In this post, I will argue against the idea that Mercy is low-skill. Not many consider her to truly be no-skill, though many tout that in jest. Instead, I argue she is the most difficult hero to play in Overwatch for three main reasons: she requires the highest awareness in the game, she requires the most difficult decision-making in the game, and she requires high mechanical skill. I will present the counterargument that Mercy’s lack of mechanical skill outweighs her other requirements. I will then argue that, while Mercy may not be the most difficult hero mechanically, her other difficulties more than make up for that. I will conclude that she is the most difficult hero in Overwatch to play, pending more in-depth comparisons.

First, Mercy has the highest situational awareness skill cap of any hero in Overwatch. I define situational awareness as having awareness in any given moment regarding ally and enemy hero position, ability cooldowns, ability range and sightlines, and damage potential. Mercy is the most difficult hero to play in this regard for the simple fact that she must keep track of more factors than other heroes in order to reach her skill cap (or the human-maximum potential). Because of Mercy’s wide range of options (heal 5 teammates, damage boost 5 teammates, shoot 6 enemies, fly to 5 teammates, or rez 5 teammates), she must keep track of many factors. In comparison, most other supports focus first on defending themselves and then focusing on prime targets (to heal or damage); they don’t additionally have to keep track of all allies abilities, varying damage potential, and changing position as much as Mercy does because their abilities are not as dependent upon your team as Mercy’s are. While Ana can also boost an ally’s damage with her Nano Boost, she only needs heightened awareness when her ability is up and generally coordinates to use it in key moments or in combination with other ultimates. This is a less complex ability than Mercy’s Caduceus Staff, which can be constantly shifted between targets depending on the ever-shifting environment of the game. Mercy is inherently the most teamwork-dependent hero and requires the highest situational awareness.

Second, Mercy has the most difficult decision-making in the game. Decision-making is the decisions one makes, hopefully informed by situational awareness: when to start or stop fighting, when to use abilities, what target to focus on, how to reposition, etc. In order to address decision-making, it is important to consider that decision-making is often a cooperative process in a team game. To narrow the field of decision-making, I will stick to decisions that one would not expect a shotcaller to make: namely, micromanaging your hero for you. So, you may not have to decide when to start fighting or when to stop fighting, but you do have to decide when and how to use each ability. A typical hero may have to decide when to use each ability, whom to use each ability on, and how to reposition throughout the fight, but no other hero has as many potential-decisions to weigh as Mercy (as mentioned earlier). Not only that, she is almost constantly weighing them because her right click has no cooldown and Guardian Angel has such a short cooldown. Her many-optioned kit further increases complexity because of an additive effect: each additional option for one ability requires a recalculation of all other abilities. For instance, each new target I can fly to requires me to also consider whether my Staff and Pistol would be more effective near that target than any previous target. To make a comparison, Zenyatta also has many people to keep track of with high-intensity because of no cooldown on his orbs. But Zen doesn’t also have to keep track of targets to fly to and to rez. Mercy is therefore the most decision-making intensive hero in the game.

Third, I argue that Mercy requires high mechanical skill. Mechanical skill is the ability to execute a hero’s moveset effectively through the use of a mouse and keyboard (or other gaming controller). Mercy requires high mechanical skill because she has to aim her pistol and because she requires accuracy when combining Guardian Angel and jump. The Guardian Angel and jump combo might seem simple, but it takes precision to jump at exactly the right moment (early-, mid-, or late-flight) to achieve optimal positioning; this increases Mercy’s skill cap. Players must also learn to be use Mercy’s gun while walking, floating, flying to an ally, and flying with Valkyrie. In comparison to Tracer or Zarya, who require consistent aiming and tracking, Mercy is arguably not the most mechanically-intense hero in the game. For now, I just maintain that she has a high mechanical skill requirement.

One counterargument I must consider is that her lower mechanical skill does not make up for her higher decision-making skills; at worst, they are incomparable.

My rebuttal is that mechanical skill can be learned more easily because of a relatively static hero skillset. Once you learn how your character moves, attacks, and how to hit other heroes, you are pretty much good to go. Once you reach that point, the only things to challenge your mechanical skill is having to deal with a newly-released hero, or having a heroes mechanics changed. On the contrary, decision-making is always changing, both throughout games and between games. Deciding to fight depends on your team versus their team’s damage potential (which is patched much more often than hero mechanics). Decision-making also depends on knowing how your teammates play (e.g. heal your carry), the team compositions, and strategically targeting the enemy team (e.g. kill their carry). There is so much more to learn and relearn as the game is changing constantly. Therefore, Mercy’s highest decision-making skill cap in the game is much more relevant to difficulty than her average mechanical skill.

Thanks for reading! I hope this shed light as to why Mercy is the most difficult hero in Overwatch. More discussion will create a more nuanced conclusion, especially if they release an even more complex hero.

To appease the anti-Mercy fans: don’t worry, you can still say she has a high skill-floor. It is definitely easier to hold left click than to aim finite bullets. But if you’re playing at a level where her skill floor still matters, perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to condescend to other players.