The thread includes the term rework in the title because the compromise involved and under discussion would involve a rework, particularly the “use rez on living target option” piece
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But I thought you were against reworks as they’re “Anti-Mercy”.
I would encourage you to re-read that thread. Your questions are answered
I did, I also read the definition you keep repeating or directing people to without linking. You say reworks are Anti-Mercy, you made a thread labeled as a Rework, one would think that’d make you Anti-Mercy. I mean, unless that definition doesn’t apply to you specifically.
I believe I understand why you have interpreted things as you have, but I do not agree with your interpretation.
I don’t really have anything further to add in regards to this specific point
In short, what WildPants said.
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My reply(ies) to that post will be in the thread that post is in
Yep, I saw, now we wait.
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One of my goals in every game as Mercy (when I still played her) is to reduce the amount of time my team mates have to go to a health pack so that they can go back into action. The goal isn’t to fix their mistakes – it’s to support their aggression.
I think the recent changes (the dmg boost nerf) hasn’t sunk into the Mercy community yet – what it implies is that the default thing to do for Mercy is to damage boost by default, and to heal only when the team mate is taking damage.
This is a totally different sort of mind set, because it used to be that Mercy players by default heal, then switch to damage boost when she hears a burst damage ability which has a delay upon firing to hit an enemy – fire strike, hog hook, pharah rockets, junkrat grenade spam, etc. This means pre-patch, Mercies heal all the time until the delayed projectile fires based on sound cue, then switch on damage boost, listen for the sound cue for the projectile to hit the enemy in order for the damage boost to apply, then switch back to healing.
Animetic joked about this on-stream that now dmg boost isn’t viable for her because she can’t smell when a Reinhardt is going to charge – and though we were nice about it, the low-tier Mercies who were in Twitch chat who played on console didn’t care about the nerf because the 2 console players who were in Twitch chat never used damage boost based on sound cues. They just don’t care because they haven’t tried min-maxing their Mercy performance.
To reiterate, the best practice for Mercy at the moment is to damage boost by default, and to heal only when the team mate is taking damage.
Is this how we want to play Mercy in our games?
Or do we prefer the harder tactic pre-patch: Mercies heal all the time until the delayed projectile fires based on sound cue, then switch on damage boost, listen for the sound cue for the projectile to hit the enemy in order for the damage boost to apply, then switch back to healing.
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Main reason why I won’t ever use damage boost by default(unless on healthy teammates) is that healing is always valuable: you never go wrong with patching up teammates.
Damage boost, on the other hand, completely goes to waste, if teammate doesn’t hit their shots. Even worse is that you are not doing anything else at the same time, making you useless. Can’t afford being useless, when it’s not even my fault.
My goal isn’t to support teammate’s aggression, but to ensure their survival. And for me, aggression is usually mistake.
Completely wrong practice, because teammate is always taking damage. Unless they are shielded/not targeted at the moment, when you still have to prepare them for moment they will be targeted and restore their lost health.
Even while I already tried to do that, it’s not working: in many cases teammate dies, before my healing can save them. On the contrary, always healing saved plenty of teammates from flashbang combo and some other combo attacks, that otherwise would kill them.
Basically, damage boost is to be used in that short window between your teammate firing and enemy team returning fire.
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But how do you help someone recover from taking all that damage they took during the damage boosting?
At higher ranks this is possible because they take less careless/wreckless/stupid damage. At lower ranks this simply isn’t possible, people are taking too much damage that almost gets them killed and a supports job becomes to just hold together people’s mistakes until they learn better.
This requires them to have a certain level of independent response to deal with a team mates situation, something they stand a greater chance at controlling the out come of. You know who have a decent level or a lot of that, every support but Mercy. Damage boost doesn’t often hold enough influence in any given fight, it often comes before a dangerous situation and then by the time you need to recover a person it is often too late or extremely tough. At low ranks this is more noticeable because you need to independently make choices to take care of your team rather than actually working and coordinating with your team because that is just what it is like. Forcing more team and communication reliance on Mercy’s kit makes her less accessible for low ranks while still have her actual kit be mechanically easy and her ult and E rez still behaving in a way that lowers her skill ceiling even lower compared to the fairly mid-high level skill ceiling her base kit can have.
Mercy is broken and it is only getting worse.
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Even if they take cover, you are losing momentum, giving opposite team time to heal damage your teammate inflicted.
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I agree with your mindset as a main support in the sense that your role is to keep the team alive. But the rest of the team has other roles.
That’s the main problem I see in low tiers: many DPS are too tentative when it comes to taking advantageous positions. My goal as a Reinhardt tank, for instance, isn’t just to put up a shield others will shoot behind, it is also to open up opportunities for the rest of the team to safely traverse areas under heavy fire that create flanking options for the rest of my team. These flanking options are really important for flex supports (aka Zen) and any DPS.
If playing dive as Winston or Hammond, I do jumps to disrupt supports from the rest of the team, or coordinate a dive to kill specific target (Winston + flanker/DVa can kill any squishy which is out of position).
If I guide my team’s pathing correctly, we’ll be shooting from high ground, which is essentially shooting from cover – the whole team can back up and be partially out of line of sight (LoS) from high ground, while still being capable of targeting the whole body of the enemy team.
There is stupid aggression, and there is intelligent aggression, and I suspect you’ve played with a lot of team mates who does more of the former and less of the latter.
My point is that it difficult to min-max the use of dmg boost/healing for Mercy in high tier gameplay – your style is probably works at your tier, but for those like Animetic who plays in GM, maxing out dmg boost while minimizing its impact on healing is one of the optimizations that elevates her beyond high diamond-low masters.
It’s up to my teammates, not to me, to not take too much damage. That’s how certain Pharah has golden damage all the time - enemies have hard time hitting her, so my healing is sufficient.
Using damage boost to it’s full potential, if team is already covered by shield/other support ult. I can rather easily focus on damage boost, without losing too much healing, but that would require my teammates to not drop below 50% so fast.
The logical pathing/team rotations would be to weave into areas with low ceilings so as to force Pharah to get closer to her targets, and negate Pharah’s advantage out in the open.
You’re right, it’s up to your team mates, and if they’re smart about weaving in and out of LoS the way Mercy usually is, there are ways to secure fight advantages regardless of DPS matchup.
Just to be clear, I DO NOT LIKE THE RECENT DMG BOOST NERF TO MERCY. I like the previous min-maxing tactic where it’s healing all the way, and just quick dmg boost right clicks when the moment is right.
Well, that’s how we win: enemies have to stay indoors, so we are free to capture objective instead. After all, our goal isn’t to get kills - simply forcing enemies off point is sufficient.
Whoever attempts to poke outside takes damage boosted rocket.
At the end of the day, if pocketing is the only option for her as is, then her healing should be nerfed further and she should be turned into a true off support. Lower healing, higher damage boost, a utility skill and a saving ult.
If you have to rely on one hero to make your hero good, then that is a broken hero.
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The good news, then, is that Mercy isn’t broken and needs no changes to remain as she has always been…a main healer
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Mercy has not always been a main healer as the game did not start with main or off healers.
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I respectfully disagree, as her role was as a main healer even if the term wasn’t in use as yet