Preface
Hey there. Due to Mercy being a Hero quite a few people want to get
better with I've decided to write up a guide on how I play her. For
reference, here are my
MasterOverwatch and
Overbuff
profiles. I've clocked in over 150 hours of play on Mercy in Quickplay
and Competitive combined, and I'm currently holding a 65% winrate over
100 games on her in Competitive. I went from rank 47 to rank 70 with
her. While she is probably the weakest Healer in the current Meta at the
time of writing this, she's far from unplayable.
Sadly enough, I can't stream or record my own gameplay as I'm playing
with an average of 45 FPS on the lowest settings. I would love to,
however.
That's it, enjoy the guide!
Abilities
Caduceus Staff: This is Mercy's main ''weapon'' and
probably what you will be using 95% of the time. It's a staff that
either heals people, or increases their damage. The healing is done via
holding down the left mouse button (by default) and it heals a single
target for 50 HP/s. This puts her at the second highest single target
healing, with only Ana being able to outheal her. The damage beam is
activated by holding down the right mouse button (by default) and
increases the damage output of a single ally by 30%.
The staff has a maximum range of 15m and requires Line of Sight (from
now on addressed with LoS). However, there is a 3 second ''grace
period'' when your beam is on someone where if your ally either breaks
LoS or moves further than 15m away from you, the beam won't break.
Caduceus Blaster: This little thing is Mercy's
secondary weapon, and this time it's actually a weapon. It's a
pistol-like energy blaster that fires small projectiles dealing 20
damage each. It fires at a rate of 5 rounds per seconds, giving her a
potential
Damage per Second (DPS) of 100. Though it's best to use this in
emergencies, do not underestimate its damage potential. You can switch
between the Staff and Blaster by using the scroll wheel or the 1 and 2
keys.
Guardian Angel: Mercy's shift (by default) ability.
It is a targeted dash which allows you to fly to an ally up to a range
of 30m. If activated, you will fly in a straight line to the ally you
chose to fly to. It can be cancelled by reactivating the ability or
letting go of the shift button, depending on your option set-up (more on
this later). It has a cooldown of 2 seconds.
Angelic Descent: Mercy's Passive. When you're in the
air and you hold down space (by default), instead of falling down like
my rank when I Solo-Q'd in the rank 55's, you'll graciously glide down.
Ressurect: Mercy's ultimate. This thing is maybe the
most iconic ultimate in the entire game, and for good reasons: You
revive everyone in an area of 15m around you. If used correctly, it can
give your team a huge advantage. Also, it has the best call-out in the
game.
Playstyle
Okay so that are her abilities. Now this is all fine and dandy, but how do you actually use them to maximize your Mercy play?
First of all we'll cover the topic of Not Dying. This single skill
seperated the good Mercy's from the bad ones. A dead Mercy can't heal,
damage boost or revive people. But how does one actually stay alive,
when everything on the enemy team that moves will try to kill you before
anything else?
Positioning: You stay alive by positioning yourself
in ways that the enemy team will have a difficult time knowing where you
are, actually reaching you and staying close enough to kill you. Now
realistically, to do this perfectly is practially impossible. However
you can attempt to do it nearly perfect.
First up, the flankers have to know where you are. At all times, try
your best to stay out LoS from the enemy unless it's neccesary to expose
yourself. Use corners and obstacles as much as possible. Keep in mind
that your beam has a range of 15m. Try to stay at the max range of your
beam as often as possible. If you stay too close to your team, chances
are you'll get caught in a Zarya ult, Reinhardt ult, Pharah Ult and
everything else that is not good for your health and mental stability.
Also, use the fact that your beam can go through a corner, as long as
you reset the timer before the 3 seconds run out. ''Peek'' around a
corner to keep resetting the beam. Also, especially when defending,
stay on the high ground as much as possible. This is the biggest
positional flaw I see when reviewing VOD's. You're vulnerable on low
ground. High ground naturally exposes less of your hitbox and you have
more escape routes.
But say a Genji actually manages to get to you. You can't stay close to
him and invite him for a cup of tea, since he will likely kill you. If
he actually accepts the offer, friend him and start queueing with him.
Anyway, this is where your dash comes into place: as soon as a flanker
approaches you, dash to an ally. When you're under fire or getting
flanked, use your dash as much as possible. It's on a 2 second cooldown,
so use this to your fullest advantage. Also, keep in mind you can dash
to dead allies. This often throws the enemy team off as they do not
expect this. It's risky, however. Keep in mind that allies on high
ground or in the air are your best friend, especially when you're
getting flanked by Tracer. There are reasons Pharah and Mercy have such a
good synergy, and Pharah providing Mercy and instant escape is one of
them. But please, never,
ever,
dash to your snipers when a Genji with ult is chasing you.
This will likely end in you both dying unless your sniper is godlike.
It's important to be as hard to hit as possible, as you have only 200
HP. Mercy's kit allows for jukes and throwing off enemy flankers, so be
sure to use this.
Situational awareness: Another skill that you need to have as Mercy. Being able to identify
where enemies are,
who they are and
when
they are going to use ultimates is key to your survival. Remember that
you are not relegated to looking at the enemy frontline, unlike your DPS
and Tanks are. Look around you more often. Memorize all the flank
routes that can lead to your current position and check them every 1-2
seconds. If you can spot a flanker before they've even reached you, you
can easily adjust your position and won't be caught off-guard.
Next up is
sound. Something which often goes unnoticed, but
Blizzard has done a damn good job at the sound in this game. Not only
can you hear where enemies are walking, every character has
unique footsteps and gunsounds.
By now, I can easily identify wether it's a Tracer or Reaper who's
behind us, and likewise I can instantly recognize wether we're dealing
with a Soldier or McCree.
Learn how certain characters like to position. A Reaper, for example,
will likely look for a place where he can either drop down on you and
possibly ult, or brawl in close combat. If the enemy team has a Reaper,
keep this in mind and adjust your playstyle accordingly. In this case,
it would be avoiding close spaces if Reaper's position is unknowing, and
check above and/or behind you for potential edgy jumpscares. Assemble
the information you have about the enemy team comps and adjust your play
to it. Mercy has no ''set'' position she should be in, it entirely
depends on the team comps on both her team and the enemy team.
Lastly, you should know your team's positioning at all times. This
reduces the time you need to get away from things and allows for faster
repositioning.
Game knowledge: Learn how every character plays.
Learn their damage, cooldowns and how fast their ult generally charges.
This will allow you to better know when enemy ults are coming, how much
you can expose yourself to enemy fire to reach a destination or ally,
etc. As mentioned above, knowing the playstyle and also cooldowns of
other heroes allows you to position yourself according to the situation.
You can become better at the 3 things mentioned above through either
just playing the game a lot (which I did - I'm almost level 330 at the
time of writing this) and picking up things along the way - mindlessly
playing the game sadly won't help you, no matter how much you play the
game. Try multiple approaches and if something works out, try to figure
out why and apply it to your future games. For example, Yesterday I
played a game on Anubis where we were stuck trying to assault point B.
We kept trying to rush through main and on one push we got to the second
checkpoint. But the other 5 times went horrible. Then I suggested we
should take the right-hand flank and see what happens. We hopped over
the wall and steamrolled through their defenses. We completely caught
the enemy off-guard and that won us the game. What you can pick up form
this is to switch up your tactics if something's not working after
multiple attempts. It may just catch your enemy by surpsrise and allow
you to win.
The other option is to watch high-level gameplay. There are a lot of resources for this, so I'll list a few:
General gameplay:
GosuGamer's weeklies,
Amazing Overwatch's Channel.
Mercy specific: Most streamers have stopped playing Mercy, but both
Purposefull and
C9's support player Adam still have high-level Mercy VOD's on their channel.
Try to figure out why the players do what they do and apply this to your play (
Do NOT simply copy what they do) and you'll see improvement in very short time.
Decision making
Even though your heal and damage boost are both awesome, they can't
be used at the same time. You'll have to make a choice on who you're
gonna heal or boost. Likewise, your Ressurect also requires good
decision making.
Healing and Boosting: I'm going to give you a few examples. Answer them on your own before looking what I would do.
1) Your McCree is behind you, at 60 HP. You're standing behind cover.
Your Soldier is ulting and just killed the enemy Tracer. What do you do?
2) Your Reinhardt is being fired at by the enemy team. His shield is up.
He has 100 HP. Next to him is your Reaper who just escaped the enemy
team. He is at 150 HP. Who do you heal?
3) You notice your Tracer and McCree are at 40 and 50 HP respectively. Who do you choose to heal first?
The first scenario offers you the option to choose between boosting
and healing. While it may be tempting to heal McCree first, he is out of
risk as he's behind cover just like you and the enemy Tracer just died.
Instead, boosting the Soldier would prove more usefull to winning the
teamfight and guaranteeing a push/capture. Also, Soldier will be out in
the open and thus open to taking damage.
The second scenario forces you to heal a tank or a DPS. General rule of
thumb is to heal DPS Before moving to the tanks. The tanks naturally
have higher survivability than your DPS, thanks to having more HP and
heals or shields. Of course there are exceptions. If your DPS managed to
get behind cover, but your tank not yet, heal the tanks.
The last scenario is a little more tricky. Tracer has less HP than
McCree. However you should still heal McCree. Reason being is that
Tracer is more mobile than McCree, so she can go and find an HP pack
much quicker than McCree. Healing McCree will thus lessen the downtime
your team has where they're missing a Hero.
Final note, you should generally heal over damage boost. Unless
someone's actively killing the enemy team (Reaper during ult, Roadhog
after hooking, etc.) you should heal. Reason is that you can't damage
boost a team that's dead.
Ressurect: With the recent increase in Ult charge
cost, your Ressurect requires very good decision making. I'm still
fucking it up every so often. You need to be able to judge the situation
quickly and decide on that. There are 2 kind of Ressurects: The
Ressurect to undo a team wipe and the Tempo Ressurect. The first one
speaks for itself: If 3+ allies die due to enemy ultimates, bring them
back. You're now at an ult advantage. However, sometimes you want to do a
Tempo Ressurect. What this is, is basically a Ressurect on 1 or 2
allies who you absolutely need for your next push. Examples would be
Reaper or Zarya with ult.
Get a feeling of when enemies will use their ults to teamwipe. If you
know you can get your ult to ~80% before the next fight, you can Tempo
Ressurect. If going for a Tempo Res, keep in mind to wait a bit before
Ressurecting. More allies may die before the death timer runs out, and
you want your Ressurects to be as efficient as possible. Honestly,
there's not a lot I can tell you to do with your Ressurect, 80% of it
comes from experience.
Using the Blaster: Most of the time, it's better to
fly away when flanked because most flankers thrive in close quarter
fights, so being able to increases the distance leaves you less
vulnerable. However, sometimes you just can't get away easily. I always
swap to Blaster upon getting flanked unless someone
really needs healing, and fire away at the flanker whilst flying to an ally.
Generally, flankers will hestitate for a moment upon taking damage. Get
used to the projectile and its travel time and you'll be able to deter
flankers from trying to get you - 80 damage to the face is a lot for
them.
If you're facing a static defense (Turrets or Bastion) and you get the
opportunity, use the fact that your Blaster does 100DPS and is pinpoint
accurate. A full clip is generally enough to take out Torbjörn turrets
when you're behind a Reinhardt shield or simply out range. However keep
in mind that you still should prioritize healing over firing the pistol.
It may simply be more efficient to heal and/or boost your Soldier who's
taking down the turret.
When should you run Mercy
Although at the time of writing this guide, Mercy's the least
favoured support in the current Meta, she can still fit on most of the
teams, both Offense and Defense. She does shine better on Defense,
however.
Attacking:Generally, if your team has a Lucio, you
can run Mercy. If not, go Lucio. I hate to say this, but Lucio's speed
boost is pretty much a neccesity in the current Meta. You can't really
afford to
not run a Lucio on Offense as his speed boost can't be missed. This accounts to 2CP maps, Payload maps and Hybrid maps.
Defending: Mercy can pretty much always find a slot
on Defense, as this side naturally offers her more cover, both map-wise
and team-wise. Torbjörn turrets, Junkrat spam and Bastion are awesome at
deterring flankers from killing you. However do beware that if you are
the only Healer, you'll have to expose yourself a lot more, because
there's nobody else who can heal allies and you'll have to constantly
reposition and possibly give away your positioning to the enemy team.
King of the Hill (KotH): Don't go Solo Healer on this map as Mercy. Once again, you
need
a Lucio. Lucio is especially good on KotH maps due to the team being
clumped up more because the way the maps are designed. Keep in mind that
if you are running Mercy on these maps, you'll have to be very careful
as these maps are a flankers wet dream. Also Winston sees a lot more
play here. Lastly, the maps offer less hiding places.
Also sometimes you'll just run into teamcomps where playing Mercy
will be very difficult. Tracer, Genji, Reaper, D.Va and Winston are your
worst enemies. Should you run into a team running 2+ of these heroes,
you have to consider just swapping off if you're constantly getting dove
on by them.
Likewise if
your team is running 2+ of these heroes, consider
swapping off as well. Mercy has by far the shortest range of all healers
and therefore isn't able to heal them as effectively as Zenyatta, Lucio
or Ana can, as you need to overextend and expose yourself to heal them
when they jump in.
Tips and Tricks
The art of hiding: This kind of is advanced
positioning. If you feel the enemy team is about to use multiple ults to
combo your team, seek for a hiding spot. Stay as close to this as
possible while still being able to heal your team. If your team moves
up, find a new one. As soon as you hear Reinhardt slamming his hammer,
Zarya firing her Graviton, or Genji unleashing his
Bullshit Stick Dragon Blade, go into this spot and
DROP YOUR HEALING/DAMAGE BOOST BEAM. The reason you do this, is that the enemy can and
will find you if you don't. Because, you know, there's this obvious stream of light which perfectly shows your position.
Most maps have hiding spots near the objectives. Memorize them and use
them. I might post a visual guide on the good ones in the future.
Reducing the cooldown of your dash: That's right.
You can reduce your Guardian Angel's cooldown. It's a little trick that
can prove to be tremendously usefull. Basically what you have to do is
activate your dash, then at about 3/4ths you cancel the dash and hold
space. Due to the mechanics of your glide, the momentum you get from
dashing will keep being there, and you'll notice very little difference
if you would simply shift the entire dash. This will result in your dash
getting on cooldown earlier even though you're still ''dashing'' to
your target, and therefore come off cooldown earlier. However, this does
not work when you're trying to fly up, be it straight up or diagonally.
Ressurect: Aside from being an awesome ult, it also
resets your dash cooldown. Keep this in mind to fly in, res and instantly zip away.
Fake suicide: If you're close to a cliff and an ally
is close to the cliff, you can jump off to trick enemy flankers or
simply hide yourself. Then you can dash back to your allies. I like to
do this on KotH maps specifically, as there are a lot of death pits
there. It also works on allies who've recently died, although keep in
mind that their soul will disappear when they respawn. Don't die due to
this, it's awkward.
Options and set-ups: I play on a high sensitivity
whenever I play Mercy (or Lucio for that matter). The reasons are that
you are able to more quickly assess the situation by looking around you,
being able to react faster by lowering your turn speed and aim being
not that important on Mercy. Mercy also has a few character specific
options. First up, the toggle on her Shift. Please set it to Toggle. It
gives you a lot more control over your flight. But there's a second
benefit to this: If you hold shift, as soon as someone enters your range
and your ''crosshairs'', you'll instantly fly to them. This helps you
escape sticky situations slightly faster which can make the difference
between life and death. Also, you won't be spamming the shift button and
accidentally cancelling your dash.
Toggle beam is entirely up to preference. I noticed my arm got tired
after a day of playing 6 hours of Mercy so I switched it to toggle. If
you set it to toggle, however, turn the option to dash to your beamed
target off. This prevents you from accidentally messing up your dash by
dashing to the wrong person due to not being able to break the beam. You
can still break the beam by Melee-ing or switching to Blaster though.
Dashing to your beamed target is also up to preference. I like being
able to heal people as I'm flying away, giving me the option to be more
mobile as you're able to heal ~20 HP whilst flying away. However, being
able to dash to people whilst not looking at them is also good. Play
around with the options and see what fits best.
Final notes
There we go. I hope you all have found some usefull advice in this
guide. I may update this guide in the future, as I still need to find an
up-to-date damage chart for boosted allies (may make this myself) and I
could probably do a visual guide on the hiding places and positioning
in general. Also, new patches will be introduced and Mercy will be
changed. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.
Thanks for reading, have a lovely day and keep your team healthy. Cheers!
Edit1: Added Blaster segment & When to run Mercy. Shoutout to
/u/HoeMuffin for making me realise I forgot them.
SOURCE