Tracer - Ranged Assassin - Overwatch Hero

[xdmemes]

She's not even released yet. Most people do not even have access to her. You're clearly wrong, plus you guys do not even say what is OP. Pulse bomb? Her AA? What?

Most people don't have access to her yet she has almost a 50% pick/ban rate in HL? kk

It's been reiterated multiple times in this thread what exactly is too powerful about her kit. You're free to go back and read. Get back to me in a couple weeks when she gets the nerfbat.

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Tracer actually does pretty low damage, she's great at chase and harass though. I suspect people are finding her OP because she disrupts the existing meta that emphasises high damage glassy heroes.

Though IMO her blink cancelling Xul's root is BS :P

It's not a 'feeling' or that people 'find her op'. Look at the numbers on any reputable logs site - she is OP, and historically every hero that has debuted at such a high winrate has been heavily nerfed. Her blink also cancels a lot of abilities/heroics, not just BP.

[Deleted]

Her win rate will go down 5% when people realize how to play against her correctly.

[Mormolyce]

It's not a 'feeling' or that people 'find her op'. Look at the numbers on any reputable logs site - she is OP, and historically every hero that has debuted at such a high winrate has been heavily nerfed. Her blink also cancels a lot of abilities/heroics, not just BP.

Win rates are meta-specific though.

[ErothTV]

She's not even released yet. Most people do not even have access to her. You're clearly wrong, plus you guys do not even say what is OP. Pulse bomb? Her AA? What?

Mobility.

In general I also find that people need to know how to play against her still and will drop a bit on the win rate. Also I love that some other heroes will come back as a counter.
I rather have a strong hero as Xul / Tracer / Li Ming for new release than a garbage Cho'gall, Lunara or other shit that does not affect the meta at all and is being ignored.

Makes the game so much more fun.

[Lesane]

Kael is right under her, you think he is OP also?

There is still learning curve for people to counter her, currently best counters are Raynor, Kael and Greymane. I'm glad they introduced Tracer since she becomes best counter to Li Ming right now so I can stop keep banning Li Ming every start of the game and focus on more OP map oriented heroes other than her.

Of course KT is OP. If he manages to land Gravity Lapse on any non-tank target it's pretty much over for you. And with the proper build he can try to do that every 8 seconds at the very least.

Tracer actually does pretty low damage, she's great at chase and harass though. I suspect people are finding her OP because she disrupts the existing meta that emphasises high damage glassy heroes.

Though IMO her blink cancelling Xul's root is BS :P

The high damage glassy heroes are the only ones who have any hope of even catching her or doing any damage to her. The beefy targets will just get kited into oblivion.

She's not even released yet. Most people do not even have access to her. You're clearly wrong, plus you guys do not even say what is OP. Pulse bomb? Her AA? What?

Her mobility is too high for the damage she deals. Being able to attack on the move is already a huge plus, and then having 3+ blinks and a time rewind on top of that just makes it ridiculous. I get that the hero is all about mobility, but maybe it's good to have some limits on mobility, or at least have it be more like mobility over time like Illidan and not bursty mobility. Also, being able to recall out of roots is pretty bullshit. I get the idea behind it but it just means that anything that's not a stun won't do shit against her and most stuns are too hard to hit for how mobile she is, and even if she does get hit she will often survive and be able to instantly recall out unless the team was ready to follow up immediately.

Don't have access to her yet, but watched a friend play her and...jeez, how fucking annoying. Like you're shooting paper wads at people that mildly inconvenience them, and on top of that you have to constantly stop and reload?

I dunno, not sure I'm going to enjoy that gameplay at all.

A full clip that she unleashes in 2.5 seconds deals roughly a third to half the health of most ranged characters in the game at the moment and she doesn't have to do stand still for a second to do it. That's not counting any extra damage from melee, pulse bomb or the level 4 bombs.

[xdmemes]

Her win rate will go down 5% when people realize how to play against her correctly.

Everyone said the same thing about Ming and Xul hilariously enough. Care to elaborate? How do you play against her correctly in your opinion?

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Win rates are meta-specific though.

What does that have to do with this discussion? Heroes that are inherently too powerful have very little to do with the meta.

[Deleted]

Everyone said the same thing about Ming hilariously enough. Care to elaborate? How do you play against her correctly in your opinion?

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What does that have to do with this discussion?

I didn't say that about Ming, at all.

[xdmemes]

I didn't say that about Ming, at all.

Good thing I wasn't quoting you then. ??

[caervek]

Her win rate will go down 5% when people realize how to play against her correctly.

Everyone said the same thing about Ming and Xul hilariously enough.

I didn't say that about Ming, at all.

Good thing I wasn't quoting you then. ??

Am I reading this wrong? You were definitely quoting him :S

[Zelendria]

Once released into the general public, and allowed in competition play she would be picked/banned every single time in the current state.

[xdmemes]

Am I reading this wrong? You were definitely quoting him :S

Misread.

Whether or not he mentioned Ming is irrelevant. He's trying to make an argument that was made for other heroes that were overpowered on release but were later nerfed. Same will happen with Tracer - can defend your precious new toy all you like.

[Ballistic]

Misread.

Whether or not he mentioned Ming is irrelevant. He's trying to make an argument that was made for other heroes that were overpowered on release but were later nerfed. Same will happen with Tracer - can defend your precious new toy all you like.

Li ming and Xul were opened to public, Not everyone bought OW you know so you can't land that assumption on Tracer yet.

[Mormolyce]

What does that have to do with this discussion? Heroes that are inherently too powerful have very little to do with the meta.

If everyone is playing a hero that Tracer counters, she will appear powerful.

The high damage glassy heroes are the only ones who have any hope of even catching her or doing any damage to her. The beefy targets will just get kited into oblivion.

You can also just heal/tank through it.

[RH92]

Once released into the general public, and allowed in competition play she would be picked/banned every single time in the current state.

I don't think so, current meta is a lot about map control. Her map control is bad, laning sucks, can't solo camps and has zero utility outside that.

Doesn't it sound similar? I mean, Nova used to delete a Hero in seconds and still everybody ignored her for those reasons. Tracer doesn't have any specific utility she provides for a team, other than the harassment. Well, she might also be good at scouting, but there are Heroes who can be invisible while doing it (Zeratul, who also brings a Void Prison) or doesn't sacrifice their physical presence for it (Zagara, Lunara). In first interviews, Pro players already said she will be most likely picked in situations where there is a obvious weakness in draft she can exploit.

Definitely not a first pick material. You just need a stun, and Muradin, Uther and Kael are already picked a lot.

First ban, okay we may discuss about that, but then again. If you waste your first pick on Tracer, you are most likely letting Illidan into a game with a high chance of not having good counters against him.

[Raugnaut]

Of course KT is OP. If he manages to land Gravity Lapse on any non-tank target it's pretty much over for you. And with the proper build he can try to do that every 8 seconds at the very least.



The high damage glassy heroes are the only ones who have any hope of even catching her or doing any damage to her. The beefy targets will just get kited into oblivion.



Her mobility is too high for the damage she deals. Being able to attack on the move is already a huge plus, and then having 3+ blinks and a time rewind on top of that just makes it ridiculous. I get that the hero is all about mobility, but maybe it's good to have some limits on mobility, or at least have it be more like mobility over time like Illidan and not bursty mobility. Also, being able to recall out of roots is pretty bullshit. I get the idea behind it but it just means that anything that's not a stun won't do shit against her and most stuns are too hard to hit for how mobile she is, and even if she does get hit she will often survive and be able to instantly recall out unless the team was ready to follow up immediately.



A full clip that she unleashes in 2.5 seconds deals roughly a third to half the health of most ranged characters in the game at the moment and she doesn't have to do stand still for a second to do it. That's not counting any extra damage from melee, pulse bomb or the level 4 bombs.

Tracer has to reload every 1.25 seconds, not 2.5 seconds. She fires a salvo of ammo ever 2 seconds - 1.25 seconds to dump the ammo, another 2 seconds with Reload. Not counting in Reload, she has the highest auto-damage of all heroes, at 232 dps (TLV, the second highest, has a combined 227 baseline dps). However her auto-damage drops down to 145 dps when you count in reload, hitting 10th on the baseline auto-damage spot (Below TLV, Butcher, Tychus, Valla, Raynor, Thrall, Falstad, Rexxar, and Worgen Greymane)
Of course, she does have some benefits that the other heroes do not - She can continually move while firing (A trait that the other auto-heroes lack), she has high mobility (Something that, again, a number of heroes lack. Tychus can get something similar to this, but only at 20, and its not as good as Tracer's baseline), and she has root/slow/dot/debuff cleanse on a 20 second CD (Since EVERYONE is picking Total Recall).

Finally, for burst, she has two abilities - Melee (Should be renamed) on an 8 second CD, dealing 265 baseline damage, and her ult, dealing 444(222 AoE) baseline damage, with a variable CD (Testing on a target dummy, I could get it down to a 10 second CD with Pulse Strike, Pulse Rounds, Sleight of Hand, and Get Stuffed, using 2x Melees in the process. So, since you won't be taking Pulse Strike, and you probably can't hit with melee every time it comes off CD, lets say that it has an ~25-30 second CD on average).

A few extra notes

Parting Gifts fires a weird skill shot - Something like a triangle, with one of the grenades going to whereever Tracer is facing, and the other 2 forming a triangle to that grenade. If enemies are not in the way of those grenades, they won't deal damage.

Richochet shots do NOT count towards Ult charge, so its not 50% faster ult charge in situations where you have multiple targets to hit. Similarily, Bullet Spray counts whatever gives you the most charge when hit - if you hit a hero in a minion waves, you get 10%(15% with talent), if you hit all minions, you get 5%. So, no, you can't get an instant pulse bomb by picking Bullet Spray/Pulse Strike and hitting 7 heroes.

A bit more precise calculations (Just a bit more precise) - A full salvo of ammo grants ~4-5% charge per salvo, with a guaranteed 12% if you pick Pulse Rounds at lvl 10. Given that a salvo lasts for 2 seconds, with just auto-attacks, it'll take ~40 seconds to charge up pulse grenade without any talent support/melee, and ~17 seconds with Pulse Rounds/no melee. So she can use her ult fairly often.


So, Tracer. Strengths - Can utilize ult from lvl 1, given considerably burst in early team fights. Extremely mobile in the form of instant mobility. Can't be kited, can't be disengaged from. 20 second cleanse vs all non-stun/stasis/polymorph effects. Disregards block-type talents. Has a small amount of burst capability with Melee/Ult.

Cons - Extremely weak to Imposing Presence. Lacks lane clear of any sort until lvl 13. Due to Reload, suffers severe diminished effects from attack speed boosts compared to most other heroes (I.E. 25% attack speed boost on Tracer is not a 25% auto-attack boost like you find on nearly all other heroes). Lacks CC. Has low sustain until lvls 20. Has fairly low sustain damage on paper. Talents boosting her auto-damage is not as strong as similar talents for other heroes. Only has a 10% giant-killer attached to a lvl 10 ult talent (Which, imo, is the worse of the lot, given that it both requires you to sticky a target for it to work, whereas Sticky Bomb adds a slow and greatly increases the explosion radius, and Pulse Rounds allows for significantly more usage of the ult, and increases the range to stick it.

If you take a Tracer vs Valla, for instance, both at the same lvl, same health, same skill lvl, Valla should win EVERY time, unless Tracer has her ult up. Note, however, that Valla can't run from Tracer, so if Valla should lose for whatever reason, she can't disengage.

Overall, I do not see Tracer changing the meta in the long run. At most, people will pick heroes with stronger CCs when faced with Tracers, such as Muradin, Diablo, ETC, and possibly Rexxar, who actually counters Tracer quite well imo.

[Deleted]

Win rates are meta-specific though.

Pray tell, which QM meta exactly pushes her winrate to 63%+ there? And what other meta would bring it in the 47-53% range without nerfs? Enlighten us...

Definitely not a first pick material. You just need a stun, and Muradin, Uther and Kael are already picked a lot.

No, you quite clearly don't need *a* stun. You need to keep her stunned from 100-0, or from current health to 0. That means several timed stuns. If you stun Jaina or Zagara and bring her from 100-40, she dies one second later. If you bring Tracer from 100-1, she blinks away.

[RH92]

Pray tell, which QM meta exactly pushes her winrate to 63%+ there?

Her success in Quick Match is more about Matchmaker to be honest. If a Matchmaker doesn't give your team a stun, all you can do is pray for a bad Tracer player.

Sure it is part of a game, but it is not as relevant as Team League or even Hero League. Tracer thrives in games without stuns or healers.

No, you quite clearly don't need *a* stun. You need to keep her stunned from 100-0, or from current health to 0. That means several timed stuns. If you stun Jaina or Zagara and bring her from 100-40, she dies one second later. If you bring Tracer from 100-1, she blinks away.

You can kill her fast enough if you focus her while she is stunned. If you fail to kill her, you basically forced her to use it, which prevents her from aggressively diving again in next 20-24 seconds. Now, I see there is an issue, I already said it myself. If there is anything to nerf, it is Total Recall healing.

Let's not compare Heroes please. Zagara has map vision and game changing Heroic; and Jaina can deal a huge burst every now and then, none of those Tracer can. Different Heroes are different.

[Well]

Her success in Quick Match is more about Matchmaker to be honest. If a Matchmaker doesn't give your team a stun, all you can do is pray for a bad Tracer player.

Sure it is part of a game, but it is not as relevant as Team League or even Hero League. Tracer thrives in games without stuns or healers.

Not to mention that especially in QM, most people simply have no idea about what her skills are and what she does in general. And that is the huge majority.

[Deleted]

If there is anything to nerf, it is Total Recall healing.

Really? Oh well, I guess two can play this game. A character that's completely broken from level 1 obviously doesn't get fixed by changing a level 20 talent. All three level 10 talent choices have >58% WR, all three level 1 talent choices have >58% WR in HL diamond/masters. The basic skillset needs to change: health and/or damage and/or trait.

Not sure why several people struggle so hard to ignore the glaring problems with this hero. It's not that Browder or someone form the balance team reads our posts here and is swayed in one direction or another.

She will get a first round of nerfs with the price reduction and most likely another not too much later. Tracer is a subjectively badly designed and objectively way OP hero.

[RH92]

Really? Oh well, I guess two can play this game. A character that's completely broken from level 1 obviously doesn't get fixed by changing a level 20 talent. All three level 10 talent choices have >58% WR, all three level 1 talent choices have >58% WR in HL diamond/masters. The basic skillset needs to change: health and/or damage and/or trait.

Tracer is incredibly hard hero to balance because of her toolkit. You can't nerf her mobility because it is core of her design. Her damage is not big, she just have a big uptime. Her survivability is tied with mobility and she is already papery enough if you ignore talents.

Now when I am thinking more about what needs nerfing. I personally thing there are two talents that give her way too much freedom, freedom she doesn't even have in Overwatch. I know Recall heals her in Overwatch, but it is a different genre. Deaths and healing simply matter more in MOBAs.

Total Recall at 20 and Spatial Echo at 7 are biggest problems in my opinion. Both these talents are free get out of the jail cards, Total Recall is just way too influential in this game and Spatial Echo is actually preventing team from outplaying her by tracking her position because she just blinks away.