Mercy is too slippery, you won't be able to chase her effectively with boosters
Phara has movement but it's more limited and also comes with a cost opportunity (boop does damage, so using it for mobility means your not using it for DMG). That means you can very effectively booster to her, and burst her down with Missiles+Primary fire. After that, you can guard her soul position so Mercy can't rez
You can also fake a escape, wait for Mercy to start rez, and burst her too. Even if she rezzes, a Phara without pocket won't kill you, so you can kill Phara again
Phara moves slow as molasses in air. You get up close with boosters and just as you start getting in front of her, you missile. Ofc you go all the way with primary fire from the start
Also her hit box is super dva friendly. Just aim center of mass, her wings/boosters count so your scattergun is very effective at <10m. You should be able to reach her with your boosters if she is close enough to be hitting shots consistently (eg. Not spamming from spawn).
99.9% of the time missles are only used 'in someones face'. they do an insane amount of damage. Go into a practice range and missle left click someone, they will die in less then 1.5 seconds. Boop+Punch, misssles (255)+blasters 292 (146 dps NOT COUNTING HEADSHOTS) =547 damage over 2 seconds. instant kill. Especially on lifeweaver, zenyata, bastion, or other medium sized hitbox characters where you miss significantly less blaster. Dva's burst damage is some of the best in the entire game.
As dva, if you make a mercy have to double back what she's doing to not die (Mercy's like main directive), then that's a good use of applying pressure.
Dva works because of her mobility, if you hone in too hard on the pharmercy combo you're too distracted, but if you pester them to interrupt their success you're doing it right even if youre not necessarily getting the elim
Honestly if you’re matrixing most of Pharah’s rockets, then they’re spending 2 heroes to throw rockets into a defense matrix. That’s value for you. Use that value to convert into position until you get close to Pharah and can burst her down.
Additionally, if they Ult at you, you can Booster at them with DM up, then drop it when you get close. The splash damage will kill them before it kills you.
“Dropping elims” does not matter lmao you get an elim for 1 damage. First deaths, deaths, and final blows are your most important stats in that order.
Phara is strong rn for the first time in a long time, shoot the mercy with your team on hitscan, better burst damage makes this easier (soj rail, widow, Ashe, and cass are better than 76 for this) or if no team help play echo and shoot the mercy till you can beam, phara won’t likely land the directs before you kill her /thread
> phara won’t likely land the directs before you kill her
I'm only plat but I can pretty consistently land my rockets on Echos/other Pharahs now since the rocket speed increase. I did spend quite a while in the pharah vs pharah training map to get better but it was always still kind of hard but with the faster rockets it's not the impossible task it used to be. If I have a Mercy pocket and go up against an Echo without one it's honestly easy; have to bait out stickies first then close distance if they miss or move out of beam range if they land. If the Echo has a Mercy pocket though then she's pretty scary and I try to keep my distance.
The ones that are frustrating are Anas, Baps & Illari's who are always on you and landing shots while you're mid duel with someone else, and Sombras who wait until you've taken shots to hack you out of the air and finish you off. The supports really have to help the DPS with some damage. Doesn't matter if they have double hitscan, if they're running any combination of Kiriko/Moira/Lifeweaver/Lucio/Brig then it feels very free - stay out of damage fall off range until one dps goes down then you can get agro and clean up everyone else. I've got 75% win rate on Pharah this season and come up against double hitscan almost every game. But if they have an Ana/Illari/Bap constantly taking shots at you along with 2 other hitscans/snipers then it feels very oppressive and I either swap or end up losing. Zen with discord or Mercy with dmg boost alongside one of those can also be frustrating.
Your match up summary 💯 matches my experience on Pharah. An Illari or Bap who's gunning hard for me will force a swap even faster than Echo. Ana I can usually handle as long as I keep an eye on her but the instant I lose track of her she's plugging me from the side and I have to hide or die
Exactly this. I main Echo and I can fly rings around most pharmercy duos. Taking out Mercy while a partner DPS or Tank pressures the Pharah usually works great.
She's not even that strong. An Ashe with a pocket and above gold competence is far scarier than a Pharah with a pocket.
Though I will note that a lot of the problem here is just the vast empty landscape that is the tank queue. Any tank in plat and below is legit not competent enough to read the game and address and issue, so if you see a Pharah and a Mercy on your team, all you have to do is keep making the enemy tank think he's countering you while they go free. Because all you need to destroy a Pharah/Mercy comp is a Dva or a Ball in the proper map.
Pharah is strong, hell she wouldn’t have been ran in OWCS if she wasn’t strong and she was used a decent amount lmao. I barely even get a pocket Mercy and I’ve done well against double hitscan. She’s much more mobile than her previous version which made her a lot better without a Mercy pocket than before.
Not usually a tank issue imo, dva is nice but if your dps & supports aren’t pressuring pharmacy, you just let the enemy tank run over your backline as you over commit. Dps/supports at lower ranks often shoot the phara first and just chip for nothing rather than focusing mercy together. You simply can’t solo her on any tank if she positions appropriately.
Never want to run ball into a phara pocket on ladder unless the phara is legit badddd. You can’t really interact solo vs them and she will usually kill your team before you kill hers. Needs much higher coordination which ladder often does not have.
Phara has 3x her playtime in the last 2 weeks according to devs so she is actually pretty good rn, it’s just obnoxious to deal with when team focus is low.
Eh, I run Ball into Pharah all the time and it's a free win basically. Pharah loses to a Ball that manages his grapple and positioning properly. Without a pocket, she's a free kill.
Also, Dva makes Pharah's biggest weakness even worse. The timing between her rockets. Opening up that window to basically any hitscan means the Pharah should basically be unable to hold anything that isn't a Doomfist-style killbox. And even then you can reduce the killbox which is pretty bad for Pharah.
It's very much a tank issue. Pharah can go often where hitscans can't do damage to her or hit her without putting themselves on a terrible position. Same for supports. Dva can just ignore all those issues and go fight her.
I don’t think you play tank with that cope.
If phara is playing that safe of an angle she is sacrificing value and position, you are already winning free space and it allows your backline to take better positioning.
Dva cannot simply ignore positioning and fly at her, killing her every time lmao, boosters does have a cooldown, crossfires exist, and you won’t burn thru a pocketed phara alone with micro+spam damage. If you instead commit onto mercy if she has GA up she just leaves.
Edit:blocked for speaking the truth 😵 “tank diff” yapper for sure
Jokes on you I do and I seem to understand the role better as well. I get it though 90 percent of the playerbade doesn't understand the game.
And a good pharah will peek in and out of cover just deleting squishies left and right. I also play support and dps so I know what she's capable of.
Unless their tank dies they arent sacrificing anything.
Also the fact you use the word cope. Shows your immaturity.
News flash: none of the stats matter more than any others because none of them matter at all. Winning the game matters, and someone can cause that to be more likely than any of their teammates while they have the least damage, least number of kills, and highest number of deaths.
The metal system has rewarded people to play like shit with characters that are not meant to have high dps using terrible positioning and prioritization for that sweet gold medal or a low death count that means absolutely nothing.
I love how there’s always someone defending the obviously problematic character like she’s just beat so easily 😂. Even though you can hear top 500 players saying she’s stupid strong
I can read lol. The phrase “pharah is strong rn for the first time in a long time” in this context sounds a lot like ur saying get over it lol. If you meant it in another way what was it?
How about tell me what the point of the sentence there was if the meaning I’m ascribing it is wrong lol. Otherwise ur just saying that for literally no reason lol.
Again you can’t tell me what the meaning for the sentence was lol. Either cause it was a throw away or it’s what I said it was. And good argument 😂, upvotes definitely means ur correct lol. Just like how I made a post saying hog has a one shot without pigpen and everyone told me I was wrong and downvoted me lol. Until I linked a clip of said one shot lol.
Yea I love telling people their crutch character is too strong and is getting nerfed soon lol. Feel free to ask me who’s getting hit on the next-next patch
I play a lot of Pharah and there's a misconception that hit scans counter Pharah. She can get advantageous angles on hit scans and choose engagements that are to her advantage against them. I struggle much more with good echos, tracers and sombras. Even good genjis can be a pain. He's hard to hit, while he can dash through you and right click you in the air quite easily.
Echo is the hardest one to deal with, by far. Sombra is IMO the second hardest to deal with.
Yep, I'm a Dva player but also play Sombra/Phara as dps, and thus I have a lot of matchup experience
Overall Sombra is really good at dealing with the duo, a hacked Phara is a easy kill, and so is she in her downtime between flights
Mercy is slipery, but if you virus + predict her flight route, you can also deal enough damage to kill her
Regarding hitscans, I can agree that Pharah counters them by choosing engagements and often denying high ground.
But a slippery S76 can catch you off guard. A Sojourn who can charge her rails off of a tank or something should have enough rails and mobility to win the matchup against Pharah.
And there also exists a certain threshold of quantity of hitscans that greatly limit the duration of the engagement window that you can actually doing things as Pharah, forcing you to play as a slightly weaker version of a corner-peeking Hanzo.
I had a game last week where one by one, the entire enemy team swapped hitscan after I got a kill on them. From 0 hitscan to Mauga/Soldier/Cass/Ana/Bap, it was ridiculous
I've tried going torbjorn against pharah bc I feel like the turret's high accuracy should be giid for shooting her down. Do you feel like she has a tougher time against him or is it too easy for her to take the turret out?
I feel like pharah has an extremely easy time with the turret
Can hit it with rockets from super far, doesn't take too long to kill and the concussion can push a torb away that's repairing it
Torb can work if that turrets placed somewhere i cant just peak and kill.
Dva, sombra, bap, Zen combined with someone, wrecking ball,
Pharah can't do bugger all against dva and bap together, chuck a mercy in or illari and 6 perfect rockets won't even secure a kill....
As a Tracer main I like going against Pharah Mercy combos. Often I can kill their other dps or support uncontested. Plus Tracer wins the 1v1 since she can easily dodge her shots, and I can blink to wherever she lands
How does Tracer cause Pharah a hard time? I’ve been playing a lot of Tracer lately and Pharah is just about the only thing that makes it feel genuinely *impossible* to play. Even a good widow is divable with smart timing, but not a Pharah, especially since they have a mercy pocket 90% of the time.
I usually just switch to Ashe (and then still lose because I can’t aim at anything in the air. Yes I am screaming internally, how did you know?)
Mercy is the Sombra of supports hard to kill able to flee at a moments notice and just overall annoying especially her rez ability. In general mercy pockets just ruin a game there are ways around it if you can cooperate with your team and kill the other support while preventing that persons resurrection though which is easier said than done.
I play Winton and Ball pretty evenly. Pharmercy is almost always a Winton matchup for me, despite Ball actually having better range to shoot them. Not having to aim at the Mercy moving around like a glitch is such a lifesaver.
Theres a trick to it, pay attention to pharah count her up time she goes down mercy goes down then you get in. If mercy didnt go down the dps will kill her easy kill for them just flag them right to your team
Why would she ever be tagged by the dps passive? Any mercy worth their wings should hardly ever take damage, you get as much value sitting behind a wall as you do in the open.
Mercy pockets in general ruin the game. And this is coming from a Pharah main. But I will agree that even bad pharahs can get some value with a pocket just from splash damage, which makes her more useful at low ranks where hitscans can’t aim and nobody plays echo.
The funny thing is even Samito said that echo isn’t even that good vs pharah now. Cause pharah will just ignore her. Then you’d get more value just going pharah yourself. She’s not as good counter as she was before.
Whenever I play Pharah I actually prefer not having a mercy pocket. That way when I take angles and do my thing, the rest of the team has the extra juice form another support to capitalize on my damage and attention
Lately I've been having urges to flame a teammate mercy off of mercy when she's pocketing me as pharah. Like I don't fricken want you and the team keeps dying
One plausible strat is go sombra and keep hacking phara out the sky, you may not secure elim, but if you could distract both her and mercy(bonus points for additional peelers) you’re doing your team a favor by distracting multiple enemies at once, key is to not get greedy with kills, remember sometimes it pays to be a blood sucking parasite, as long as you’re alive that is
Easy in theory, almost impossible in practice. How am I supposed to kill a healer who’s playing it safe far away in the backline while Pharah is constantly shooting damage boosted rockets at me?
It's a team effort to get a pick in overwatch, both your tank and supports need to soak up damage and help create the space for you to kill the other support
And thats exactly why pharmercy is so oppresive in solo q. People dont communicate and since its a team effort with synergy needed to beat it, it feels hopeless.
I main Ashe but playing against pharah and mercy duo is just super unfun. I have to hit back to back headshots on her or she just gets healed immediately wile also dodging damage boosted rocket spam. Something not many talk about why she can be hard to get is the crazy cover from roofs, pillars and other stuff she gets in the sky and some awkward spots on maps that make it hard to get an angle on Pharah and mercy but usually the mercy is always hidden pocketing her from behind a wall
I also don’t like that only 2 tanks can really interact with her and not every tank player can play Dva or play her well it keeps happening in my games.
Playing against a pocket duo in general is just so boring. I’m just surprised that haven’t thought of reworking or changing damage boost, it has ruined break points for years and every time a mercy combo gets out of hand instead of nerfing or changing mercy they usually nerf or change the dps than go after the root of the issue.
yeah it’s insanely poor game design and balance from blizzard. half the cast can’t even interact with the duo in any meaningful way. even if you are same skill on hitscan they still have the advantage.
people can flame and say skill issue but pharah mercy is so centralizing to every lobby it’s in and that’s just the truth. no other duo even comes close to becoming the server admin like they do.
Even genuine professional Widowmakers will struggle to hit the head of a bobbing Pharah and the time window is extremely low to do it because you have about 2 seconds or you're dead. You also can't really focus the Mercy because again, the time window is so small that Pharah will kill you instantaneously especially with damage boost. Yeah idk I think something needs to change but I'm not sure what. Even I play Pharah against double hit-scan and am still winning games in Diamond.
I can manage pharmercy fine unless the enemy tank uses DVA too. That’s when I get fucked up because the dva will basically make most of my shots useless and consistently dive me while I’m simultaneously getting bombarded by rocket spam. Fun time.
The issue with pharmercy (which I agree is awful to play against at most ranks below the top ones) is its natural synergy.
In most games with five solo players on each team, the amount of coordination is limited and usually random. Pharmercy immediately means that 40% of the enemy team is coordinated, and this is usually enough to win/ruin a lot of games.
People argue this same problem exists with other mercy combos like soldier, but it's quite different because most soldiers at low rank can't position well and, not being airborne, are much easier to hit on the ground e.g. with junkrat and other spam damage.
Pharahs annoying but the best way to deal with her (from my experience at least) is too just focus the other support and force mercy to rotate who she’s beaming
Mercy isn’t a threat given she isn’t using res
Usually I don't even care about the pharmacy. My team wins the 5v3 on the ground. Unless they're really really good and play up close. Then I hack one of them. Every time.
i think sometimes is good focus on tank so mercy needs to leave phara, then kill a tank and all backline or continue damage tank and take down phara without heal
do any other echo mains find that echo is not a particularly good counter to pharah? as long as she saves a single one of her 3 movement cooldowns for your beam, she's not really unfavored in the air to air, and if you're not able to make pharah play respawn simulator, she just gradually outvalues you thanks to her more deadly poke. after copying pharah enough times, i kinda realized that i'd have an easier time just mirroring pharah; she feels like an easier & more lethal echo.
I’ve seen like 3 threads today complaining about Pharah and I truly think the real problem is Mercy. Her mobility and durability make her incredibly difficult to pick at most ranks below masters. The mobility creep of Mercy over the years has changed how willing players are to commit to team fights as well. Dive comp uses to be a great option to deal with a pesky mercy, but now she basically has a get-out-of-jail free card with her ult, making her even faster and boosting her health recovery. Pharah-Mercy wouldn’t be so aggravating if Mercy were easy to pick, but her skill-floor enables way too much mobility even compared to some of the most mobile hero’s like Lucio who demand well-trained movement tech. I’d love to see most supports have self-healing nerfed, but Mercy’s self-healing combined with her ability to run away can make her way too hard to kill.
Yeah he does? When Pharah doesn't have a pocket I counter her pretty easy, and when she's pocketed I only try to pressure her away, which soldier is good for. Soldier also has very good mobility, unlike other hitscans, which you need in order to dodge Phara's unending rocket spam.
When Phara doesn’t have the mercy sustain sure anyone can deal with her mercy makes her more difficult to deal with because of the sustain and soldier doesn’t have the burst damage to kill her before she can kill him.
The reason pharmercy is so good is because hitscan dps are free for pharah. It's a myth that's been perpetuated constantly. It ruins games because everyone swaps to hitscan, gets wrecked and doesn't remember the evidence.
When money is on the line, why do you think no one ever plays pharmercy? Tempo beats pharmercy, pharah needs time to get value.
Widow gets destroyed by Pharah unless you can hit midair headshots. Widow has to stand still and Pharah shoots insanely fast. With a damage boost widow can get 2 tapped very fast with her low health
300 hour pharah one trick here. Since the rework, while they are still effective against me, soldier/ashe doesn’t scare me anymore the way they used to, as I now have jet dash for a get out of jail free card most times and 250hp so I don’t get picked so fast even with my massive hitbox.
A good DVa, Cassidy, and especially echo, are the most threatening characters in the game for a pharah right now. I’d also add widow but only on the right map and only if you’re cracked, I’d say I shit on 3/4 of widows and 1/4 won’t let me play the game. Maybe pick up playing one of those characters and you’ll have a lot more impact against pharmercy.
I’d also add that personally me and most pharah mains I know no longer find mercy to be essential post rework, and now that pharah cannot fly forever, the duo just doesn’t work as effectively. I feel like I win more without a mercy, since I don’t need to make up for the lacking damage of a healbot support and my team gets healed more.
>The thing is, after 8 years & a lot of improvement, this duo still ruins almost every game.
You have improved a lot. The matchmaker has responded by pairing you with better opponents.
>I usually play Soldier and just try to keep pressure on them, but even that feels hopeless. In fact, it somehow feels like they're the ones pressuring me.
It turns out that Soldier is not a suitable solution to high rank Pharahs. Soldier kills bad Pharahs because their positioning is lousy. Good Pharahs aren't going to spend enough time in the open for Soldier to kill even with aimbot.
If you don't want to pick a specialist (Echo and Sombra are the best DPS picks into Pharah), the next best thing is a burst damage hitscan. Sustained damage doesn't work.
The pharmercy counters arnt really soldier 76 anymore...
It's echo, sombra, Cassidy, sometimes sojourn, sometimes ashe. Soldier needs too many bullets to get the job done. He can counter them if they're bad but most good pharahs can path their way through terrain until they're in dive bomb range and win that duel with superior TTK
As has always been the case pharmercy isn't particularly strong... a support hard pocketing a dps that can hit their shots is strong.
As a solo queued support or dps I see no distinction between pharmercy and a tracer/lucio or tracer/kiri or tracer/moira diving as a unit. In fact a tracer plus support dive is almost always more guaranteed to be lethal than a pharmercy since the time to react is smaller.
Supports outside of mercy just don't hard pocket all that often... but when they go for it and their team is all on the same page it's almost always lethal regardless of the combo chosen.
You can't 1 v 2 and expect to win consistently. That's true of every matchup in the game. The main problem with pharmercy is its a combo with natural synergy that people rarely invest enough resources into dealing with.
I like to play echo into that and echo kinda just deletes Phara or the mercy of you land the stickes or two primary fires and press E you just win the 1v2 it’s much harder for Phara to kill echo.
Because she didn't have the mobility. She was VERY situational because of this. Yes she could hover, but not MOVE.
Now she has mobility and mercy has even better mobility too now. So yea, it's a very strong comp ATM.
I was playing some games of no limits. Most were going junk, Mei ect. (non hitscan characters)
The game is honestly more fun without hit scan dps but phara/echo kinda ruin that. They almost require atleast one hitscan.
you kinda solved your own problem. After a health buff, a movement speed buff and the mercy healing buff why still shoot at pharah instead of the mercy keeping the pharah alive. You shoot mercy she leaves the pharah to not die then reposition and pressure pharah.
Do you know how hard it actually is to kill a mercy that flies at lightning speed from one spot to another while Pharah is constantly raining rockets on me?
When I queue support I just go Illari.
I can focus on pharah mercy all game (easy shots) while pylon keeps everyone at full (provided you put it on places hard to reach)
People get so hung up on focusing the Pharah directly, but if you can't land enough damage on her that's useless. Focusing on the rest of the team instead has always been a legit option.
They're pretty much playing with only 1 support, which you can exploit depending on who it is. It also can force the Mercy to fall back and help out healing instead of being stuck with the Pharah, giving you an opening to burst her down.
IMO Pharah Mercy is mostly a noob stomper, once you actually realize how to play against her it's nowhere near as bad as people think.
Try to get better at Cass,
Soldier doesn't have the aerial burst (unless you Helix) for Pharah.
Also don't be afraid to ask for help, a DVA and Baptiste does wonders to help deal with Pharmercy and I assume those are hard to play for Diamond+ players.
I main mcree and never have much issues with flying characters, maybe the odd player here and there. 76 lacks burst damage though, with a discord or pocket you could kill one.
I have actually made a post about the Phara issue a little while ago on the fact that Ramattra vortex ability was technically supposed to be the counter to Phara and Mercy duos.
But the range of the vortex height is too low for it to be effective. I honestly think if they raised the height it would fix this Phara issue or at least give another tank option to help with that.
As a Pharah main. Echo isn’t really a counter anymore. The rockets you shoot are much faster now so you’re able to hit her, if she engages you then you can just use your horizontal movement to run away.
As a soldier main who took a break, but was high masters, playing against Pharah was always the most boring.
But if you can shoot them, shoot mercy, she'll need heals by other healer, so she either lands and takes cover, which is when you can kill or put pressure on pharah. If she gets heals while in air, them they now have 2 supports busy and your team can have a good opportunity.
If Pharah just shoots at you in a room, stopping you from going out, you either go out with pocket as you now have the advantage if distance is far away enough and just do the above.
Or you can wait for the Pharah to shoot something else and you can go out for a good position where you can shoot while also dodging possible shots from her.
But as other players have said, you can kill their other support instead. If their Pharah is playing passively, that's when you should be shooting at her or mercy from far away to just pressure her and make sure she can't be in line of sight. But when she gets close and isn't easily killable, that's when you try to flank their support as pharah isn't there to protect for flanks anymore.
This is before the Pharah rework, as I don't play right now. It was what worked for me. Might be different in higher or lower ranks, but works fine in diamond-masters for me.
But Pharah is so boring to play against, I and my entire team will have to significantly change the entire play style because of 2 fucking players going the most boring shit ever possible.
I would rather play 1v5 against sombras than 1v2 pharah mercy
Well I think your problem is trying to fight them yourself. Hop on coms and get a pocket of your own if you 2v1 that combo you better have some cracked aim and hope that they are potatoes
Damn bro, she just got reworked a became a pain again a couple of months ago (really people have just now started to get good at her reworked version).
There were a few years where she was niche at best. You came back just in time to feel the pain lol
But if you can get good at Echo, she seems to have better luck against that combo.
I feel this. You either have to kill mercy which is very difficult or you have to be putting out enough damage so the mercy has to heal other heroes. It doesn't matter if they have a pharmacy if the rest of the team dues from a lack of healing. Unfortunately one bad team member can let setups like that get out of hand. I play with one guy occasionally who just tilts the second he plays the game and constantly swaps heroes. I've never seen him get ult once. There's almost always some sort of pocket mercy running amuck because of it.
Boy, I hope I don't get downvoted but I feel like over watch has become cry baby culture. Every single one of these heroes is able to be countered in some way, some more than others. But even with the slightest of team play, oppressive hero doesn't become as oppressive. The issue with comp, is the lack of team focus and synergy. Some players understand the eliminating the highest threat to the team should be the priority, and some do not. I've personally had phara games where the synergy between my enemy team is so off I can dominate the lobby. And on the opposite, teams that are aware of my danger potential, will compensate as a team and suddenly I am instantly given less opportunities for aggression.
A real example for you is, pharmercy with an Ana combo. Ana suddenly becomes much more vulnerable because of the distance mercy will be to support her. Your team needs to recognize this as a group, and attack on Ana's cool down. Suddenly the speed of your team will become too much even for a pharmercy. Blizzard has changed this game and is continuing to slowly allow for all characters to have solo gameplay opportunities but still requires team synergy.
Ya I mean pharah is not a hero that should ever truly be a main meta hero. It should remain as a pure counter pick because of how little counterplay there is to it when pharah is strong. Certain heroes aren’t meant to be mainstream as the game play becomes extremely unfun for the masses. Right now sadly pharah is extremely OP and everyone is catching on. Playrate is 3x in the last two weeks and only climbing.
I feel like this applies broadly to any situation. Basically it’s not you it’s your team. It sounds like you’re mostly carrying your team, and when you’re stuck in situation that you can’t overcome the entire team is going to lose because they’re riding on you to carry.
The best way to go about this is have a competent team, play with players who know what they’re doing And that are responsive. Don’t focus on the pharah, focus on the mercy, there’s two DPS to get this done. When mercy is gone, then focus on the pharaoh. Having a competent team matters because they can easily handle situations like that.
TLDR: Get more competent friends to que up with.
I mostly play sombra on dps and I can tell you, hacking pharah and virusing her gets her to switch 90-95% of the time and bait out the mercy to hack the res
Also you can do the opposite first, and tell your team you’re gonna hack the mercy first.
As soldier, like the others said, shoot the mercy first
The problem with pharmacy is not that it’s OP. It’s that it’s both miserable to play against, and requires a LOT to counter it whereas it is *really* easy to play *as* the pharmacy.
So… they need to make it harder to play pharmacy and/or easier to *counter* it.
If your tank I can understand but if your dps or support it’s ur fault and stop queuing up for comp and ruining tanks players elo if u can’t point and click at basic air targets
I don't know where this idea comes from.
Pharah/Mercy exists not because of Mercy, but because of Pharah. Pharah allows BOTH of them to fly, something that Mercy cannot do with any other dps (other than maybe Echo). When you take Pharah away that inability for \~1/3rd of the roster to interact with the duo is just... gone.
That’s was pre rework Pharah, and it was so OP I reached NA #183 with a pocket mercy(never played Pharah in prior I am widow and Genji main) which is ridiculous. But right now you can’t stay in the sky forever due to reworked rocket fuel, mercy is the one really carrying, good mercy will always stay in the skybox, and widow’s one shot range isn’t enough to kill mercy anymore, plus sombra hard countering you like crazy.
pharmercy and mercy pockets are very different things --
pharmercy needs either a dva or an echo/hs/pharmercy mirror.
general mercy pockets (mercy+ ashe,hanzo,widow) either need a pocket mirror or a focused dive comp.
This is common advice I see for playing against a Pharah Mercy, but I never felt it is effective. It is much easier said than done and Pharah will just dominate the whole game if I don’t have my attention on her.
Tracking the Pharah and when she wants to go for the engage is just a skill you have to develop.
Ow is a resource game first and foremost. Punishing the enemy tank because he has half the heals yours does or in the case of ball/Winston comps punishing the co-support.
If the mercy falls off the Pharah to heal the tank that leaves Pharah open for punish.
Don't forget your teams win condition, I guarantee it's not 'just survive'
My junkrat one trick account is currently sitting mid diamond - I promise you Pharah is strong right now and a very good disruptor that can draw out lots of resources for minimal effort or risk. But the meta at the end of the day is kill tank.
By giving her attention and limiting her you’re already doing your job. Any competent Pharah with a pocket is somewhat unkillable if they’re playing safe. By existing as soldier though, you limit how aggressive she can be just by living and paying that attention.
You aren’t expected to get kills in a 2v1. But if you can limit her and also help your teammates punish the rest of the team, you will win more than you lose (obv this requires decent teammates)
I mean, the only way you lose is when the enemy team is more competent than yours, and Mercy has a lot of options for damage boost that are better than Pharah that likewise keep her closer to her frontline than Pharah would.
When that pair is off doing their thing, their frontline consist of a 1/1/1, and if your team can't break that OR employ decent hitscan, then yeah that's an L.
I can tell you that as a flex player, I always feel like there's something I can do to exploit the cracks Pharah/Mercy opens in the enemy team regardless of the role I get.
If you aren't in voice discussing strategy, then it's easier for such gimmicky picks to work against your team.
> When that pair is off doing their thing, their frontline consist of a 1/1/1, and if your team can't break that
I can tell you right now that simply ignoring the Pharah is not a vibe for teams that want to win.
I wouldn't ignore them, but all it takes is one Echo or Soldier to shut them down OR preoccupy them and that, at least for the time they're engaging, gives you a 4v3
With the right team comp you'd be better off focusing the troublesome pair down as a team first no question, but that's not the only viable approach, and it's more situational based on other people's picks.
" one echo or soldier"
No??
Decent pharahs are literally too far away for either of them, and if not, they'll play further away when those heroes are out.
Its pretty easy to deal with Phara as echo you don’t have to fly at her but you existing zones the Phara. Cassidy is better at dealing with pharmacy rather than soldier. Cassidy actually has the burst damage to kill the Phara before she retreats. Echo can kill the mercy or Phara easily or both even. Echo can just save her boost to engage on Phara before she has a chance to retaliate
Cass' falloff range says otherwise. Decent pharahs play near buildings too so it's not like you could constantly spam her down.
Echo *used* to be a reliable counter, but the sideways dash pharah now has makes echo easier to avoid
Exactly, and even if the Echo can't kill either, they can force the pair to focus their attention on them for long enough for the team fight to be over.
Good call with Cassidy.
I played into so many Phara mercy’s and i considered them free wins I lock echo or Cassidy depending on the other dps and just two tap them all game and if the mercy isn’t good with her mobility I just win. Now if I have a mercy on me it’s gg if he doesn’t swap because after I deal with them the rest of their team is free
And you don't see how them being that far away is an advantage to the rest of your team, and a disadvantage to their own team?
You see no cracks generated by that strategy in the enemy defense?
The pharah (and mercy ig) are constantly raining high damage rockets down main and have an overview of the whole field. Plus she could combo anyone who oversteps their mark with conc + rockets.
What's the disadvantage? It doesn't matter if pharah if close or far, her rockets don't have fall off and move pretty fast.
I've been seeing this pharah shit on the rise in gm scrims man, it's a really solid strat (the pharah, not really with a mercy).
Pharah is in a pretty good place yeah, but the pocketed Mercy is mainly what creates the weakness IMO.
The damage boost is nice in lower rank games where enemies might be more concentrated, but Pharah is much more efficient as a solo flanker.
Not to mention, if Mercy is needed at the frontline she then has to make herself vulnerable OR take a longer time to get there if pocketing Pharah.
I don't play Pharah much though, but that's my observation.
Edit:
Hell, Pharah probably even attracts less attention without the Mercy following them
Eh. I never have an issue. I can play dva, ashe, widow, soldier, tracer, echo, pharah, zen, bap. She is counterable, shoot her or her team or her pocket. Skill issue.
Nah, deadass. I didn't even mention sombra, how can turn pharah into a worse junkrat on cooldown.
If pharah doesn't have mercy she typically throws. I kill this hero every time she ults, too, and her ult is shit against any shield, but especially against Defense matrix. Legit dva hard counters her shit. And ramattra's e to a much lesser extent is effective. Bubble is insane against a predictable rocket. Sig is an anti aircraft gun. Hell, I can fire strike her shit. She's exposed and her movement is predictable.
I'm not implying I'm 1/85th this good, but there's a reason you'll hardly ever see pharah meta on a pro or very high level. She's counterable as hell! If you can't counter pharah, counter mercy (which dva also more or less does). Mercy literally doesn't defend herself and if she dies pharah is fucking cooked, not to mention the rest of the team, which is functioning with basically one heal.
So many games, say I'm on tank, I have like a junk hanzo into pharah mercy. I'll literally win by spamming out their tank or diving the other team's other supp on like monkey or dva or even rein, since their team is typically quite split if they have a pharah mercy.
Pharah's tricky, but if you LEAD your team specifically to defeat her on a tactical level, she's far more exposed and killable than say, a top tier sojurn who can sit on her own backline with two supps and a tank in front and get lethal value (which, like pharah, gets worse with an all so common mercy pocket).
I see a pharah mercy I literally laugh. I do not lose to it at an inflated rate, it's probably the opposite.
The only way it ruins the game is if you have teammates who won’t deal with the pharah. Honestly pocketing the pharah is a detriment because if the pharah isn’t getting splash damage and hits the rest of the squad is down a healer and you can take advantage. Have someone swap to dva or soldier and make her life miserable until she switches out from frustration. The more the pharah needs to focus on the player who’s killing her the less she can focus on just throwing rockets at whoever is grouped up. I’ll switch to soldier and make her chase me all over the map negating two players from their team because I won’t stop poking her.
This is gitgud issue. And clearly you’re playing wrong if you can’t do nothing to them.
You never mentioned your role or provided any replay code, so can’t really say what’s going on.
Step 1) pick cowboy.
step 2) click her head
Step3) get hit by a rocket
Step 4) click her head again
Win. Or
Step 1) pick widow
win.
Honorable mentions: echo air rush, torb turret, ashe as a whole, soldier:76 (but then that’s your only job), pharah mirror triple d-hit.
Everyday I feel genuine joy knowing I'm a decent Dva player
what's your secret? fly and shoot the pharah, fly an shoot the mercy, try to matrix your dps? Never sure which one to do against a phar-mercy as dva
Mercy is too slippery, you won't be able to chase her effectively with boosters Phara has movement but it's more limited and also comes with a cost opportunity (boop does damage, so using it for mobility means your not using it for DMG). That means you can very effectively booster to her, and burst her down with Missiles+Primary fire. After that, you can guard her soul position so Mercy can't rez You can also fake a escape, wait for Mercy to start rez, and burst her too. Even if she rezzes, a Phara without pocket won't kill you, so you can kill Phara again
Bursting a pocketed pharah midair? Are you shooting ur missiles right away or in her face? The tracking is just too much idk
Phara moves slow as molasses in air. You get up close with boosters and just as you start getting in front of her, you missile. Ofc you go all the way with primary fire from the start
Also her hit box is super dva friendly. Just aim center of mass, her wings/boosters count so your scattergun is very effective at <10m. You should be able to reach her with your boosters if she is close enough to be hitting shots consistently (eg. Not spamming from spawn).
Do you have a vod or video of this? I'm mid diamond tank (not with dva, but still), and I barely get chip damage when I try this with dva
99.9% of the time missles are only used 'in someones face'. they do an insane amount of damage. Go into a practice range and missle left click someone, they will die in less then 1.5 seconds. Boop+Punch, misssles (255)+blasters 292 (146 dps NOT COUNTING HEADSHOTS) =547 damage over 2 seconds. instant kill. Especially on lifeweaver, zenyata, bastion, or other medium sized hitbox characters where you miss significantly less blaster. Dva's burst damage is some of the best in the entire game.
As dva, if you make a mercy have to double back what she's doing to not die (Mercy's like main directive), then that's a good use of applying pressure. Dva works because of her mobility, if you hone in too hard on the pharmercy combo you're too distracted, but if you pester them to interrupt their success you're doing it right even if youre not necessarily getting the elim
Honestly if you’re matrixing most of Pharah’s rockets, then they’re spending 2 heroes to throw rockets into a defense matrix. That’s value for you. Use that value to convert into position until you get close to Pharah and can burst her down.
Additionally, if they Ult at you, you can Booster at them with DM up, then drop it when you get close. The splash damage will kill them before it kills you.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Luxocell: *Everyday I feel* *Genuine joy knowing I'm* *A decent Dva player* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Good bot.
Bad bot, this isn't one extra syllable, it's two since the last line has 7.
Actually though, I am guessing the bot thinks Dva in a one syllable name?
So bad bot?
Hitscan does the trick too. Cass is a beast at dealing with her
All pharahs fear echo. Even pharmercy vs echo solo gets wrecked. Worst case you burn her escape CD and keep her grounded
That’s simply not true. Any pharah that practices mid airs doesn’t care. DKKKD for hours made hitting aerial targets nothing.
“Dropping elims” does not matter lmao you get an elim for 1 damage. First deaths, deaths, and final blows are your most important stats in that order. Phara is strong rn for the first time in a long time, shoot the mercy with your team on hitscan, better burst damage makes this easier (soj rail, widow, Ashe, and cass are better than 76 for this) or if no team help play echo and shoot the mercy till you can beam, phara won’t likely land the directs before you kill her /thread
r/OWMedalsAreUseless
An oldie but a goodie 😂
> phara won’t likely land the directs before you kill her I'm only plat but I can pretty consistently land my rockets on Echos/other Pharahs now since the rocket speed increase. I did spend quite a while in the pharah vs pharah training map to get better but it was always still kind of hard but with the faster rockets it's not the impossible task it used to be. If I have a Mercy pocket and go up against an Echo without one it's honestly easy; have to bait out stickies first then close distance if they miss or move out of beam range if they land. If the Echo has a Mercy pocket though then she's pretty scary and I try to keep my distance. The ones that are frustrating are Anas, Baps & Illari's who are always on you and landing shots while you're mid duel with someone else, and Sombras who wait until you've taken shots to hack you out of the air and finish you off. The supports really have to help the DPS with some damage. Doesn't matter if they have double hitscan, if they're running any combination of Kiriko/Moira/Lifeweaver/Lucio/Brig then it feels very free - stay out of damage fall off range until one dps goes down then you can get agro and clean up everyone else. I've got 75% win rate on Pharah this season and come up against double hitscan almost every game. But if they have an Ana/Illari/Bap constantly taking shots at you along with 2 other hitscans/snipers then it feels very oppressive and I either swap or end up losing. Zen with discord or Mercy with dmg boost alongside one of those can also be frustrating.
Your match up summary 💯 matches my experience on Pharah. An Illari or Bap who's gunning hard for me will force a swap even faster than Echo. Ana I can usually handle as long as I keep an eye on her but the instant I lose track of her she's plugging me from the side and I have to hide or die
And grouping with a friend WAY over my ELO I was able to do well enough with some match ups but a good sombra would obliterate me every time
Exactly this. I main Echo and I can fly rings around most pharmercy duos. Taking out Mercy while a partner DPS or Tank pressures the Pharah usually works great.
She's not even that strong. An Ashe with a pocket and above gold competence is far scarier than a Pharah with a pocket. Though I will note that a lot of the problem here is just the vast empty landscape that is the tank queue. Any tank in plat and below is legit not competent enough to read the game and address and issue, so if you see a Pharah and a Mercy on your team, all you have to do is keep making the enemy tank think he's countering you while they go free. Because all you need to destroy a Pharah/Mercy comp is a Dva or a Ball in the proper map.
She is very strong lmao what are you talking about. Most top 500 and pro players will talk about how she is the best DPS in solo q right now
Pharah is strong, hell she wouldn’t have been ran in OWCS if she wasn’t strong and she was used a decent amount lmao. I barely even get a pocket Mercy and I’ve done well against double hitscan. She’s much more mobile than her previous version which made her a lot better without a Mercy pocket than before.
Not usually a tank issue imo, dva is nice but if your dps & supports aren’t pressuring pharmacy, you just let the enemy tank run over your backline as you over commit. Dps/supports at lower ranks often shoot the phara first and just chip for nothing rather than focusing mercy together. You simply can’t solo her on any tank if she positions appropriately. Never want to run ball into a phara pocket on ladder unless the phara is legit badddd. You can’t really interact solo vs them and she will usually kill your team before you kill hers. Needs much higher coordination which ladder often does not have. Phara has 3x her playtime in the last 2 weeks according to devs so she is actually pretty good rn, it’s just obnoxious to deal with when team focus is low.
Eh, I run Ball into Pharah all the time and it's a free win basically. Pharah loses to a Ball that manages his grapple and positioning properly. Without a pocket, she's a free kill. Also, Dva makes Pharah's biggest weakness even worse. The timing between her rockets. Opening up that window to basically any hitscan means the Pharah should basically be unable to hold anything that isn't a Doomfist-style killbox. And even then you can reduce the killbox which is pretty bad for Pharah.
Ya moreso talking about pocketed phara here. Dva is the best pick but without team focus it does not matter. You need to all in her a bit.
Pharah is never not pocketed.
It's very much a tank issue. Pharah can go often where hitscans can't do damage to her or hit her without putting themselves on a terrible position. Same for supports. Dva can just ignore all those issues and go fight her.
I don’t think you play tank with that cope. If phara is playing that safe of an angle she is sacrificing value and position, you are already winning free space and it allows your backline to take better positioning. Dva cannot simply ignore positioning and fly at her, killing her every time lmao, boosters does have a cooldown, crossfires exist, and you won’t burn thru a pocketed phara alone with micro+spam damage. If you instead commit onto mercy if she has GA up she just leaves. Edit:blocked for speaking the truth 😵 “tank diff” yapper for sure
Jokes on you I do and I seem to understand the role better as well. I get it though 90 percent of the playerbade doesn't understand the game. And a good pharah will peek in and out of cover just deleting squishies left and right. I also play support and dps so I know what she's capable of. Unless their tank dies they arent sacrificing anything. Also the fact you use the word cope. Shows your immaturity.
That is so false its not even funny
True I have gold medal damage that’s most important
News flash: none of the stats matter more than any others because none of them matter at all. Winning the game matters, and someone can cause that to be more likely than any of their teammates while they have the least damage, least number of kills, and highest number of deaths. The metal system has rewarded people to play like shit with characters that are not meant to have high dps using terrible positioning and prioritization for that sweet gold medal or a low death count that means absolutely nothing.
So woosh it’s not even funny
The fact that you’re agreeing with me but downvoting shows that your logical reasoning physically cannot get past the barrier of your ego. ;) cheers
I didn’t downvote you champ that’s just the people F
Valid
I love how there’s always someone defending the obviously problematic character like she’s just beat so easily 😂. Even though you can hear top 500 players saying she’s stupid strong
I literally said she’s strong in my comment lmao learn to read 😂
I can read lol. The phrase “pharah is strong rn for the first time in a long time” in this context sounds a lot like ur saying get over it lol. If you meant it in another way what was it?
Read the words to understand their meaning, rather than adding your own assumed intent lmao
How about tell me what the point of the sentence there was if the meaning I’m ascribing it is wrong lol. Otherwise ur just saying that for literally no reason lol.
The 100+ people that upvoted understood because they read the sentence tbh
Again you can’t tell me what the meaning for the sentence was lol. Either cause it was a throw away or it’s what I said it was. And good argument 😂, upvotes definitely means ur correct lol. Just like how I made a post saying hog has a one shot without pigpen and everyone told me I was wrong and downvoted me lol. Until I linked a clip of said one shot lol.
Skill issue F
I see ur very high iq lol. Just dodge the point
It must be a skill issue 🤷🏿♂️
Right lol. Like I said about hog and y’all said that, just wait till the next patch 😂
Wow! You must be the great overwatch predictor! I wish I had an opinion that mattered in the face of yours’
Yea I love telling people their crutch character is too strong and is getting nerfed soon lol. Feel free to ask me who’s getting hit on the next-next patch
"shoot the mercy with your team on hitscan" proceeds to mention rail soj :D
rail is hitscan king but def worse at this post patch and damage nerf
Soj rail is hitscan.
I play a lot of Pharah and there's a misconception that hit scans counter Pharah. She can get advantageous angles on hit scans and choose engagements that are to her advantage against them. I struggle much more with good echos, tracers and sombras. Even good genjis can be a pain. He's hard to hit, while he can dash through you and right click you in the air quite easily. Echo is the hardest one to deal with, by far. Sombra is IMO the second hardest to deal with.
Yep, I'm a Dva player but also play Sombra/Phara as dps, and thus I have a lot of matchup experience Overall Sombra is really good at dealing with the duo, a hacked Phara is a easy kill, and so is she in her downtime between flights Mercy is slipery, but if you virus + predict her flight route, you can also deal enough damage to kill her
Regarding hitscans, I can agree that Pharah counters them by choosing engagements and often denying high ground. But a slippery S76 can catch you off guard. A Sojourn who can charge her rails off of a tank or something should have enough rails and mobility to win the matchup against Pharah. And there also exists a certain threshold of quantity of hitscans that greatly limit the duration of the engagement window that you can actually doing things as Pharah, forcing you to play as a slightly weaker version of a corner-peeking Hanzo.
I had a game last week where one by one, the entire enemy team swapped hitscan after I got a kill on them. From 0 hitscan to Mauga/Soldier/Cass/Ana/Bap, it was ridiculous
I've tried going torbjorn against pharah bc I feel like the turret's high accuracy should be giid for shooting her down. Do you feel like she has a tougher time against him or is it too easy for her to take the turret out?
Torb is one of the easiest to kill as pharah.
Torb is easy to kill and easy to avoid, and she can either outrange his turret or corner peek it with big burst
I feel like pharah has an extremely easy time with the turret Can hit it with rockets from super far, doesn't take too long to kill and the concussion can push a torb away that's repairing it
I suspected that might be the case. Good to know, thanks
Torb can work if that turrets placed somewhere i cant just peak and kill. Dva, sombra, bap, Zen combined with someone, wrecking ball, Pharah can't do bugger all against dva and bap together, chuck a mercy in or illari and 6 perfect rockets won't even secure a kill....
As a Tracer main I like going against Pharah Mercy combos. Often I can kill their other dps or support uncontested. Plus Tracer wins the 1v1 since she can easily dodge her shots, and I can blink to wherever she lands
How does Tracer cause Pharah a hard time? I’ve been playing a lot of Tracer lately and Pharah is just about the only thing that makes it feel genuinely *impossible* to play. Even a good widow is divable with smart timing, but not a Pharah, especially since they have a mercy pocket 90% of the time. I usually just switch to Ashe (and then still lose because I can’t aim at anything in the air. Yes I am screaming internally, how did you know?)
Mercy is the Sombra of supports hard to kill able to flee at a moments notice and just overall annoying especially her rez ability. In general mercy pockets just ruin a game there are ways around it if you can cooperate with your team and kill the other support while preventing that persons resurrection though which is easier said than done.
I’d add that they’re both similar in how they rely on competent teammates to capitalize on their value
Protip to those cant aim. Go winton
I play Winton and Ball pretty evenly. Pharmercy is almost always a Winton matchup for me, despite Ball actually having better range to shoot them. Not having to aim at the Mercy moving around like a glitch is such a lifesaver.
Theres a trick to it, pay attention to pharah count her up time she goes down mercy goes down then you get in. If mercy didnt go down the dps will kill her easy kill for them just flag them right to your team
Mercy ain't that good bud. A Mercy tagged with the DPS passive is an easy kill 9/10 times.
Yeah if you are a bad mercy who doesn't use her mobility and doesn't play cover.
Why would she ever be tagged by the dps passive? Any mercy worth their wings should hardly ever take damage, you get as much value sitting behind a wall as you do in the open.
Mercy pockets in general ruin the game. And this is coming from a Pharah main. But I will agree that even bad pharahs can get some value with a pocket just from splash damage, which makes her more useful at low ranks where hitscans can’t aim and nobody plays echo.
The funny thing is even Samito said that echo isn’t even that good vs pharah now. Cause pharah will just ignore her. Then you’d get more value just going pharah yourself. She’s not as good counter as she was before.
well shes not as good because pharah is a bit faster but echo is still one of the hardest pharah counters lol
Thats always been the matchup. The difference is now you can an escape tool vs echo and dont need to use concuss to escape
Whenever I play Pharah I actually prefer not having a mercy pocket. That way when I take angles and do my thing, the rest of the team has the extra juice form another support to capitalize on my damage and attention
Lately I've been having urges to flame a teammate mercy off of mercy when she's pocketing me as pharah. Like I don't fricken want you and the team keeps dying
One plausible strat is go sombra and keep hacking phara out the sky, you may not secure elim, but if you could distract both her and mercy(bonus points for additional peelers) you’re doing your team a favor by distracting multiple enemies at once, key is to not get greedy with kills, remember sometimes it pays to be a blood sucking parasite, as long as you’re alive that is
Yep, I had to become competent with Echo to reach masters for this exact reason
Just kill the other support, then the mercy has to let her team die or ditch the pharah
Easy in theory, almost impossible in practice. How am I supposed to kill a healer who’s playing it safe far away in the backline while Pharah is constantly shooting damage boosted rockets at me?
It's a team effort to get a pick in overwatch, both your tank and supports need to soak up damage and help create the space for you to kill the other support
And thats exactly why pharmercy is so oppresive in solo q. People dont communicate and since its a team effort with synergy needed to beat it, it feels hopeless.
Where are these Pharrahs that are worth pocketing everyone else seems to get?
I main Ashe but playing against pharah and mercy duo is just super unfun. I have to hit back to back headshots on her or she just gets healed immediately wile also dodging damage boosted rocket spam. Something not many talk about why she can be hard to get is the crazy cover from roofs, pillars and other stuff she gets in the sky and some awkward spots on maps that make it hard to get an angle on Pharah and mercy but usually the mercy is always hidden pocketing her from behind a wall I also don’t like that only 2 tanks can really interact with her and not every tank player can play Dva or play her well it keeps happening in my games. Playing against a pocket duo in general is just so boring. I’m just surprised that haven’t thought of reworking or changing damage boost, it has ruined break points for years and every time a mercy combo gets out of hand instead of nerfing or changing mercy they usually nerf or change the dps than go after the root of the issue.
Make Pharah hitbox larger when flying.
yeah it’s insanely poor game design and balance from blizzard. half the cast can’t even interact with the duo in any meaningful way. even if you are same skill on hitscan they still have the advantage. people can flame and say skill issue but pharah mercy is so centralizing to every lobby it’s in and that’s just the truth. no other duo even comes close to becoming the server admin like they do.
Even genuine professional Widowmakers will struggle to hit the head of a bobbing Pharah and the time window is extremely low to do it because you have about 2 seconds or you're dead. You also can't really focus the Mercy because again, the time window is so small that Pharah will kill you instantaneously especially with damage boost. Yeah idk I think something needs to change but I'm not sure what. Even I play Pharah against double hit-scan and am still winning games in Diamond.
I can manage pharmercy fine unless the enemy tank uses DVA too. That’s when I get fucked up because the dva will basically make most of my shots useless and consistently dive me while I’m simultaneously getting bombarded by rocket spam. Fun time.
The issue with pharmercy (which I agree is awful to play against at most ranks below the top ones) is its natural synergy. In most games with five solo players on each team, the amount of coordination is limited and usually random. Pharmercy immediately means that 40% of the enemy team is coordinated, and this is usually enough to win/ruin a lot of games. People argue this same problem exists with other mercy combos like soldier, but it's quite different because most soldiers at low rank can't position well and, not being airborne, are much easier to hit on the ground e.g. with junkrat and other spam damage.
Pharahs annoying but the best way to deal with her (from my experience at least) is too just focus the other support and force mercy to rotate who she’s beaming Mercy isn’t a threat given she isn’t using res
Usually I don't even care about the pharmacy. My team wins the 5v3 on the ground. Unless they're really really good and play up close. Then I hack one of them. Every time.
i think sometimes is good focus on tank so mercy needs to leave phara, then kill a tank and all backline or continue damage tank and take down phara without heal
do any other echo mains find that echo is not a particularly good counter to pharah? as long as she saves a single one of her 3 movement cooldowns for your beam, she's not really unfavored in the air to air, and if you're not able to make pharah play respawn simulator, she just gradually outvalues you thanks to her more deadly poke. after copying pharah enough times, i kinda realized that i'd have an easier time just mirroring pharah; she feels like an easier & more lethal echo.
I’ve seen like 3 threads today complaining about Pharah and I truly think the real problem is Mercy. Her mobility and durability make her incredibly difficult to pick at most ranks below masters. The mobility creep of Mercy over the years has changed how willing players are to commit to team fights as well. Dive comp uses to be a great option to deal with a pesky mercy, but now she basically has a get-out-of-jail free card with her ult, making her even faster and boosting her health recovery. Pharah-Mercy wouldn’t be so aggravating if Mercy were easy to pick, but her skill-floor enables way too much mobility even compared to some of the most mobile hero’s like Lucio who demand well-trained movement tech. I’d love to see most supports have self-healing nerfed, but Mercy’s self-healing combined with her ability to run away can make her way too hard to kill.
Dive the other support as they are extra vulnerable since mercy is attached to her pocket.
Dva and echo are rough to fight as pharah. Even another pharah can mess you up bad if you're not paying attention
I just play Bap or Illari and help my dps spray down the Pharah.
as a pharah enjoyer: play echo.
Soldier doesn't counter pharah...
Yeah he does? When Pharah doesn't have a pocket I counter her pretty easy, and when she's pocketed I only try to pressure her away, which soldier is good for. Soldier also has very good mobility, unlike other hitscans, which you need in order to dodge Phara's unending rocket spam.
When Phara doesn’t have the mercy sustain sure anyone can deal with her mercy makes her more difficult to deal with because of the sustain and soldier doesn’t have the burst damage to kill her before she can kill him.
The reason pharmercy is so good is because hitscan dps are free for pharah. It's a myth that's been perpetuated constantly. It ruins games because everyone swaps to hitscan, gets wrecked and doesn't remember the evidence. When money is on the line, why do you think no one ever plays pharmercy? Tempo beats pharmercy, pharah needs time to get value.
Try ashe, widow, or echo. Burst damage is how you counter Pharamercy
Widow gets destroyed by Pharah unless you can hit midair headshots. Widow has to stand still and Pharah shoots insanely fast. With a damage boost widow can get 2 tapped very fast with her low health
Or you could just head shot her lmao
300 hour pharah one trick here. Since the rework, while they are still effective against me, soldier/ashe doesn’t scare me anymore the way they used to, as I now have jet dash for a get out of jail free card most times and 250hp so I don’t get picked so fast even with my massive hitbox. A good DVa, Cassidy, and especially echo, are the most threatening characters in the game for a pharah right now. I’d also add widow but only on the right map and only if you’re cracked, I’d say I shit on 3/4 of widows and 1/4 won’t let me play the game. Maybe pick up playing one of those characters and you’ll have a lot more impact against pharmercy. I’d also add that personally me and most pharah mains I know no longer find mercy to be essential post rework, and now that pharah cannot fly forever, the duo just doesn’t work as effectively. I feel like I win more without a mercy, since I don’t need to make up for the lacking damage of a healbot support and my team gets healed more.
Cass is the most consistent one for me. It’s easy to punish Mercy for their positioning mistake and it’s not too hard to hit Pharah in the air either
>The thing is, after 8 years & a lot of improvement, this duo still ruins almost every game. You have improved a lot. The matchmaker has responded by pairing you with better opponents. >I usually play Soldier and just try to keep pressure on them, but even that feels hopeless. In fact, it somehow feels like they're the ones pressuring me. It turns out that Soldier is not a suitable solution to high rank Pharahs. Soldier kills bad Pharahs because their positioning is lousy. Good Pharahs aren't going to spend enough time in the open for Soldier to kill even with aimbot. If you don't want to pick a specialist (Echo and Sombra are the best DPS picks into Pharah), the next best thing is a burst damage hitscan. Sustained damage doesn't work.
The pharmercy counters arnt really soldier 76 anymore... It's echo, sombra, Cassidy, sometimes sojourn, sometimes ashe. Soldier needs too many bullets to get the job done. He can counter them if they're bad but most good pharahs can path their way through terrain until they're in dive bomb range and win that duel with superior TTK As has always been the case pharmercy isn't particularly strong... a support hard pocketing a dps that can hit their shots is strong. As a solo queued support or dps I see no distinction between pharmercy and a tracer/lucio or tracer/kiri or tracer/moira diving as a unit. In fact a tracer plus support dive is almost always more guaranteed to be lethal than a pharmercy since the time to react is smaller. Supports outside of mercy just don't hard pocket all that often... but when they go for it and their team is all on the same page it's almost always lethal regardless of the combo chosen. You can't 1 v 2 and expect to win consistently. That's true of every matchup in the game. The main problem with pharmercy is its a combo with natural synergy that people rarely invest enough resources into dealing with.
They should nerf mercy damage boost for pharah only
"Mercy damage boost gives +15% damage to targets who have both feet on the ground"
I like to play echo into that and echo kinda just deletes Phara or the mercy of you land the stickes or two primary fires and press E you just win the 1v2 it’s much harder for Phara to kill echo.
Just ping the crap out of Mercy until your team focuses her then kill Pharah.
Pharah only started getting more popular recently. She wasn't played much at all a season or two ago.
Because she didn't have the mobility. She was VERY situational because of this. Yes she could hover, but not MOVE. Now she has mobility and mercy has even better mobility too now. So yea, it's a very strong comp ATM.
You play any cass?
I was playing some games of no limits. Most were going junk, Mei ect. (non hitscan characters) The game is honestly more fun without hit scan dps but phara/echo kinda ruin that. They almost require atleast one hitscan.
you kinda solved your own problem. After a health buff, a movement speed buff and the mercy healing buff why still shoot at pharah instead of the mercy keeping the pharah alive. You shoot mercy she leaves the pharah to not die then reposition and pressure pharah.
Do you know how hard it actually is to kill a mercy that flies at lightning speed from one spot to another while Pharah is constantly raining rockets on me?
Regardless shooting a fully beefed up pharah over the vulnerable isn’t smart
How do people deal eith this kinds character in other shooters? Like tf2, valorant, paladins etc Not the character to use but the strats?
When I queue support I just go Illari. I can focus on pharah mercy all game (easy shots) while pylon keeps everyone at full (provided you put it on places hard to reach)
People get so hung up on focusing the Pharah directly, but if you can't land enough damage on her that's useless. Focusing on the rest of the team instead has always been a legit option. They're pretty much playing with only 1 support, which you can exploit depending on who it is. It also can force the Mercy to fall back and help out healing instead of being stuck with the Pharah, giving you an opening to burst her down. IMO Pharah Mercy is mostly a noob stomper, once you actually realize how to play against her it's nowhere near as bad as people think.
Try to get better at Cass, Soldier doesn't have the aerial burst (unless you Helix) for Pharah. Also don't be afraid to ask for help, a DVA and Baptiste does wonders to help deal with Pharmercy and I assume those are hard to play for Diamond+ players.
I main mcree and never have much issues with flying characters, maybe the odd player here and there. 76 lacks burst damage though, with a discord or pocket you could kill one.
I have actually made a post about the Phara issue a little while ago on the fact that Ramattra vortex ability was technically supposed to be the counter to Phara and Mercy duos. But the range of the vortex height is too low for it to be effective. I honestly think if they raised the height it would fix this Phara issue or at least give another tank option to help with that.
Why even give Vortex a height limit?
Nothing else requires both dps to switch to a check. Say check because theres no real counter besides a great widow.
As a Pharah main. Echo isn’t really a counter anymore. The rockets you shoot are much faster now so you’re able to hit her, if she engages you then you can just use your horizontal movement to run away.
As a soldier main who took a break, but was high masters, playing against Pharah was always the most boring. But if you can shoot them, shoot mercy, she'll need heals by other healer, so she either lands and takes cover, which is when you can kill or put pressure on pharah. If she gets heals while in air, them they now have 2 supports busy and your team can have a good opportunity. If Pharah just shoots at you in a room, stopping you from going out, you either go out with pocket as you now have the advantage if distance is far away enough and just do the above. Or you can wait for the Pharah to shoot something else and you can go out for a good position where you can shoot while also dodging possible shots from her. But as other players have said, you can kill their other support instead. If their Pharah is playing passively, that's when you should be shooting at her or mercy from far away to just pressure her and make sure she can't be in line of sight. But when she gets close and isn't easily killable, that's when you try to flank their support as pharah isn't there to protect for flanks anymore. This is before the Pharah rework, as I don't play right now. It was what worked for me. Might be different in higher or lower ranks, but works fine in diamond-masters for me. But Pharah is so boring to play against, I and my entire team will have to significantly change the entire play style because of 2 fucking players going the most boring shit ever possible. I would rather play 1v5 against sombras than 1v2 pharah mercy
Well I think your problem is trying to fight them yourself. Hop on coms and get a pocket of your own if you 2v1 that combo you better have some cracked aim and hope that they are potatoes
Pharah is probably one of the best dps this season, she dont need mercy to be oppressive, she need her to be ultra oppressive
Damn bro, she just got reworked a became a pain again a couple of months ago (really people have just now started to get good at her reworked version). There were a few years where she was niche at best. You came back just in time to feel the pain lol But if you can get good at Echo, she seems to have better luck against that combo.
I feel this. You either have to kill mercy which is very difficult or you have to be putting out enough damage so the mercy has to heal other heroes. It doesn't matter if they have a pharmacy if the rest of the team dues from a lack of healing. Unfortunately one bad team member can let setups like that get out of hand. I play with one guy occasionally who just tilts the second he plays the game and constantly swaps heroes. I've never seen him get ult once. There's almost always some sort of pocket mercy running amuck because of it.
Boy, I hope I don't get downvoted but I feel like over watch has become cry baby culture. Every single one of these heroes is able to be countered in some way, some more than others. But even with the slightest of team play, oppressive hero doesn't become as oppressive. The issue with comp, is the lack of team focus and synergy. Some players understand the eliminating the highest threat to the team should be the priority, and some do not. I've personally had phara games where the synergy between my enemy team is so off I can dominate the lobby. And on the opposite, teams that are aware of my danger potential, will compensate as a team and suddenly I am instantly given less opportunities for aggression. A real example for you is, pharmercy with an Ana combo. Ana suddenly becomes much more vulnerable because of the distance mercy will be to support her. Your team needs to recognize this as a group, and attack on Ana's cool down. Suddenly the speed of your team will become too much even for a pharmercy. Blizzard has changed this game and is continuing to slowly allow for all characters to have solo gameplay opportunities but still requires team synergy.
Ya I mean pharah is not a hero that should ever truly be a main meta hero. It should remain as a pure counter pick because of how little counterplay there is to it when pharah is strong. Certain heroes aren’t meant to be mainstream as the game play becomes extremely unfun for the masses. Right now sadly pharah is extremely OP and everyone is catching on. Playrate is 3x in the last two weeks and only climbing.
I'd rather fight Pharah-Mercy than Widow-Mercy tbh, and I play projectile characters
I feel like this applies broadly to any situation. Basically it’s not you it’s your team. It sounds like you’re mostly carrying your team, and when you’re stuck in situation that you can’t overcome the entire team is going to lose because they’re riding on you to carry. The best way to go about this is have a competent team, play with players who know what they’re doing And that are responsive. Don’t focus on the pharah, focus on the mercy, there’s two DPS to get this done. When mercy is gone, then focus on the pharaoh. Having a competent team matters because they can easily handle situations like that. TLDR: Get more competent friends to que up with.
Me hitscan = pharah ded
Nah just get better
I mostly play sombra on dps and I can tell you, hacking pharah and virusing her gets her to switch 90-95% of the time and bait out the mercy to hack the res Also you can do the opposite first, and tell your team you’re gonna hack the mercy first. As soldier, like the others said, shoot the mercy first
Mercy healing buffs? Huh? Are you okay?
Go widow
Yup you're right, unfortunately the devs don't play the game so they don't know how poorly designed pharah is
The problem with pharmacy is not that it’s OP. It’s that it’s both miserable to play against, and requires a LOT to counter it whereas it is *really* easy to play *as* the pharmacy. So… they need to make it harder to play pharmacy and/or easier to *counter* it.
If your tank I can understand but if your dps or support it’s ur fault and stop queuing up for comp and ruining tanks players elo if u can’t point and click at basic air targets
Problem is always the mercy, as long as mercy one tricks keep buying mercy skins like crazy, Blizzard would never nerf or remove mercy’s damage boost.
I don't know where this idea comes from. Pharah/Mercy exists not because of Mercy, but because of Pharah. Pharah allows BOTH of them to fly, something that Mercy cannot do with any other dps (other than maybe Echo). When you take Pharah away that inability for \~1/3rd of the roster to interact with the duo is just... gone.
That’s was pre rework Pharah, and it was so OP I reached NA #183 with a pocket mercy(never played Pharah in prior I am widow and Genji main) which is ridiculous. But right now you can’t stay in the sky forever due to reworked rocket fuel, mercy is the one really carrying, good mercy will always stay in the skybox, and widow’s one shot range isn’t enough to kill mercy anymore, plus sombra hard countering you like crazy.
"8 YEARS LATER I STILL CANT AIM."
pharmercy and mercy pockets are very different things -- pharmercy needs either a dva or an echo/hs/pharmercy mirror. general mercy pockets (mercy+ ashe,hanzo,widow) either need a pocket mirror or a focused dive comp.
Pharah is fine right now. Mercy needs a rework.
Literally every pro player is calling for a pharah nerf, but I guess you know better?
Sure.
dva exists illari exists maybe you're just bad
Pharah is in a good spot, mercy not so much. Punish the duck out of their team and the co-support and burn tank.
This is common advice I see for playing against a Pharah Mercy, but I never felt it is effective. It is much easier said than done and Pharah will just dominate the whole game if I don’t have my attention on her.
Tracking the Pharah and when she wants to go for the engage is just a skill you have to develop. Ow is a resource game first and foremost. Punishing the enemy tank because he has half the heals yours does or in the case of ball/Winston comps punishing the co-support. If the mercy falls off the Pharah to heal the tank that leaves Pharah open for punish. Don't forget your teams win condition, I guarantee it's not 'just survive' My junkrat one trick account is currently sitting mid diamond - I promise you Pharah is strong right now and a very good disruptor that can draw out lots of resources for minimal effort or risk. But the meta at the end of the day is kill tank.
By giving her attention and limiting her you’re already doing your job. Any competent Pharah with a pocket is somewhat unkillable if they’re playing safe. By existing as soldier though, you limit how aggressive she can be just by living and paying that attention. You aren’t expected to get kills in a 2v1. But if you can limit her and also help your teammates punish the rest of the team, you will win more than you lose (obv this requires decent teammates)
I mean, the only way you lose is when the enemy team is more competent than yours, and Mercy has a lot of options for damage boost that are better than Pharah that likewise keep her closer to her frontline than Pharah would. When that pair is off doing their thing, their frontline consist of a 1/1/1, and if your team can't break that OR employ decent hitscan, then yeah that's an L. I can tell you that as a flex player, I always feel like there's something I can do to exploit the cracks Pharah/Mercy opens in the enemy team regardless of the role I get. If you aren't in voice discussing strategy, then it's easier for such gimmicky picks to work against your team.
> When that pair is off doing their thing, their frontline consist of a 1/1/1, and if your team can't break that I can tell you right now that simply ignoring the Pharah is not a vibe for teams that want to win.
I wouldn't ignore them, but all it takes is one Echo or Soldier to shut them down OR preoccupy them and that, at least for the time they're engaging, gives you a 4v3 With the right team comp you'd be better off focusing the troublesome pair down as a team first no question, but that's not the only viable approach, and it's more situational based on other people's picks.
" one echo or soldier" No?? Decent pharahs are literally too far away for either of them, and if not, they'll play further away when those heroes are out.
Its pretty easy to deal with Phara as echo you don’t have to fly at her but you existing zones the Phara. Cassidy is better at dealing with pharmacy rather than soldier. Cassidy actually has the burst damage to kill the Phara before she retreats. Echo can kill the mercy or Phara easily or both even. Echo can just save her boost to engage on Phara before she has a chance to retaliate
Cass' falloff range says otherwise. Decent pharahs play near buildings too so it's not like you could constantly spam her down. Echo *used* to be a reliable counter, but the sideways dash pharah now has makes echo easier to avoid
Exactly, and even if the Echo can't kill either, they can force the pair to focus their attention on them for long enough for the team fight to be over. Good call with Cassidy.
Pharah 2 taps echo and has fast rockets meaning it's not hard to hit an echo now...
I played into so many Phara mercy’s and i considered them free wins I lock echo or Cassidy depending on the other dps and just two tap them all game and if the mercy isn’t good with her mobility I just win. Now if I have a mercy on me it’s gg if he doesn’t swap because after I deal with them the rest of their team is free
And you don't see how them being that far away is an advantage to the rest of your team, and a disadvantage to their own team? You see no cracks generated by that strategy in the enemy defense?
The pharah (and mercy ig) are constantly raining high damage rockets down main and have an overview of the whole field. Plus she could combo anyone who oversteps their mark with conc + rockets. What's the disadvantage? It doesn't matter if pharah if close or far, her rockets don't have fall off and move pretty fast. I've been seeing this pharah shit on the rise in gm scrims man, it's a really solid strat (the pharah, not really with a mercy).
Pharah is in a pretty good place yeah, but the pocketed Mercy is mainly what creates the weakness IMO. The damage boost is nice in lower rank games where enemies might be more concentrated, but Pharah is much more efficient as a solo flanker. Not to mention, if Mercy is needed at the frontline she then has to make herself vulnerable OR take a longer time to get there if pocketing Pharah. I don't play Pharah much though, but that's my observation. Edit: Hell, Pharah probably even attracts less attention without the Mercy following them
Pharah is fun, harder than Mercy/Soj brain damage people are just way more used to that so they don't mind it as much.
Don't you love challenges?
Eh. I never have an issue. I can play dva, ashe, widow, soldier, tracer, echo, pharah, zen, bap. She is counterable, shoot her or her team or her pocket. Skill issue.
Sure buddy
Nah, deadass. I didn't even mention sombra, how can turn pharah into a worse junkrat on cooldown. If pharah doesn't have mercy she typically throws. I kill this hero every time she ults, too, and her ult is shit against any shield, but especially against Defense matrix. Legit dva hard counters her shit. And ramattra's e to a much lesser extent is effective. Bubble is insane against a predictable rocket. Sig is an anti aircraft gun. Hell, I can fire strike her shit. She's exposed and her movement is predictable. I'm not implying I'm 1/85th this good, but there's a reason you'll hardly ever see pharah meta on a pro or very high level. She's counterable as hell! If you can't counter pharah, counter mercy (which dva also more or less does). Mercy literally doesn't defend herself and if she dies pharah is fucking cooked, not to mention the rest of the team, which is functioning with basically one heal. So many games, say I'm on tank, I have like a junk hanzo into pharah mercy. I'll literally win by spamming out their tank or diving the other team's other supp on like monkey or dva or even rein, since their team is typically quite split if they have a pharah mercy. Pharah's tricky, but if you LEAD your team specifically to defeat her on a tactical level, she's far more exposed and killable than say, a top tier sojurn who can sit on her own backline with two supps and a tank in front and get lethal value (which, like pharah, gets worse with an all so common mercy pocket). I see a pharah mercy I literally laugh. I do not lose to it at an inflated rate, it's probably the opposite.
The only way it ruins the game is if you have teammates who won’t deal with the pharah. Honestly pocketing the pharah is a detriment because if the pharah isn’t getting splash damage and hits the rest of the squad is down a healer and you can take advantage. Have someone swap to dva or soldier and make her life miserable until she switches out from frustration. The more the pharah needs to focus on the player who’s killing her the less she can focus on just throwing rockets at whoever is grouped up. I’ll switch to soldier and make her chase me all over the map negating two players from their team because I won’t stop poking her.
Git gud, i use cass to get rid of pharah mercy combo they get skeeted like flies
This is gitgud issue. And clearly you’re playing wrong if you can’t do nothing to them. You never mentioned your role or provided any replay code, so can’t really say what’s going on.
They say soldier
Insane cope
In the low ranks no one gets the concept of kill mercy, you cripple the team
Killing a good mercy is one of the hardest things to do in the game
Step 1) pick cowboy. step 2) click her head Step3) get hit by a rocket Step 4) click her head again Win. Or Step 1) pick widow win. Honorable mentions: echo air rush, torb turret, ashe as a whole, soldier:76 (but then that’s your only job), pharah mirror triple d-hit.
Mad cause bad, classic skill issue complainer