Overwatch 2 has reinvigorated the hero shooter by bringing a ton of new players to the game. While some will be drawn to the new heroes and the new Push game mode, players new and old will also want to try out some of the older heroes. That includes Mercy, a support character. Mercy is a great character for new players to learn the game on and easily one of the best healers in the game. Here’s how to maximize her healing as Mercy.

Mercy Overview

Mercy is a support hero who focuses almost entirely on healing. While healing is the primary focus of all support heroes, Mercy provides one of the highest amounts of healing, with the tradeoff being that she deals very little damage. She is armed with a healing staff that she can connect with an ally to provide healing or a damage boost, depending on what she wishes at the moment. You can switch between healing and damage instantly. Mercy also has the ability to fly towards her allies and can even revive a person using her ability.

mercy skills

Caduceus Staff: Attach to a teammate to provide a healing stream or damage boost.

Caduceus Blaster: Fires a small automatic pistol.

Guardian angel: Fly to an ally. Jumping while in flight launches you forward, crouching launches you up.

Resurrect: Revive a dead teammate.

angelic descent: Fall slowly.

Ultimate Valkyrie: Gain the ability to fly and upgrade all other abilities.

If you want to hurt, don’t choose Mercy

While Mercy is strapped in with an automatic pistol, she should only be brought out in an emergency or if the rest of her team is dead. In almost all other circumstances, her time is best used to heal or boost a teammate, which is her role as a support hero. There are other support heroes that can deal damage, though they don’t heal as much as Mercy. She might seem a little weird not shooting in a first-person shooter, but Mercy’s purpose is to keep the rest of the team alive.

Sharing is showing interest

Anyone who has played Overwatch 2 has probably seen what is commonly known as “Pocket Mercy”. This refers to a Mercy that stays with a single teammate, always giving them healing or damage boosts. While this can be productive in the case of a combination of Pharah and Mercy, more often than not their services need to be provided to all members of the team. The best way to make sure you’re constantly providing healing to heroes that need it is to constantly be moving between teammates, healing whoever really needs it. If you’re going to focus on bagging a teammate temporarily, it’s a good time to do it when a teammate is using an ultimate.

Valkyrie’s ultimate dramatically increases healing.

Using Mercy’s ult allows her to fly and increases the performance of her abilities. One of the ways she does this is by allowing your healing and damage tethers to branch out to other nearby teammates. This can be used to give a target a huge boost or to resist some ultimate enemies. Some Mercy players like to use the latter as an opportunity to draw the pistol, as during the latter she has a much faster rate of fire. While you’ll likely get a kill or two doing this, you’re better off spending your time healing your team.

More mercy tips

• The revival has a 20 second cooldown and the animation takes a few seconds to complete, so make sure you’re clean before trying it.
• Resurrection is best used on your tank or DPS, but if only your other healer goes down in a fight, you might as well bring him back.
• The damage boost is most effective when you have a friendly ult, causing it to deal even more damage.
• Use Mercy’s flying abilities to keep moving as much as possible. Being a healer puts a target on your back, especially if you play Mercy.
• If you focus on healing your teammates, you can easily heal enemy supports, giving your team a huge advantage.