Buff Tracer maybe

General Discussion
91

The meta doesn’t really have much relevance to Tracer’s weak state. Goats barely exists on ladder and Tracer should actually thrive against bunker.

The main problem is that the sustain in the game now trumps Tracer’s sustained damage output in most cases. And while Tracer can still sometimes provide decent value with a Winston and/or Zen on her side, the sheer quantity of attacks that can kill Tracer has grown significantly, thereby preventing her from outputting much value per life.

These issues exist independently of any specific meta, so it’s not possible for Tracer to become viable again without buffs, or alternatively–nerfs to other key heroes (most likely supports).

2 Likes
92

Her win rate outside of master / gm has historically been terrible.

It is ONLY in the ranks where goats was a thing that she thrived. Which is the biggest issue with her.

Brig didn’t make her worse outside there in that she was always trash as you went down the ranks.

I’d love for them to fix that.

93

Poor Bastion just needs a rework in my opinion. He’s just badly designed.

94

Tracers isn’t exactly a well designed hero, in that they didn’t give her abilities which made her useful at all ranks, and could balance her win rates at the different ranks by tweaking the abilities which were good at different ranks.

But she was their first hero. So, she has done well for that.

Later heroes, explicitly have abilities for different ranks to tweak. Bob & dynamite is how they make Ashe relevant at low ranks. And would buff them if she struggled there.

Her gun is for high ranks, and they would buff that if she struggled there.

Tracer doesn’t have that.

It is high rank or nothing, which is why the meta effects her so strongly.

She is only played (in any real way) where the meta is.

As far as bastion is concerned, you are not wrong, but how do you rework him and keep his… Bastionness?

I love the little robot, but I understand why blizzard has had nothing but trouble with him.

I think for Sombra they will do a Mei.

Mei struggled for a long time, and they feared buffing her, because everyone was scared of what she would be like.

Eventually they put on their big boy pants, and did so, and she isn’t the monster that people were saying she would be.

With higher play rates people learnt to deal with her.

They will do the same with Sombra. Everyone will say the sky is falling, but… After people get used to her…

Tracer was a real problem. But she didn’t have any real counters. Brig was in many ways the first effective counter she has gotten. Torb didn’t have a pick rate back then.

I expect Torb getting a pick rate will be a bigger problem for her than brig was.

She can’t dodge the turret, and she doesn’t have the health to play in it’s los for long enough. (Outside masters / gm. Her ttk there is crazy good - as I found in the open)

I think she will be buffed, or her counters nerfed / adjusted after/because of bunker

But who knows, Blizzard has suprised me in the past, and they like Tracer.

Now if they are trying to adjust tank / support player base size pre roleQ she may stay in this state for a long time.

95

Well, this month Tracer experiences a positive winrate only at GM, and even there she’s still seventh worst. 51% winrate at GM, for a hero that takes approx 500 hours of practice to play at the GM level, isn’t acceptable in my opinion.

And if you look at the other heroes’ pickrates, you can see that Goats has very little representation now at these tiers.

If you want my personal theory based on my own experiences, Ana destroys Tracer–we simply didn’t realize it until Ana’s rise to prominence.

Now of course I’m not talking about a 1v1 here, but rather the fact that Ana’s healing output is typically much greater than a Tracer player’s damage output at any skill level. Even Dafran has called Ana’s healing “cheating” more than once on stream. :rofl: And there does seem to be a correlation between Ana’s meteoric pickrates and Tracer’s continued struggle on ladder.

But they’re definitely not going to revert Ana back to her pre-buffed state, and they’re probably not going to significantly nerf her healing output either. That seems to leave Tracer buffs as the only remaining option.

As for Bastion, he just needs a mobility ability. I get that Blizzard designed him to be non-mobile, but after three years I feel it’s time to admit that this design isn’t working

I wouldn’t mind if they gave him a boost jet like Pharah that enabled him to make large jumps. This would allow him to get into new positions extremely quickly, and a skilled Bastion could even transform into turret mode and begin firing during his trajectory. However, in exchange for this mobility they would probably have to take away some of his damage output, and he would still be a mostly stationary hero. Just a thought!

96

This is far from Ana’s first rise to prominence.

Which is good, since it lets us look back and see what happened to Tracer back then.

You could be right, and we could prove it, which will be nice.

I love things which are testable.

Ana usually does well in tanks comps (and has created a tank meta in the past)

But since we have a lot of Ana data and tracer data we can check.

Sadly not now, as I’m just getting to work.

I’ll look tonight though.

1 Like
97

Good point. I’d love to see how Tracer did back during triple tank meta. Of course it was a fairly different game then for numerous other reasons, but the data will still be very interesting nonetheless.

The key thing to remember is that this was before Ana’s magazine was increased by 40% and she could shoot through full health targets, correct? I personally believe these are the changes that allowed her value to cross a threshold where it began to significantly reduce Tracer’s value, but I could be wrong.

What website do you normally use for these kinds of things? I’ve tried tinkering with Winston’s lab before but I suck at using it. :sweat_smile:

98

I run my own tracker, master overwatch, and overbuff.

I’m not great at Winston’s lab either.

I thought that nades bust healing would have been the problem for tracer, but… I don’t play her much.

So I’ll leave that to her mains to tell me what’s going on there.

1 Like
99

Cool. I used to love Master Overwatch but it stopped functioning for my profile a while back (even despite that it’s not private), so I stopped using this site. Maybe I should still check it out for other stats though.

For me, nade isn’t an issue because I can reliably force Ana to use it on either me or herself. And of course if she uses it on me I can cleanse with recall. That’s just my personal experience though.

100

One of two heroes who absolutely do not need any buffs of any kind ever.

101

I’d never say never in this game.

Which is the other?

102

#1 player on ladder is Tracer

103

According to what site? Overbuff shows a Widow main, though it’s not like the achievements of the #1 ranked player in the world have much relevance to us anyway.

104

According to go into Overwatch and right click competitive and click leaderboard and look at #1 slot

105

Being the second most played hero in season 2 althought is a nice point BUT kinda pointless now, because we are past season 9. Now GM is just under top 500. At that rank people play smarter, they can position better. Often have far better aim, and most of all play “REAL comps” I myself landing 20% of my shot on a good day leads me being trash with tracer.

Bastion is a great example that yes he is trash but “can,” still provide a job. Example of Pirate ship. It might fall off after Dimond but under dimond the comp still works. He can also do well in KOTH maps if you get the point first and have him sit in a corner. Even more if the person can land 60% or more of his shots. Remember to you have 4 ways to buff his damage now.

That being said a lot of what im trying to say is Tracer doesn’t have point and meta isn’t going to go back to having one for her. Like It did in dive. I Stated already that even in dive she had one “Job.” Hunt down and kill the supports, all who really couldn’t stop a mid tier tracer player. Today she really can’t do that in any meaning full way. I also agree that Torb is a problem with core and turret. Tracer also lacks enough damage to take the turret out even if she blows Pulse on it. Torb will just build another one.

So even in the beginning I tried to make it clear when it comes to buff. Every one of her soft counters have been not only been buffed but have had either soft reworks or buff to if nothing else consistenty. Phara is a good example of that. Her rockets have had there projectile speed increases. So if boosted by mercy Phara can 1 shot tracer even with a body shot. Now she could do that before but before that change tracer would had have more time to react if she didn’t know Phara was in play. Add to that she really cant shoot a phara out of the sky.

To the person who asked about buffing genji because of the McCree buff I say no. Even with the speed buff to McCree genji can defect in quick melee, then slash, run to the side and use alt to try to kill McCree before he even knows where Genji is. So good Genji has the tools he needs to kill McCree. \

Tracer in this fight has a lot less to use because she would have to blow a couple blinks just to get to him. All McCree has to do is Flash-FTH and tracer is gone. 1 head shot and tracer is gone. To land any damage with her RNG guns tracer has to be in Quick melee range. Rewind doesn’t help is she is already dead. Now this is the part where I say, “DON’T NERF McCree.” this was how the battle was meant to go back at launch, but leads back to I say she is Job less. Reaper could out sustain McCree. Sombrea can hack him removing FLash and high noon. So even if she doesn’t fight him she can be a pain in his back side.

106

OWL season 2, not ranked…

107

Ok Jonseredi you got me on that one I will admit I messed up. In my defense i honestly couldn’t care less about “OWL,” just like i did in LoL. Pros play on a whole different level. Now stating Tracer is god and every GM and top 500 person got there 1 tricking Tracer then you would be 100% right and i would accept being wrong. Saying she doesn’t not need help.

But you have to give me my credit and my point stands in terms of rank envorment. Lets just say under grandmaster then she bring nothing Reaper/Genji/Sombra doesn’t already bring. She doesn’t have Reaper team kill ult. She doesn’t have Genji well rounded kit or Sombra who might not have the damage does has the disruption to earn her a spot in a few pre built comps. Over watch like most Moba games has changed a lot over the 3 years it’s been out. Despite the game really doesn’t feel like it’s gone anywhere since they removed multi hero picking. So you really cant compare the game then vs what the game was. Pre Owl one of the comps was double tracer, double Winston, Lucio games. Which led to the first Winston nerf. Still don’t care then so please correct me if I’m wrong on that one to.

So what is her job compaired to any other DPS. Even more when you have a few supports dealing as much damage as a DPS.

108

Congratz! You just broke the game!

109

how did I break the game, just because I would like to see tracer have at least some small roll to play in OW.

1 Like
110

So I had time to take a peek at the leaderboards in game. I looked at all 3 regions and only NA has a single Tracer main in the top 10, and she’s only ranked #5, and only 20% of her playtime this season is on Tracer.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Tracer doesn’t need to always be the best. But these findings can’t really be interpreted to bode well for Tracer either.