Why is Phara Mercy So Terrible?

[@abrawolf]

The best thing they can do is make her rockets explode after a certain distance similar to ventures primary, forcing her to have to be closer to interact with the enemy team

[@abrawolf]

@Chorismos the range would need testing, I just gave ventures projectile as an easy example to understand what the idea would be

[@yummy_the_braix]

they could also have damage drop off

[@Chorismos]

@@abrawolf Fair enough but then I think her concussion blast should also have a range limit and automatically explode after travelling a certain distance.

[@Chorismos]

@@yummy_the_braix Unlikely , Since they also removed Orisa's projectile fallof. (terrible change)

[@secretlyaslug2325]

​@@Chorismosone of the worst changes in recent memory. Orisa and Phara should both have damage fall off. Orisa soft counters hitscan who can play high ground against her because she can deal more damage with poke to them than they can to her. Its a bizarre change.

[@mohammadalhusaini810]

Us console players have complained about pharah mercy since 2017 and got called bad and “skill issue” by PC players that said “just shoot her” well how does it feel now??

[@optimalmammal6674]

To be fair for a long long time pharah sucked balls and the solution was shoot the pharah the only issue is controllers suck balls at fine aim

[@prodigalsun1678]

@@optimalmammal6674well in a game where controllers are prevalent they should adjust the balance accordingly

[@ChimpRevolution]

​@@prodigalsun1678for real I switched to PC but they need to take into account console given it's like 50% of thr player base

[@ghosthunter0950]

​@@prodigalsun1678maybe they should. But what on earth makes you think they would agree on maintaining two separate balances. One is already hard enough.

[@MannyMulattoPlays]

They have done console only changes like torb turret lock on speed​@@ghosthunter0950

[@SunderMun]

The Mercy mains legit wanted them not to make this change because it lowered skill floor lol.

[@error404webpagenotfound]

This, so many Mercy mains pleaded for it to stay the way it was. I spent time and effort to perfect and learn the super jump and now it's just pressing a button. It makes it easier for me and it's convenient, but now there's no skill with it bc all I have to do is GA, hit jump, and point in the direction I want to go. Not to mention you can get value with no skill required. Now the meme is real, Mercy is basically a no skill hero, you just have to learn positioning and how to live.

[@ironencepersonal9634]

@@error404webpagenotfound We need to remember that Overwatch isn't a very tech-heavy game. In my personal opinion, if original superjump were to stay in the game, most other heroes would have also had to have _useful_ techs. When making decisions like this, we need to think about the whole roster, not just the odd hero out

[@SunderMun]

@@ironencepersonal9634 there are a number of heroes with techs that completely break the rules of how their abilities should work.

[@SirenRyan]

@@ironencepersonal9634except where your point falls apart is that Mercy already IS the odd hero out on the roster. She is the only hero with all of her abilities, healing, utility being lock on auto aim. Most of her difficulty and skill ceiling is supposed to come from the player’s movement on her. Original OW1 slingshot and super jump were way more skillful and gave the hero an actual mechanical skill curve the way every other hero has. It made her more in line with the other heroes in terms of effort to value ratio. Good Hitscan had good aim, good Mercy players had crazy movement. I was in GM and I used to get tons of whispers or people in match chat saying stuff like “wow mercy you’re insane” “mercy you’re so slippery it’s crazy” because I mastered her movement. Now no one really says that because all Mercy players have the same movement pretty much with the OW2 GA rework. I understand that crouch superjump was too “tech-y” for many people but the devs should have only changed that. Instead they reworked her basic slingshot mechanic to this dumb no skill meter based Omni slingshot that goes almost twice as far as the OW1 slingshot and it any direction you want. It’s ridiculous and has completely ruined her skill curve.

[@Rubyduckshovel]

Skill expression and learning a gameare some of the main reasons players get invested. Techs are a communities way to flex knowledge about a game and helps shape a meta. Blizzard wants full control over a meta. They hate the idea of players doing something unintentional so they've been removing techs since 2016. Genji/Doomfist are characters who have had techs removed or invalidated by changes. Like LedgeDashing, Wall Swording, hop canceling,etc.

[@darksplash873]

People say that dva is a strong counter to pharah, which she is, but nowadays she’s also strong and synergistic WITH pharah. Her matrix mitigation is flexible (she can always look to a whatever direction she wants and it’ll be there, unlike a sig shield that is stationary), long range (compared to sig eat or orisa spin it’s insane and can be utilised to protect pharah or mercy in the sky, especially insane during barrage), can’t be broken through damage AND is like, what, 4s long now? And a resource meter?! Even going double hitscan, when there’s a choke pharah can keep poking you out, making you have to hide to cover, when you peak and try to land a shot her dva just eats everything, when the pharah gets you low dva can chase, when you try to avoid the dva and go flank she can just fly at you and burst you down cause you’re isolated. Dva is beyond broken and this specific situation shows it. She can also melt shields incredibly fast with her shotguns even if they aren’t directly in her face, meaning if you go a sigma poke comp you still barely get any damage mitigation from pharah. I am going on a rant here cause I’ve lost like 3 games yesterday to pharah mercy and most often dva as well, being primarily a flex dps player, picking up Ashe or Soldier isn’t super natural for me and when I try to pick tracer and harass the enemy back line, my team just always seems to get fucked. Genuinely the games I’ve done best vs a pharah is not even trying to go hitscan, cause when I do the dva just hate keeps everything or I get easily outpoked.

[@donovan4222]

The best way to counter pocketed pharah imo is a dive comp that targets the other support. Winston works really well, you can also use DvA, doom or ball and just go after the other support with a tracer, sombra or genji. All these characters can easily ignore pharah completely. The other enemy support is helpless without mercy, and the mercy has to either fly down and stop pocketing pharah or let their support die and be down a support. It takes way too much coordination than you’d expect to get in ranked ladder, but it also works really well.

[@shaved_almonds7829]

Rein main here. My friends and I used to 6-stack all the time in ow1 and our other tank typically played dva. Now when there’s a pharah on the enemy team I have no options on rein :(

[@realthlive7124]

@@shaved_almonds7829 just trade with the enemy team faster, that sure is a fun and engaging way to play the game!

[@steelheart538]

Life Weaver can kinda make Rein fly.

[@gwyn.]

@@steelheart538 Falling with style!

[@ender5892]

Rein firestrike should send pharah down, that would be funny

[@speedwaifuthetrueandonlybe2744]

I used to main tank only, and at some point in ow2 you would see pharah mercy so often that it became unbearable. There was literally nothing you could do in the game but spectate the dps and pray they are good enough to bring you win the win. Oh and that stupid barrage would always be used to solo ult you and try to 1shot you. So you could do nothing about her AND would be targeted and 1shot one ever few minutes. That's when I realized tank was really fricking dead and stopped playing it

[@micah4539]

So what I’m hearing is you never touched ball or D.va.

[@CGTradez]

Or you could learn from it & improve as a OW1 main tank, I am now able to play every tank in OW2 because I took the time to learn I watched videos (unrank to GM), guides, pro play.. just take notes & grind it out makes counterwatch ok.

[@speedwaifuthetrueandonlybe2744]

@@micah4539 idk where you heard that man because I'm a ball 1trick and it doesn't fricking matter

[@speedwaifuthetrueandonlybe2744]

@@CGTradez you sound like the average awkward follower, but yk man not everyone wants to play every character, I have the roster I like and I don't want to learn any other one, let alone use hundreds of hours of my life binging content of people playing ow then more learning characters for a worthless video game. Grinding to make a game less unfun is such a weird idea mate, but I mean invest where you want in life there is more than 1 way.

[@micah4539]

@@speedwaifuthetrueandonlybe2744 same here, the only difference being I actually win games. I go out of my way to kill phara in the air, just a simple swing and she’s dead. Same with pharamacy, just focus thee mercy. I can get it if you main tanks like Winston or rein where they don’t have the range or mobility to deal with them, but if you play ball you should be actively killing them.

[@crab264]

Phara, like Hog and Orisa. Is very hard to balance without making her useless or better than everyone else. Here's my idea for a rebalance: >Revoke her jump dash. One button, low cooldown, good mobility on a character that is already highly mobile and in the skybox is a terrible combo and only makes her mistakes less punishing. >Revert her projectile speed, make her actually have to aim and predict instead of being Junkrat spam without an arc. She should be easy to pick up, hard to master. Let players earn that high damage potential. >Give her rockets higher knockback on strictly Phara while giving her 20% damage resist to self inflicted damage. That way she can be as mobile as she is now at the risk of self damage. Yes, like Soldier from TF2. Gives her tech on par with heroes like Ball while not being all positives. >Make her louder across the board, she has so much impact and damage potential yet she's harder to hear than Genji most of the time. The literal Cyborg-Ninja. If Reaper has cinderblocks for shoes, Phara's jetpack can at least sound like its using enough combustion to carry a heavily armored woman armed to the teeth with a clip-fed rocket launcher and a massive rocket salvo. >Reduce hitbox size of her rockets but give her a 0.5m-1.0m splash damage radius that starts at 50% of direct hit damage, and quickly decays as it reaches its perimeter. Gives her crowd control and poke potential without being oppressive, as in an actual fight, it will always be better to hit directs. >Either tighten the spread on rocket barrage to increase the effective range, or give Phara some shield/overhealth during the barrage. As it stands now, Barrage is an ambush tool that only works when you're in someone's face and they aren't expecting it. With either of the changes provided, it at least allows for survivability or a wider berth of options respectfully. >Keep her fuel scarce, give her a reason to use it to gain high ground and advantageous positions instead of allowing her to own the skybox. Infinite air time like pre-rework was never fun to deal with and neither is her mobility in the air now. Every other air gaining tool is strictly temporary and used in a short burst.

[@xd3athclawx554]

Honestly the best thing to do with these oppressive or terrible characters is just keep them on the side of terrible. If they are unfun to play against they should probably be advised against playing unless there is a specific reason like a counter or whatnot.

[@dragonofspades2837]

as a mercy main who does often complain about her superjump and ga changes in general, thank you :') them making that change still frustrates me even now

[@B0lletalpha]

Op or not, infinite flight with forgiving splash and no fall-off that can be doubled in value with only 1 specific synergy that forces half the dps cast to immediately respect the pick has been a massive turn off for an insurmountable amount of people for years. A flex dps that cannibalises most other heroes in the same role is beyond stupid, much like how orisa was viewed for allot of OW2, but at least she couldn’t be gigabuffed by being pocketed. For the love of everything, please give rockets damage falloff and force pharah to play close.

[@andrewkline]

L2aim

[@douglastakle8242]

@@andrewklineyou’ve missed the point….

[@xd3athclawx554]

reminds me of sombra too. Just existing as her forces people to look behind them, spy check, play very clumped together, or swap. Especially with this new patch where she basically insta-deletes most 225 heroes now as well.

[@zc8673]

Tbf, Ski and many other Mercy creators HAVE complained about the skill removal

[@kentuckyfriedsocks4384]

i never enjoyed seeing pharah, because the sight of one encourages or forces counterpicking. i wasnt really expecting a lot when i clicked here honestly, but you were actually so much more insightful, calm, and genuine than I would have thought you can argue counterpicking is 'PaRt Of ThE gAmE' but i want to play ow to play the heroes i find Fun, and the amount of influence a pharmercy has on the enemy team is immense.

[@xcelestialdemon8245]

Hot take: Brig is probably the most balanced support in the entire game. Zen MAYBE outranks her.

[@bichitomax]

How about you don't have a take ever again?

[@xd3athclawx554]

zen is definitely one of the worst balanced rn. Hes so bad 😭

[@LUCKIPUP]

yeah never pursue game development that is so ass backwards

[@xcelestialdemon8245]

@@LUCKIPUP Brig is a traditional MMO support through and through, and Zen is a glass cannon with a single purpose. They are both the definiton of balanced. Leave it to metal rank Overwatch players to not understand what a basic word like "balance" means.

[@adriangutierrez441]

They could just give her rockets damage fall off and give her a bit max HP to compensate. She can be like soldier from TF2 who jumps on people to deal damage.

[@deathboitechnobladeneverdi7918]

I love how blud is yapping and there is a war behind him. 5:50 shout out to the guy saying that junk rat is worse than phara, Lil bro must be facing a huge skill issue

[@Barrnickle]

Unfortunately they’ll never fix/remove the most problematic characters (Widow, Sombra, Pharah etc) due to the “hero fantasy” and skin sells. Playing a match with any of these heroes makes the game immediately less fun by default, even if the player isn’t cracked, the hero’s fundamental design just sucks straight ass to play against. Unfortunately the characters are quite popular as well as I see them very frequently in matches, specifically Widow and Sombra, really doesn't help the case for OW2 when annoying/oppressive characters like this exist in the game.

[@tgs5725]

Widow isnt problematic at all. She gets countered by like 10 different characters. Sombra and pharah make sense

[@Rose-85]

I agree how certain characters can counter her however depending on how much help she gets from her supports, it can be very difficult to kill her in time if your not getting assistance in the dive, which is also difficult to organize in random lobbies Meanwhile, for as long as she exist on the map she invalidates a huge chunk of the cast if she can aim

[@rhett3185]

@@tgs5725name those 10 characters. Because in dps slot all I can think of is sombra, and maybe Genji/tracer and maybe someone else. Most others are tanks, who you can only play as one. Support all I can think of is Lucio and Moira.

[@Potato_Tomato-od2lz]

@@Rose-85no duh, if your team actually cares about your safety its hard to be killed

[@arbre_mystique]

@@tgs5725just say you’re bronze

[@donaldjgumpofficial5754]

I think Pharah's flight needs removing. Have her rely on rocket jumping or something similar for movement.

[@realthlive7124]

@@donaldjgumpofficial5754 they flirt with the idea every time they change her, but always revert the fuel decreases and air uptime within a month or two!

[@skarloeythomas5172]

Increase health, increase rocket count, reduce dash cooldown, reduce head hit box size, increase self knockback, hold space to hover for a second or two at a time after rocket jumping. No more flight.

[@Cemow777]

Thats junkrat.

[@darksplash873]

Yeah, they could increase self knock back on rockets and reduce the damage to self as well

[@ducasse8473]

​@@skarloeythomas5172this sounds like you're trying to make a tank lmao

[@mushymcmushington7176]

I've been practically one-tricking Juno since her launch and I've found her ***excellent*** at dealing with PharMercy. Surviving it, defeating it, and healing teammates through it.

[@pikazilla6405]

I think another problem with pharra mercy is the fact that having a mercy almost feels required. Not being able to 2 shot with directs without buffs (being 10 damage off) REALLY sucks and heavily decentivises playing in close range as your inability to 2 shot leaves you extremely vulnerable. To pull off a flank as an unpocketed pharra you have to get behind the enemy team, land HALF YOUR CLIP on a single target, and hope they're asleep and don't turn around and shoot you. I really really want pharra to be given the junkrat treatment where her 2 shot is back alongside the changes that put her in a healthy state such as fall off or rockets exploding at a certain distance. Being so reliant on a teammate's character choice to decrease your time to kill by literal seconds is insanely unfun and when getting close feels properly rewarding you get less long distance spam because close range is simply more fun anyways.

[@魚-c3d]

Great video, I love your analysis. Easy fix for Mercy : -make it so the beam healing/s decays after 3 sec down to ~30 hp/s. Then you can buff the initial healing/s up to ~70/s. -revert her movement back to what it was before or at least prevent her from jumping backwards after GA (or significantly reduce the length of the jump)

[@williamlord8064]

So a long time ago I used to main Pharah and honestly I love a lot about playing the hero but i agree that Pharah should never be a meta pick. I play around mid diamond currently and still pick her if its a good map or its the best option for the comp. I think the ability to fly and two shot people is cheese like you said and cheese should be counterable. She should be one of those heroes that is good against gold players and on specific maps but loses value at high ranks unless youre really good at the hero and the game. My opinion is that the solution to this problem and many others is to totally change mercy (im a huge mercy hater). Pharah is not hard to deal with without a pocket, yet pharmercy can be unkillable even for double hitscan. Its not fun for the enemies to have to go all hitscan and its not fun for me to play into two or three hitscan heroes as pharah. Without mercy she can be killed or at least pressured away by way more heroes. I hate Mercy because you just take one average player and make them impossible to deal with without a coordinated response, through no clear skill. You just hide and hold the beam on them and sit together really far away, and just rez them if they make a mistake. Not interesting, not fun, makes the game lame. Playing against pharmercy sucks too because in my rank people dont understand that double hitscan is not that good against pharah and you should just dive the other support. Moira players flame you for not killing pharah when they could either help me kill the other healer or pick ana, illari, or bap and shoot her themselves. Its exactly like you said, you basically wind up in a situation where 2 heroes are uninteractable for half the roster and thats just not fun.

[@Lozyder]

OMG YES i hate rez too, i dont care that she has to stand still in the middle of a fight you are erasing a pick with the click of a button!!!

[@WaffleKrushaTTV]

And it's like my team NEVER sees her when she's rezzing or pays attention to where Mercy is.

[@NonJohns]

I hate how that it's full hp! not much feels worse than getting mercy super low and she revives a ball and then that ball stalls the entire game :(

[@wvdk7911]

It feels bad to use it as well. Unless the enemy team pays zero attention you can basically only use it at the start and end of fights. You are basically a sitting duck for the entire cast time

[@xd3athclawx554]

@@NonJohns I they will keep rez because of hero fantasy, mercy being reviving doctor, etc. So the only way to make it work is for them to be revived with like 5% health and then fill up the next like 40% with overhealth and have it instantly start decaying. It sounds spooky because +40% overhealth is very spooky, but I would say if its too strong you could have revived person receive like 40% less healing until the overhealth is gone. Something like that.

[@eighthundredlies]

I started with OW2 so the history of 1 is completely lost on me, having it explained in the way you have helps me understand why people are complaining about certain changes. It's far more helpful than just seeing endless posts of complaints with no actual substance.

[@courier7049]

Making lower skill floor for many heroes is the only good way to sell skins so don't expect any meaningful changes to the game

[@devilmaydrip3971]

i love the background of kings row

[@iyxon]

god i forgot how gorgeous mercy's ow1 movement was, just looking at it for just 10 seconds here... that is what i loved man. forgot how much i miss it.

[@CROSSFADE69]

Another classic just dropped!

[@xd3athclawx554]

I think with mercy rez they should try to incorporate the rezzed person starting on really really low health (like 5%) but have like 30-40% overhealth that instantly starts decaying. Having a rezzed person spawn at full health never really made sense to me as it seems counter-intuitive considering its not like that in basically every other competitive shooter that has revives. (albeit rez works differently in every other game).

[@sebastianmunoz2131]

For me its quite easy the change. Just Slow the projectile to make it easy to dodge, something like the old Symmetra projectile. Make it that only deal great damage with direct hit (still do little damage for explosion) and apply huge damage fall off since if they want to play in the clouds with a Mercy, they can't do too much impact in the game.

[@realthlive7124]

@@sebastianmunoz2131 blizzard are scared of aoe damage due to choke spam, so it’s unlikely that they’ll be willing to do atleast that part of your solution

[@5080yen]

Its always change the dps when they are pocketed but never change mercy

[@davidcorcueva4569]

I’m subscribing and telling you to keep posting videos, loved this one.

[@josephrodriguez59]

Balance team sucks. Even besides Mercy, it just feels like many heroes in every role have annoying easy free parts of their kits. Many other heroes are massively less forgiving. The unfairness really creates animosity against players cringing at playstyle differences. I wish we could at least get hero lock / rank. Let the players climb easily with Mercy, I’m fine with that. But don’t put them on my team when they lock in Juno (super difficult to make use of). And this goes for all roles; there’s too many easier heroes and counters to simply swap and get quick value. I’m a nonbeliever of counterwatch. I think community just bad and not strong enough to learn counterplay. I think hero lock will remove a lot of toxicity in the game and stabilize matches and ultimately provide better stats for bad balance team to make better use of.

[@KingFLARZz]

I think pharas rockets should explode at a certain distance like sigma primary fire

[@tolland4433]

I feel like with the Pharah rework they did the changes very half assed. When I initially saw the changes I thought it was exactly the direction I would've pushed her in, but after playing with & against it it just doesn't do it enough. Rather than her being mostly in the air at a lower level, she's very high in the air for 60%(?) of the time instead of 90% of the time before. This sounds better, but she still has the movement to play safe & not die in downtime from air, and still has the element of uninteractivity due to air uptime, so it didn't change a lot, basically as you said. Sure there are a bit more breaks but that doesn't mean a lot. At the very least you can play her a bit more flanky now, but really, why would you in most situations lol. Imo the only way they can make the rework have any real effect is by removing Jump Jets & increasing fuel in some way to compensate (so that she still has some verticality and can use her mobility a bit longer before needing downtime). This keeps her much more focused at ground level and she has the mobility now to work well with that. This would inevitably change the playstyle (imo for the best), but it would be much healthier for the game which is a good enough reason to do it.

[@secretlyaslug2325]

It seems like the devs consistently do these like half assed reworks. Phara and Sombra are the most obvious I think. Phara's infinite range spam and safe poke is frustrating to no end, how do we fix it? Make her identity similar to a dive hero, make her mobility burtsy and incentivise her to play close by removing falloff. They forgot the 2nd major change so you can still just play her campy, and your pocket never gets pressured like they would if you dived with them. Sombra forever sitting in your backline with perma invisibility and being either useless or impossible to exploit is frustrating, hack as a mechanic is also generally incredibly low skill for super high value. So they should change translocator to be a burst mobility option and add a skill shot that applies hack. But again for some reason they just missed moving hack to virus. She still can hack players in the traditional way making many heros still auto lose to her or keeping some ults from ever being safe to use. They get 75% of the way on these but I have to assume in an effort to preserve the hero fantasy miss the mark on fixing why people wanted to hero reworked. It gives me so little hope for a future Mauga rework. He will forever make the game less fun. Regardless of a 5v5 or 6v6 format.

[@tolland4433]

​@@secretlyaslug2325 Absolutely agree. I didn't feel like listing all the reworks but yeah I have the same opinion. The "reworks" are good changes imo but don't really address the issues with the heroes' designs, so they aren't even reworks in a way. Hog and Ball are the other two I would put alongside Pharah and Sombra.

[@魚-c3d]

Why remove an entire ability when you can just give her damage fall off

[@tolland4433]

@@魚-c3d Damage fall off doesn't stop her from being untouchable at long ranges and unfun to play against in those situations. Stopping her from being in the air at a distance does.

[@AssumingSlilence]

Chedder is a good cheese. I also like brunost which probably counts as pseudocheese technically

[@deyensi]

Pharah is not an over performing character if she requires a pocket to function well. Without a pocket, she struggles to find value. She requires airtime to effectively land hits, but airtime is exposure by definition. She is the embodiment of risk vs reward. Frankly, she operates best at close ranges and in those ranges she is very quick to kill, especially at 225hp. Add onto this the fact that cass now has over 250hp, and she is effectively a non issue, as Pharah has to land at least 3 rockets onto cass to kill him. This then pushes her into an even worse place, akin to junkrat, where she can only find value by spamming from range. At which point her entire character just breaks.

[@rainfromabove999]

I disagree but i enjoyed your point of view and analysis

[@H00DEDCR0W]

you know overwatch is trash when one of the least BS and actually skill based characters is considered the odd one out problem child💀

[@tylerbacoka4248]

news flash mercy can do just about whatever you want if you have thumbs.

[@utk8718]

The mere existence of pharah forces you to swap or you just get bombarded with spam damage that is somehow better then Junks and God forbid its pharah + mercy in which case you need atleast two of your players to swap to handle this. The worst part is that to counter this comp, the hitscan player has to put in a tremendous amount of effort compared to the pharah thats literally just spamming her rockets in a general direction.

[@Rooozle]

does tf2 save mercy with the idea that mercy mimics the speed/momentum of her heal target while doubling or more the cooldown on her guardian wing?

[@BrUh-zh5qz]

Is echo-mercy as bad as ph-m or not?

[@tylerbacoka4248]

it was showen in season 2 that it was too powerful for most gamers, dogs dont look up, also doesn't help she was in the skybox outranging almost every other hero, god miss nothing about that.

[@dangerbeans9639]

@10:05 I was so confused by the training range bot noises in the background

[@jatbird855]

She has always been fundemental broken because she's a long range character with the mobility to always be at long range in a game revolved around close-mid range She shouldn't be able to float in the skybox indefinitely Hiw i think she should be changed is cutting her jetpack fuel by 50% But give her propulsion missle more horizontal distance And maybe give her a attack speed and reload buff while she is flying This would make her more enjoyable to play and fight because she would actually have to touch the ground but making her stronger and raising her skill ceiling

[@Artschoolboyy]

Giving the character whose whole thing is flying reduced fuel, especially since her fuel doesn’t recharge until she touches the ground is a bit ridiculous.

[@Disappointed_Philosoraptor]

I would hold off judgement until post juno. Pharas main issue is she only has one actual counter with Echo. Neither Dva nor any hitscan safe for maybe widow can actually counter her. Juno will be the second character that can effectiely hunrt her down by herself as a flying hitscan that can keep up with her. By herself, pharah is not even unique in her opressiveness. She is kept in check with 1 hitscan such as soldier, ash, cass, wodown, sombra, ana, bap and maybe bastion. Half the roster win the game by themselves until they're countered. And she is not even the biggest offender. Widow is, and always will be so long as she can oneshot and so long as the amount of maps with 30+m sightlines are predominant. Sombra likewise is between the two so long as she keeps her current kit.

[@Team974]

Ana, Ashe, widow, soldier, Cree, dva, torb, echo so many people counter, I feel she has more counters than most other characters.

[@orkodork2764]

Yeah that’s the problem. Pharah by herself is dogshit. She literally needs mercy to function

[@czekskii]

The problem with Mercy is the same problem other "free value" has. It makes players better than the actually are because it's free. In OW1 if you weren't in complete control of Mercy's movement kit you sucked, and everyone knew you sucked and your rank reflected. I am not even opposed to this other than the Mercy OTP's that can't flex to better options, or if they do they crumble and look like their actual skill level. Plenty of good Mercy mains play just as well on other heroes, it is not all of them that are complete bots. I 100% agree with a complete revert of her movement kit because it is what should make her strong, but not free. An actual skill curve to keep her interesting to play and open the door to buffing her without breaking her. The route I think Blizz will actually go is make DB more like Zen Discordance. A sizable cooldown on the DB'd hero, or overall after you stop boosting to force her to move around more, and learn how to look for proper DB windows. Hopefully with a change like this the change rez to something like AoE/ST overhealth, Fire rate, CDR, beam # increase (healing or DB %) or anything with real skill expression. She just needs to have more skill expression or all the new Mercy bots will eventually get bored of her, or riot because she remains in the gutter. Pharah cannot be looked at until Mercy is properly dealt with. I pray Mercy gets no changes this season, because I will then be fully convinced she is up for a rework.

[@yeetadog]

where roadhog video

[@omniominous4534]

Phara can never get nerfed into the ground.

[@bink97]

honestly, i couldn’t tell you the last time a pharmercy was an issue in a game for me

[@zsedforty]

Mercy's Rez should take 2s to complete. BUT. It should be WAY quieter, and her movement should be put to 1.5s cooldown maximums!!!

[@魚-c3d]

I disagree about rez. This ability is already barely usable, extremely boring and frustrating for the opponent when used successfully. And it doesn't even feel good for the Mercy to stand almost still for 1.75s . A couple of ideas to make Rez a healthier ability that can be used more proactively instead of hiding behind a corner when the team fight is 4v1 : a/ make it the ultimate. Single target projectile with slow speed that can be blocked by shields, Matrix, Grasp etc (Spilo's idea). Fast charging ult. b/ make it so it resurrects the target with only 40-50% of their HP (ballpark numbers, up to change). Then you can reduce the cast time (1s ?) and possibly the cooldown (20s ?), since Rez no longer guarantees a full additional member for the team. c/Rez is the ultimate, is now mass Rez like the old days BUT it is the same system as the previous idea. Every resurrected target only has a reasonable percentage of their HP. Cast time would be shorter too. The ultimate charge would be way higher for this one.

[@Freshomania]

@@魚-c3d dont cook again

[@sirrubensandwich]

The goal is always for everyone to be able to play whatever they want, but in no universe should people be able to swap to pharah get pocketed and rule the lobby. Yes you can go sombra and hack, either one, but if you don't have another player with you, nothing will change and you'll simply get two tapped, and if you get it off on the pharah, then the mercy will just rez, I always cheer when a team that immediately goes pharah mercy after dying once ends up losing, absolutely hate braindead strats

[@StiiiiiicccckkkkyyyyFiingaaass]

So when is it the tanks turn? It's been 2 years

[@hartyewh1]

Take away Mercy's self-heal while flying ;)

[@RichHomieBuck]

It’s either Pharah is going to nuke my team or boop. She needs knockback reduction and a damage nerf. They nerf Lucios boop and Pharah boops get stronger? So it’s either doing damage directly for a 2-3 shot or pushing your team in the way for a clear lis for their team( We can go off the map too?) Mercy isn’t a problem here. I think she’s versatile and useable without pocketing the Pharah for op spam shenanigans. Strong? I don’t think so. She’s just a solid pick for keeping wilder teammates alive. Pharah on the other hand doesn’t need mercy and can just nuke the lobby. Certain maps are pick Pharah and lose.

[@damianateiro]

It's all about her flight, if she did a rocket jump or something like that this wouldn't happen directly.

[@Waseemmmm]

Mercy has more decisions to make in overwatch 2, she doesn't just heal the tanks anymore, the developers choice makes complete sense

[@realthlive7124]

Boss, this is not an accurate description of how mercy ever was played.

[@Waseemmmm]

@@realthlive7124 I saw it with my own two eyes; 60 hps beam, no damage role passive, Lúcio + Mercy/ Zenyatta + Mercy.

[@Charlie.G506]

I mean, after all those nerfs to Cassidy (her natural counter) ofc the Egyptian lesbian would go overboard

[@thesongofthelinnet]

2:40 Ana has entered the chat

[@BigSunn0]

Pharah should be as loud as lucios skates

[@jakubekch.3621]

Overwatch was ment to be played as rock paper scissors, pharah forcing a swap is by design Back in the day people used to explain counterpicks with bastion Winston genji

[@BOYWONDER20090]

The game is better when Pharah is ass

[@dreamaphobicc]

if you do that to mercy now she'll have a harder time living. if ow had stay how it was in ow1 then reverting it would be no problem. now every released character has better movement then mercy. had a faster up time. its sad to think about honestly. i remember i wanted them to help her tech a bit by making the time on backwards ga less strict and impossible but this wasnt what i wanted. now if i were to go back itd honestly be depressing. the struggle to live is already so high. whats worse is that honestly at her current state shes so boring to play because of the lack of freedom to use ga. its honestly the easiest way to punish a mercy besides just legit running at her. i dont think mercy is a problem but i think that she isnt meant for ow2 but as we inch closer and closer to ow1 health bars and ow2 dmg lvls its hard to help her. after all, to play mercy is to gamble.

[@mariopikmin1]

This.... This is the best use of green scree for am ow vid

[@punisheranimations6807]

I literally call Pharah “the easy” character to a guy on the enemy team that was playing her. He got super defensive and I asked him for a chance to prove it. I then played her and won the game and got POTG with little effort or thought. He told me to die and blocked me 🤷‍♂️

[@魚-c3d]

Some people just have a negative IQ 😔

[@Megggazap]

I mean, one of the main issues that makes mercy feel so inclined to pocket is damage boost. Which makes break points, and makes it so the skill of 1 person = 2. Is it that hard to give her a functional weapon? She should have lets say, a projectile shooter like Lucio’s gun or literally anything so she can deal damage. Then you could remove boost without it being an issue

[@rhett3185]

Dmg boost is basically what keeps mercy good. And if you remove dmg boost she becomes a horrible hero with no redeeming qualities

[@Megggazap]

@@rhett3185 than just do what I say, and just make her dps as strong as zen or bap, and just make her aim. Damage boost has no place being her most viable ability. It requires ZERO effort and it shouldnt be what gives her the most value. If she had something like a rifle, she could deal valuable damage that would make her get value for her own work and aim, while eliminating something that screws with break points and is bad game design. Lets see, every single support that deals damage is good and isn’t problematic. Mercy is. Removing dmg boost with just a normal dmg source is such an easy solution

[@rhett3185]

@@Megggazap Zen is the only other support with a dmg boost ability and high consistent dps that isn’t an ult like Baptise, or critical dmg like Kiriko. Zen’s discord is screwy, especially for tanks, and probably deserves a nerf regarding its effect on tanks, but the reason it works for him is because he has low mobility and survivability. If Zen doesn’t hit his shots on flankers, or gets peeled, he dies. Mercy is the opposite because she doesn’t target any one enemy with her dps boost, she enhances a teammate and has incredible mobility and survivability along with her dmg boosting ability along with resurrect and Valk. That’s the issue with Mercy is that she’s such a poorly designed hero that it’s hard to actually change anything about her that wouldn’t annihilate her player-base which may I remind you is the Mercy-mafia. Whenever mercy gets changed, they riot, meanwhile dps heroes like Ashe and now Hanzo suffer because her dmg boost sends their breakpoints over their intended number meaning they get nerfed and not mercy

[@Megggazap]

@@rhett3185 Yep. at that point remove her mobility and lack of aim to justify higher heals and her being able to deal her own damage with a weapon and remove dmg boost and the “mobility” of GA. Then, she’d have consistently good heals and ranged damage that requires aim, and it wouldnt feel as cheap since she isnt unkillable. The last thing to solve would be rez, which should just be removed and replaced with literally anything else, like a speed boost, or maybe ammo boost, or literally anything else thats a skill shot

[@Freshomania]

@@Megggazap so just remove her entire identity and make her a completely different hero, amazing

[@theseer165]

I feel like Juno will become a good counter to pharah! Pharah doesn’t have protection in the air from Juno’s targeting ability, and she’ll be harder to hit as well! I feel like Juno will be a solid counter to her once people become more skilled with her!

[@smartfoam5107]

mercy is fun... when you dont play here how youre supposed to. why damage boost someone when you can do the damage yourself. why sit behind walls when you can end a game with 0:0:14 0 heals 0 damage because you soloed DB your partied genji for the whole game to piss off the rest of the group. actually the hardest we've laughed in years.

[@NonJohns]

I like hitting those million mile directs when I'm pharah, so i would make the aoe fall off / get smaller the further it goes

[@zellsidious4459]

Mercy Rez needs to be nerfed

[@魚-c3d]

Reworked*

[@DD-fs7pg]

You're actually talking about OW1 vs OW2 pharah. I find it crazy that no one talks about it honestly. The perfect example of why pharah is a problem is YZNA. YZNA has been playing since OW1 and it's not like he found some new special way to play pharah. Even before the buff, YZNA was showing just how strong a good pharah comp could be in OW2, in pro or ranked play, yet Blizzard still decided to buff pharah; if that's not dev incompetence, I don't know what is. Pharah needs to stay a niche pick simply because of how easily she can cheese, especially in OW2 where's no off-tank, like Dva, to keep her in check. It's crazy that people didn't understand this about OW2 and this is like one of the only videos I've seen even talking about it. This is another problem with 5v5 that no one wants to talk about.

[@kjkh3104]

He is exaggerating about ow1 mercy skill floor. super jump took some timing, but it was easy to do, you just had to get used to it. And canceling GA in the middle and gliding somewhere else didn't really have any challenge that it doesn't have now. Now you have more options, and you can still glide in slingshot.

[@realthlive7124]

Hi i am he! I think you're honestly confusing skill floor with average skill there, Super jump took arcane knowledge that was absolutely not available at the skill floor. Cancelling GA in the middle didnt have more challenge before but was absolutely impossible to do with 180 degree movement adjustment, you could list to the side at most. You certainly have more options now, because you can do literally whatever you want with zero skill expended by literally pointing your camera at where you want to go. I feel like you've forgotten how old mercy controlled entirely.

[@kjkh3104]

​@@realthlive7124 Super jumping didn't require much skill to pull off consistently. I guess it did up her skill floor because it took some experience to move less predictable, when now you can move less predictable than in the past with less experience, but honestly most of the techs we lost werent that hard to execute anyway, and the movement possibilities you had as a reward for the skill required for them werent much anyway, it's not like it was a tf2 soldier rocket jumping or Lucio wall ride. Personally I much prefer today much more versatile GA that is still relatively limited to the point your movement isn't just a get out of jail free card and you still have to use it wisely. Imo the only thing I felt that I lost when they changed the GA is that I can't flex my knowledge check of knowing how to super jump anymore. I do think something should be done to make mercy's movement be more challenging or maybe be more rewarding when you are pulling off something difficult, (so we won't fall asleep lol) but I don't think that having the old super jump is a good way to do it Also I should've said "I think he is exaggerating" rather than just state it as some fact because it sounded rude lol

[@mr.g1672]

Im convinced the game would be at least 30% better if Mercy as a whole just didn't exist. Or was at least completely reworked, no other supp makes my games as annoying as her. Pocketing and RES are just things that shouldn't exist, you either get a cracked smurf who becomes the admin of the whole match with a mercy stick up their ass, or you see how she flies in and erases an important pick at the push of a button, in most cases both. Make res take longer (at least if used on tanks), and idk what can be done with pocketing

[@wvdk7911]

As a Mercy main myself (though I play Ana/Zen as well) genuinely just remove rez at this point. That ability somehow manages to feel bad using it as well as the enemy team. Give me an ability I can actually use because as it stands you can barely use rez as is without the nerfs And pocketing is something that Mercy mains have complained for a while. A lot of changes they made just makes it so you have to pocket to be effective, which is annoying because her movement is genuinely the fun part of her kit. I don't like afk beaming behind a wall and I don't like following phara all match to the point of never picking Mercy if someone locks Phara. Make the beams stronger but decay if you are on the same target or make it that you have to move to another target to boost your beam

[@OnceAgain-v1t]

This is a great videooo 👌

[@warfighter4129]

A big reason why I Pharah is just because she is just plain fun, her gameplay is unalike any other character in the game, just like Wrecking-ball or even Lucio. I see Pharah as a risk/reward character, the risk is that you are not playing with your team if you do not make enough of an impact you or your team will fold. The reward is getting the jump on your enemies and potentially being the reason your team wins a round. I understand the argument where Pharah forces a player to swap to a hitscan/equivalent, but frankly hit your shots, dont play like a dummy and I guarantee that Pharah will swap after 2 consecutive deaths. It is ironic how Counter-swapping is such a baked in mechanic of both the Tank and Support roles, but as soon as a DPS has to shatter their fantasy of being a Japanese archer they lose their minds. "Remove her flight!", "reduce her rocket range!", "nerf her health!" meanwhile a cracked dps can not only blow that Pharah out of the sky any time she enters their LOS, but can then proceed to carry the remainder of the match. This is just my opinion from a non-ranked casual enjoyer of this game, Pharah's good fun, and so is Overwatch when you don't take it seriously.

[@StiiiiiicccckkkkyyyyFiingaaass]

......this has to be the most contradictory opinion I've heard in a while💀 hit your shots and don't play dumb then goes on to say ow is fun with out getting sweaty🤣 maybe you should stick to casual and leave the comp talk to people who actually play comp?

[@NonJohns]

get good is a decent plan in general, but if you're a support or whatever that's where the problem comes from, and you queue with two dps that come home from a long work day and don't have time to grind out shooting down pharah which is a specific skill set outside of general overwatch like I understand that people can train to shoot pharah, but I don't think characters should force skill sets like Widowmaker or pharah

[@NonJohns]

But also I hate counter watch in general I think players should be able to play characters they like and not need to swap off!

[@fazegregpaul2925]

this is a banger, and i know bangers

[@bobmcsnark]

I play Pharah when I want to turn off my brain but still win. She's such a bullshit hero.

[@fullnelson4986]

Can u react to flats reacting to him predicting what 5v5 would become

[@pacinpm2]

Increase the cooldown of GA to 5 seconds or more. There, problem solved.

[@alien-ann]

Because overwatch mdfkrz can't aim? That's the problem

[@H00DEDCR0W]

real

[@Heemiez]

Literally just give her damage falloff.

[@saunatakkijumala2190]

And same thing for echo

[@bonshwananon7269]

I love pharah

[@mohammadalhusaini810]

OW2 mercy is the most braindead video game character of all time

[@srgzachattack1594]

Mercy is fine just nerd parhrah

[@Cemow777]

Cheese is the wrong word, its a skill check, comp check. 0

[@BETAsin]

If the skill check is “can you play hitscan” or “Is your duo a hitscan player” then sure. If you tick one or both of those boxes then phara is a throw pick. That’s not a particularly good skill check. It’s not like baiting hook, or sleeping genji blade, stuff that doesn’t require you to swap hero completely or lose.

[@koto2211]

"Cheese" just means something that's very easy/effortless to run but very difficult to get rid of. Pharmercy is 100% Cheese because the effort required to run the pharmercy is significantly lower than the effort required to stop them from dominating the game.

[@sonderbain]

Hot take, Mercy is the issue not Pharah.

[@Megggazap]

I’d agree if Pharah wasnt S tier for an entire season while mercy was (still is) F tier

[@sakamataRL]

@@Megggazap yeah as a pharah main I’ve found it easier to bomb the other team to death when both of my supports are doing work with actual good heroes and supporting the whole team, but my playstyle favors that anyways I think. Mercy pocketing definitely makes mediocre pharahs more annoying to kill tho

[@ebola52]

Just make it so mercy can't fly to the same person for 7 seconds

[@tylerbacoka4248]

game is trash, still trash, and will always be trash, when activision is daddy.

[@katherinebot]

Honestly as a Mercy main, I’m fine with them removing the sort of inconsistent superjumps and replacing them with an “official” version. My problem is more that Pharmercy is not fun to play in as Mercy. You can’t DB other heroes, you can’t go and heal anyone else who’s low, you can’t do anything but pocket the Pharah. Did someone else die? Too bad, I need to pocket my Pharah or get flamed. It’s just boring to feel obligated to pocket one player the entire game.

[@theycallmeobama1491]

I really hope overwatch stops listening to people like this and lets the game go casual, pharah isn’t an issue, yall just whine

[@itsali654]

I don’t understand how people still find phara a problem honestly if you’re bad at hitscan I promise you go sombra and hack her off or hack her mercy I honestly think widow is 10x worse than pharamercy cause a good widow forces you to run dive or lose

[@rhett3185]

Widow, Mercy and Pharah are all unbalanced heroes.

[@incomplet1396]

You HAVE to counterswap it. Its super low skill for high value, just sits on the other side of the map 2 tapping your entire team. Its ridiculous

[@andrewkline]

COPIUM!! awww what we have to counter pick in a game where counters have been purposefully cooked in? L2aim scrubs

[@meatbleed]

Just make the rockets start slowing down after 30m, and after that damage also begins dropping. Splash dmg area begins decreasing. Still damage, still ranged, but not as threatening with a Mercy blowing her 24/7

[@RichHomieBuck]

It’s either Pharah is going to nuke my team or boop. She needs knockback reduction and a damage nerf. They nerf Lucios boop and Pharah boops get stronger? So it’s either doing damage directly for a 2-3 shot or pushing your team in the way for a clear lis for their team( We can go off the map too?) Mercy isn’t a problem here. I think she’s versatile and useable without pocketing the Pharah for op spam shenanigans. Strong? I don’t think so. She’s just a solid pick for keeping wilder teammates alive. Pharah on the other hand doesn’t need mercy and can just nuke the lobby. Certain maps are pick Pharah and lose.