Mercy is still the best healer, change my mind

General Discussion
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(preface: this is a university advertising project to provoke others, please post your opinions, etc! and if u wanna know more, lmk! i had to choose a provocative subject and there’s nothing that gets people talking more than opinions on mercy!)

(edit: thank you so much for the responses so far!! the base of this post was built on pointers to get people talking so its a little jumbled together with opinions, etc! but thank you for taking the time to reply!)

Looking at different threads, gameplay and opinions, Mercy is still objectively the best healer in game.
Playing at a diamond level and playing frequently on NA servers (though I am in EU), there will always be a Mercy.
Regardless of her nerfs, she is still exceedingly strong for the players who already know how to play her. She genuinely takes skill and can always be used as a viable healer.
Unlike Ana, you don’t need to aim, she’ll always be there to get to people easily, etc and she doesn’t use ammo or have a cooldown on certain aspects.
Many people complain that there isn’t a healer, and the second someone switches to Mercy, they’re told if they can play Ana.
Moira has a cooldown, unable to reach certain people when she hasn’t got her orbs on key, Zenyatta takes skill to use his fire, etc.
And uh…Brig is, well. Br(oken)ig.

On the subject of Ana, while I agree that she’s a good character and an amazing healer, Mercy is more reliable and is still on par with her old self. She doesn’t deserve to be thrown to the side as a trash healer when she is STILL the most picked healer in the latest Overwatch season.

Please tell me your opinions and why people should or shouldn’t be playing Mercy in todays competitive meta.

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She has a high pick rate cuz she’s pretty easy to play. However, she’s probably the least rewarding support after all those nerfs.

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Thank you for your response! I do agree with the easiest to play, etc. She is least rewarding for sure.

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Even in bronze Moira has a higher pick rate. In the higher ranks Ana is the queen because people there can actually aim.

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“Best healer in the game” is too simplistic a thing to say. There are far too many variables involved to give a statement like that, so no it’s not objective at all. It’s just your opinion. If you looked at her actual design and identified that she can’t regulate healing output and offers no utility or direct damage value to her team beside dmg boost, and is in a position where she can still be out healed by heroes who have all of those things, then that would be objective. Being objective involves considering the facts and you haven’t done that there.

Hero popularity is not a valid way to evaluate a heroes balance or design. Players will pick Mercy because she’s “pretty” or they enjoy some aspect of her play style. This doesn’t prove anything.

I know how to play Mercy and I’m also able to identify the lack of causality in her kit. Mercys skill expression comes in her mobility and target priority, but that will only get you so far. There is in effect a cap on what you can offer to your team and that cap is currently very low in comparison to every other hero in the roster. Skill expression for every other hero comes in the forms of aiming which has a world of potential skill expression associated with it, and other heroes have a lot of skill expression built into the usage of abilities at the right (or wrong) times. Mercy lacks aiming, which is fine, but she also lacks ability usage which is a step too far, reduces skill expression to a point where it makes the hero boring because there’s very little causality in play outside of her mobility.

Of course she takes skill, but the skill expression is all tied up into her mobility and target prioritising, so you reach a limit to what you can offer your team. You can be using mobility to an amazing standard and survive the whole battle until you’re the last girl standing. You can target prioritise like a god and always have your beams on the targets who need it most. You can do everything correct with Mercy and yet you can still lose all your team mates. This is obviously true for every hero but it’s especially common for Mercy to do all the right things that her kit allows her and yet still lose or make a poor impact upon the team. There is little causality, little chance to learn from mistakes and thus enjoyment is lost. This is bad design.

Skill expression tends to come in one of three forms and it’s okay to cut out one area, but if you cut out two areas then the hero becomes too simplistic. Mercy lacks any aiming which is fine, and she has lots of mobility which is great, but the kit falls apart when there are very few decisions to be made with her abilities. What you’ve listed as strengths actually culminate to create a poorly designed kit as a whole. This is not a positive from a game design point of view.

I had this yesterday, someone wanted me to switch to Ana and you know what? I did just that, as a lark. You know what happened? I absolutely got massive heals in and did a great job. You know what the problem with this is? I’m TERRIBLE at aiming, meaning that this “highly skilled” hero outputs so much healing and has so much utility that even a terrible Mercy main such as myself is able to make her work. This was a bit concerning and also disheartening for me, that I’m able to output so much healing whilst missing so many shots. Yet when I play Mercy I’m doing all the right things, using perfect positioning and target priority and yet I’m not being rewarded for it anymore, even though I’m bloody good at her kit. It’s a strange day when I’m able to do just as good a job if not better on Ana when I have barely any experience with her. :yum: Ana being this amazingly skill intensive hero is a bit of a misconception and it’s why Ana is doing very well even in bronze.

Put aside these vague opinions about Mercy being more reliable. That’s not important. What’s important is good design, giving players the option to fail and succeed based upon their own skills. Consider what it means to have a main healer who lacks the ability to regulate healing output. Consider what it means to have a hero whose entire skill expression revolves around mobility, which by its very nature has a clear skill plateau. It means absolutely nothing if you are able to survive the entire fight and be the last girl standing if you are unable to output enough healing to keep your allies alive.

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in short, it comes down to this.

ana > sniper healer,no mobility,double healing/anti-heal grenade,
.strong against tanks and healing tanks on team, grenade good in team fights

zen > dps healer, no mobility, discord/heal orbs (no cooldown)
. strong against tanks but lacks healing towards tanks, good with dealing dmg

lucio> bard healer, wallride, speed boost/healing aura
. good with healing in groups, allows for speedy repositioning and tactical movement

brigitte> tank healer, shield bash stun (shouldn’t stun through shields in my opinion), repair pack overheal with armor, shield with currently 500 health
.good for a secondary tank, capable of shutting down anything close range or diving,and armor makes dps character much weaker

moira> dps healer, dash every 6 seconds, healing/dmg orbs
. good team healer capable of healing big and small targets quick, deals high dmg towards DPS, cant be dived on because of her dash low cooldown and self-heals

and mercy> pure single target healer (minus ult), high mobility for lack of utility, single target beam capable of healing 1 teammate at a time, rez teammates every 30 seconds.
.capable high mobility allows her to escape danger and regroup with teammates quicker, with single target beam is incapable of healing tanks for sustained fights and incapable of beam juggling to help other teammates, rez even though its strong, it leaves mercy in a weakened stated where she is susceptible of all dmg and cc.

(even though rez is power ability, mercy kit had to be nerved to balance it, as an ult it was in a fine spot it could be countered and made her feel impactful, the current mercy lacks staying power in team fights and is very weak compared to ana and Moira, the higher rank you go the stronger moira and ana are for there utility, mercy rez will not make her any good of a healer on its own and should become a more skilled hero to use instead )

a good healer is viable in every situational or team comp, in lower ranks mercy is stronger because of that viability, but on higher ranks she is counterd by other skilled heroes and makes it a difficult to have her on the team

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Thank you so, so so much for this response!
This ‘argument’ was compiled from a list of provoking things and to get a response like this is amazing!!!

Also, I’m trying out Ana myself! I agree that Mercy isn’t the best healer (we had to make a v clickbaity title in the class to try and provoke, etc! Use a very one sided argument!) – again thank you so so much and I can wait to put your points into my writing! All your points were so so valid and important! Again, this has helped so much I’m really grateful! (also! if u ever wanna play some time hmu!)

This has really helped my project! (Also, all of your points are absolutely correct! I agree with you!)

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People complain when Ana is best healer becuase Mercy’s sole purpose outside of rez is to heal people.

People also complain when Mercy is top healer because Ana requires more skill so should be the best if you are good at her.

Basically, no one will ever be happy. So let’s make all main healers unviable and have a triple off support meta. Then the arguements about best main healer can disappear.

Yes, I’m serious.

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You’re welcome. :relaxed:

If you want to read my idea on how to fix all the issues I laid out, consider checking out this thread: Practical ways to improve / fix / rework Mercy I was very short and succinct in this thread, and refrained from going off on a huge lecture about how and why this rework fixes the issues / flaws in Mercy. If you understand the problems with her then you should be able to put two and two together. Basically this rewards skill expression, keeps Mercy flavour, allows for healing output regulation, uses a mechanic that is tried and tested and is ideally suited to Mercy as a highly mobile hero. It also fixes res, taking away the horrible cast time mechanic and shifts the skill expression onto its initial acquisition instead… I mean, I could go on but, this is just turning into another lecture, lol. :yum:

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Last week I would have probably agreed with you that even with the 10 HPS nerf, Mercy had a chance at being the best healer.

However, just a couple days ago I played 2 games back-to-back where we were 3 supports (I was Mercy and we had a Brig and a Moira), and we finished pushing the payload to the end without me dying once and constantly healing while the other supports had a death or two and I still ended up getting bronze healing.

That was a very harsh wake-up call and as much as I love Mercy, I’ve just stopped playing her now.

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Rezzing does not equal healing.
When you take any other healer and their healing per second is higher or they can heal more than one character at a time… You’re better than Mercy.
When you can also present a threat to the enemy by attacking and not just heal… you are better than Mercy.

P.S.: Good luck with your project!

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I think the only reason for her high pick rate atm is due is due to her having a pretty devoted fan base and because her base character is still fun. I’m pretty sure if her fan base wasn’t so stubborn (I can say that because I’m one of them) and devoted, her pick rate would plummet. I feel like there’s no real reason to pick her over Ana/Moira. For instance, I’m a Mercy main, a pretty decent one at that and I’m an avid Ana player, i.e I can make do. Therefore, in theory, I should be able to get more value out of Mercy because I have practiced her more and I understand her mechanics a lot more than I understand Ana’s. And yet when I play Mercy I feel like I’m just spectating and playing extremely passively and when I then switch to my sub-par Ana, I start carrying and I feel like I’m having a much larger impact in the overall pace/outcome of the match. Idk I’m rambling again but that’s just my thoughts :stuck_out_tongue:

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You are playing the game the wrong way. This game isn’t about admiring one hero but switching to the right one when the situation demands that. The game design will naturally go into a direction in which every hero has some kind of counter and you can’t main someone who is good in everything in every situation.

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Ana is meta. In good hands she heals more and Ana can prevent a hero from dying because of her big single target heal.

Mercy is the safe pick. She can disengage and can resurrect.

In the end there is no best support. Pros still play mercy zenyatta or lucio moira etc. Support meta was never this versatile.

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I mean I can play the game however I want, also I said I “main” Mercy, I don’t one trick her. I play her a lot because I love her character not because I can’t play anything else. I was just trying to explain why I don’t think she’s the best healer atm but the still the most played

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There shouldn’t be a best healer.

If we are talking about safe/universal picks then mercy and moira are still the best choices. Both have good healing capacity that is easy to use in a consistent way and abilities that provide mobility against disasters (eg.: DF ult, dive). All other supports have some weak spots in one of these two important areas and/or utilising their other abilities require more skills or team coordination (that exist only in higher ranks).

I’ll not debate that mercy is much more boring to play for those who prefer challenging gameplay but low skill floor comes at a cost. There are people who like playing her. There are some others like you who like her character but not her kit. This sucks but life isn’t fair. It doesn’t mean that her design is bad.

Mercy and moira were the main support heros I played as a flex support up until the last season. Since I prefer more complex gameplay I started playing Ana and moira (but there are still situations in which I think mercy is better). Out of the two moira is still by far the safer choice despite the fact that I play both hitscan and projectile DPS decently. A player has to be extremely good to hit most shots as Ana when the team mates are jumping here-and-there not only against enemy shots but also from yours.

A sub-par Ana will waste most of her healing capacity not only because of bad aiming but also because of bad positioning and escaping from dives that happens much more rarely with mercy and moira who naturally have to be at the right spot most of the time to be able to heal and be in a safe position when the enemy dives. The skill gap between mercy/moira and Ana is huge when it comes to consistent healing.

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Perceived conventional wisdom suggests that “Aiming must mean a she’s highly skillful”. However, I’ve played some Ana recently and I found that I could get a lot done with her despite missing many shots. I am not good at aiming and yet I managed to get most healing done in all the matches I played as Ana.

I’m not usually one to quote Overbuff, but there we can see that Ana is on par with Mercy at gold rank and then surpasses her as the ranks go. This means that either Ana is overtuned, or Mercy is undertuned (or badly designed :yum:) because even at gold rank Ana is out performing the “no skill” hero.

In reality we can see that Ana has some massive advantages in that she can output a ton of healing despite missing many shots, simply because when she does hit the shots, her output is so large in comparison to Mercy, coupled with all the other advantages that she brings to the table like the massive spike healing which comes from grenade which hardly requires a massive amount of skill to use, and providing the only ability in the game that completely shuts down enemy healing, plus she can do damage and score kills herself.

On the flip side, a Mercy can stay alive all fight long, keeping her beams well targeted on the people who need the healing the most and yet still have all her allies fall and end up being the last girl standing with no one left to heal.

Yesterday I played a telling match on Anubis where I literally spent the battles healing up people who would proceed to die because my output wasn’t enough, then even manage to evade the enemy and escape back to my allies as they spawned just to repeat the process on the second point.

This is shockingly bad, because once again, I did everything correctly with Mercy and lose, and yet I’m also there fumbling many shots with Ana and yet still doing a lot of work on the hero that I should be terrible at.

Mercy obviously needs a rework, but you also need to be careful when applying this logic of “Ana requires huge skill so she must be made more powerful”, because you can push that too far to the point where she’s not suceeding because her player is skilful, but rather because her abilities are simply so powerful that they out strip what others can achieve.

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My main issue with the current state of Mercy is that it feels like the skill ceiling is so close to her skill floor I don’t find her engaging enough anymore and I don’t see much room for improvement. She used to feel a lot better during 1.0 and the early stages of 2.0, there was actually a thought process, now I’m not saying that early Valk deserved to stay it was obviously too powerful, but after copious amounts of nerfs the character just feels watered down and I think it just proves how much of a failure Valk was, but that’s a discussion for another topic so I digress.

I also feel like any situation where you’re thinking about picking Mercy, why wouldn’t you just pick Moira? She does very similar things to Mercy only better with a far superior ult. The only situation where Mercy is necessary is when there is a Phara on your team. Resurrect just isn’t very applicable anymore to warrant picking Mercy over Moira. The idea of a resurrect is strong, but the one we have isn’t. With Mercy 1.0 I felt like I was constantly improving with ult management, tracking ult economy etc, right now I feel like I’m stuck with a sluggish babysitting sidekick of a character which sucks because she used to feel so powerful and engaging. Idk I’m just bitter I guess lmao

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Aiming has always been a skill not everyone has. That doesn’t mean that using abilities the right way in the right situation at the right time should require less skill. Some people want aiming heros to be gods in this game and treat aiming to be the only skill but I’m not one of them. The game is actually going in a direction where it rewards other skills too.

However, some hero’s value depends a lot on aiming skills and Ana is one of them. I have no doubt that everyone can land a few shots here and there especially from close range but the average Ana player will be relatively inconsistent in healing in the heat of the battle compared to an average mercy or moira.

Because of private profiles overbuff is already outdated. Even if you are right, that means that these two heros provide equal value in the most populated rank in overwatch.

It isn’t a new thing that more complex kits can be utilised better in higher ranks. And you seem to forget one thing again: heros aren’t supposed to be equal and balanced in “1v1”. They are supposed to be good (and picked) in certain situations and some heros are more situational than some others. They aren’t supposed to have the same skill floors and ceilings which also means that their pick rates are likely to be different in each rank.

If you think you can provide more value with Ana then pick her over mercy.

We could also say that mercy can fly here and there even on the most complex parts of the maps. Should we give every skill/ability to every support hero? In that case every support hero would be the same and people could pick based on their skin. I guess this is what some people want. Some prefer angels, some others prefer monks, etc…

Nothing saves bad teams. In a random team I still prefer having a mercy over an Ana. I usually get heals more often and shortly after a damage compared to average Anas.

But I think it’s better to leave these balance issues to Blizz who have a lot of numbers to crunch. You can vote with your picks and they’ll see it.

Saving a bad team isn’t always possible. If you think you could’ve saved them with a different support hero then it was your fault.

Again, if you think you can provide more value with hero, then pick her. This way you are also sending a message to Blizzard through the stats.

Aiming has always been a skill and will always be a skill. Ana has higher healing capacity with a good aim accuracy but I see no problems with this. Mercy is better in some other things. And again, they aren’t supposed to be equal. They are supposed to be good in certain situations.

Or perhaps she was more challenging to play because of your lack of experience with a new game. Today a lot of those skills have been already been translated to reflexes and became second nature.

  • Mercy: single-heal with consistent/constant healing output
  • Moira: burst multi-heal

In lower rank matches (gold and below) short battles are frequent in my experience. In short battles moira’s very high burst heal spike is extremely powerful. However if the battle becomes a bit longer then consistent/constant healing output becomes extremely valuable. The best thing is having both on your team.

I don’t think she’s weak but we don’t have to agree. You are free to pick any other support hero if you think you can provide more value to your team that way. Blizzard will look at their stats/numbers and very likely balance Mercy based on that instead of reading forum posts where “mercy mains” want to make her universal that would be against the design principles of the game.

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Honestly, I am sorry for not reading your whole comment on why mercy is still the best healer.

I’m just going to give my own experience. SHe is in my eyes not the best healer anymore.

I played her a few times in competitive (I am diamond)

and whenever I picked mercy, my teammates died faster then when I play lucio or other healers.

I personally, can really see the difference from a small 60hps to a 50hps. It sounds like nothing changed, but it’s a really big gap…
The nerf was not needed. I honestly don’t see many mercyplayers in my games orso, only with a phara…
Mercy her ult is more useless aswell.

She just doesn’t heal fast enough… so everyone still dies. You can’t boost someone because when you do, they die so fast! You don’t even have enough time to even click your other ousebutton and bamn. They are ded.

To me I just don’t like her anymore the way she is now. I don’t think I can change your mind orso, but I hope I state my point here.

To me. I play alot of goat comp lately. Brigitte, moira, lucio, d.va, reinhard and zarya.