An idea for Tracer’s level 13 Talent: Telefrag

General Discussion
1

With the consistent buffs to this talent since the rework, I think there is one clear conclusion to make: it’s just not competitive enough with Untouchable or Jumper. I really enjoy the idea of the talent but here is my problem with it.

#1: The CDR is only REALLY worth it when you take Ricochet at 16. Otherwise it’s just pretty good and not great.

#2: The damage and knock back on the Recall location doesn’t seem to provide much value. Most of the time, a team who responds well to catching Tracer when she comes out of Recall doesn’t need to be within the range of this effect to catch her out. Most stuns in the game are ranged and I think just about every root can be applied from range. The only thing this sort of counters is a Varian taunt, which just compounds the issue of this being too niche a talent. (But even then Varian can wait out of range and charge in afterwards)

So here’s my suggestion: keep the CDR from AA, remove the damage and knock back on Recalls location, and reintroduce the extension of time that Recall rewinds. Veteran Tracer players will remember an old level 1 talent that gave Recall a static CDR with no requirements, while also causing Recall to bring Tracer back by an additional second or two (I think it may have started at +2 seconds and was later nerfed to +1 some time before the rework).

I personally loved this talent and think that basically bringing it back with an adjusted functionality that the CDR is conditional on AA against heroes could make her level 13 tier a bit more competitive.

Any other Tracer players lemme know what you think!

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2

For telefrag to get more use out of it, i would prefer it if the target location would always be visible. So basicly you get a tracer ghost that moves where tracer used to be 3 seconds ago. This way you can actualy get quite accurate results on your recall.

And because the target location now always is visible, you can also ensure better uses of it as you know where you will land. And this can make you capable of instantly responding to follow up actions.

With the target location being visible, its damage and knockback aspect also would become more reliable, and actualy allow it to be used for telefragging purposes more often (i wouldnt recommend using it for that though, but who knows :stuck_out_tongue: ).

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3

I’ve had the same thought in the past but here are the issues I see: if you’re using recall to do damage like that you are more than likely misplaying and could put yourself in a position where your recall is on cool down when you need it to save you.
Don’t get me wrong this would be super cool and I think seeing her recall location at all times should be baseline, I just think if you want to do more damage at level 13, Untouchable is way more reliable, consistent, and safe.

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4

Do you think that a partial effect of total recall being baseline instead of healing on auto attacks would make her more reliable in combat?

5

Even if I knew exactly where I’m going to be. (Which usually, I do anyway) I’m not burning recall to do some damage.

Whether you pick this talent or not, it’s a bad use of the ability. I’m never using a 20 sec cd escape ability for damage.

That talent is for kamikaze players who just want to troll. That’s it.
Telefrag is a bad talent.

Depends what you mean by partial. And it depends where.

If you make that change in QM, Tracer will go back to being “Hearth back to base,” every 10 seconds unless you have healer.

But total recall gives you back the health you had 2 seconds before. So I’m not sure how you would apply that partially.

6

My point exactly. Which is why I think you could have the 13 tier set up as follows:
Untouchable for damage
Jumper for trading/slight mobility boost
Telefrag for more safely getting out of trouble (with the +2 second rewind time)

It might not make Telefrag a meta talent but at least it could widen the situations in which you could justify taking it.

I actually like this idea the most in concept, but in practice it would crumble to Blizzards Achilles heel: balance.
The problem lies in just how “partial” would partial be? 25% of the damage restored? 50? 75? Some other number in between? Finding the right balance to make it remotely useful would be difficult, if at all possible.

7

What if they made it a baseline quest like ZJ or Jaina?

Hit so many heroes with basic attacks and recall will heal for like 50% of your taken damage.

8

The idea of telefrag is simply put to allow Tracer to recall multiple times in the combat while still has a safety area by knocking back people, the problem with AoE knockback is that its really small that anyone must simply standing on top of it instead.

It allows you to overextend more frequently into the enemy by diving in more due the CDR but this can be done in the same efficiency as going in, throw pulse bomb then blink out or recall to safety.

Telefrag simply put tries to buff an already strong ability when put into practice that has a decent 20 seconds cooldown.

I don’t think giving it static CDR will solve this though, it still struggles from the same case it will previously do so, your target point is exposed it will create a gap between you and the enemy and you sometimes disengage from the fight depending on how it went (e.g you are out of blinks, they are escaping, you recall to restore HP or dodge additional damage).

Currently the most effective cooldown of Recall with that talent is 6.6 seconds (in comparison to rework day telefrag about 9.5~) (combined with Ricochet and already frequently picked talent), clearly by this point forward on an additional CDR is not helping her case.

I think it would be just better to replace it with a completely different functionality or make it (as you said) recall longer and faster (Recall amount increased by 1, recall duration reduced from 1.25 -> 0.75, which is pre rework Recall), would probably make it more of a promising talent as was mentioned in the OP, but I don’t think this will compete as hard as I expect to it to be.

Or bring another blink ability that tries to compete with the other ones, level 13 is mostly her positioning power spike when it comes to her main movement and actually picking telefrag other than these two is very risky, should I remind her main mobility got nerfed due the fact it comes much late (from level 7 -> 13)?

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9

Agreed. With the lowered baseline cooldown after the rework I think static CDR could actually be TOO strong.

Right and that’s if you get every potential Ricochet to bounce to hit an enemy hero for the entire 6.6 seconds, which isn’t always possible. So realistically your Recall will be around an 8-7 second cooldown. Which is obviously better than baseline but imo you have to be super careful with using recall given the the fact that the enemy has more time to react to it and you only get brought back 2 seconds now. So pressing Recall every time it’s off cooldown could be counter-productive.

I doubt Blizzard would make Telefrag completely revert the rework changes with one talent choice, but this would be pretty cool. I like the idea of Telefrag and want to see it kept - but it needs to changed. Maybe an additional second on the rewind and the duration reduced to 1.00 seconds. I’d at least like to test it on the PTR and see if it makes any difference.

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10

Should probably have went into details over Telefrag into Ricochet CDR, oops.

Telefrag with Ricochet pretty much falls under best, average and worst cases, in best case it would be 6.6 at average its 8 ~ 10 and at worst it could be 11 ~ 13 (average and worst cases were not calculated but hope they get the point across), though buffing Telefrag CDR wise will not help in making this more efficient that is promising to choose this is due it allows for a very weird playstyle.

As for whether it would make a difference especially against 2 strong competing talents to pick and choose from (Jumper for more kiting and sustain, Untouchable for damage and movement), it might even give her another build in the process but I always felt like recall as an ability doesn’t need much of additional talents (aside of probably its level 20) as I always seen it as a good ability if used correctly.

also can we mention the name Telefrag? Telefrag is a game mechanic in which anyone who was standing on the teleport location dies immediately upon arrival, pls rename it blizzard :pensive:

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11

I find I get the most value out of it when I’m retreating, or faking a retreat.
It’s really hard to use.

Personally I think it’d be a more interesting choice if it knocked back when you hit recall, dropped an untalented Pulse Bomb at your destination, and reduced the time it takes for her to actually recall so the enemies have less time to react to your location being revealed.
So you could knock people into the Pulse Bomb, and you show up when it explodes.

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12

I like how out-of-the-box this idea is. I’m not sure how effective the pulse bomb at the landing location would be though.

Here’s an idea:

Tracer reveals a small area around her Recall location

How great would that be against someone like Valeera? It wouldn’t have to be a big area. Even smaller than Lunara’s baseline ward would be ok. Just enough to punish greedy Valeeras who stand on top of your Recall circle .

13

I remember watching Dynouh doing a Telefrag + Get Stuffed! combo when her rework came out. It got overly complicated for nothing much, like the old D.Va’s Concussive Pulse + Torpedo Dash into bomb, needing lvl 20 for it to work.

Cool to see, but too unreliable.

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14

Yep. I’ve done a Parting Gift + Telefrag combo a few times. Also interrupted things like Anduins protect ult with it, but what you’re giving up for such a hit-or-miss talent just isn’t worth.

15

I’m not sure if I’m doing it right, but that’s how I remember it.

Once in a blue moon, I can make it… if the enemy kindly doesn’t move.
And, that screws up the Parting Gift value. My God, it’s terrible.

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16

Yeah if you want the Parting Gift to hit and also get its charge value, you have to stand on top of the enemy for two seconds (so that Parting Gift hits AND your Recall lands you on top of them) then you can do your Get Stuffed combo once you come out of Recall.

It’s like my mom always said though:

Too much sugar for a dime

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17

With the newest change for Telefrag I might as well bump this, personally I don’t think this will change much in her situation, sure she is completely unkillable but not damageable.

Especially when recall struggles in poor playstyle and competes with a very superiorly important talents (ironically seeing jumper buffed was a head scratch).

  1. If you are using telefrag to recall out of dive the unkillable is pretty pointless since you are already safe.

  2. If you are recalling to dodge insane damage like pyroblast you could do that if you choke your recall return point by not moving much and use the immunity frames to dodge the pyroblast.

  3. Telefrag also when spammed for the “value” is just odd by itself, as you may end up getting out of position in the process and resulting in missing more kills than getting, telefrag aoe is also still stupidly small so that damage increase whilst promising it won’t do much when people learn that they don’t have to camp the recall point.

  4. Targeted CC is still targeted CC and she’s very much exposed to dying in the process when returning, most CCs are higher than 1 second, even roots are still death.

Also on the other side of speaking on Tracer’s telefrag I may add about Parting Gift since it was buffed, it might be more promising but I am not sure, I gave it a few shots today and it just felt awkward to play into like was said before Recall talents promotes poor play style and thus it struggles but to put this into more brighter side:

  • Bombs are unlikely to miss
  • Bombs are likely to hit more resulting in more charges
  • Charge amounts and damage are promisingly good if you are going and leave in a team fight as the slow can help in secure kills or applying pressure but that’s about it.
2 Likes
18

Agree, agree, and agree.

I think a better idea would be 1 second of unstoppable after leaving Recall rather than unkillable. The only potential value you can get from unkillable would be like a li ming doing a quick QWE combo on your recall location. But then of course she’ll just AA you after that 1 second is over, provided you’re not fast enough to blink away. And even if you are, you’re 1hp and literally anything can kill you after that second is over. It’s just a super niche addition to an already niche talent. Either replace it with unstoppable or increase the unkillable window significantly. I’d say between 3-5 seconds otherwise there’s no point to it.

I also don’t think 1 second of unstoppable after leaving Recall would be imbalanced, especially if you just remove the mediocre CDR from Telefrag. Even if you didn’t, over half the roster has some form of self unstoppable so I don’t think it’s too much to ask lol.

And when it comes to Parting Gift: it’s my favorite QM talent because it’s so fun and flashy to get kills with, but One-Two Punch is just way too good not to take especially after the bomb charge nerf.

19

Telefrag relies on tracer being in the frontline longer, which means that her return can potentialy hit enemies, and being able to get quickly out can work for that. This makes this talent better for the less skilled tracers who pay less attention to positioning. And this fix seems bronze suitable.

But on higher skill levels you realy want to save your E for much better situations.

I however think that although its a bad talent for high skill, that we can still make it better usable on lower skill levels. But on that we need to cover the mistake that is usualy going to cause these events to happen:

Tracer is in the frontline, gets damaged, uses blinks to try to get out, then suddenly notices a pyroblast following her. She uses E, and now is in the middle of the enemy without blink charges. She cant be killed for 1 second, but still dies because of being out of position.

For telefrag to work, i would give it some blink charges afterward. This way you can again try to get out.
This however does create a second issue though: higher skilled people will blink in, use E, and instantly have more blink charges to get away. Making this talent even safer for them to use. Making both alternative talents here useless on that aspect.
To solve this, i would make it only recharge some blink charges if telefrag managed to hit a target.

If it then needs a nerf, we can actualy alter many aspects: the damage (tiny adjustment capabilities, damage is not the primary part to take this), knockback range (to make easier hits, and makes this easier to use), the number of charges it returns, the CDR of E tracer gets per AA (or adjusting it to be a diffirent mechanic, or make it a static CD)

At least in this way you can make it useable for the more skilled players aswel, as it allows them to remain on the frontline longer, knowing that proper E timing gives instant charges to get out. Although this is probably down to a risk/reward aspect, as Untouchable is very likely still going to be the more beneficial talent if you can stick that long to the frontline anyway.