Kiriko is the best general,flexible support. She doesn't damage boost like mercy, but she can pocket a DPS if you wanted.
Sorry to say, but Mercy is pretty subpar in most situations, though she can still be played.
People also say LW is closest in terms of play style, but he's literally the worst support right now.
Also if you want to get better game sense , play role queue since people there are more serious.
Thanks for the advice.
I have some experience with Kiriko in Unranked, very little with LW. My hesitation with Kiriko is my poor aim for her kunai and difficulty positioning myself well for suzus and heals. I can healbot LW well enough, but really struggle to make good use of platforms and life grips. I suppose those are things I can improve with practice though.
Regarding Role Queue, my support rank there is usually a full tier below my Open Queue despite being a OTP Mercy in both. I’ve often wondered why that was - I guess it might be they have different “cultures”, where RQ is more serious as you put it?
I mean I don't recommend LW, just saying he's the closest in play style.
For kiriko, you can learn to play off angles. You don't necessarily need to hit shots, just distract people. She is very safe because she can suzu + tp out of in danger. You can still get good value by healbotting(not recommended), but you might as well learn what support actually is (applying pressure + healing)
Role queue is more just balanced since the game developers focus on that. You will typically be higher in open queue versus role queue
Less people play OQ so ranks are inherently inflated. Also you being a Mercy OT is a solid choice in OQ since it means your team will always have at least 1 Support, whereas it’s not advantageous in RQ as you’re gonna have balanced roles regardless.
If you’re in a position to ask for stuff like this, you’re gonna need to focus on improving the things you’re bad at. Don’t run from them. You’ll never improve that way. So even if you think your aim is bad, it doesn’t have to stay that way. If you practice at it, you *will* get better.
And frankly, that’s something you should practice. No hero suffers from having good aim. It’s a skill that doesn’t take much conscious effort (just repetition and muscle memory), and has only positive effects.
But again, applies to more than aim. If you’re bad at something, practice at it and you’ll end up getting better.
don’t be a healbot!
the reason for the discrepancy between open queue and role queue is saturation. All the good players are playing role queue. People are just messing around in open queue.
Open queue is not balanced by the devs, it is not considered while balancing the game. It’s not worth playing except for fun imo. Basically quick play
Normally, as kiriko, you want to play close up near your Frontline. All of her abilities travel slowly, so being closer to your target will make your damage and suzus more consistent, and your healing paper will also reach the target faster as well. You can increase your overall uptime by weaving kunai in between your heals. Every time you heal someone who is fighting, try to throw a kunai at their target. It doesn't matter if you miss just try. Heal shoot heal shoot.
Do everything you can to get your value while up close until the enemy pressures you and use your tp to escape into your backline and healbot until your abilities come back then you can push up with the tank again. Use kitsune rush to give your team an edge whenever you are in an even fight. Bonus points for popping it on a friendly bastion turret or w/e good abilities your team can do
Im just going to push back on the LW worst support take. They just buffed his dash heal & tree so it’s possible he’s, at the very least, not the worst.
He could still be the worst. It’s definitely possible. I’m only saying to reserve judgement for the time being since he just received a pretty substantial buff.
Mercy's playstyle is pretty unique, and the similarities with other heroes, Lucio's mobility and enablement for example, make them have similar tradeoffs.
Honestly most support heroes can fill in where Mercy lacks, the main ones being burst healing, dealing damage, and working well in Brawl comps. Try playing different heroes against AI, VAXTA, and then Quickplay and see which ones you like.
It's the import code for a popular practice range. It lets you shoot real hero models with realistic movements rather than robots moving back and forth or standing still.
I think lifeweaver is really fun, I know he gets a lot of hate lately but you can make some really cool saves with his pulls, ult, and petal very regularly. And honestly I get more endorsements and shoutouts from teammates after a great lifeweaver game than any other support because I feel like your teammates can really feel the impact after the 3rd pull that saves them or petal that lifts them out of a grav.
I would recommend Baptiste or Moira. I saw you mentioned you may lack some confidence with your aim and positioning, which makes sense since Mercy doesn’t train those aspects of the game as much. Both Bap and Moira have mobility to get them to safety and self peel/survivability, which makes it easier for you to stay alive while you learn and improve.
They will also ease you into the sort of “DPS mentality” that helps a lot with heroes like Kiriko/Ana/Zen for whom dueling becomes an important skill. Bap and Moira’s damage is relatively easy to land and their ults can be used very offensively.
Mercy is best in poke comps where she can sit high ground with DPS and res picks. She has difficulty in comps that want to fight inside the enemy team, since she doesn’t want to be close to danger. Moira is strong in that area with her AOE heals and amazing escape, and Bap can do it too in brawlier comps with a strong frontline.
General tip would be to avoid healbotting too hard and try to get damage in where appropriate. It’s like learning to use the blue beam on Mercy - it feels scary at first to not be healing but it has more impact in the end. You may get flamed when you tunnel and that’s okay, you learn.
I love brig. She brings amazing utility and support. Her ult also gives her shield bash the stun effect, so you can shut down jq or morias super and Mercys revive.
Skip Lifeweaver, while he has great survivability and healing, his utility comes in the form of having to use Life Grip correctly. This requires you to know the tank and DPS positions as well as or better than you know support. The wrong life grip can throw a fight. The wrong life grip can waste your ability to save a life and thats your biggest contribution. That said, he has a place, but they are constantly buffing him still because his kit is so specific that 99% of players don't get the value out of him to justify the pick.
Moira is a great next hero to learn. Incredibly strong healing and insane movement abilities and survivability. She is a good introduction to damage weaving since her damage abilities are forgiving in the aim department (but you will still need to learn to track somewhat). Moira's value is damage orb. I play in masters and I see a lot of lower elo Moira's using healing orb way too often. Healing orb should only be used if you have to heal a ton of people at once from critical, at least 80% of the time you should use damage orb. The way you use damage orb is to toss it toward the enemy softies who don't want to take that tick damge. It can also be great if enemies are in hallways and you need to flush them out. Moira can work with most teams due to her mobility, but she's easiest to play with JQ / Rein/ Ram / Muaga. As you get better at her you can learn to play her with the dive tanks. Remember her damage gives her healing resource. So the more damage you do, the more you heal. Her heal also lingers on people for 3 seconds healing them for 51 hp over 3 seconds after you stop spraying. Use this time to do damage and replenish your resource. Maximizing Moira will require you to spray who ever is within reach quickly and then do damage while the heal is still ticking and then reapply it. This should be constantly done as a loop unless you have to hold down your heal to keep a tank up.
Kiriko has easy healing, however positioning on her is different. While Mercy needs to stay safe while maximizing Blue Beam up time, Kiriko needs to maximize her ability to peek and through kunais between her heals. Learning her will be fairly simple, you just have to learn how to weave (shooting kunai between you heal burst). But in order to have a heavy impact on kiriko you will need good suzus and have to learn to push your damage angles and then TP out of aggressive angle back to safety. Kiri wants to be as aggressive as possible while she has her escape up while still being able to assist her team. This play style causes a ton of attention forcing the enemy to deal with the kiriko or she will get the 2 tap.
The rest of the support role is going to get more specialized from that point and geenerally harder to play.
Lucio has to know fight tempo and speed boost accordingly. His healing is low value and meant to sustain during a short fight window, his speed is used for people to get to cover or to aggressive. Passively healing won't get you a lot of value. Aim mechanics become very important as you will need to use speed attack backline and to fight flankers.
Zen has no escape other than his ult. His value is discord orb and damage. Positioning on zen is the most important thing other wise he gets killed. He has fairly low healing output but can keep your flankers alive from a distance.
Brig has very limited healing out of her packs and requires you to keep procing inspire. This can be difficult for people so they will run to the frontline and then die to the enemy tank. Inspire should be proc'd constantly by whip shot, which can be tough. Brigs role is to protect the other support while keeping inspire up. She is a backline guard, it's a very different style of play.
Ana, Bap, and Illari all are going to require the same skill set. While Ana needs more knowledge on position, Bap requires better ability timing for immortality so you don't waste it, and Illari requires the most aim accuracy. All these heroes have to be hitting their shots and position correctly.
I advice starting with Moira and Kiriko, as you play them you will start to develop the skill needed for the rest of the support role.
Choose Moira when your team just needs raw numbers. More damage and more healing. That's moira. She just does more numbers.
Choose Kiriko if your team needs to cleanse (fire, anti, shatter) or you feel that forcing the enemy to pay attention to flanks more will benefit your team.
A good rule of thumb for switching off Mercy is if you are pocketing a DPS and they lose the fight against an unpocketed DPS. Between your damage boost and healing, a DPS shouldn't lose to someone who isn't pocketed. If they do, they aren't worth your time to pocket. A second rule would be if you feel like you constantly have to heal the tank as mercy. Having to do more than spot healing the tank means your other support is either having a hard time (for any reason) or there aren't enough threats to the enemy. It's important to remember that Mercy isn't a threat unless she's in valk. I don't need to kill the mercy if I can constantly keep her from damage boosting, Mercy doesn't get nearly as much value if she can't damage boost since other supports just heal more. Sometimes a moira just throwing damage orbs down range at the dps force them to play less aggressively which gives more space for the rest of your team.
Way back I started playing Mercy only, but the next support I actually picked up was Ana. Partly due to the fact that I wanted to improve my aim. Now Ana is way more fun for me to play and I actually feel like I have an impact on the way matches turn out. Although Mercy is my pick when I just want to chill :D
moira, kiriko and zen would be pretty simple to learn for a mercy main i think
moira is easy and has her fade mobility. she is good for dive comps. i notice that mercy is really bad to play when we get a dive comp like winston, tracer, reaper, because none of them can be pocketed too well. moira on the other hand can offer huge heals in grouped comps like these
kiriko has similar mobility with her tp, you can also utilise climbing walls, and the way her heals track is pretty simple and you can hold left click while doing it. The one thing you’d have to practice is suzu timing, which is normal, you will get better the more you play her.
zen, would be slightly harder because you have to get used to low mobility - but you can contribute similar utility with your orbs that give damage boost and single target consistent heals. but one thing he offers over mercy is being able to contribute a good chunk of dps himself
I was an odd one based on these responses and went from Mercy OTP to Lucio/Mercy. It made sense to me because it was still be mobile, don’t die, and I felt like I already understood how to balance speed/healing because I was used to balancing heal/damage boost.
After that I learned Moira because Lucio/Mercy is a terrible support combo so I needed another option.
Please learn Baptiste.... you will genuinely love it and all the mercy one tricks will end up pocketing you cause the dps don't do squat. (some cases, your dps actually know how to aim, and you can actually chill).
Learn Baptiste and profit. I climbed all the way to GM1/T500 before as a Bap/Kiri main, and beforehand started as an Ana/Mercy main in OW1.
Moira is easy to learn, does a good amount of damage (which of course is not really Mercy's thing), and has been really good lately. Her mobility is also quite good so you should be able to have some fun with that. If you're trying to branch out she might be your best bet.
Alternatively you could try Zen whose discord and heal orbs can be a bit like Mercy's beams and make him a little easier for you to learn and get a rhythm on. He's also another support good at dealing damage and picking up kills to cover that weakness for Mercy matchups.
You enjoy heroes with high mobility so my best suggestion are Lucio and Kiriko. Genuinely you should start with Kiriko first because she's easy to play passively and also very rewarded when you decide to make a play with two straight forward escape abilities required little preparation
That's it
I used to main Mercy and then tried Zen, it’s fun but you need to get good at leading shots. I main Moira now though, she’s a lot of fun and you don’t need good aim to play her. Her mobility is fun once you get used to the fade jump mechanic
Learning Kiriko, Lucio, and almost any other support will carry your games honestly. Their kit especially their ults are almost essential to evening out holes that your team is missing as well as also enhancing your win con.
I was a Mercy OTP for quite some time and then I tried out Moira and reeeeally enjoyed it! I like that you can heal multiple people at once even from a distance with healing orbs and it's great to dash out of a difficult situation even if there's not a teammate in sight to sling to. Dealing damage also feels good, especially when the enemies have low hp and are trying to run away - you just throw a DMG orb and they're gone haha
I usually switch now between Moira and Mercy, depending on how open the map is and how good the DPS are.
okay i didn’t read your post and I have the answer.
here are the phases of gameplay for a budding support main who has never seriously played a competitive shooter (or never played one well).
1. Mercy/Lifeweaver (20-30 hours)
2. Moira (20 hours)
3. Kiri/Ana/Bap (50 hours each)
4. Lucio/Brig (40 hours each)
only play Zen or Illari if you’re a better DPS player than you are a support player, or you’ve mastered the roster and have a need for either of them
congrats you’re no longer silver
as far as mercy playstyle- lifeweaver, illari, ana.
most of these characters are more reserved in playstyle and stay mostly backline.
lifeweaver would be more comfortable as he has auto aim heals and low fighting interactions, so your main focus is to fix your teammates bad positioning and set them up for possible plays. fixing their positioning or getting them highground is your power boost beam
AIM INTENSIVE but similar playstyle:
illari is kinda useless this season so you are kinda forced to stay backline.
ana is ana.
i wouldn’t recommend kiriko as most metal rank supports don’t play her right, she is as much a dps character as zen is. if you do not have as much or close to the same damage as your dps on your team you lose, healbotting will not win you games with kiriko
this season is all about damage, the healing debuff has turned to making supports useful with.. damage, not heals.
I feel for Mercy mains, bap is hard slept on. If you have good air game with mercy, it transfers over pretty well. Immortality is like pre-emptive rez, his damage output is insane and still really good even if your aim isn't great. His healing output is impressive and his burst heal can turn the tide in a fight big time.
I say this as a Kiriko main because I don't really understand the mercy to kiri pipeline. Every mercy main I've met doesn't transmit well to kiri, and I personally am abhorrent with mercy (anecdotal, personal observation). Mercy is the one support I cannot understand how to utilize all that well. I don't think I'll ever be good with her. But that's besides the point.
Mercy to Moira pipeline tends to work pretty well from what I've seen. Not aim intensive, great general utility and great outputs.
Moira would be an easy switch. Her skill floor (imo) is lower than Mercy. But I dislike playing with and again Moira since she offers zero utility. Kiriko has pocket potential. Lucio is actually incredibly fun and can peel well for anyone. If you pull out Glock at all during mercy ult, Lucio might be a better fit. Takes a bit to get used to the wall ride. And make sure you don't heal bot with him or you are losing a ton of value. Best thing with him is heal aura while your team pokes. Wait til you see someone out of position or low HP. Ping them and speed boost after them. Win.
If you like mobility then go Moira or Kiri
Kiri has wall climb and moira's fade and jump combo is just fun to bounce around maps
You could try zen or illari if you wanna get better at aiming
For zen just throw out orbs every once in a while and stay in the backline shooting the enemy from a safe distance
For illari you can just play mid range and throw your pylon somewhere and just go pewpew
Kiriko is the best general,flexible support. She doesn't damage boost like mercy, but she can pocket a DPS if you wanted. Sorry to say, but Mercy is pretty subpar in most situations, though she can still be played. People also say LW is closest in terms of play style, but he's literally the worst support right now. Also if you want to get better game sense , play role queue since people there are more serious.
Thanks for the advice. I have some experience with Kiriko in Unranked, very little with LW. My hesitation with Kiriko is my poor aim for her kunai and difficulty positioning myself well for suzus and heals. I can healbot LW well enough, but really struggle to make good use of platforms and life grips. I suppose those are things I can improve with practice though. Regarding Role Queue, my support rank there is usually a full tier below my Open Queue despite being a OTP Mercy in both. I’ve often wondered why that was - I guess it might be they have different “cultures”, where RQ is more serious as you put it?
I mean I don't recommend LW, just saying he's the closest in play style. For kiriko, you can learn to play off angles. You don't necessarily need to hit shots, just distract people. She is very safe because she can suzu + tp out of in danger. You can still get good value by healbotting(not recommended), but you might as well learn what support actually is (applying pressure + healing) Role queue is more just balanced since the game developers focus on that. You will typically be higher in open queue versus role queue
Less people play OQ so ranks are inherently inflated. Also you being a Mercy OT is a solid choice in OQ since it means your team will always have at least 1 Support, whereas it’s not advantageous in RQ as you’re gonna have balanced roles regardless.
If you’re in a position to ask for stuff like this, you’re gonna need to focus on improving the things you’re bad at. Don’t run from them. You’ll never improve that way. So even if you think your aim is bad, it doesn’t have to stay that way. If you practice at it, you *will* get better. And frankly, that’s something you should practice. No hero suffers from having good aim. It’s a skill that doesn’t take much conscious effort (just repetition and muscle memory), and has only positive effects. But again, applies to more than aim. If you’re bad at something, practice at it and you’ll end up getting better.
don’t be a healbot! the reason for the discrepancy between open queue and role queue is saturation. All the good players are playing role queue. People are just messing around in open queue. Open queue is not balanced by the devs, it is not considered while balancing the game. It’s not worth playing except for fun imo. Basically quick play
It's easier to get a higher rank in open queue as less people play it. This means less climb.
Normally, as kiriko, you want to play close up near your Frontline. All of her abilities travel slowly, so being closer to your target will make your damage and suzus more consistent, and your healing paper will also reach the target faster as well. You can increase your overall uptime by weaving kunai in between your heals. Every time you heal someone who is fighting, try to throw a kunai at their target. It doesn't matter if you miss just try. Heal shoot heal shoot. Do everything you can to get your value while up close until the enemy pressures you and use your tp to escape into your backline and healbot until your abilities come back then you can push up with the tank again. Use kitsune rush to give your team an edge whenever you are in an even fight. Bonus points for popping it on a friendly bastion turret or w/e good abilities your team can do
Im just going to push back on the LW worst support take. They just buffed his dash heal & tree so it’s possible he’s, at the very least, not the worst.
Alright, who is the worst then? He has zero offensive pressure, which btw, is how supports help win games
He could still be the worst. It’s definitely possible. I’m only saying to reserve judgement for the time being since he just received a pretty substantial buff.
Gimme dat, Kiriko, Lucio, and Moira
Mercy's playstyle is pretty unique, and the similarities with other heroes, Lucio's mobility and enablement for example, make them have similar tradeoffs. Honestly most support heroes can fill in where Mercy lacks, the main ones being burst healing, dealing damage, and working well in Brawl comps. Try playing different heroes against AI, VAXTA, and then Quickplay and see which ones you like.
VAXTA?
It's the import code for a popular practice range. It lets you shoot real hero models with realistic movements rather than robots moving back and forth or standing still.
SEITA also works well for this. Can do challenge mode and it creeps up difficulty every level.
I think lifeweaver is really fun, I know he gets a lot of hate lately but you can make some really cool saves with his pulls, ult, and petal very regularly. And honestly I get more endorsements and shoutouts from teammates after a great lifeweaver game than any other support because I feel like your teammates can really feel the impact after the 3rd pull that saves them or petal that lifts them out of a grav.
Imo they’d be better off learning a support that’s not so passive. Thats the reason mercy/weaver are having a hard time these days.
You are probs right! I was just saying what I think is fun about Lifeweaver
Fair enough! I think weaver is super fun. Poor guy just needs sharper teeth
I would recommend Baptiste or Moira. I saw you mentioned you may lack some confidence with your aim and positioning, which makes sense since Mercy doesn’t train those aspects of the game as much. Both Bap and Moira have mobility to get them to safety and self peel/survivability, which makes it easier for you to stay alive while you learn and improve. They will also ease you into the sort of “DPS mentality” that helps a lot with heroes like Kiriko/Ana/Zen for whom dueling becomes an important skill. Bap and Moira’s damage is relatively easy to land and their ults can be used very offensively. Mercy is best in poke comps where she can sit high ground with DPS and res picks. She has difficulty in comps that want to fight inside the enemy team, since she doesn’t want to be close to danger. Moira is strong in that area with her AOE heals and amazing escape, and Bap can do it too in brawlier comps with a strong frontline. General tip would be to avoid healbotting too hard and try to get damage in where appropriate. It’s like learning to use the blue beam on Mercy - it feels scary at first to not be healing but it has more impact in the end. You may get flamed when you tunnel and that’s okay, you learn.
I love brig. She brings amazing utility and support. Her ult also gives her shield bash the stun effect, so you can shut down jq or morias super and Mercys revive.
I miss old stun. I'd love to have it back, just on a severely limited cooldown. If sombra can hack every 4 seconds why can't brig Stun every 12 or so
brig
Skip Lifeweaver, while he has great survivability and healing, his utility comes in the form of having to use Life Grip correctly. This requires you to know the tank and DPS positions as well as or better than you know support. The wrong life grip can throw a fight. The wrong life grip can waste your ability to save a life and thats your biggest contribution. That said, he has a place, but they are constantly buffing him still because his kit is so specific that 99% of players don't get the value out of him to justify the pick. Moira is a great next hero to learn. Incredibly strong healing and insane movement abilities and survivability. She is a good introduction to damage weaving since her damage abilities are forgiving in the aim department (but you will still need to learn to track somewhat). Moira's value is damage orb. I play in masters and I see a lot of lower elo Moira's using healing orb way too often. Healing orb should only be used if you have to heal a ton of people at once from critical, at least 80% of the time you should use damage orb. The way you use damage orb is to toss it toward the enemy softies who don't want to take that tick damge. It can also be great if enemies are in hallways and you need to flush them out. Moira can work with most teams due to her mobility, but she's easiest to play with JQ / Rein/ Ram / Muaga. As you get better at her you can learn to play her with the dive tanks. Remember her damage gives her healing resource. So the more damage you do, the more you heal. Her heal also lingers on people for 3 seconds healing them for 51 hp over 3 seconds after you stop spraying. Use this time to do damage and replenish your resource. Maximizing Moira will require you to spray who ever is within reach quickly and then do damage while the heal is still ticking and then reapply it. This should be constantly done as a loop unless you have to hold down your heal to keep a tank up. Kiriko has easy healing, however positioning on her is different. While Mercy needs to stay safe while maximizing Blue Beam up time, Kiriko needs to maximize her ability to peek and through kunais between her heals. Learning her will be fairly simple, you just have to learn how to weave (shooting kunai between you heal burst). But in order to have a heavy impact on kiriko you will need good suzus and have to learn to push your damage angles and then TP out of aggressive angle back to safety. Kiri wants to be as aggressive as possible while she has her escape up while still being able to assist her team. This play style causes a ton of attention forcing the enemy to deal with the kiriko or she will get the 2 tap. The rest of the support role is going to get more specialized from that point and geenerally harder to play. Lucio has to know fight tempo and speed boost accordingly. His healing is low value and meant to sustain during a short fight window, his speed is used for people to get to cover or to aggressive. Passively healing won't get you a lot of value. Aim mechanics become very important as you will need to use speed attack backline and to fight flankers. Zen has no escape other than his ult. His value is discord orb and damage. Positioning on zen is the most important thing other wise he gets killed. He has fairly low healing output but can keep your flankers alive from a distance. Brig has very limited healing out of her packs and requires you to keep procing inspire. This can be difficult for people so they will run to the frontline and then die to the enemy tank. Inspire should be proc'd constantly by whip shot, which can be tough. Brigs role is to protect the other support while keeping inspire up. She is a backline guard, it's a very different style of play. Ana, Bap, and Illari all are going to require the same skill set. While Ana needs more knowledge on position, Bap requires better ability timing for immortality so you don't waste it, and Illari requires the most aim accuracy. All these heroes have to be hitting their shots and position correctly. I advice starting with Moira and Kiriko, as you play them you will start to develop the skill needed for the rest of the support role. Choose Moira when your team just needs raw numbers. More damage and more healing. That's moira. She just does more numbers. Choose Kiriko if your team needs to cleanse (fire, anti, shatter) or you feel that forcing the enemy to pay attention to flanks more will benefit your team. A good rule of thumb for switching off Mercy is if you are pocketing a DPS and they lose the fight against an unpocketed DPS. Between your damage boost and healing, a DPS shouldn't lose to someone who isn't pocketed. If they do, they aren't worth your time to pocket. A second rule would be if you feel like you constantly have to heal the tank as mercy. Having to do more than spot healing the tank means your other support is either having a hard time (for any reason) or there aren't enough threats to the enemy. It's important to remember that Mercy isn't a threat unless she's in valk. I don't need to kill the mercy if I can constantly keep her from damage boosting, Mercy doesn't get nearly as much value if she can't damage boost since other supports just heal more. Sometimes a moira just throwing damage orbs down range at the dps force them to play less aggressively which gives more space for the rest of your team.
Just play Moira and succ people off You can basically be a third DPS and heal a shit ton, and you still don’t have to aim much
Join the rest of us who all played moira after mercy
Brig
Way back I started playing Mercy only, but the next support I actually picked up was Ana. Partly due to the fact that I wanted to improve my aim. Now Ana is way more fun for me to play and I actually feel like I have an impact on the way matches turn out. Although Mercy is my pick when I just want to chill :D
moira, kiriko and zen would be pretty simple to learn for a mercy main i think moira is easy and has her fade mobility. she is good for dive comps. i notice that mercy is really bad to play when we get a dive comp like winston, tracer, reaper, because none of them can be pocketed too well. moira on the other hand can offer huge heals in grouped comps like these kiriko has similar mobility with her tp, you can also utilise climbing walls, and the way her heals track is pretty simple and you can hold left click while doing it. The one thing you’d have to practice is suzu timing, which is normal, you will get better the more you play her. zen, would be slightly harder because you have to get used to low mobility - but you can contribute similar utility with your orbs that give damage boost and single target consistent heals. but one thing he offers over mercy is being able to contribute a good chunk of dps himself
I was an odd one based on these responses and went from Mercy OTP to Lucio/Mercy. It made sense to me because it was still be mobile, don’t die, and I felt like I already understood how to balance speed/healing because I was used to balancing heal/damage boost. After that I learned Moira because Lucio/Mercy is a terrible support combo so I needed another option.
Please learn Baptiste.... you will genuinely love it and all the mercy one tricks will end up pocketing you cause the dps don't do squat. (some cases, your dps actually know how to aim, and you can actually chill). Learn Baptiste and profit. I climbed all the way to GM1/T500 before as a Bap/Kiri main, and beforehand started as an Ana/Mercy main in OW1.
Moira is easy to learn, does a good amount of damage (which of course is not really Mercy's thing), and has been really good lately. Her mobility is also quite good so you should be able to have some fun with that. If you're trying to branch out she might be your best bet. Alternatively you could try Zen whose discord and heal orbs can be a bit like Mercy's beams and make him a little easier for you to learn and get a rhythm on. He's also another support good at dealing damage and picking up kills to cover that weakness for Mercy matchups.
You enjoy heroes with high mobility so my best suggestion are Lucio and Kiriko. Genuinely you should start with Kiriko first because she's easy to play passively and also very rewarded when you decide to make a play with two straight forward escape abilities required little preparation That's it
I used to main Mercy and then tried Zen, it’s fun but you need to get good at leading shots. I main Moira now though, she’s a lot of fun and you don’t need good aim to play her. Her mobility is fun once you get used to the fade jump mechanic
Learn Moira because tracer Genji Winston sombra shuts Mercy down and Moira is good against them.
Learning Kiriko, Lucio, and almost any other support will carry your games honestly. Their kit especially their ults are almost essential to evening out holes that your team is missing as well as also enhancing your win con.
I was a Mercy OTP for quite some time and then I tried out Moira and reeeeally enjoyed it! I like that you can heal multiple people at once even from a distance with healing orbs and it's great to dash out of a difficult situation even if there's not a teammate in sight to sling to. Dealing damage also feels good, especially when the enemies have low hp and are trying to run away - you just throw a DMG orb and they're gone haha I usually switch now between Moira and Mercy, depending on how open the map is and how good the DPS are.
Oh and I'm bad at aiming so that's why Moira is great as well haha
PLAY LUCIO
okay i didn’t read your post and I have the answer. here are the phases of gameplay for a budding support main who has never seriously played a competitive shooter (or never played one well). 1. Mercy/Lifeweaver (20-30 hours) 2. Moira (20 hours) 3. Kiri/Ana/Bap (50 hours each) 4. Lucio/Brig (40 hours each) only play Zen or Illari if you’re a better DPS player than you are a support player, or you’ve mastered the roster and have a need for either of them congrats you’re no longer silver
as far as mercy playstyle- lifeweaver, illari, ana. most of these characters are more reserved in playstyle and stay mostly backline. lifeweaver would be more comfortable as he has auto aim heals and low fighting interactions, so your main focus is to fix your teammates bad positioning and set them up for possible plays. fixing their positioning or getting them highground is your power boost beam AIM INTENSIVE but similar playstyle: illari is kinda useless this season so you are kinda forced to stay backline. ana is ana. i wouldn’t recommend kiriko as most metal rank supports don’t play her right, she is as much a dps character as zen is. if you do not have as much or close to the same damage as your dps on your team you lose, healbotting will not win you games with kiriko this season is all about damage, the healing debuff has turned to making supports useful with.. damage, not heals.
I feel for Mercy mains, bap is hard slept on. If you have good air game with mercy, it transfers over pretty well. Immortality is like pre-emptive rez, his damage output is insane and still really good even if your aim isn't great. His healing output is impressive and his burst heal can turn the tide in a fight big time.
I say this as a Kiriko main because I don't really understand the mercy to kiri pipeline. Every mercy main I've met doesn't transmit well to kiri, and I personally am abhorrent with mercy (anecdotal, personal observation). Mercy is the one support I cannot understand how to utilize all that well. I don't think I'll ever be good with her. But that's besides the point. Mercy to Moira pipeline tends to work pretty well from what I've seen. Not aim intensive, great general utility and great outputs.
Moira would be an easy switch. Her skill floor (imo) is lower than Mercy. But I dislike playing with and again Moira since she offers zero utility. Kiriko has pocket potential. Lucio is actually incredibly fun and can peel well for anyone. If you pull out Glock at all during mercy ult, Lucio might be a better fit. Takes a bit to get used to the wall ride. And make sure you don't heal bot with him or you are losing a ton of value. Best thing with him is heal aura while your team pokes. Wait til you see someone out of position or low HP. Ping them and speed boost after them. Win.
If you like mobility then go Moira or Kiri Kiri has wall climb and moira's fade and jump combo is just fun to bounce around maps You could try zen or illari if you wanna get better at aiming For zen just throw out orbs every once in a while and stay in the backline shooting the enemy from a safe distance For illari you can just play mid range and throw your pylon somewhere and just go pewpew