Intro

Mercy is a hero of Overwatch and is known as the Guardian Angel, which isn't surprising given her healing abilities and the fact she can resurrect players from their death with a simple wave of her hands. She also has a high amount of healing done over time and can also damage boost teammates so they can put out high amounts of damage to take down opponents swiftly. I will go slightly in-depth with her abilities in the next section.

Abilities

Mercy has 6 abilities in total each of which is instrumental to helping her team accomplish their goals. Her first and most formidable ability is her 'Caduceus Staff'. This staff has two different abilities tied into one "weapon" of sorts. With this staff, she can heal teammates for a total of 50 HP per second. The staff can be applied to teammates and follows them in a beam of light as they walk around. You have to stand close to teammates, of course, or the beam will be retracted and the healing will be stopped. The second ability of the staff is a damage boost which buffs teammate's damage by 30%. This beam of light works the same as the healing beam and follows the teammate as long as you are in close proximity and have clicked on them. Along with her staff, Mercy also has an ability called 'Guardian Angel'. This ability causes Mercy to fly after her teammates and reach them at a much faster rate. If you are aiming at a teammate, you can activate the 'Guardian Angel' ability and fly toward them providing aid or a damage boost depending on the scenario. With her 'Guardian Angel' ability comes another titled 'Angelic Descent'. This ability means she can slow her descent to the ground, which is useful when healing a flying teammate and needing to stay up in the air with them.

Surprisingly, Mercy does have a damage dealing weapon to help her in close quarter scenarios when left alone or returning to teammates. Her secondary weapon, titled 'Caduceus Blaster', provides her with a pocket pistol that has 20 rounds in the magazine and deals 20 damage per shot but shoots at a slow rate of only 5 rounds per second leaving it to only be used when in dire need and leaving the damage to her teammates. Mercy's ultimate ability is her final one and is very unique. It can be built up at a very fast rate using her healing power as it gives a lot of points and can also be built up by damage boosting teammates and getting assists. With her ultimate, Mercy can resurrect fallen teammates. You cannot use it from a very far range, however, and you have to be near their 'souls' to bring them back to life. An indicator on the screen shows how many teammates can be revived and by hitting Q, they will be brought back to life. The ultimate is best used when the enemy team are pushing your team back at a fast rate and most of your teammates have died. Most of the time resurrecting 3 teammates is enough to fight back the opposition and stall an objective capture. Do not waste her ability simply resurrecting one teammate, as this be of no use most of the time. Try and keep the ultimate for when a tank and another teammate has died, because the Tank can take the most damage and live the longest, leading to an objective being stalled.

Mercy resurrecting her fallen teammates

Combos

Mercy is well equipped to be used in combination with other characters. The first combination I will talk about is a combination of 3 different heroes including Mercy. These heroes are Bastion and Reinhardt. If Bastion gets to a safe place on the map, he can set up into his turret mode. With this, Reinhardt can stand in front of the Bastion and activate his Shielding ability meaning that the Bastion cannot be destroyed. Mercy can then set up behind the Bastion giving him a damage boost. As previously stated, this damage boost increases the damage by 30% and as Bastion is a damage machine, his damage goes up from 15 damage a shot to 20. If you are in a good location with this combination and can hold a chokepoint, it can be very hard for enemy heroes to get past you and they will have to change to counters in order for them to stop you, which can take some time.

The second combo is the Pharah and Mercy combination. This combination works amazingly well, as Pharah has the ability to jetpack into the air and rain rockets from above. As Mercy can also use her ability to follow her teammates using 'Guardian Angel', she can also reach the height of Pharah and damage boost her. Using both 'Guardian Angel' and 'Angelic Descent', Mercy can keep up with a Pharah in mid-air and can continuously damage boost and heal the Pharah to the point where the pair seem almost invincible together. There is of course a way to counter this and that's by having a Widowmaker snipe them from afar and if the Widow takes the Mercy out first, then the Pharah can fall easily to other enemies. This combination only really works when the enemy doesn't have a sniper on their team or if the enemy's sniper isn't proficient and can be taken out by the Pharah herself.

Mercy damage boosting a Pharah during Pharah's ultimate ability

The third and final combination is using a Mercy with a Widowmaker on your team. Widowmaker can both produce massive damage and can one hit enemies if her aim is true. A Widowmaker normally produces 150 damage with a fully charged shot to the body and a headshot does 300 damage. With the damage boost of Mercy, you can deal a massive 390 damage with a headshot to an enemy and 195 damage with a body shot. The body shot combined with a normal non-charged shot (which deals 15 damage or 20 with Mercy) can take out a lot of heroes in two hits, leading her to be a devastating hero and a huge annoyance to the enemy team. When played right, this combination can be disastrous and will lead the enemies to have to pick a counter, which again takes time to figure out and can cause the enemy to waste massive amount of time just trying to take out the Widowmaker herself.

Conclusion

Mercy is an amazing hero when played correctly and can help teammates cause a massive disturbance all while keeping them alive to hold back the opposing force. Her healing is something to be reckoned with and she is the highest healing hero in the game. She should be used effectively and with combinations to be fully utilised to her potential.

Thanks for reading and I hope I helped in some way with playing Mercy!

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