Serious question. I’ve recently started playing Mercy for the first time.
I’m currently using her pistol where I see opportunities for an elimination. Should I be doing this, or just concentrating on healing? I feel a bit guilty using the pistol, should I?
How do the Mercy mains play her?
It’s ok to use weapon (if no one needs healing or when you go from spawn to the objective)
Generally, you use it to protect yourself. Otherwise damage boost is technically more efficient. Albeit, I think people get a bit too timid about using the blaster when it is actually not half bad given the humongous projectile size. And with Valk, she is THE most underrated duelist. I use it to clean up Widow or Pharah quite often.
Yeah. Please don’t let your teammates die on you because you were busy looking for a frag but the pistol is pretty viable especially the further down the ladder you go. You can use it to deter flankers or finish off low-hp targets in the distance that have maybe fallen out of range or off the radar of your teammates. As MoreHeroes says Valk-Mercy can duel some DPS heroes and other supports.
God, I hate it if I’m tanking and Mercy shoots me in the face while I’m busy beating up her boyfriend. 
Yes, I find her pistol pretty effective! And getting a kill feels great with her.
I use it in her alt too, but feel bad when I see people need healing during it. I’m still a little unsure using the pistol for the alt tbh.
There are Mercy mains who swear by the blaster, and Mercy mains who almost always avoid it. You just got to do what works for you.
Also it’s nice when Mercy takes a quick shot at sym-turrets if they hang to high for my mighty hammer and the dps and offtank are too … busy. 
First mistake is that you should not concentrate on healing as Mercy (unless you play on console) Mercy’s healing is lackluster and other supports can do it better, have an easier time doing it and also provide damage and utility.
If you find that you are healing a lot with her its probably best to switch. Sure you can play her however you want but its suboptimal to her strengths as there is no reason to really pick her over someone like Baptise or Ana unless you can make use of damage boost.
That being said, her pistol is certainly a worthwile tool especially when leaving spawn or if a lot of people are anti-naded or you are cornered. You will likely not win if you are singled out alone, but you can generate decent ult charge to get a teamwide damage boost.
Its also an efficient way to get rid of traps, and turrets if everyone is focused elsewhere since as Mercy you have the most room to be aware of your environment since her kit doesnt require much focus on what you are doing, giving you time to analyze your surrounding and make good shotcalls better than any other hero, besides maybe Reinhardt as both have the inability to multitask with their kit embedded in them which is also a strength.
Great feedback thanks.
I do play on console. I don’t seem to be getting as much healing with her as I do for other supports I’ve used (Zenyatta & Lucio), but I suspect much of their healing is during their ults.
Yes, using her damage boost (and when to use it) is something I need to be focusing a little more on.
I find it a little odd her difficulty is only considered one star, as I’m finding getting the best out of her is actually quite hard.
Another thing I don’t understand, is what have I got to do to increase her on fire meter? Maybe I’m just bad playing her, it never seems to increase no matter what I do 
Whatever you do, don’t focus on the fire meter as Mercy. It will lead to a lot of weird decision making and mess up your flow.
Mercy’s average on fire rate is a fraction of every other hero in the game. Don’t stress about it.
Sometimes its the right call. Knowing when exactly that is, thats what you need to learn. Sometimes man… sometimes, you just need to pull that pistol out and shoot in the general area around a tracer that your team just can’t quite finish off. Eventually she’ll do what all inevitably do… She’ll walk right into those projectiles and die. Unleash your inner projectile dps.
Yes. Do it. The pistol is part of your kit and its there for a reason. Your priority is keeping people alive, damage boosting useful people and then using the pistol (mostly). There are plenty of situations where you might want to use the gun over healing.
A lot of the time when people are high health and there’s nobody around worth boosting, you wanna bust out the gun.
Depends. It’s really situational and it’s a judgement call. So I’ll just list a few examples of when I do it.
So yes I think it’s situational, you need to find a balance. There are quite a few situations which call for Mercy whipping out her sidearm and unleashing some freakish soccer mom power in her, but it’s really a tertiary function after healing and amp.
Also, when defending yourself. Or when it’s overtime, team’s coming back, there’s no hope, timer running out.
You take out your sidearm and rush in guns blazing. You will probably be taken down but you fight until the last second. Valhalla is already expecting its valkyrie!
i had 25 blaster kills in one quick play game before. i dont remember how that happened and i wonder if i loss that game. i must have been on crack
I generally use the pistol in a few situations:
Lol they call him Neptuno
I don’t know who I am
I don’t know why I’m here
All I know is that I must kill
Her pistol is part of her kit so why not? The only time i use her pistol tho is when i see someone i’m sure i can eliminate, ppl with low health or if they have a lonly widow somewhere.
If it’s to bm Hogs, Genjoos and Moiras then you have an obligation. Don’t forget to tbag after.