How should I prioritize my teammates when healing as Mercy?

Question

When playing Mercy, I often see that my healing is not enough to heal all of the damage done, contrary to my habits from most MMO games. Mercy also requires to be near her teammates to heal them, putting me at risk sometimes if I decide to come closer (she is very squishy).

So, how do I prioritize my teammates? Who should I heal first, and who can wait a bit, even if this waiting time can end up killing said teammate?

When should I follow to heal my teammate, and when should I not?

If I am healing someone who I manage to keep at some decent health, but someone else is dying just near me, should I try to help the dying mate?

Answer 1

With the new rez and the new ult you can afford to kill of a teammate pretty much every fight.

I'm not a Mercy main but here's my two cents. Heal your impact heroes. Keep the other support alive most importantly, and then heal the DPS. Prioritise those who don't have self heal or it's in cool-down. You get much more bang for your heal, when you heal 3x200HP heroes, rather than 1x Tank.

Rein has 500+200, hog has 600+300 every 8 seconds. You can afford to not heal them and rez them when they die.

Overall for most of your questions you kinda get a feel to it. You know not to follow a Genji dashing to their back line and to stay behind your protection. If said Genji dies then they don't deserve your heal for playing that stupidly and assuming you'd follow then trough hell.

Answer 2

Prioritize yourself > out of position teammates. If you cannot save yourself, it would be 2 death instead of 1 death canceled by 1 rez.

Prioritize DPS > tanks. DPS's HP is more efficient due to smaller hitbox. You can rez to get tank back to full HP, which takes shorter time than heal a tank to full HP.

Teammate in active battle > teammate retreating in back line. There is a good chance teammate going aggressive is to finish a pick. Just have him live 1 sec longer could result a pick, even if he die afterward. Teammate low HP but safe in backline can survive a bit without heal.

Teammate using ultimate > others. They have high impact on the fight and tend to get focused. It is important to have them make most use of the ultimate.

All else being equal the priority is like this: Yourself > Bastion > Pharah > Mccree > flanker who is not out of position > healers* > other dps > Tanks

Bastion: Damage Reduction makes efficient use of HP. What do I mean by efficient use of HP? It means every heal can make a large impact on his survival. An example of low efficiency is Roadhog, his hitbox is huge and takes more HP damage than usual. Bastion tend to get focused down and have no mobility, thus rely on heal a lot. Every second he survive is a ton of extra damage.

Pharah: No cover in the air means she is taking constant chip damage. But she is hard to hit so any HP she gain is efficiently used. When she is alive it helps to keep you alive.

Mccree: Good amount of burst damage, but no mobility or self heal. He tend to rely on heal more than other dps.

Flankers not out of position: Their HP is very efficient due to being hard to hit and have self protect skills(blink/deflect). If you can heal them without being out of position, they can distract enemy fire so you have chance to heal other teammate.

Healers*: Them being alive alleviate heal pressure on you. * means if you are both being dived, both healer protect each other becomes the highest priority.

Other dps: Being a squishie with small hitbox tend to make efficient use of HP.

Tanks: A pain to heal. Chances are you cannot save a Rein being focused down by Reaper and Roadhog due to how much damage they are taking (large hitbox), but you can with low HP squishies. Rez them instead.

Answer 3

The most important target to keep alive is yourself, always remember that before flying in after that Reinhardt who is charging into the entire enemy team.

My personal priorities usually start with other supports, then offense, then tanks. Of course this also depends on if anyone is currently in danger of dying, and those with self heals are also slightly lower priority unless their heal is on cool-down.

The reasoning for the order is that keeping other supports alive means your entire team is healed up quicker with both alive rather than just yourself. I prioritize offense/defense over tanks, because a tank at 50% hp still has more than most offense/defense at full, meaning they can take more hits while waiting to be healed. They also usually have some means of self sustain or defensive ability.

One final suggestion is to take notice on a game per game basis of who your top performing team-mates are. If you have a team-mate continuously dying due to bad positioning you might want to shift focus to other heroes who can really help the team out.

Answer 4

As with the other answers, it is more important that you think about your own safety while you're doing your job. You can't help anybody if you're dead.

Prioritization of healing is situational. Observe your teammates and find out who is performing the game mode's ultimate goal most effectively in a given moment.

For example, on the main choke point blocking the path of Point A in Hanamura, Let's say there's an Orisa on your team that's on the front line, attracting a lot of attention from the enemy. It is vitally important that Orisa does not die, because this character is stopping the enemy from advancing and essentially keeping the rest of your team alive.

Let's say at the same time, you have a Genji on your team that's attempting to run through the opening in the wall and flank some enemies. This player does this with the inherent understanding that he's on his own. Danger is expected, and it would be much better for him to die alone instead of having him die along with his healer. When he needs healing, he should either find a health pack, or retreat into safe range of his healer. Any character that goes beyond the strategic front line that your team has established is strategically not worth risking your life to save.

When this Orisa character is at full health, prioritize healing to those around you who are essentially rendered useless with the amount of health that they have. A Symmetra on your team should take lower priority than a Soldier 76 or D.Va on your team at the same health. Also, consider each character's ability to passively regenerate HP. Symmetra and Zenyatta have the ability to regenerate their own HP (shield) by simply stepping out of danger for a moment. In these situations, those characters can be topped off when a convenient opportunity arises. Also consider each character's position in relation to a Health Pack on the map.

A good rule of thumb is to determine who has the highest amount of sustained enemy aggro as the game goes on. Who is the enemy prioritizing as they're pressing their attacks? Which player on your team attracts the most attention? Also, if your teammate is particularly effective at attracting attention, you might be less likely to be targeted.

In addition, Mercy more or less thrives when she's surrounded by her teammates. These friendlies are her lifeline if she gets flanked. If Mercy follows one teammate far away from the rest of her team, you only have one person that you can fly to in case of danger. She is also more vulnerable to characters like Tracer that prefer to gank solo, squishy targets whenever possible.

Mercy is also a character that doesn't stand out very well when in fights. When surrounded by friendlies, an enemy's first instinct is to attack those that would do them the most direct harm. Even if you pull out your pistol, you're much lower on the list of priority targets than most other characters.

Lastly, if you're unable to heal everybody as effectively as you should, maybe it's time for your team to pull back, regroup and find another spot to defend.