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