Why Do So Many People Like Mercy?

To be fair, the vast majority of people picked her because she was considered the most effective healer for their skill tier.

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Going back to season 3?

I don’t think so.

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Mercy was the most picked healer in season 3 though, and ever since then with the exception of the few months people thought Moira was better than Mercy.

Up until 50hps.

She was relaxing to play. The last nerf however made it a top much of a grueling stressful experience. I switched over to DPS heroes for the time being. (I pretty much was always support or tank prior, mainly because those are the spots needed to be filled in every match. I still play Dva a lot though.)

Mercy does have the best character design in the game though, and many great skins. I still like her the best even if I don’t want to play her.

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That’s my point.

When Ana was objectively the best pick in nearly all ranks, Mercy still had the highest pickrate. It wasn’t a matter of who was most effective. It was a matter of who people felt like playing.

What?

I don’t know anyone who thought that Moira has ever been better than Mercy prior to Mercy’s nerf to 50 health/second.

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Moira was perceived (incorrectly) to be stronger than Mercy between late January 2017 and late April 2017.


Mercy/Moira Comp pickrates (PC)

Early May 2017, Jeff made that “Mercy looks fine” post. Which she really did.

But Mercy pickrate kept going up and up and up during May and June and July.

And mid July devs posted the Support balance patch. Because Mercy pickrate had gotten higher than it was back in December 2016.

Truthfully in Season 3 it is more of… south of Diamond (where I was, and where the majority of players are) nobody was going to pick triple tank. Take Ana out of triple tank and put her in the hands of someone who’s not got the greatest aim… yeah even back then when she was OP she’s not a great pick in that situation.

Mercy is and probably will always remain the main healer who keeps working when your team does something dumb with their hero selections.

Didn’t save Soldier…

Beautiful character design and fun playstyle before all the nerfs

And Mercy’s Quickplay pickrates dropped as low as 6% back in November and December of 2017.

When she still had that 15%+ pickrate in every rank in Competitive.

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Okay? Why is that important information?

Also why compare Mercy pickrate to the height of OP Valk?

I can personally attest to quite the opposite.

I started that season in Gold. “Switch to Ana” was a common greeting.

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Really? I don’t remember ever hearing that… but I will admit that I rarely solo queue… and generally attacking one member of a stack is a good way to get several reports.

W + Left Click

she Is a good “gateway” hero along with Lucio, soldier, reaper and rein, easy mechanics on the face of it, unfortunately unlike the other gateway heroes she does not easily progress on to other heroes, and she leaves you woefully short of how to understand the flow of the game properly, just like my gateway hero she Dva she teaches bad habits in terms of positioning and movement.

Because it shows how independent how fun a hero is and how powerful that hero is.

You started with this, remember?

Which implies that she was popular just because she was a decent pick in X tier.

But… we know that the same hero has gone through phases of being brokenly overpowered, yet they sit at a 6% pickrate in Quickplay. Simultaneously, we’ve seen that same hero be F-tier… and hold an 11% pickrate in Quickplay.

Mercy would not have been the most popular hero in the game if it weren’t because of exactly that: She was popular.

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Easy to play/pick up
No aiming
Nice model
People like to play doctor?

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I was always primarily a solo-queue player, so that might make a difference.

I like the team fortress 2 doctor which Mercy is quite similar to.

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Because when you kill or contribute to a kill with her she’ll say something snide like:

“THE PROGNOSIS IS NOT GOOD >:)”