Hi guys! Let’s just jump right it.
For the past year, mercy has been recieving constant nerfs. Ever since her rework came out, Mercy has recieved nerf after nerf.
I’ve met people in competitive who are very pleased with Mercy’s current state. They are happy that mercy’s kit has been completely obliterated, and call mercy mains one tricks, boosted, and lash out because mercy takes less mechanical skill than other supports.
Okay, then let’s take a look at skill floors and skill ceilings.
What is a skill floor?
A skill floor is the minimum amount of skill reuired to make an impact with a hero.
Lucio is a good example of a hero with a low skill floor. The average player can generally be effective with this hero, because of his AOE healing/speed boost. Lucio can still have an impact simply by staying near his team.
A hero with a high skill floor would be Ana. You need to have decent aim and positioning to be effective as Ana.
What is a Skill Ceiling?
A skill ceiling is the amount of skill required to have the most impact with a hero.
A hero with a low skill ceiling would be Moira. She isn’t very mechanically demanding, and there isn’t many abilities to improve on.
A hero with a high skill ceiling would be Genji, because there are more abilities to master. You have to improve with aiming primary and scondary fire, animation cancelling, using swift strike, deflect, and using dash resets the most effective way possible.
That being said, heroes with low skill ceilings are harder to improve with, because many of the improvements have to do with small adjustments. Heroes with high skill ceilings are easier to improve with, because there is a much larger gao between the least effective you can be and the most effective you can be.
And pertaining to heroes with low skill floors and low skill ceilings, I’m not trying to imply that they take no skill. There is a huge difference in skill between a bronze Lucio and a GM Lucio, and it is very apparent when you compare the two ranks.
So why is this relevant? Mercy has always been considered to be a hero with a low skill floor. This leads to many people getting angry with high tier Mercy mains, and calling them “boosted e-girls” and other names.
The problem with lashing out at Mercy players is that it creates a double standard within the community. You don’t see people screaming to Junkrat and D. Va mains about how they don’t deserve their rank, or how anybody can climb to Top 500 by playing those characters. Mercy mains are constantly reminded by the community that they are raving cultists, the hero they play requires no skill, and that by playing Mercy you can easily rank up without any effort.
If that were the case, why are their Mercy mains spread throughout every rank? If all you have to do to play Mercy is stand still and hold down on primary fire, why isn’t every single GM a Mercy main?
Being called out for playing a hero that is “easy” and “doesn’t take skill” is incredibly demoralizing to everyone that plays Mercy. Why is it okay to spam Junkrat’s primary fire down a choke from across that map, but not okay for Mercy not to aim when healing?
What made Mercy’s rework overpowered was her res. Res does not belong as an E ability. No matter how skilled the individual Mercy player is, you still have the opportunity to res every 30 seconds. You could stand in a corner, not healing, for the whole game and still have just as many chances to res as a Mercy player who avoided enemy fire, knew when to heal and damage boost certain targets, and stayed just out of enemy sights to stay alive. Res is too good of an ability to be on a cooldown.
In an effort to balance Mercy, every part of her kit has been reduced to garbage. She can’t keep her allies alive when they are being focused, even while ulting. She has a cast time on her E ability as well as movement reduction. Why were these nerfs put in place? Because res is too good.
Instead of being reworked, Mercy has recieved nerfs over and over again. When Mercy mains complain about her kit being butchered, we are instantly accused of wanting Mercy to be overpowered again. We are constantly told that we want her to be changed so that she is the best hero in the game, but takes absolutely no skill.
This is not what Mercy mains want. We want our main to feel useful and impactful. We want our main to stop being nerfed. We want our main to feel fun to play.
The Mercy mains that are constantly shouting to revert Mercy aren’t asking for her to be overpowered. Most are asking for the old Res to come back without invulnerability. While I personally don’t agree with reverting Mercy, I do think she needs to be reworked.
What so many Mercy mains are asking for is a new kit, with abilities that feel impactful and add more skill and depth to Mercy. They are tired of constant nerfs, and feel that the Mercy rework was a failure.
We aren’t asking for Mercy to be in meta. We are asking for her to be viable.
![:smiley:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=5" ":smiley:")
