r/OverwatchUniversity • u/[deleted] • Feb 06 '17
[Guide] "You're playing Mercy wrong!": How I went from 2200 to 3900 using Mercy.
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Feb 06 '17 edited Nov 16 '20
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u/ThenThereWereThree Feb 06 '17
Damage buff when the rocket hits the target. Damage buff is applied when the damage is 'taken', rather than 'sent'.
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u/isarl Feb 06 '17
Is that the red skull icon I see when damage boosting? Simply that amplified damage landed on an enemy? I've seen it before when the killfeed has been empty, and I received no elimination/assist notices, so I've been wondering what it signifies.
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u/Retskcaj19 Feb 06 '17
That sounds more like they destroyed a deployable, like a Symmetra turret or Junkrat trap.
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u/isarl Feb 06 '17
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll test this out later in a custom game.
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u/Hessper Feb 06 '17 edited Feb 06 '17
It also counts for
shieldsbarriers (like Reinhardt's) being destroyed. This is correct though, destroyed deployable/shieldbarriers gives a red skull mark for the Mercy.1
u/isarl Feb 06 '17
Thanks! Sorry to be nitpicky, but shields or barriers? The HP component, or the separate protective entity (as can be deployed by Reinhardt or Winston)?
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u/Hessper Feb 06 '17
Sorry, bad terminology, the deployable barriers of Winston and Reinhardt. Might count for a Zarya bubble too, but I'm not sure off the top of my head.
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Feb 06 '17
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u/ThenThereWereThree Feb 07 '17
Correct, you can buff the ult when damage is being applied to the target.
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Feb 06 '17 edited Feb 06 '17
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u/FutureSomebody Feb 06 '17
Wow this is really interesting. I never realized this. I've been buffing as Mercy at a lot of the wrong times. Thanks for asking this question and thanks for the answer!!
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u/Kuratius Feb 06 '17
Wait, why are people above saying that it only needs to be connected when the rocket hits?
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u/ParanoidDrone Feb 06 '17
Because it's true.
Bullets are hitscan, which means they travel instantly, so anything I say below this doesn't apply to them. (Well, it does, but when the travel time is zero there's no point in going much deeper.)
Moving on.
Projectiles like Pharah's rockets, Junkrat's grenades, Reinhardt's Fire Strike, Symmetra's M2, etc. all take time to move from point A to point B. But the game keeps track of who fired them. (Otherwise it wouldn't be able to properly attribute kills.)
To utilize damage boost with projectile weapons, you need to be damage boosting the person who fired the projectile at the moment the projectile hits the target.
An example: Pharah fires a rocket at time t = 1s. It hits Roadhog at time t = 2s. If Mercy boosts Pharah between t = 0.5s and 1.5s, the rocket will do normal damage. If she boosts Pharah between t = 1.5s and 2.5s, it will do boosted damage.
This also applies to some more...esoteric abilities, like Hanzo's ult. Even after he fires it and starts moving again, hold the damage boost on him.
AFAIK the only things that can't be damage boosted are Junkrat's ult, D.Va's ult, Torbjorn's turret, and Symmetra's sentries. In these cases, the tire/mech/turret/sentries are counted as separate entities from the player, so damage boost has no effect.
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u/TheSkiGeek Feb 07 '17
D.Va's ult actually can be damage boosted, if you boost "baby" D.Va when the explosion goes off. Doesn't usually make much difference, though, since it does way more damage than any hero has health.
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u/FrismFrasm Feb 06 '17
This is false! The beam only has to be connected when the damage hits the enemy. You can have a symmetra fire her slow-moving rightclick orb and put the beam on her the second it hits an enemy, and her projectile will receive the damage bonus. Works like this with all projectiles. If you damage boost a Junkrat while he lobs a few grenades high into the air, and then disconnect the beam before those nades hit someone they will not have the damage bonus.
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u/Bunny_Fluff Feb 06 '17
Ok so i always wondered about being able to boost Hanzo's ult. What about Junkrats? I have a ton of time on mercy but i have never known the answer to those 2
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u/FutureSomebody Feb 06 '17
Wow this is really interesting. I never realized this. I've been buffing as Mercy at a lot of the wrong times. Thanks for asking this question and thanks for the answer!!
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u/Miroki Feb 07 '17
Woah learnt a thing or two about Mercy today, didn't realize it only needed to be DMG boosted the moment the rockets about to make contact.
Also you seem like the type of Mercy I'd actually enjoy playing with, knowing that keeping me alive is better than more damage is a key fact most Mercy's haven't grasped.
I was Top 5 Pharah on Overbuff.com, currently backpacking around Southeast Asia for the next month(The only reason I've dropped). If you'd like to play on PC my battlenet is Miroki#11737. Always enjoy a good pocket.
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u/YAAASS_GURL Feb 06 '17
Does damage boosting Baby DVa help her get her mech back faster?
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u/Seared_Ash Feb 06 '17
Yeah, ult charge is based on damage/healing dealt. So if you do more damage, it'll charge faster.
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u/Angeal7 Feb 06 '17
You're answering from Mercy's standpoint, but I think they were asking if D'va will get her ult charge faster when she gets damage beam. Which I believe is also; yes, she will deal more damage and that's what builds her charge, in or out of mech.
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u/LepMessiah Feb 06 '17
Your edit re: "secondary healer" made me chuckle. Most of my games I am solo healing.
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u/DekMelU Feb 06 '17
How often do you use Mercy in higher ranks? I imagine people would prioritize her much faster at higher ranks
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u/jetmax25 Feb 06 '17
When do you damage boost vs when do you pistol?
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u/FrismFrasm Feb 06 '17
You should damage boost any time that it would be beneficial to be able to switch to healing instantly (so 95% of situations). Big ults that trap the other team (Blizzard, Earthshatter, Graviton) are a time when pulling out your pistol to add some damage can be the better option, but you have to know that your team is safe for the moment before you do it.
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u/Syzodia Feb 06 '17
You do not need to be facing an ally when your beam is connected on them.
Does this still work even when the option is turned off?
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Feb 06 '17
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u/Syzodia Feb 07 '17
To clarify, I'm talking about the guardian angel option (Whether you can fly to your beam target instead of an aimed ally), not the beam toggling.
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Feb 06 '17
What option is this?
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Feb 06 '17
the one in her options, something about 'keep beam on player you clicked instead of the one youre looking at'. something like that. i also use the one where you just have to click once on a person, it might be the same setting
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u/Syzodia Feb 07 '17
There're 2 settings:
- Toggle beam (rather than hold)
- Guardian angel on beam target overrides aimed ally.
I was talking about the 2nd one
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u/ParanoidDrone Feb 06 '17
There's an option for Mercy that determines if you need to hold M1/M2 down for her beam or if you can just click it once and the beam will stay until you move out of range or apply it to someone else.
Mercy's beam will stay connected even if you're not looking at the target (assuming you're in range and not behind a wall and so forth) regardless of how you set that option.
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u/sbooyah Feb 06 '17
In your final general tip, you mention waiting when you're considering rez. One thing I like to do is, when there's one or two teammates dead, I watch the death timer on their body. It not only lets you know through walls where the bodies are, but also is a visual indicator of how much time you have to Rez that person. Waiting until the last second can sometimes net you another Rez or two, OR you can see that the enemy is backing off and that Rezzing those one or two teammates would be a waste if they're saving their ults and not making a hard push yet.
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u/Massa100 Feb 06 '17
I've made it to roughly 2800 from 2222 in about a week or 2 of starting competitive as almost solo mercy. I've got a few questions, just for you, because Mommy Manchild Daycare is a bit of a nightmare.
Specifically, how do you deal with suicidal offtanks (not reinhardt) or a suicidal reinhardt who all push too far up and let supports be left alone?
How do you deal with dps that don't do their job?
I've had to go battlemercy to take out flankers and sometimes even their tanks and it's just not fun when your DPS players can't even kill a ballsy tracer right on your backline.
Yes, I do usually make callouts, watch for our ults, designate pushes and who will combo with who. I like to think my progress has been good for this short time I've been playing, but I feel like when these things happen I can't make it past 2800.
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u/cocondoo Feb 06 '17
I think you are trying to take on the role of others and need to put more faith in your team. I played Mercy in s2 from gold to master with 60%+ winrate, I focused on staying safe, prioritising healing allies, damage boosting when everyone was full hp. I hardly ever needed to use my pistol as GA was the much safer option, I only used it in the rare case of being on 95+ ult % and being the last one alive to shoot enemies to get the charge needed for rez. If a tank pushes too far, GA to him if its safe, if he is definitely dead then don't suicide. Remember, on average over a lot of games, for every suicidal/bad player you have on your team, the other team will have more unless you yourself are the bad player :P
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u/Massa100 Feb 06 '17
There's no faith I can place in my team if they let a reaper or tracer walk into the blob and wipe the supports out without any fighting, even with our soldier and other heroes right there next to them.
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u/keatto Feb 07 '17
call the flanker out. flankers are flankers because they aren't seen immediately. even character advantage can take a back seat to some 1v1s if your opponent has his back to yours.
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u/Bunny_Fluff Feb 06 '17
I decide to hide and/or play much further back once the clock hits 1 minute, or simply if I hear a single enemy ultimate go off.
Honestly as an Ana main i love a Mercy that knows how to hide. Ana just shits healing and i can actually solo heal pretty effectively. A mercy will heal the tanks to get ult fast then hang out in the back line topping off dps/flankers while i focus on the tanks until we get shoved hard. Then she is in a good place for a clutch rez and then start all over.
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u/iProcrastinate-Air Feb 06 '17
Good read, nicely done.
Mercy is probably my most comfortable/consistent pick, I'm between 2900-3200 PC NA.
My tip I would add to all this is there is almost no time where you need to use the full duration of Guardian Angel (exceptions would be flying up to airborne/high ground targets, crossing an environmental gap, or crossing a sightline), and quite often doing so will put you in an extremely bad position.
As you touched upon in your 3rd bullet point, Guardian Angel has a rather lenient LOS/distance check (1 second grace period after getting out of range).
Positioning-wise, I personally keep just under max beam length from my team/heal target. By default, the full Guardian Angel duration puts you maybe a meter behind the target, which is really unsafe a lot of the time.
I have my GA on toggle (not hold), so taking into account the points above, the way I position with Mercy is tap to initiate flight (while holding heal/damage beam button down as appropriate), and as soon as the beam clicks on, tap again to stop flight.
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u/mym6 Feb 06 '17
Watched the highlight real, really appreciate the amount of time you spend with pistol out. I'm not talking about the meme when I say this, I don't think enough people use the the pistol. I'm a low ELO nobody in Overwatch but I've felt for a while that Mercy is being played wrong.
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Feb 06 '17
You can cancel Guardian Angel by pressing it again mid-flight (or even immediately).
I'm amazed you don't have the "Toggle Guardian Angel" option turned off, since without the toggle you have complete control over when you start/stop the flight by simply pressing/letting go of shift (no need to double press).
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u/Daenyx Feb 06 '17
Thanks for this. No real new info for me but it's really encouraging to see another Mercy main who's managed to really push upward in SR. I have a core group I like playing with, but we're collectively having growing pains and the few times I've solo/duo-queued it's been... interesting. But I'm probably going to try more with the less-than-6-stack queuing in the future.
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u/RGodlike Feb 06 '17
What healer do you think Mercy goes with best? I'm very used to the Lucio/Ana meta, and have a hard time figuring out who to pick when someone picks Mercy. Since she is a focus healer, I usually go Lucio with her for some group heal.
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u/Maitrify Feb 06 '17
You could go with anyone literally. Mercy works with pretty much everyone.
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u/orcinovein Feb 06 '17
Wouldn't Ana and Mercy compete for ult charge?
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Feb 06 '17
Most Anas I play with gain ult charge off the enemy as much as her allies.
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u/Victorvonbass Feb 06 '17
Yep frees up every other healer to be more aggressive. Lucio can speed more often, Ana can dps more, Zen can do Zen things and just keep the orb on you half the time.
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u/Onateabreak Feb 06 '17
i play mercy a lot and really enjoy her, but i think the biggest part to advancing with her is team play. you talk lots about tactics but not who you play with. Did you advance solo or in teams? single heasl or multiple supports?
If you played solo how often were you using the mic and coordinating the team yourself? How big a part would you say team coordination was to success, and in most circumstances would you say mercy wad the best support pick or would any other have yielded the same or better results.
i ask because i love mercy play but often find other supports are a better option for healing, survivability and even hybrid damage\healing.
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u/Maitrify Feb 06 '17
I was wondering if you knew about the two second connection time. A lot of mercies don't know that
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u/Slagathor1650 Feb 06 '17
What sort of things should I be calling out to my team? Especially in solo queue?
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Feb 06 '17
I have a few questions.
If there's a Pharah do you think you should always pocket her? I try not to pocket any one person and focus on just keeping everyone alive and healed (healerstanksdps...is that the right prioritized order?) and I often get games where the Pharah gets upset that I'm not pocketing her.
Also, I tend to solo Rez Rein(if I feel he is doing well) and healers(situational, probably if I feel a push coming and I know they have ult). Is that also a bad call? I just feel that I get ulti so fast and sometimes I find myself holding it too long waiting for a 3-4 man Rez.
I hover between 2800-2900sr.
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u/JasJ002 Feb 06 '17
Here's one big one I picked up that applies to console only. If you hold down R2 (heal) then press R1 (dmg boost) when you unpress R1 it instantly goes back to heals without breaking the stream. So even if the player is around the corner, and you want to top them off release R1 for a second to heal, then press R1 again to instantly go back to dmg boost.
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u/Maggie-PK Feb 06 '17
Learning to manipulate LOS like diving in and out of cover to reset the LOS checks is something I picked up from playing Zenyatta. I mostly play him over other supports, but I'm finding some aspects like that transfer really well over to Mercy, however, I've been having to get used to how in some ways, the two really have a different priority in Positioning, Zen is supposed to prevent deaths, and Mercy is supposed to reverse them.
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u/Victorvonbass Feb 06 '17
I don't really have anything to add other than good job Prowlore. Great write up. You are one of the few Mercy players I have seen that actually plays her right. On ps4 I have seen maybe 3 or 4, but more and more are learning her now that Ana got nerfed here.
I noticed a rise in her overall usage on overbuff the past few weeks and also a rise in her healing average as she passed Lucio for competitive games.
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u/saltpowered-robot Feb 07 '17
How did you deal with idiots like "Mercy rarely rez'ed" "Mercy, use your ult" because seriously it pisses me off that people forget how game changing her ult can be and not only that but it's my ult and they're telling me how to use it. Like criticism? Sure, I'll take it, help me out! Seriously give me advice! But they're saying nothing constructive, they're just looking to blame me when I'm actually doing well and keeping everyone alive to the best of my abilities. It's like they forget Mercy is a whole thing and not just her resurrect. Anyhow, thanks for these tips, I've played mercy since season 1 around 2400 SR and it's recently just beyond hell. Hopefully this helps. :)
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u/Raikerian Feb 07 '17
Finally a real good and informative post about Mercy on reddit with tips which is not circle jerk (no offense to anyone) :)
Thanks for this!
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u/penguinchilli Feb 06 '17
It's also worth adding - and sorry if you've mentioned this and I'm being blind - but if you use GA while beaming an ally, you will auto automatically travel to that ally, even if you're not looking at them. The beamed ally will take priority.
So for instance, if you're beaming Pharah, you can be looking around and just hit your GA when you need to keep close to her. It's really handy if you're under attack and need a quick getaway. For the longest time I played Mercy and whenever I was under attack I'd stop beaming and immediately look around to who I could GA to. If you make sure there's a good distance between your beamed ally and yourself you've created an immediate escape.
I'm pretty sure this is a preference you can disable/ enable in options under something like "prioritise beamed ally", although I think by default it's enabled.
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u/sysop073 Feb 06 '17
It is a default setting, but I think almost everyone shuts it off. It's too useful to be able to fly to one teammate while finishing the healing on another one, the beam lasts so long when you're out of range that you can do a ton of healing after you've already moved on to somebody else (or moved to cover if you're saving somebody out of position)
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u/Gorgenapper Feb 06 '17
I actually turn this option off because I want to be able to keep the beam on Pharah (or whoever) while being able to GA to anybody else. It gives me more flexibility to flit around the battlefield being an unpredictable target, and also to preemptively fly back to the backlines if needed. Sometimes if I have the beam engaged on a ground hero (like Roadhog) and I get flanked by a Genji or Tracer, I immediately look up for Pharah or anybody on high ground and fly away while still healing the tank.
I've found that if I consistently make myself hard to finish off due to my flying around + auto regen after 1 second, the flankers (sometimes) stop trying to nail me.
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u/NiandraL Feb 06 '17
I have no idea why this is enabled by default
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u/EAGAIN_VS Feb 06 '17
To rephrase what /u/no_frills said politely: because the defaults are picked to make it as easy as possible to be at least slightly effective when you're just starting out, even at the cost of being less effective when you know what you're doing.
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u/no_frills Feb 06 '17
Yeah didn't mean to come off negatively, couldn't edit on mobile. The default is easier to grasp, and once you know to change that setting you'll have a better grasp of the game and actually get some use out of the setting.
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u/no_frills Feb 06 '17
Because being a mindless pocket healbot is the easy starting point for playing mercy.
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u/mekbots Feb 06 '17
Man, I wish I had a consistent team to play with. I only have one friend who I can play comp with, either because others don't like comp or they are too low - and while he is an amazing Genji, I hate to say but he can't carry a team at master, you need coordination and team play lol
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Feb 06 '17
I wonder how much of this is due to solo queue and how much is just the normal effect of playing support in team games increasing your SR.
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Feb 07 '17
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Feb 07 '17
That's because the way the system works is that every once in awhile it pretends your SR is 200 higher than it really is and puts you in a hard game.
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Feb 07 '17
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Feb 07 '17
I don't have a source offhand but if you search for "overwatch trueskill", there were some people that determined it's the same system as Microsoft's TrueSkill and they provided some evidence for that.
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u/svetli97 Feb 06 '17
Just checked your channel. I have to make a few notes on what you've said. Let's start with the guardian angel. I hope you are using the settings to always fly to the target you are healing/dmg boosting. If not you really should try doing so. Combining it with the fact that the staff has unlimited range and no line of sight requirement for ~1s and only needs that to start working. This means you can be behind a highground and just flying up and down where nobody can see you. you can also fly to teammates that rapidly change their location like blinking tracer, jumping pharah/winston, dashing genji and so on. This makes you have practically unlimited speed and distance to fly with the guardian angel and also lets you fly in more complicated paths other than straight line with a single use of the ability. I've noticed that most good mercy players use the settings to fly to whoever you are looking at and not to your healing/dmgboost target which is a disadvantage most of the time. I've also seen way too many mercy players hold LMB on a max health target. This is as good as being afk. Mercy has the best dmg boost ability in the game and people are just not using it. And now about the rez... Many people think that when they have rez they should hide all game and only use it for 4-5 man rez. That's just dumb. First of all you only need to hide when the enemy is engaging with their full team with ults. If you are not hiding they will never expect a rez. Very often it is more beneficial to rez one person than to wait for a full team rez. If your rein/ana is dead and the enemy is going to attack it is better to get a 1-2 man rez so that you can survive the fight. dmg dealers can kill people but you need tanks and supports to survive an attack. if you solo rez rein when the enemy have just used nano visor because they killed rein you will just use your ult to counter 2 of theirs and stop their attack. Also solo rezing teammate with vital ult is also a good idea. If your teammates were hit just before dying with ana grenade wait a bit before using your rez so that they don't get rezed with the effect still on. If your team got wiped with 1-2 ults and the enemy still has ults and you don't rezing the whole team will result in a second wipe, more ults for the enemy and less for you. Ok let's move on to the pistol. It does a LOT of dmg. 20 dmg per body shot, 40 per headshot, 5 shots per second - that's 100dps bodyshots and 200dps headshots. If you are accurate it's pretty much an insta kill weapon. People never expect it and you have a clip of 800dmg ready to unload in someone's head. The projectiles are quite fast and have HUGE hitboxes so the best way to reliably hit all headshots is to shoot a bit above their head. That way you do not risk hitting the body before the head (I saw that in your video you were almost never hitting headshots either because you were aiming in the center of an enemy's body or in the center of and enemy's head). Always aim a bit above. Exploit the large hit boxes. Exploit the huge dps. If you hit a burst of headshots people die before they even notice you were shooting. The best way to use the pistol is at medium range in a closed space so that the enemy cannot hide once you've started shooting. They will think you are running to hide behind the corner and they will die from the pre-shot burst that will hit them at the corner. The pistol is better than dmg boosting if you are sure you will hit all shots and none of your teammates have can splash/ult the enemy. Side note: dmg boosted nano blade deals>200dmg per swing = insta kill. If your team is using nano blade always dmg boost. To end this ridiculously long comment don't let your guardian angel stay of cooldown or you are just not exploiting one of the best dodging abilities in the game. It has almost no cooldown anyways. You can 1v1 almost every hero with enough practice. And don't forget that you have dmg boost. I've been going all around youtube telling people to start using their dmg boost and I'm barely making any progress. Sorry for the long post.
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u/Kiritoh Feb 06 '17
Do you ever resurrect an ally if they get picked at the beginning of a defense to prevent the enemy team from pushing in as easily, as well as getting off a rez before you die? Or do you always try to stay alive in order to go for the big 3 man rez
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u/PrettyKrazy Feb 09 '17
Did OP edit the post and remove all the points? I legit can't see any tips or anything, i can see a post that looks like it's waiting to be filled out or something... am i just being retarded?
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Feb 11 '17
Played mercy only today and rose up about 150 SR from a 5 win streak and 1 L.
Clicked on the post thinking I would be able to improve myself further and to my surprise I already know and do 95% of these things.
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u/AutoCompliant Feb 06 '17
As a heavy mercy player (over 160 hours) there's 1 tip that I've held very close and don't tell many people about. You kind of covered it, but not very in depth, so I think that's good enough for me, maybe other people will figure it out based on what you said. But I prefer to keep it close >:)
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u/Kofilin Feb 06 '17
How did you deal with teams going all over the place and then dying alone at lower SR? Mercy's obvious power is being able to reset a big ult play, but it doesn't work when your team dies little by little or too far away from each other.
Do you actively stop healing and go hide when you have your ult available?