One-Two Punch: Great pick in many games, hard to use into heroes who punish you getting up close (like Varian, Uther).
Parting Gift: I made a video about how I didn’t like Parting Gift before, and IMO it’s still bad for many of the same reasons, even though it’s been buffed & moved from level 4 to level 1.
Tracer Rounds: Good in games where you need to keep your distance and get Basic Attack value, also (I forgot to mention this in the video) great when fighting in and around bushes/corners a lot, such as on Dragon Shire and Battlefield of Eternity.
Level Four (4)
Leeching Rounds: Still garbage. There isn’t really a situation where you have a lot of blinks available AND need to lifesteal AND can do it on Heroes (which is the only type of unit that Leeching Rounds affects).
Pulse Generator: Can basically be considered an instapick in solo queue. There are some niche scenarios for the other two I can think of, but they pretty much don’t apply at all to the vast majority of normal games, and even to the vast majority of coordinated games. Gives you the necessary self-heal and mobility that you need, especially after Bullet Time (7) going away.
Is That a Health Pack?!: I can see some niche application when going ults other than Pulse Rounds (10), but just like Leeching Rounds (4), this is a super specific scenario that doesn’t have any bearing on normal play, and would probably necessitate its own video.
Level Seven (7)
Sleight of Hand: I used to say that you only pick this if you’re learning Tracer or just can’t hit Locked and Loaded (7), but the gap has thinned a LOT post-rework. Now, Tracer has much more incentive to spit out a lot of Pulse Bombs for Pulse Generator (4). At this point, I’m not 100% sure if SoH or L&L is better.
Focus Fire: Still bad. Some people like it because it scales with Attack Damage boosts, such as from Untouchable (13), but this just doesn’t really beat Locked and Loaded (7). You still end up with less damage for a lot of the game, Focus Fire’s damage doesn’t Ricochet, and it’s inconsistent.
Locked and Loaded: Great choice as usual, not much to say about it. I’ve been going it in most of my games.
Level Ten (10)
Sticky Bomb: Could be useful to use Tracer as setup CC for teammates, such as with Sulfuras Smash, but not really relevant in solo queue play.
Quantum Spike: Could be useful in a coordinated setting for games where you’re looking to instantly delete people with your team, otherwise nowhere near as good as it was pre-rework.
Pulse Rounds: Fairly safe to call this an instapick in solo queue play. Huge synergy with Pulse Generator (4), giving you more damage, mobility, and self-heal.
Level Thirteen (13)
Untouchable: Great in uncoordinated games, big synergy with Ricochet. Performs super well in your average SL game.
Jumper: Most consistent pick of this talent tier, great in low-takedown games. I often pick this to use the extra mobility to enable me to kite around forever with Tracer Rounds (1) and Ricochet (16).
Telefrag: This seemed decent back when I made my post-rework video, but it hasn’t really panned out. The knockback would likely be more useful if it knocked back further, and possibly if it was on your body when you Recalled instead of your destination, which would give you some level of camp/boss control. With the amount of time that Recall takes you off the map being increased from .75s → 1.25s, Recall now loses you a lot of DPS and counterplaying it is much easier, so spamming Recall isn’t really nearly as effective as it used to be. Not a good pick.
Level Sixteen (16)
Bullet Spray: This talent doesn’t really have a niche. Waveclear will have likely decided the game by now if your team actually needed it, and doesn’t really do a lot compared to the other options. Bullet Spray used to be useful for burst because it guaranteed Melee would damage the correct target, but now it’s outshined by Heavy Handed for this. If you want spread or sustained damage, Ricochet is better. I could maybe see this in a full AoE comp where you have like, Maiev + Johanna and you can double AoE Melee, but it’s very underwhelming.
Heavy Handed: Great in a lot of generalist games, especially for burst or for countering high-armor Heroes. Especially good when paired with One-Two Punch (1) for incredibly-high uptime armor reduction.
Ricochet: Huge for sustained damage, combines very well with Tracer Rounds (1) and Jumper (13) for kiting forever while dealing big damage. Will typically perform well in long fights.
Level Twenty (20)
Chrono Triggers: I thought that this might be decent after the rework, but IMO it’s been a little underwhelming. You feel incentivized to use Blinks at bad times, and sometimes they don’t line up correctly. This might be the pick if you are TERRIBLE at using Get Stuffed! (20), but overall it’s not worth.
Get Stuffed!: Phenomenal pick only limited by your imagination. The extra Pulse Bomb charge is self-heal, mobility, damage. The knockback/instant detonation make you harder to counterplay and give peel, knockback, interrupts, and plenty of other utility. This can safely be considered an instapick.
Total Recall: Still trash for the same reasons as before. Only heals for health you lost over 2 seconds, competing with Get Stuffed! (20). Just doesn’t do enough to be worth.
Composition B: This was already bad pre-rework, now it’s worse. The damage is basically nonexistent, given that it’s half of half damage (25%) on an ability that doesn’t do a lot in the first place. Terrible.
And yes, I think Health Pack only has an argument for being optimal if you are looking to take a different level 10, and the other level 10s are only useful in specific coordinated scenarios. In solo queue I’d pretty much always take Pulse Generator.
I find Tracer relies far and away too much on the crutch of her burst talents now. Her AA build is miserable to play because of Locked and Loaded; and this is the ONLY talent that’s even functional for Chrono Triggers at 20. I like the idea of Chrono Triggers, but it is just worthless without L&L, extremely hard to use on top of L&L already being difficult to consistently use in fights, and forces her to expend her mobility, which is on a long cooldown. Cool concept, but needs an overhaul to even be usable, let alone viable.
Composition B has always sucked for the sole reason that you can walk out of the second bomb. Sticky Bomb mitigates this, but you still lose the center damage. However, it DOES work on Deathwing, as he will suffer both of the center explosions, making it incredibly vicious with Quantum Spike. lmao
Yeah, I only took Composition B recently to show a friend when we were stomping. I didn’t know the talent damage hit everyone inside now; it used to be tied solely to a stick (with the second bomb only capable of triggering on a center hit).
The problem Tracer’s 20s face is that the only two that are reliably useful ones are Get Stuffed! (which can sequenced with One-Two Punch and Heavy Handed) and Total Recall, which really isn’t as good as it used to be due to all of the Recall nerfs and removal of Slipstream on top of it.
Currently, I find Heavy Handed too important to skip for her own damage and team utility, since One-Two Punch is a decent band-aid to her wave clear where Ricochet and (especially) Bullet Spray were once good.
I REALLY want to like Telefrag, but man does it suck.
And Chrono Triggers too.
It’s just too hard to actually get value out of them.
Telefrag should just spawn a Pulse Bomb where you are going to teleport to, exploding just as you pop in. Attaches to any enemy there, and changes your recall destination to their position. Maybe add a micro-stun to Pulse Bomb, 0.25 seconds when it explodes.
I still like Healthpack, even though I know it’s kind of bad. Or at least rather bad compared to the power Pulse Generator brought.
The re-work didn’t do anything to improve her talent picks. She’s back to having a single build with two soft talents.
There was never a time where I even considered Telefrag. I was looking at how some "great"players were evaluating her new talents and thought to myself “What are these guys smoking?”
At this point. I have to assume that they don’t mind Tracer having a single build.
Dropping a Pulse Bomb on Recall wouldn’t be a bad idea, but they’d have to adjust it in relation to damage, and possibly talent effects. Her level 10s, and Parting Gift, would make this overwhelming, but it would be a great AoE-stacked dive in tandem with Bullet Spray and/or Composition B with a manual stick.
However, the flip side is that it’s incredibly high risk to dive like this, given how vulnerable you are after a Recall, but you could give up her offensive 20s for Total Recall.
This would be an interesting idea for sure. On its own, not enough. As additional functionality, might be enough to make it competitive with the options. At that point, I’d worry that the description would be too overloaded, though.
I’m not quite sure what you’re asking here, can you rephrase?
Ehhh, 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16 are pretty much all variable in specific scenarios. In solo queue I’d say 4 and 10 don’t change, but saying she only has 1 build or that her rework didn’t improve her talent tree is off-base.
“One-two punch” gives more value than anything else at Lvl 1. If you’re in a game where you can rarely move in to melee, then it’s a game where you want someone other than Tracer.
Lvl 4 is almost always “Pulse generator” unless you’re in quick match without a healer (Or had BW as healer). That tier used to be almost always “Untouchable” unless you were in QM without a healer (Or had BW as healer). So nothing changed here.
Lvl 7. Is the same no brainer that used to be Lvl 16.
Lvl 10. No change
Lvl 13 used to be always bullet time. Now it’s always untouchable. The passive of jumper seems comparable. But it grants value less often than the move speed. And the shield is too small to make a difference. If you get focused you still die.
Lvl 16 used to be “Heavy handed” automatically when the structure changes made every tower and fort under the sun attack you , even when your target was fairly far from it. It’s now better, and you’ll sometimes want it. But since "heavy handed increases damage from everything. It has a lot of value, and means you don’t need to stay engaged as long. (Though the current anti Syngery with “Get stuffed” is stupid)
Lvl 20 is still get stuffed.
So the talents have changed, but the choices are as limited as before.
