I personally think that Mercy is the best healer in Overwatch. Lucio and Zenyatta can still do a lot of healing, but this is the one area where Mercy really excels.
And I dunno about you, but I think that’s a lot of fun! I have a blast playing Support characters, especially healers. There’s nothing more satisfying than keeping your teammate alive while they rip the enemy to shreds.
If being that behind-the-line hero sounds like your cup of tea, Mercy may be your gal.
Mercy Basic Info
Mercy has a set of wings that allows her to glide around the battlefield. She can’t get around as fast as some characters, but she’s definitely on the faster end.
She uses two weapons: the Caduceous Staff and Caduceous Blaster. The staff is her main weapon and allows her to buff an ally’s damage or heal them with a steady stream of energy. The blaster is her only method of dealing damage. It works okay, but is akin to a backup pistol in Call of Duty.
While other Support characters can dish out decent damage and provide some support, Mercy is the opposite. She provides lots of support, but very little damage. The best place for her is usually hiding behind a tank and healing/buffing her allies without drawing attention to herself.
Abilities
In addition to her abilities, remember that Mercy’s staff has two different attacks. One (her R2 on PS4) heals allies, while the other (L2) boosts their damage output.
- Angelic Descent (Passive): While falling, Mercy can use her wings to glide down more slowly than normal.
- Guardian Angel: Mercy flies towards an ally to quickly provide support.
- Resurrect (Ultimate): Mercy brings nearby recently killed allies back to life at full health–arguably one of the best abilities in the game.
Combat Tips
In general, the rule with Mercy is to stay back. I found that hiding behind a big tank like D.Va works well. That way you can boost the tank’s healing and damage but still avoid getting shot yourself.
Here are a few more specific tips to help you master this healer:
- Use Guardian Angel for both offense and defense. Those on the front line of your team will be the first to start taking damage. If you aren’t close enough to heal them, close the gap with GA. That said, if you’re the one getting creamed, use GA on a distant ally to create some distance quickly between yourself and the enemy.
- Angelic Descent can throw off enemies. Even though you may not have many opportunities to do this, try activating and deactivating AD while falling from a ledge, building, etc. This little trick will prevent enemies from following your rate of descent, causing them to miss.
- Know when to use the damage buff vs. healing. If I was hanging out with characters like Bastion or Widowmaker, I would usually use the damage buff to make sure they took out enemies quickly. When hiding behind a tank or Offense character like Reaper, keeping the heal stream on them tended to make more sense since they tended to be in the thick of things.
…or you can just buff Pharrah. Rockets + damage buff = gg
- Don’t waste Resurrect on one ally. Okay, sometimes it may make sense. Like if the entire enemy team is dead. But in general, it makes sense to save Resurrect until it can revive multiple allies. You don’t want to use it on just one then have two or three more die in the team fight a few seconds later.
- Realize you have a giant X on your forehead. Mercy, probably more than any other character in the game, tends to draw focus fire very quickly. Her ability to resurrect allies and keep them in the fight with tons of healing makes her a considerable threat, so assassins like Hanzo, Widowmaker and Roadhog usually target her first. If you end up out in the open alone, you’re dead.
Finally, realize that even though you’ll never make the Play of the Game, someone who follows these Mercy tips will often end up on the leaderboard. And in Overwatch, getting top 4 out of 12 players isn’t bad.
