Is mercy too strong in team games? What you think?

@BIG-BENNIS-MAGIC said in Is mercy too strong in team games? What you think?:

a t2 2000 mass investment that requires tons of build power and has literally 1hp and dies instantly if scouted

I don't understand this part. Mercies are 30% cheaper and require 15% less buildpower than fighter bombers, 6 mercies take as much time to build and are cheaper than 5 corsairs (which are not enough 90% of the time to snipe a full HP ACU).

they win any t1 fight if we take in consideration the mass equal amount and with decent micro.

queuing with a newbie to show him the beauty of tmm and meeting tagada be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLcRpdZ0Xb0&ab_channel=Tomoko

My view is Mercies are fine provided that having T1 mobile AA by your commander stops them (in addition to inties). I.e. they should be a way of punishing a player moving their ACU far out at the front with no AA support, or targeting areas with no AA, but no good against a player with AA nearby.

As such I'd be ok with a reduction in their activation range, coupled with a boost to Cybran's mobile AA (e.g. give them increased gun velocity but slightly higher mass cost). However it'd be nice if Mercies could get a slight fuel increase to soften the blow, as I don't see them used often as it is.

what about the maximum damage system that Mercy can do? Regardless of the number, always leave the minimum remaining health to the commander, at the level of 1500-2000

@Eternal Well I don't think that does a whole lot to solve the issue, because it will just mean a shift from 6 mercies for the win to 4 mercies plus 2-3 gunships. Though that is actually what is often done already...you send in a gunship or two first to draw the maa/flak shots and have the mercies trailing slightly behind so they still work perfectly, despite the aa.

i like to use interceptors and scouts to distract aa fire for my mercies but they still bad if enemy isn't dumb

here are examples

https://replay.faforever.com/14067172 around 11 minutes
https://replay.faforever.com/14228121 around 16 minutes

My 2 cents. https://replay.faforever.com/14226235
"My units derped/misbehaved even though I had adequate protection!" is the main complaint. Erm... my advice: watch the replay, don't make ground AA and instead make interceptors then position them before your com, build radar, scout, pay attention and then you won't die unless you were seriously out eco'ed. I'm sorry to say this, but if you died to mercies, as Harstem would say, "you suck!".
I'm also appalled that 'high rated players' are griping about mercies. Are you guys just trolling? If not, please provide replays to validate your claims.

Here's more replays ...
https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=504&hilit=scfareplay

The art of having the same conversation over and over since 2012 xD

Hi guys,

I know i am quite late to the topic, but i consider myself an mercy expert, so i basically had to reply to it.

To begin with i want to say that i reached my rating of ~ 2100 mostly by sniping people with mercys, so i definitly think (unlike most other high rated players) they are way too good. And yes, mercys work vs very high rated players aswell if you know what you are doing.

The reason why they are so good is because if anyone of my opponents is pushing with t1 units and gun acu they are basically dead. (dont even get me started when a cybran acu is pushing, cybran acu (only 1k hp) and their useless mobile aa is just a free kill vs mercys)
There are also some methods like forcing turrets to turn against the flightpath of mercys, so the turret has to turn 180° before starting to fire. So it is actually possible to snipe people protected by shields aswell.
Also a good point of mercys is the fact that the t1 aa will try to shoot at the first mercy, but if it transforms to the projectiles the shot wont hit anytinhg and even the mercys behind it will be able to fire at the acu.

What i like to do is to just make a aeon gun acu and basically force my opponents acu to come to the front and then snipe it with mercys. Guaranteed to work! (8/10 times)

Most popular counterarguments:

-Mercys suck, you only need 1 aa to defend against it.
This might be true in theorie but if you are pushing with your acu, your acu will be the first unit in the frontlines and if you
send your aa in front of your acu it will probably life for 5 sec till it dies. (especially if there is a gun acu on both sides)

-Just make a t1 radar in the front and you can send your acu back to your aa
Again might work in theorie but if you push, you push forward so your radar will most likely not cover anyting more than a t1
land scout and you probably wont notice it since microing your units will capture most of your attention anyway.

-You can just scout the aeon player and send 1 intie to kill all the mercys.
Sry to tell you but if i go for a mercy snipe i make sure no scout reaches my base. And even if you see my t1 airfac got
upgradet to t2 it will only take a minute to pump out 5 mercys, so you basically need to have the map awarness and
reaction time of Farmsletje to spot it in time.

-If you are air player and invest into mercys you will lose the t3 race and you will die to t3 bombers
Thats true.
But you can make mercys in front spots too.

Ideas how to balance:
-Add a explosion to the death of a mercys, so if you kill 1 mercy all other mercys die instantly too.
-Reduce the distance of the "homing missile" part so you have more time to kill it.
-Make them dodgable like t1 bombers

The closest I could get a mercy to activate is 11 or 13 range, which is half

@mech I think they lack general counterplay. In general, a reactive anti-air defense for your ACU is fine. T2 gunships jump your ACU? - An interceptor swarm waiting just behind your army can take off and save you.

When it comes to surviving TML you need a general pre-emptive defense in the form of TMD.

It is not fair that this T2 air unit breaks the rules. Your air units need to be in front of you to protect you, exposing them to their mobile AA, making you more vulnerable to conventional air threats.

I would like to repeat my suggestion of turning Mercy's into disposable flying TML launchers. But a bit more detailed:

  • Rename to: "Mercy: T2 Guided Missile Launcher"
  • Attack replaced by manual launch Missile - Mercy is destroyed on launch
  • Missiles are homing so they can still snipe moving ACU
    • Retain the current animation with slow projectile, giving you time to step back into range of nearby TMD
  • 2400 damage as now
  • 500 hp (in between T1 bomber and T2 gunship)
  • Missile has 1 hp
  • 20-60 range (high minimum range to prevent "melee TML" to bypass TMD
  • Can refuel

Now, a Mercy snipe is an enhanced TML snipe, something players already prepare for. Someone who doesn't consider mercy's, but does consider TML, might very well survive.

In return for this snipe-nerf, Mercies become more useful as they can TML targets behind TMD defense line but not in range of TMD. They also get some hitpoints as their projectile is now vulnerable. When they are intercepted the 500 hp gives a player some time to launch the missiles if he got close enough.

Well tbh this doesnt sound like a bad idea, but making them a tml projectile doesnt realy make any difference when you want to snipe a pushing acu (they wont have tmd).
When it comes to sniping somebody sitting in a base i think this would be a massive buff to mercys since nobody really has more than 2 tmds sitting in one place to defend vs 15 tml rockets and 1 or 2 aa wouldnt be able to to kill a mojority of the mercys, sice they have way more hp now.

I think if you remove the homig missile part this would actually make more sense.