saying every single hero in the game requires game sense, but some heros also need to juggle aiming with their kit.
All heroes require SOME aim and SOME Gamesense BUT the amount for each heroes varies. Aim heavy characters usually require very little game sense Ex. Widow whereas heroes like Winston require very little aim but they way you use his limited kit is how you get value from him it’s always a trade off. In between Super aim heavy and super brain heavy is where we find characters like Ana or Genii who may not require the MOST Mechanic or the MOST brain but overall have very high skill ceilings.
every single hero in the game requires game sense
in the same way Winston requires aim they really only need a rudimentary amount of skill Ex. Moira’s “close enough” beam or widow’s “muh high ground”
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I feel like brig is the real problem here. As many people have said, she shuts down high skill heroes while being a super low skill hero. Not to mention she’s a support who counters the most deadly people in the game… Heroes like mercy and reinhardt are mechanically easy but I personally think reinhardt is one of the hardest heroes and as easy as people think mercy is, there’s still a huge difference between good and bad mercys. High skill heroes should at least have a chance against low skill heroes(but practically no one has a chance against brig😂). On the other hand, mercy used to be OP and completely outshine ana, and that’s not healthy for the game. But it’s also not healthy for the game to make low skill heroes practically useless just cuz you don’t have to aim.
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The only time the skill vs low skill argument applies is when comparing the heroes in high ranks.
Widow shouldn’t be better than Soldier in silver, vice versa, Brigitte shouldn’t be doing better than half the cast in GM. It’s as simple as that.
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It can be a crutch if your reliable enough to depend on it!
Even though this is ultimately a good idea, if you look at the data ana starts overtaking mercy starting in gold. So mercy’s only really used in bronze and silver, the 2 lowest ranks out of 7. At this point, what’s the point in learning or playing mercy? If a hero is only viable at the lowest of lowest ranks, what is the point in playing them at all? It makes it impossible to have any mobility on the SR ladder at all and the main goal of everyone playing comp is to climb, so why would anyone play a hero that statistically prevents them from climbing. It just makes the hero totally obsolete and that’s not healthy for the game. The best players of every hero should be able to get into the top ranks. The best mercy’s should be in GM, the best ana’s should be in GM, but ana should be getting more value out of what she does, which she does(finally) but mercy’s so bad right now that low skill players still prefer to play the highest skill support over her… she’s becoming obsolete. Idk I just don’t get the point behind creating heroes that are only playable at low ranks.
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I’ll give you that one.
I think Mercy is a bit undertuned at the moment. And in need of buffs… Ana perhaps a bit overtuned. But i don’t think Mercy should be the go to support in the higher ranks anymore.
It should be possible to climb to GM with Mercy.
But she should not overtake Ana in the high ranks.
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I dont know if reducing a hero to "the healer of the low ranks’ is good for the game tbh
Neither is reducing a hero to “the healer of the GMs” though
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That’s better than sharing the only place she’s viable in with Mercy half the time.
Of course it did. The spectrum is about 50/50 for this, which is expected.
Overwatch should be balanced around what’s most fun and interesting, not the desire for hitscan mains to never be countered by anything. If you want to dominate solely based on your ability to click heads, play a game specifically built around that.
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