How should I prioritize my teammates when healing as Mercy?

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

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

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

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

Solution 1:

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

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

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

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

Solution 2:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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