So it IS possible and practical to main Mercy?

[YUPPIE]

Over a 100 games, I manage to maintain a decent 60% WLR with mostly just Mercy. Contrary to what people claim about not maining someone in a game like OW, Mercy fits into every team comp and map from what I have played. Also no one wants to play her so she's almost always available and even having another doesn't seem too bad even if the other Mercy goes Lucio when this happens often. When I decide to not play Mercy sometimes as games progress in favor of Symmetra or Bastion and no one else is playing her or Lucio, people seem to get mad or the games seem to get WORSE.

[Vankrys]

what do you do when there is another player in your team that stubbornly want to play a healer too, maybe a mercy too? It might be healthy to have at least 2 characters main, which you know and handle quite well.

[Powell]

There are various reasons why you shouldn't "main" a character.
Mercy just happens to be mandatory and nobody wants to play a support, so its a win-win if you want to play a Mercy, you're almost guaranteed to play her.

"Know Thy Enemy". If you only play one character and never learn the other Heroes strenghts and weaknessess this gives a major disadvantage when you're up against them. This actually includes learning to benefit from the strenghts from the Heroes on your team aswell as taking advantage of the weakness of your enemies.

[Nerraw]

what do you do when there is another player in your team that stubbornly want to play a healer too, maybe a mercy too? It might be healthy to have at least 2 characters main, which you know and handle quite well.

You say that as if you can't have two healers on the team.

[Drakpower]

It's possible, but for me, it's not practical. I mentioned in another thread that a good Tracer will just mow Mercy down. When a good Tracer is running amok, I spend more time running to the point than I do healing my allies. Lucio, for me, doesn't have this problem. I swap between those two because I have to if I want to feel like I'm making a contribution to my team.

Heck Tsugunai, you could just be on another level than me and not even be worried about Murderous Tracers.

[YUPPIE]

It's possible, but for me, it's not practical. I mentioned in another thread that a good Tracer will just mow Mercy down. When a good Tracer is running amok, I spend more time running to the point than I do healing my allies. Lucio, for me, doesn't have this problem. I swap between those two because I have to if I want to feel like I'm making a contribution to my team.

Heck Tsugunai, you could just be on another level than me and not even be worried about Murderous Tracers.

Well, I am a multi-Diamond Soraka main from LoL. I got into Mercy quickly because my positioning knowledge from playing Soraka translated well.

[Estherna]

I think that you shouldn't main a character but learn which character will suits the current needs. For me, you should always have a Mercy or a Lucio as a healer, Zenyatta and Symmetra filling different supports needs.

Mercy is useful when the enemy team is packed and your team is advancing as a block, behind a Reinhardt ideally. She is very useful when there is a Pharah, as you can move around. And her ulti works best when your team is in a pack. But you will always have to adopt a passive gameplay, letting the other players the initiative to attack or defend.

Luciò is more a game maker. With his speed boost, you can help a small group flanks the other team and his ult can be very useful to deal a decisive blow. Last but not least, his speed helps you going from one part of the map to an other, which can be really useful is your team have split at one point. The con is that his heal is, on the moment, less useful than Mercy's one. It will more give your team a time to rest after getting to a point.

Overwatch is build around the team synergy. Playing only Mercy as a support can be a real weakness in the long term, as you will lock your team in a specific game type. Not to mention that Mercy is very vulnerable against the tanks: Chopper can grab her, Reinhardt charge her, Winston jump next to her, D-va shoots her and Zarya bomb her. Luciò is way harder to catch as he is faster.

The real thing to learn in Overwatch, according to me that's it, is to read how a game is going on, what are the opposite team and what are the obstacles in front of you. From there, you have to think of a tactic that will overcome all of it and count on the surprise to beat the enemy team.

[Mifuyne]

Mercy's always so easy to kill.
A Lucio however, fuck that shit.

[Drunkenfinn]

Eh, I wouldn't main just Mercy for support for the above mentioned reasons. Whichever is better entirely depends on the map, team-comp and if you're attacking or defending.

I've currently got like 11 hours on Lucio and 9 hours on Mercy (both around 57% winrate). I do play the other champs from time to time when someone else really wants to play support, though.

[Deleted]

when I play mercy I don't often lose. Think she is one of my highest w/l heroes. but that doesnt mean I want to play exclusively her, there are many heroes who are better at answering different problems within the game. But being a good mercy will get no complaints anywhere I suppose.

[Mormolyce]

You should not main anyone in Overwatch. If you're getting countered you need to swap. Sometimes you can swap even if you aren't, just to catch your opponents by surprise or exploit a weakness.

But yeah every hero is playable.

[Inukashi]

You can Main a character with no problem. You should be able to play 5-6 other heroes to counter some situations.
Sometimes your team gets stuck on a Torbjorn or Bastion because they don't know what to do, then you should switch, but there is no need to counter every hero every time.

I myself play like 90% Reinhardt and it works. It may be because he is a bit out of the counter thingy, since you always need someone who stands on the payload and he can destroy bastion and torbjorn (what seems to be the main problem for most players)

[Khorneflake]

You can just tell it's a blizzard game when people are talking about "Maining" characters.

You should "main" most of them.

[Cairhiin]

I play both Lucio and Mercy but I usually tend to favor Lucio. If the enemy has a competent Tracer or Genji you are most of the time dead weight as Mercy as they will make your life miserable. While Genji remains somewhat of a problem for Lucio (but to a much lesser extent), Tracer is no real problem. While Mercy offers some benefits over Lucio like stronger single target healing and the amplify damage beam, in most cases I think you are better off choosing Lucio due to survivability and utility but that is just my personal opinion.

[Coldkil]

Well it also depends a lot on how much comfortable/good you are with specific heroes. Example: if your aim is shitty, you won't be doing good with Widow/Hanzo. Maybe you'll fare better with a torbjorn in defense and maybe soldier/phara in offense.

"maining" one hero is not bad imho. It's just playing better what you actually like more. However limiting yourself to a single hero is not always good as sometimes you may need that additional push or even run with no healer and so on - people will always have a preferred hero and the one they're better at; being decent/good with more than one will let you cover many more situations.

[Zylos]

Why on earth would you "main" anything in this game? It's far more useful to get good at a handful of them (I would say at least 1 in each of the 4 categories). "Maining" a single hero is very detrimental in this game and causes a lot of losses.

[Zelendria]

Why on earth would you "main" anything in this game? It's far more useful to get good at a handful of them (I would say at least 1 in each of the 4 categories). "Maining" a single hero is very detrimental in this game and causes a lot of losses.

That's bollox considering there's only really two supports worth playing as you get higher up the rankings, and the OP wants to play one of them.
If they learned Lucio as well they'd be well set to become a good support player.

In a competitive shooter outside of a pugfest, the best sniper always gets the AWP.
In a competitive MOBA the best carry plays the carry, the best support the support, the best tank... And so on.

Excelling at one category is far better than being alright at all 4.
Jack of all trades, master of none; Useless when you have 5 teammates to rely on.

Also of all the mains to pick, people are moaning that they want to play Mercy... It's one of two characters that should be in EVERY match, and regularly isn't resulting in massive frustration through lack of heals.

Fair play I say for someone wanting to main a support.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

You can just tell it's a blizzard game when people are talking about "Maining" characters.

You should "main" most of them.

yah put on a condom and main everybody, main them all into a blender of maining, maingasm forever through the maintrix.

[Deleted]

Over a 100 games, I manage to maintain a decent 60% WLR with mostly just Mercy. Contrary to what people claim about not maining someone in a game like OW, Mercy fits into every team comp and map from what I have played. Also no one wants to play her so she's almost always available and even having another doesn't seem too bad even if the other Mercy goes Lucio when this happens often. When I decide to not play Mercy sometimes as games progress in favor of Symmetra or Bastion and no one else is playing her or Lucio, people seem to get mad or the games seem to get WORSE.

2 healers work great on a team. In fact, all tournaments have 2 healers almost all the time, although usually double lucio or lucio mercy

[Deleted]

Over a 100 games, I manage to maintain a decent 60% WLR with mostly just Mercy. Contrary to what people claim about not maining someone in a game like OW, Mercy fits into every team comp and map from what I have played. Also no one wants to play her so she's almost always available and even having another doesn't seem too bad even if the other Mercy goes Lucio when this happens often. When I decide to not play Mercy sometimes as games progress in favor of Symmetra or Bastion and no one else is playing her or Lucio, people seem to get mad or the games seem to get WORSE.

Mercy is one of the few characters who can fit into any team comp. I'd say at the moment RH, Lucio, Mercy, Solider 76/McCree/Pharah or even Zarya all fit into most team comps. I'd always suggest to practice the shit out of 1 character to the point where you can learn some game sense. If you're swapping to new shit every other match you will spend 90% of your mental energy learning the champ, not the game. Like I put in about 36 hours into Pharah, now I'm learning other stuff while understanding the game much better, making it easier to pick up the new characters.

I've always team swapped to Mercy though if the team lacked a support, as she's always a solid support pick The res is borderline overpowered with how fast you can build up to it!