Overwatch Tips: How to Play Mercy

Mercy in Overwatch

If you enjoy playing as a support/healer class, Mercy is the character for you. She has some offensive capabilities, but her main priority should always be buffing her allies and healing them whenever they need it.

Before a match starts, you’ll want to get a good look at your teammates and decide whom you should buff first. Sticking with tanks or characters with high damage output like D.Va or Pharah is generally a good idea. Pharah’s rockets already deal a good amount of damage to enemies, so increasing her damage inflicted with Mercy’s buff will make her even more powerful. Of course, should you get separated from your partner, or if that partner dies, it’s important for you to find another teammate to support immediately. Mercy can’t act alone, so always make sure she has allies around her.

As the match continues, you’ll notice that your teammates’ health will begin to dwindle. You can see all of their silhouettes onscreen – green means they’re in good shape, yellow means they’ve taken some damage, and a ‘Critical’ warning will appear if they need your immediate attention. While buffing damage is a good strategy to employ, it’s also important to keep your teammates alive. When deciding who to heal first, always heal up the characters with less HP as they’re at the highest risk of getting killed.

Finally, Mercy’s Ultimate ability can usually help to turn the tide in a losing battle. If a teammate gets killed, you’ll have a short period of time to run over and resurrect them. This brings them back to full health, allowing them to continue the fight.

If you ever find yourself cornered, don’t forget that Mercy’s Guardian Angel ability allows her to fly to a targeted ally’s position. As a last resort, you can always pull out your sidearm and take out foes with minimal HP. Overall, always make sure Mercy has a partner you can stick to, and support them the best you can while keeping the other teammates alive as well.

Mercy’s Abilities

Caduceus Staff – R2 for healing/R1 for buffing

The two beams from Mercy’s staff allow you to either buff or heal a teammate. Holding down R1 will increase an ally’s damage output, and holding down R2 will heal them up instead. The range on these beams is pretty decent, so you can still stay in cover while supporting allies who are on the frontlines.

Caduceus Blaster –?R2

Mercy’s personal sidearm should be used in emergencies only. If you find yourself trapped with no escape, whip out the Blaster and try to take down as many enemies as you can. Alternatively, should you ever get the drop on an enemy, shooting them in the back will earn you an easy kill. Mercy is primarily a support character, but don’t forget that she can defend herself as well.

Guardian Angel – L1

This allows Mercy to target an ally and fly towards them. This is useful whenever an ally is in critical condition and needs immediate healing. You can also use this ability to get out of harm’s way. If you’re being chased down by enemies, quickly fly towards an ally and support them while they shoot everyone else down.

Angelic Descent –?X

This ability allows you to slow down your descending speed while falling from great heights.

Resurrect – Triangle

Once your Ultimate is charged up, you’ll be able to revive a KO’d character and bring them back into battle. Make sure you use this ability wisely. If an ally that you were supporting dies in battle, you can use Resurrect to revive them immediately. If you’re looking to revive an ally far away from you, make sure there aren’t too many enemies around, or that you have someone watching your back when approaching your fallen ally.

Backstory in Overwatch

Here’s Mercy’s official Overwatch backstory and background information, straight from Blizzard.

• Real Name: Angela Ziegler, Age: 37
• Occupation: Field Medic, First Responder
• Base of Operations: Zürich, Switzerland
• Affiliation: Overwatch (formerly)

A guardian angel to those who come under her care, Dr. Angela Ziegler is a peerless healer, a brilliant scientist, and a staunch advocate for peace.

Ziegler rose to become the head of surgery at a prominent Swiss hospital before pioneering a breakthrough in the field of applied nanobiology that radically improved the treatment of life-threatening illnesses and injuries. It was this expertise that attracted the attention of Overwatch.

Because her parents had been taken by war, Ziegler was opposed to the organization’s militaristic approach to keeping global peace. Ultimately, she recognized that Overwatch offered her the opportunity to save lives on a much larger scale. As Overwatch’s head of medical research, Angela sought to leverage her work for healing in frontline crises. The result was the Valkyrie swift-response suit, which Ziegler herself piloted on many Overwatch missions.

Despite her contributions to Overwatch, she was often at odds with her superiors and the organization’s overarching aims. When Overwatch dissolved, Ziegler dedicated herself to helping those affected by war.

Though she spends most of her time caring for the broken and dispossessed in crisis areas around the world, Dr. Ziegler can be counted on to don her Valkyrie suit whenever innocents are imperiled.