Personally, I feel she’s beyond underwhelming against the current tier of assassins, or ranged carries. She is wholly ineffective against tanks, and easily peeled out of a back line–unlike Genji, whom she shares a lot of functions with.
A real issue is that she’s painfully dependent on Quantum Spike to be a real threat, and incredibly dependent on Get Stuffed! to prevent a full counter to her burst late game.
I actually like the concept of Composition B and her alternate level 10 talents, but again, she sacrifices far, far more than she can ever gain by giving up Get Stuffed! and Quantum Spike. GS! has the added benefit of reducing her Melee cooldown by 3 seconds, which is a huge buff to her wave clear, particularly with Bullet Spray.
Anyway. Her talents are too narrowed. I think her first version with a +1-2s nerf to Blink cooldown would be easier to balance around. It was lower DPS on auto attacks, and they reign in burst. She’s just become too easily countered due to being far too squishy and low throughput damage overall. I’m pretty sure I’ve never beaten a Cho’Gall with her after her final two sets of nerfs following the damage shift into her autos (at the cost of burst, HP, and mobility).
I just have to say, you gotta try Sticky bomb + Composition B, it is such an insane power-spike, and I truly think its under-rated.
The combo practically guarantees that you hit both bombs, and the radius is so huge and 2 bombs lying in the ground you will almost always hit 2-4 of their team members, and that 50% slow is straight up CRIPPLING.
As for pre-20, I like to initiate fights with pulse bomb rather than disengage with it, you’d be surprised how free it is doing damage to a target that’s slowed by 50%.
I really implore you to give these talents a second shot, my experience with tracer became so much better after learning of this combo, especially against teams with little mobility.
I’ll give it a shot, my only problem with what you’re saying is that Tracer’s whole job is to finish off low enemies, not engage and start fights with AoE damage and slows. Perhaps a big bomb with a slow would help that but without Quantum Spike it seems as though your build would be useless until level 20.
Composition B is completely negated if the victim keeps moving regardless of hero type, maybe true with bigger hitboxes but that’s pretty much it.
Also its a 25% increase in damage unless the victim is to stupid to move out of the second bomb’s main area and take 50% extra damage instead, get stuffed is too good to avoid because its instant, improves charge rate and has zero counterplay, oh and also knocks enemies away, maybe even an improving kill securing.
I’d say 1 is a very sad talent tier, and personally I think 7 is pretty sad too.
I disagree.
Survival talents can work quite well on damage dealers, especially ones that are mobile and may not be near the support to receive healing.
Also it saves your support from spending mana on you anywhere near as often, and can keep you going for rotations.
And can make Tracer capable of solo laning against heroes like Thrall as long as you are careful to steal his globes as much as possible and pay attention to his need for mana instead of jumping the gun.
Not the way I play her. Her basic attacks very much are her primary source of damage.
Unlike your approach which relies entirely on her bomb and recall, my approach involves shooting the tank or whatever is out of position while sticking with your allies. Then diving in for the kill secure when the opportunity is right, not unlike Greymane.
Untouchable is generally bad because you shouldn’t be getting that many kills, if everyone is playing decently. They need to make it more like how they changed Greymane’s Wizened Dualist.
For the same reason Untouchable is bad, Bullet Time is good. Kills should be few and far between unless people are playing poorly. I don’t like to count on that. Also, as I’ve said I auto-attack a lot with her.
I can never justify taking Spacial Echo.
Don’t be in the middle of the enemy team shooting unless your team is threatening them so heavily that they’re falling back.
That’s part of my reasoning too. And 2 Pulse Bombs do more damage than 1 with 7% max health, but there is a lot of time between so it doesn’t directly make up for it.
It’s just a more sustained playstyle.
I think 13 is a decent tier all around. I tend to prefer Bullet Spray, but there are situations where the other 2 seem like good picks as well.
He was going to do that anyways, so really you’ve negated some of the damage over time from his W. You’ll only get value out of it if you auto-attack frequently.
Yeah that one is pretty bad. Sleight of Hand lets you charge Pulse Bombs faster, Locked and Loaded just does more damage.
It needs to do something else like a mini-stun on that last bullet or something. So it’s not just a race to see which talent does the most damage.
Switch Bullet Spray (LvL 13) with Pulse Strike (LvL 1 )
Sure. You loose a lot of Bombs in the early Game for some Wave clear.
But ! you also get finally a interesting choice for LvL 13
Either Ricochet or with PS more Bombs.
So you can adjust your Gameplay a bit more on demand.
Another thought would be (but sadly and likely a bit too OP )
Give Slipstream a Funktion, which reduce the CD of Recall.
May it be by AA=0,025 Seks … or a Takedown reduce it by 12 Secs.
This would also make the LvL 20 “Total Recall” a viable Option.
But as sayed.
This could be to fast way to powerfull and dominant !
@Fawxkitteh: I will add this to my original post but I did make a comment earlier that all of what I’m saying is from a QM perspective as that’s all I play and what the vast majority of current HotS players play as well.
From a controlled, competitive environment I think Bullet Time and using more basic attack focused builds as apposed to just bursting one target can definitely be more viable because it’s rare that many kills are happening throughout the course of a HL game.
I also said in earlier comments that I have slightly come around on Is That a Health Pack?! It may not be absolute garbage but imho you get more value out of Parting Gift in QM and dare I say HL as well because those games will always have a healer.
@Balbero: I think that is an interesting idea but Slipstream already used to reduce the CD of Recall by like 4 or so seconds and it was removed. I doubt Blizzard will give her 2 CDR talents based on basic attacking since she already has Bullet Time, but it could be interesting. I believe reducing the 8 second cool down increase to 4 seconds could help Total Recall but Get Stuffed would still be the best talent at 20, hands down.
Have to throw it out but Recall is already powerful, small buffs like those for Slipstream where it gets cooldown reduction would be really something but not a healthy option of course.
Considering how cruddy Genji is with siege, Tracer at least has a aoe melee talent at 13 that helps that along. I like her kit tho and I see a lot of Tracer players doing well for her, I think shes in a good place right now.
The dedication that went into that introduction though, makes you out as someone who lives and breathes Tracer, so any1 in that position can make the same arguments about improving said favorite character.
I agree. I think adding the functionality of a constant visual indicator to where you’ll be Recalling to, coupled with the increased rewind time of 1 second could actually make this competitive with PS. Sure, you’ll have fewer bombs but you could potentially pull off some crazy plays and never wind up somewhere you don’t want to be when you Recall.
Yes I’m aware, it also shows you where you’ll land but only after you’ve pressed E. What I’m suggesting is a constant visual indicator that you can see at all times. Like I said in the original post, think Ekko from League of Legends.
I disagree. All it would do is provide great value to a good Tracer who is constantly paying attention to where her E will take her while being a garbage talent for Tracer’s who are new and feel overwhelmed with her fast-paced play style. It doesn’t have to LOOK like the Ekko ability. Even having a small circle on the ground at all times would be invaluable to a talented player.
Honestly Recall talents are single handedly between the line of being OP with a small change, if splitstream is going to work I believe it needs a cooldown increase IF it’s going to get CDR from AAs, you know, a penalty that forces Tracer to attack heroes to get real value out of it charging back real fast. Just an example.
