[Guide] [OUTDATED] Tracer | "The cavalry's here!"

General Discussion
1

❗Attention❗

To mobile users, this thread is best read horizontally.

Greetings everyone, I come back with yet another guide, I am level 58 Tracer and she’s considered my highest level character, and my 1st main right now with 300+ games played and a 54.8% win rate.

In this guide will explain her abilities, her Strength and Weaknesses, talents, builds, counters and giving out some tips on Tracer being self or against.

Introduction:

Tracer is a ranged mobile assassin who can pick off straggling enemies and finishing them off, with her burst damage that comes from her abilities, her ability to attack and move and many ways of escaping, she can be an issue especially to those who are in the backline.

Strengths :fire:

  • Mobility
  • Attacking while moving
  • Can use Recall to overextend
  • Sustained and Burst damage
  • Heroic ability available from the start of the game.

Weaknesses :droplet:

  • Poor wave clear (unless talented).
  • Fragile.
  • Long range auto attackers.
  • CC
  • Poke
Abilities

Reload [D]
Cooldown: 1 seconds

Tracer can Basic Attack while moving, and after attacking 10 times she needs to reload over 0.75 seconds. Tracer can manually reload early by activating Reload.
* Tracer effective attack speed with Reload is basically 5/s

Blink [Q]
Charge Cooldown: 9 seconds

Dash towards an area. Stores up to 3 charges.
* Can pass through Hero generated walls if the gap is passable (Nazeebo’s Zombie Wall, Leoric’s Entomb), but not terrain or structures.

Melee [W]
Cooldown: 8 seconds

Deal 220 (+4% per level) damage to a nearby enemy, prioritizing Heroes. Gain 5% Pulse Bomb charge when using melee against an enemy, and 10% against Heroes.

Recall [E]
Cooldown: 30 seconds

Tracer returns to the position she was at 3 seconds ago, refilling her ammo, and removing all negative status effects from herself.
* Tracer is put in Stasis for 0.75 seconds, removing any applied debuffs and become immune to damage
* Recall destination is revealed both to you and the enemy.

Pulse Bomb [R]

Fire a short range bomb that attaches to an enemy, if it hits them. The bomb explodes after 2 seconds dealing 360 (+6% per level) damage to them and 180 (+6% per level) damage to other nearby enemies.
This Ability is slowly charged over time by dealing damage to enemies with Basic Attacks and Melee.
* Ability available from the start of the game.
* One clip emptied will result in 6% charge, attack speed, damage increase or enemy do not increase the amount of charge you get.

Talents and Builds
Levels Talents
1
1 ✅ ❌ ❓
4
4 ✅ ✅ ✅
7
7 ❌ ✅ ❌
10
10 ❌ ✅ ❌
13
13 ❓ ✅ ❌
16
16 ✅ ❌ ✅
20
20 ✅ ❓ ❌

Tracer Basic Build:

Level 1 4 7 10 13 16 20
Talents
Optional

The basic the simple and the go to build, which focuses on enhancing Tracer’s Sustained damage while still keeping her burst damage and mobility in check.

At Level 4 Parting Gift expands her burst by causing Recall to deal damage to the target, this means you can go to a low health victim, throw a Pulse Bomb , Melee them and activate Recall to deal both damage and recall back to safety, Untouchable is a still a good option as long as you have supports to back you up and while also not dying, do keep in mind this talents value goes to zero if you cannot achieve kills.

At Level 13 Tracer unlocks Ricochet which has a chance of doubling the damage with each attack, this talent when combined with Tassadar will show noticeable healing results for you.

At Level 16 you unlock Locked and Loaded which boosts your sustained damage by 40%, Sleight of Hand is a good alternative as it has good synergy with other talents from other tiers, halving the reload time not only improves your damage per second by 20% but also when combined with Bullet Time , you will get even more Cooldown Reduction from that talent than you did before while also charge your Pulse Bomb much faster.

QM Fiasco/Safe Build 5000™:

Level 1 4 7 10 13 16 20
Talents
Optional

As the title of the build mentions this is a QM build, this build enhances Tracer’s survivability by increasing the ways she can heal while also keeping her burst damage in check.

The biggest talents in this build for her sustain and survivability are:

  1. Is That a Health Pack?! which makes her heal 18% per regen globe (about as much as an Alexstrasza’s Abundance ) and 80% of her health from healing fountains.

  2. Total Recall which restores all health lost in the last 3 seconds, this talent can be optional depending on what the situation needs if you want to really burst down an enemy go pick Get Stuffed! ,

I found this build highly effective when I had games of 5 v 5 assassins or when no supports are available.

NOTE: While it’s true that QM is 24/7 fiasco matches all the time, this is also can be considered a very safe build for new Tracer players.

Talent Tiers Explained:

Level 1:

Talents Description
Pulse Strike Increases Melee's Pulse Bomb charge from 10% to 20% against Heroes.
Splitstream Increases the amount of time Recalled by 1 second.
Tracer Rounds Basic Attacks reveal enemies for 4 seconds.

Pulse Strike is the go-to talent as getting 20% of your Pulse Bomb charge can help her drastically, this talent can charge up your ult much faster by casting your ultimate out then immediately cast Melee for an instant 20% charge, highly recommended.

Splitstream is a meh talent that competes with better talents in the same tier that are hard to not pick, this talent is not as bad as the 1 second could help her restore more health with Total Recall and Recall much safer distance, considering the other two options on that tier, they bring much more to the table, Recall is still powerful regardless if this talent was picked or not and it’s unlikely that you are required an additional 1 second.

Tracer’s Rounds helps Tracer staying on track with heroes who abuse bushes, especially in maps where bushes are considered a lot common, keeping focus on your enemies can make her lose less Sustained damage while also secure kills on those who think passing through the gate means a win for them in surviving that engage, this talent is pretty good against Samuro’s Mirrors and Nova’s Decoys, figuring out the real one can cripple their mind game power by a lot, also somewhat helpful as Nova and Zeratul are going to still be targetable for one additional second after entering stealth, so keep that in mind.

This talent cannot work against Valeera as entering Stealth will cleanse any Revealable effect applied.

Although this talent can certainly help against Stealth based heroes, it is recommended to pick this talent as a reason against heavy bushes map than the latter, if its the latter I would recommend you to go Pulse Strike

Level 4:

Talents Description
Parting Gift Recall leaves behind 3 bombs that deal 240 (+4% per level) damage each to different targets.
Is That a Health Pack?! Increases Regeneration Globe and Healing Fountain healing by 100%.
Untouchable ❗ Quest: Takedowns increase your Basic Attack damage by 2%, up to 30%. These bonuses are lost on death.

Parting Gift , adds damage to an ability that deals no damage, this talent works really great when combined with R → W → Recall to maximize burst damage and committing the final blow on targets who escape on low health.

Is That a Health Pack?! , straightforward it’s a QM talent, it increases the amount of health received from Regen Globes and Healing Fountains to 18% and 80% respectively, this talent can work a lot if you find yourself in a game with no supports or 5 v 5 assassins, however, you should put this into consideration if you find yourself being poked a lot, which is something Tracer really hate.

Untouchable plays a mandatory role in the AA hypercarry build for Tracer, the more it stacked the more dangerous you are, just make sure you don’t die for a stupid reason, if you are uncomfortable with this talent Parting Gift is still a safe bet regardless in increasing your overall burst damage in your combo.

Level 7:

Talents Description
Jumper Increases Blink's charges by 1, but also increases Blink's cooldown by 2 seconds.
Bullet Time Basic Attacks lower the cooldown of Blink by 0.15 seconds.
Spatial Echo Hero Takedowns grant 2 charges of Blink.

Jumper increases the amount of range you can cover with blinks, however, compared to its current state right now vs its previous state, 11 seconds blinks are overkill and cannot compete with talents like Bullet Time .

Bullet Time , adds a passive cooldown reduction by simply attacking anything this means you can restore each charge about ~5 seconds instead of the usual 9 if you keep constantly attacking, helps a lot during a team fight and before a team fight, this talent has synergy with Sleight of Hands on level 16 which increases the amount of Cooldown Reduction you get which results in even more mobility, which causes to generate each blink in less than ~4.66 seconds.

Echo Spatial is a situational talent where takedowns grant you 2 charges of Blink , this talent can work on a dive bomb escape combo where the target you placed the bomb on must die which results in getting 2 charges to use after escaping with Recall , do note that the more kills occur the more Tracer can snowball in mobility which could help her in securing multiple kills or escape after a kill, however its sadly a win more talent, its value is pretty random at best making it very unreliable sadly.

In all honesty, this talent tier has been in a terrible state ever since Tracer was nerfed, making all options pretty bad, one of them are very niche that its value is pretty random, this is why Bullet Time is the only thing I can recommend because its a straight forward increase in your mobility as long as you keep attacking, which is very common.

Level 10:

Talents Description
Sticky Bomb Increases Pulse Bomb's radius by 50% and enemies hit are Slowed by 70% for 3 seconds.
Quantum Spike Pulse Bomb deals an additional 7% of the primary target's maximum Health.
Pulse Rounds Increases Pulse Bomb's range and charge rate from Basic Attacks against Heroes by 100%.

Sticky Bomb adds a 70% slow that lasts for 3 seconds while also increasing the area of effect of the bomb explosion which also causes anyone caught in the impact area to get slowed down, this talent can be useful as a follow up tool or in wombo-combo oriented team, also can delete most squishes who do not react in time with Composition B , sadly this cannot compete with Quantum Spike solid damage increase which helps in getting kills better.

Quantum Spike increases the damage on the primary target which is always going to be the only one who get affected by adding 7% damage of the target’s max life, this talent should be the go-to simply because it boosts Tracer’s damage dealt and improve the ability to secure kills to those who have high health pool.

Pulse Rounds is the safest heroic to choose as it will make it easier and safer for you to apply your Pulse Bomb while also adding a 100% increase in charge rate from attacking enemy heroes, however, YOU ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE IN MELEE RANGE TO DO THE COMBO, therefore this talent is pretty much anti when it comes to how Tracer is suppose to be played, so the range increase is pretty much pointless, and the charge rate despite being nice cannot compete with, you called it! Quantum Spike which gives something overall better.

Level 13:

Talents Description
Bullet Spray Increases Melee's radius by 32%, and causes it to damage all enemies in range.
Ricochet Your Basic Attacks have a 50% chance to hit another nearby enemy, prioritizing Heroes.
Leeching Rounds Your Basic Attacks against Heroes heal you for 20% of their damage dealt.

Bullet Spray should be picked when you are in dire need for wave clear, currently where it stands the other Ricochet bring more to the table especially when it comes to team fights more than this talent does (in team fights), this talent doesn’t give you more Pulse Bomb charge for hitting multiple heroes or non-heroes.

Richochet increases her Sustained Damage potential in team fights by causing it to spread out to other nearby targets, this causes you to have the chance to double your damage per bullet while also give you the safety of poke by attacking minions and causing it to bounce to heroes since it prioritizes them first, this talent has synergy with Tracer’s Rounds , Locked and Loaded , Untouchable but not Bullet Time .

Leeching Rounds , shoot people with gun, you get healed, healing value is pretty garbage you will barely notice a difference and there’s other talents that are more valuable than this one when it comes to sustain and you just can’t ignore the insane damage increase in these two talents competing with Leeching Rounds.

Level 16:

Talents Description
Sleight of Hand Reduces Reload time by 50%. This equals 20% more damage per second.
Focus Fire If an entire ammo magazine is unloaded on an enemy, the last bullet will

deal 94 (+4% per level) bonus damage. This is equal to 35% of the total magazine.
Locked and Loaded Reactivate Reload within the last 50% of its cast time to increase Tracer's Basic Attack damage by 40% for that magazine.

Sleight of Hand is a good option that while it improves the damage dealt, halving your Reload time means you would also improve the Cooldown Reduction you get from Bullet Time and the charge rate of Pulse Bomb .

Focus Fire is probably the worst talent in this tier simply because it has the least synergy compared to the other 2 talents on that same tier while also crippling some of the talents to proc later when combined (Leeching Rounds ), this talent compared to the other two has no synergy with Richochet .

Locked and Loaded improves your damage output by increasing the clip damage by 40% with each successful reload in the last 50% reload time left, this talent boosts her other talents on Level 13 and her Untouchable by a lot, highly recommended.

Level 20:

Talents Description
Get Stuffed! Reduces Melee's cooldown by 3 seconds. Hitting an enemy with Melee

who is stuck with a Pulse Bomb causes the bomb to instantly explode and
knocks the target away.
Total Recall Recall's cooldown is increased by 8 seconds, but it heals you equal to

the amount of Health you lost during that time.
Composition B If you successfully stick a Pulse Bomb to an enemy Hero, you also drop

another one at their feet that deals 50% damage and explodes slightly earlier.

Get Stuffed! is in general a flawless talent for multiple reasons, it increases the charge rate you get from Pulse Bomb with Melee since its cooldown was reduced, has huge synergy with level 1 talent Pulse Strike and finally you can displace your enemy into your team while also remove the damage delay for the bomb to blow up, making countering Pulse Bomb much harder, Medivh players beware! /s

Total Recall adds a heal on your Recall , although the reason I do not recommend this talent because Get Stuffed! has a lot of value to be ignored

Composition B currently valuable only with Sticky Bomb which is a talent you can’t pick due the fact Quantum Spike is just overall better.

In general, this tier suffers the same issues with the other ones, making only one option being viable, its not the issue that the mandatory talent is strong, its the other way around, the other talents don’t give a solid competition to them thus they aren’t recommended to begin with.

But this what happens with heroes with a infinite skill ceiling.

Tips & Tricks

  1. Spam Melee, this ability should be constantly placed on cooldown to charge back your Pulse Bomb, it’s important to have it ready before an objective or a team fight, clock’s ticking.

  2. Conserve Blinks, Tracer power lies in dodging skill shots, positioning and her mobility, spamming your blinks on cooldown will cripple Tracer and get yourself killed, please manage your blinks, same talk with Recall.

  3. There’s a combo that makes Tracer effective especially when executing the dive bomb combo, first thing first is to apply Pulse Bomb, Melee then Recall to safety, do keep in mind that the target should be low health before executing it.

  4. Don’t waste Blinks against AA Heroes to dodge their attacks as they do nothing.

  5. Reload or Hold Fire (Hotkey: H) is a good tool Tracer can use to stop herself from attacking certain targets, this shines the most when you are playing for example against Genji’s Deflect, Zarya’s Shields or Kharazim’s Divine Palm. I would recommend Hold Fire than pressing your trait simply because you will stop from attacking entirely instead of not attacking for 0.75 seconds.

  6. Press your D to be prepared, seriously though why do people engage with a half-empty magazine? What a waste of damage. :frowning:

Tracer Works Well with

  • Any dive based hero is a friend of Tracer.
  • Supports like Malfurion and Whitemane work pretty well with Tracer.
  • Tracer is a good hat target for Abathur.
  • Tassadar, he’s the best heal bot, thank you for picking Khala’s Embrace, Logan :vulcan_salute:

Tracer Countered By

  • Ranged Auto Attackers like Raynor, Zuljin, and Sgt.Hammer.
  • Genji if you don’t understand the tip I mentioned above about holding your fire.
  • Brightwing has multiple useful abilities and talents that could make Tracer’s life a living hell, the talent at level 13 Pixie Power halves Tracer’s burst by a ton.
  • Lili’s Blind Build with Gale Force destroys and puts a lot of pressure on Tracer when trying to engage.
  • Valeera who also cleanses the talent Tracer’s Rounds cannot be removed from Stealth unless dropping pulse bomb (which it has a long reaction time if the Valeera doesn’t engage it’s her fault) and a point and click 2.5 seconds surprise Silence cripples her mobility and put in her a danger situation.
  • Diablo, don’t hug walls!
19 Likes
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Blizzard: nerfs tracer because annoying

Me: :heart_eyes:

Sami: :rage:

7 Likes
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I love that aa tracer is countered by aa heroes

6 Likes
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I’m not mad lol. :sunglasses:

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You can’t dodge what cannot be dodged. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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NJ mate, I must say that this is swell.

2 Likes
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I don’t cry, you cry!!111

2 Likes
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Pick it already :gun:

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I have one criticism.

Well, two.

  1. The images/inserts showing talents and optional talents do not fully show in mobile in portrait orientation.

  2. The build and talent explanations feels really long and like it could be broken up into two segments.

Nice to see… maybe if I keep up my masochistic “I’ma get good at Medivh” and get trust level 3 I’ll try to make something similar…

2 Likes
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That’s, unfortunately, something on HTML5 side, the thread looks fine when reading it horizontally.

If I make the thread for Mobile users the thread will look weird on PC, if I make the thread for PC users, the thread will look weird when reading it vertically on mobile.

Discourse doesn’t support CSS encoding and styling to avoid security breaches in the forums itself.

But thanks for the comment! :slight_smile:

2 Likes
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I am Amazed someone is still so dedicated with the Cavalry that she got a guide. And not just any guide, this guide deserves a cookie or two.

But… isn’t tracer nerfed to death? Rotten somewhere with Valla while spider robots and space cowboys dominate the Nexus?

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Yes, she’s just niche at the moment compared to what she was previously.

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That’s my point. Her niche is that the enemy team has only mages and non-dive tanks with malfurion as the healer.

Noone really plays that kinda comp

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You can deal with Genji, for it you must be very attentive to the moment in which he uses the deflect and to stop your attack, surpassed that genji is a rival to that if you can win. Configuring your keys to stop your attack and recharge is something very useful with Tracer, this as long as you have a good mouse that allows that.

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I assumed as much, thank you for the confirmation.

And, I should note, those are my two nitpicks

Because it is a very good post/thread/etc!

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i find she can still be pretty useful outside her “preferred” situation. it just requires a lot more reliance on your team to put pressure on that enemy raynor or varian, and much more opportunistic play on tracer’s part, waiting in the wings & watching for vulnerable targets to pounce on (rather than the ideal of “no one can touch me so i’m gonna spend the entire teamfight in the enemy’s backline”)

i’m quite a fan of allied imperiuses; that dude can create some great opportunities by skewering enemies tracer can’t otherwise get close to

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Tracer simply need divers to work and constant healing to feel more bearable against her counters.

18

Nice guide as always :heart:

Can I just say something? Parting Gift is used to add burst to her dive combo (blink²³²³ R W E). It’s to make sure that target dies. I can’t tell how many times I got kills because of it. And people usually don’t go untouchable cause you will probably die the higher level you go, so it’s really risky. It’s fun for QM though.

2 Likes
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You.

Come here.
It waits for you.

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It worked before the nerfs but ever since the dive bomb build died this talent is pretty meh, especially with Jumper, 11 seconds blink charge vs Bullet Time 5 seconds (4.66 seconds with Sleight of Hand on level 16) blink charge vs Echo Spatial 2 blinks per kill up to 10, Jumper cannot compete with the other 2.