Unpopular opinion: Mercy's viability

General Discussion
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From a GM-level Mercy player, if you feel like Mercy isn’t viable in most situations or is “weaker than all the other supports”, you’re probably just not very good with her. She’s not as easy as you think, she’s not a niche pick, she’s not an “off-healer” (also labeling supports is pointless), she is more capable of solo-healing than any other support, and, if you’re playing Mercy outside of a tank-heavy comp, you should absolutely be out-healing every other support.

Right now every support is viable and excels at something. None of them are useful for everything, but all of them are great at something. Mercy is arguably the most generally useful support; She just doesn’t work well with the current meta or any tank-heavy team comp. She works best with spread-out comps and DPS-heavy comps, but she’s highly flexible and can be used effectively in most situations.

People often focus on meaningless stats like “other supports can do more than 50 HPS” but that doesn’t really matter if they don’t actually do that. Yeah, Ana CAN out-heal Mercy, but she’s probably not going to. She’s not going to make all her shots, she’s not always going to be able to use her grenade to heal her team, and she’s very limited by LoS, her mobility, and having to reload. The fact that she CAN do more healing is meaningless. Same goes for the others, but for different reasons. Mercy is almost entirely uninhibited and can almost always pump out a steady 50 HPS to whoever needs it most wherever they are. Her consistency is part of her strength.

As I spend most of my forums time debating Mercy, I’ll be happy to discuss specifics further with anyone who wants to.

TL:DR: Mercy is great in the right hands, mediocre in average hands, and ineffective in the wrong hands. She doesn’t need big changes; You just need to git gud.

P.S.: No, my profile isn’t hidden. Click the other tab.

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One of the best mercy post i’ve read in a while

YES YES YES. Double YES on parenthesized part. Who ever called her “off-healer”. I always thought that main healers are supports who can quickly replenish health and just deals ton of healing, while “off healers” are supports that don’t heal but “support” in any other way (speedboost, discord, armor+cc)
Who the hell called hero with second best average healing - off-healer???

But tbh, she is “niche pick”. Her niche is supporting DPS, not the best niche for goats

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Both are hidden to me, PC or PSN. :slightly_frowning_face:

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Yeah, I think that’s the results of the “she only does 50 HPS” mindset because people who make that argument are ignoring actual healing output in favor of potential output. Only actual output keeps the team alive. Also, I think the only reason Moria has a higher average is that she’s most often picked in grouped-up deathball comps where she really only cranks out tons of group healing. In any other comp, Mercy should be winning that matchup.

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Hello, you replying this to the wrong guy.
Mine is different post.

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Weird. I guess it doesn’t show a competitive ranking right now because the new season just started a couple of days ago and I haven’t done my placements yet, but all of the stats should still be visible. Anyway, I finished at like…4014 (?) this season. Peaked at 4114. Rein was my most played by a bit, but Mercy was second. It was a good Mercy season.

My bad about the other reply.

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Exactly.

Mercy has fine winrates even as low as gold and above.

Catering to bronze league and/or people who refuse to learn or improve will only damage the game.

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Would love if ult got reworked and healing/dmg boost would “charge over time” and lets say for example:

Initial lock - single heal
3 seconds lock - chain forms to another ally
7 seconds lock - 3rd ally is chained, etc.
Switching beams resets timer
Taking damage resets timer
If main target falls below 30% hp, chain beam reconcentrates on the main target by the use of the “interract” button (hud will appear when eligible to toggle) and applies a regen buff while still healing/dmg boosting, cool down 7 seconds. Retoggling will drop the chain reup timer by half.

Ult gives the option to use the “feathers” from flying to bind enemies at the cost of free flight and giving bound enemies 50 energy shields.

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Those are interesting changes. The feather thing is very outside-the-box. I actually really enjoy Valkyrie, though. I think it’s very versatile and flexible, but I don’t primarily see it as a “healing ult”. I like how many different ways it can be used.

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50 healing per second is too low. It’s not about the Mercy player’s skill, it’s about how much damage Mercy’s teammates take. No matter how skilled Mercy is, if her teammates average more than 50 damage taken per second, she falls behind, and there is absolutely nothing the Mercy player can do to come out on top of that situation. She doesn’t have the tools to deal with it, while every other support has some form of effective burst heal.

Resurrect is powerful, but like Mercy’s hard capped healing output it does not become more effective with Mercy’s mechanical skill. It even takes skill expression away from the player by restricting her movement. There’s some thought involved in timing, but in the end Mercy is at the mercy of the other players in the game to get that Resurrect off. It’s up to her friendly tanks to protect her if the enemy has any idea she’s there.

From a team perspective, Mercy is viable. She’s not a throw pick. A great Mercy makes a good team great. However, she’s completely incapable of carrying. A great Mercy in a mediocre team still makes for a mediocre team. Every other healer has the tools they need to carry a bad team over the finish line, but not Mercy. The other healers can erase teammate mistakes, but not Mercy. Not since the cast time was added to Resurrect, which prevents Mercy from using it on players who died out of position.

Mercy is overall balanced and viable, but she lacks individual impact and personal control over the outcome of the game. That is why you keep seeing and will continue to see posts complaining that Mercy feels weak, because she IS weak from the individual perspective. It’s a problem that Mercy didn’t have with mass resurrect as an ultimate because she was rewarded for being the last one alive. In that situation, Mercy could carry games, even when she was considered not viable at high rank. Now, she is helpless in that situation.

She needs a rework. She needs more individual impact and carry potential. Increasing her healing back to 60 would help without breaking anything considering her stats vs other healers, but even that would just be a band-aid fix for a missing leg.

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I like to play her as well yeah. Sure in gm where they probably play goats all the time she definitly isn’t the go to hero. However as soon as you have ashe, phaara, widow and even genji it’s not a bad idea to pick her. Also it’s pointless to play ana when you are being dived on without any peel if you ask me. Better to go mercy and avoid that while supporting your team.

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You’re right that she’s hard-capped at 50 HPS, but I think 50 HPS is enough for anybody who isn’t face-tanking damage they shouldn’t be taking. It’s enough to either help that person get to safety or kill the thing they’re fighting with the advantage of a steady healing stream on them. Mercy won’t be able to keep somebody up through concentrated or burst damage, but she doesn’t really have to. She’s meant to be kind of the workhorse that carries most of the healing load. It’s best to pair her with somebody who CAN burst heal for those occasional moments when it’s needed. She can solo heal if she has to (sometimes it’s actually a good idea), but that works best with a team who has a fair bit of self-sustain. The comp needs to synergize well, but that’s true all the time.

As far as rez goes, I think mechanical skill definitely plays a part in pulling it off. You’re right that a successful rez from a good Mercy is just as good as a successful rez from a bad one, but the bad one probably won’t be able to pull it off in the first place. I’ve seen a LOT of complaints on the forums about rez being worthless or acting as a “suicide button”, which makes me think those people have no idea how to take advantage of Mercy’s mobility. She can launch herself all kinds of interesting ways and pull off rezzes at the same time.

I’d also argue that I can carry a bad team on Mercy because I do it a lot when I’m playing with lower-level friends. While results are ultimately up to everyone, I can ensure that they always have the advantage in whatever they’re trying to do. That’s not possible nearly as often with other supports.

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When I play Mercy with lower-ranked friends, the only time it seems that I personally can individually affect the outcome of the game is if the other team’s high-rank ringer spends the whole time chasing me around instead of just killing the people around me who are easy targets and cannot be healed through that damage by Mercy.

Mercy can’t save people who face tank damage. You acknowledge that, but you say she doesn’t have to in order to contribute to the team, and that’s true… but it also means that if your team is determined to face tank damage because they are playing poorly, Mercy is helpless. No other healer is. In the same games, I can pick up Ana and hard carry the team because Ana is just that much more individually powerful than Mercy.

That’s a problem.

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It’s not really an unpopular opinion.

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I don’t see it is a problem because I think heroes should only be balanced around the highest level of play. I think it’s only a good idea to judge effectiveness in an environment where everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

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This isn’t an unpopular opinion in the Overwatch or even Mercy main community. It’s just an unpopular opinion of Mercy mains on the forums.

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I think mercy need to be universally viable. Every support is generally applicable. Every ability is equally powered except in Mercy’s case. She needs to be less niche to be universally viable

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It’s quite sad how some Mercy mains are fine with her current state. “shes a dps pocket niche! :grinning:” Are you listening to yourself? Her only viability shouldn’t be holding damage boost on someone else’s work. Where’s her own moment to shine, have carry potential like everyone else. Tragic. Literally feeding into the stereotype of a braindead player. No wonder these posts get support.

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Who cares if she’s balanced, Valkryie is still boring auto pilot.

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Well, we’ve had this discussion before. While I can agree that Mercy probably isn’t as easy to play as many people would think, I definitely think that Valkyrie dumbs Mercy’s kit down and is an ultimate that is detrimental to her kit. This is not a viability problem, it’s an enjoyability problem. Of course enjoyability is subjective, but I personally don’t understand how anyone can find Valkyrie enjoyable, but to each their own I guess…

And no point in explaining why you find Valkyrie enjoyable. I doubt you’ll ever be able to make me understand. The concept of enjoying Valkyrie is just such an alien concept to me.

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