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"Why Does Everyone Hate Mercy?" [Overwatch exploration of support stigma/misogyny]
- Thread starter Spring-Loaded
- Start date
imo listening to the pros is not what you want at all, most of them are low levels since they barely play the game and theyre just in it for the money
ive seen some posts from a Mr Jeff Kaplan himself (the games face basically) saying who they really get info from is the gold players in quick play since you know, they play this game constantly and I may be a whole rank below them (I am silver) but I see def see why they are the ones constantly having the balance done around them
There are too many mccrees. Can't all be top 500.
S1 70 s2 just out of top 500. Moved to pc after so some adjustment period. Was mid masters last season and unranked this season because it's not fun being chased by monkeys all game.
AlexFlame116
Member
This thread is getting progressively more hostile.
I'm not diamond. Plus playing Ana against Winston barriers lol. Mercy 4 life.
since the passing of the torch of a certain dictator who must not be named, people have become more hostile to mercy players
theyve been emboldened even
Cert.in.Death
Member
Nerf her self-regen, watch her viability plummet. There's no strong counter to Mercy - she can stay in the back line all day and negate an entire team's bank of ults with one button.
It rarely ever feels more satisfying to play Mercy than any other character.
It rarely ever feels more satisfying to play Mercy than any other character.
Then I'm surprised because your thoughts on OW's current balancing seem that of a silver..
Its not getting hostile; its just turned into a discussion on how badly blizz is balancing the game atm.. from triple tank two seasons ago to the current dive comp.
Forgot to ask your rank. I guess if my game knowledge is of a silver I must have good mercy mechanics?
Exploratory
Banned
Saying Mercy is hated because of misogyny is like saying Kellyanne Conway is hated because of misogyny. Sure there's definitely people who hate for that but the vast majority dislike her for much more palatable reasons.
Drillary Clinton
Banned
Gettin a lil toasty in here
AlexFlame116
Member
As someone who's been watching this thread since my first post. I stand by my post.
Besides it's slowly getting there. But oh well that's my opinion.
on PC: s1: 63 or 64
S2: 3300 ish with high of 3500?
S3: All time high was 4200, ended at 3900
S4: Just did placements , and got 3800 ish
S5: Haven't played yet; but played on a smurf and got 3900 ish
Your game knowledge might be good; but your thoughts on the current balance aren't so good.
AlexFlame116
Member
Aw I like the first one. Especially if it's a nice one that says Hi!
Second one is absolutely true.
Fixed2BeBroken
Member
SpiceMelange
Member
SparkleMotion
Member
Why do you have a smurf account?
Because its my brothers account and he stopped playin in season 2.. so i use it to play with friends who are lower elo or just to mess around with characters i dont generally play on main
some people have more money than courage and decide to play on a smurf to not get ranked down when their healers go lucio and zen instead of mercy and ana as they should be
JayWood2010
Member
Her ultimate is BS, and she is rewarded for hiding and staying out of the fight.
She basically becomes an anti-carry. She regens her health way too quick, her ultimate is OP right now & builds too quick, and her skill cap is less demanding than other heroes.
She basically becomes an anti-carry. She regens her health way too quick, her ultimate is OP right now & builds too quick, and her skill cap is less demanding than other heroes.
This is so far from the truth that it hurts my soul.
I'm learning Tracer on my alt because I don't wanna taint my mercy account. Playing Tracer really let's you see the difference between good mercys positioning and cd usage compared to the bad ones imo.
JayWood2010
Member
If that were true people would be complaining about Lucio, Ana, and Zenyatta. Its just that they are more balanced, and take more skill to play well.
i'm a fucking silver so basically any support is worshipped
I've seen a lot of ragging on Mercy on youtube vids (Stylosa mainly) but seen very little of it acually in game. I'm one of those dreaded *gasp* Mercy mains because she's the healer I like to play since season 1.
I can tank too with Dva, Zarya or Reinhardt but guess what happens in most comp games. Two or 3 DPS or snipers get instalocked and the other players are left to decide whether to tank or heal. I'm better at healing than tanking so I usually end up as a solo healer while the other two pick tanks unless I'm really lucky or it's Ilios and someone goes Lucio for boops.
Generally though I've not recieved much hate for Mercying. People want healers and they don't want to do it themselves.
I can tank too with Dva, Zarya or Reinhardt but guess what happens in most comp games. Two or 3 DPS or snipers get instalocked and the other players are left to decide whether to tank or heal. I'm better at healing than tanking so I usually end up as a solo healer while the other two pick tanks unless I'm really lucky or it's Ilios and someone goes Lucio for boops.
Generally though I've not recieved much hate for Mercying. People want healers and they don't want to do it themselves.
This is fair. You guys should keep your Mercy mains down there where you need them instead of them hitting GM in a week
She doesn't take Ana levels of skill, but it's pretty easy to separate the good Mercy's from the bad.
Being aware of your positioning at all times does take skill, experience, and good knowledge of the maps. You also have to account for the Heroes that are the biggest direct theaters to you and the Heroes that you're the safest around on your own Squad.
Play her right and she's the single most game changing hero in the game imo. Her ult is bonkers if timed right.
Being aware of your positioning at all times does take skill, experience, and good knowledge of the maps. You also have to account for the Heroes that are the biggest direct theaters to you and the Heroes that you're the safest around on your own Squad.
Play her right and she's the single most game changing hero in the game imo. Her ult is bonkers if timed right.
Most of the people complaining about Mercy are the types that insta-lock Widow/Hanzo/DPS on every game - team pressure is easy to curtail when you're just "doing your job".
I'm a support main, but I rarely play Mercy unless I'm solo healing or defending for long periods of time. The res alone is worth it, which brings about the biggest issue around the character, imo: the supreme game changing focus on her ult. If the current best strategy literally involves hiding until you can Q up a few skulls, there might be a problem with her loadout/gameplay in general more than anything.
I'm a support main, but I rarely play Mercy unless I'm solo healing or defending for long periods of time. The res alone is worth it, which brings about the biggest issue around the character, imo: the supreme game changing focus on her ult. If the current best strategy literally involves hiding until you can Q up a few skulls, there might be a problem with her loadout/gameplay in general more than anything.
Been dealing with it for over 20 years lol...
Love Mercy and love support classes and love healing.
Weltall Zero
Member
Uhhh...
Just two days ago a top 500 pro player on stream I was watching complained about a Mercy main with sub par rezzes. He checked out the stats and this GM Mercy main had a 47% win rate this season and life time 50% win rate as Mercy. As he explained / complained, this is the reason for Mercy hate. This mercy was male player btw.
As a support main I rarely play Mercy partly because the hate is too strong. If a flanker kills you, God forbid when you have rez, it is always your fault and you're often blamed for a loss. Not a big deal as I prefer Ana and Zen, but I feel bad for the Mercy mains who aren't trying to unfairly climb but just like the character.
As a support main I rarely play Mercy partly because the hate is too strong. If a flanker kills you, God forbid when you have rez, it is always your fault and you're often blamed for a loss. Not a big deal as I prefer Ana and Zen, but I feel bad for the Mercy mains who aren't trying to unfairly climb but just like the character.
crabhammer
Member
A lot of this has been said already, but I've got something stupid like 40 hours on Mercy this season and theres two real reasons people who play mercy get shit on, and neither of them have anything to do with the gender of the character or the gender of the person playing the character.
The first is the SR manipulation. Overwatch calculates how much SR you win or lose in a comp match by looking at your individual stats relative to the average stats of other players. Mercy's res weighs pretty heavily in that calculation. If you hide in a broom closet every time res is up, wait for 3-5 people on your team to die, fly in and res you're going to be favored heavily by the SR system, losing next to none if your team loses and gaining a shit ton if your team wins. This is how you see Mercy players in higher ranks with sub-50% winrates. This SR exploitation is also possible to a lesser degree on the characters that are lesser played. If you hop into a game on Badtion, Sombra, or Torbjorn, for example, you can often climb higher faster if you do well because those characters don't have overall average stats that are particularly high.
The second reason is that, thanks to this SR exploitation, you have a bunch of mercy mains in all ranked tiers now that don't know how to play anything else. I always check a comp team before a match starts to get an idea of what to expect, and more often than not there's at least one other person who's got mercy as their top played character. Now I don't think Mercy takes no skill to play, but the important thing to know is that she takes very, very different kinds of skills to play than most other characters, and her toolset doesn't really translate to anyone else. I've played this game enough that I'm confident in many roles and competent in most so I can hop on Soldier or Winston or something and let the team fill out, but a lot of "mercy mains" aren't in that boat, and I've seen three in a game before. While it's presumptuous to call that game a loss from the start, you wouldn't necessarily be wrong for thinking that. Push comes to shove, most people who exclusively play mercy aren't capable of playing another role at their current SR, especially if it's Diamond or higher.
I think that the real issue, though, is that people aren't playing overwatch correctly. There are so many people that insist on "maining" a character and that's not really the game. Especially if you're gonna be in solo queue comp it makes a lot more sense to have a pool of characters you're good at, preferably one of each role of you can swing it. At bare minimum I think you should be able to swing between support and tank.
The first is the SR manipulation. Overwatch calculates how much SR you win or lose in a comp match by looking at your individual stats relative to the average stats of other players. Mercy's res weighs pretty heavily in that calculation. If you hide in a broom closet every time res is up, wait for 3-5 people on your team to die, fly in and res you're going to be favored heavily by the SR system, losing next to none if your team loses and gaining a shit ton if your team wins. This is how you see Mercy players in higher ranks with sub-50% winrates. This SR exploitation is also possible to a lesser degree on the characters that are lesser played. If you hop into a game on Badtion, Sombra, or Torbjorn, for example, you can often climb higher faster if you do well because those characters don't have overall average stats that are particularly high.
The second reason is that, thanks to this SR exploitation, you have a bunch of mercy mains in all ranked tiers now that don't know how to play anything else. I always check a comp team before a match starts to get an idea of what to expect, and more often than not there's at least one other person who's got mercy as their top played character. Now I don't think Mercy takes no skill to play, but the important thing to know is that she takes very, very different kinds of skills to play than most other characters, and her toolset doesn't really translate to anyone else. I've played this game enough that I'm confident in many roles and competent in most so I can hop on Soldier or Winston or something and let the team fill out, but a lot of "mercy mains" aren't in that boat, and I've seen three in a game before. While it's presumptuous to call that game a loss from the start, you wouldn't necessarily be wrong for thinking that. Push comes to shove, most people who exclusively play mercy aren't capable of playing another role at their current SR, especially if it's Diamond or higher.
I think that the real issue, though, is that people aren't playing overwatch correctly. There are so many people that insist on "maining" a character and that's not really the game. Especially if you're gonna be in solo queue comp it makes a lot more sense to have a pool of characters you're good at, preferably one of each role of you can swing it. At bare minimum I think you should be able to swing between support and tank.
I mean, the notion that it starts at gender is (generally) wrong. It starts at gameplay, then people latch onto the easiest way to shit on people. You know as well as anybody that going after sexist stuff is the first thing people go to when they wanna flame a girl. I've seen more dudes get flamed in non sexist ways for picking that character than the other way around.
Karsticles
Member
How is Mercy like either of those things? Mercy is just a low skill hero in Overwatch - nothing more, nothing less.
In a game where you shoot people until they die, people don't like a character that heals people and brings them back from the dead. You can talk SR gain and 'skill to play' all you want, for most people that's really all it is...most people not being hardcore high-level Overwatch players.
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
As a DOTA player the underlying assumptions of this 'article' make me laugh.
Leafhopper
Banned
The game that encourages switching characters on the fly and people talk about mains really confuses the hell out of me.
This is a bad aoproach. You should be listening to the people who are playing the game at the highest level and know all of the nuances of every character, map, and mechanic of the game. There is a large discrepancy in understanding how that all works in gold or silver.
playing mercy is tougher than playing johnny in gg imo
If only. You lose much more SR/gain less if you are switching heroes. So in competitive it doesn't encourage this at all.
It always confuses me when I see someone with 100+ hours in Widow, then the next hero is some random DPS with 30 minutes.
Overwatch has so many different styles of play, is it really so fun to sit back and "get picks" without focusing on the objectives? There are fun characters in every category, and it doesn't hurt to jump around (especially if the comp depends on it).
Actually every part of the game's design encourages you to main characters over switching in a number of ways. Kaplan even said in a recent PR spiel that he wants people to main heroes if they really want to. Shit's bizarre.