Tracer Nerf is Too Harsh?

General Discussion
1

Tracer main on console here. I agree that Tracer was probably one of, if not the best DPS in OW1, but I think her damage nerf will negatively affect her across all ranks too much for several reasons.

1. Tracer already has a high skill floor
Despite the many complaints players have had over Tracers dominating lobbies, the fact of the matter is that she takes a high amount of mechanical skill and gamesense to be even remotely effective. This is also true of characters like Doom, Genji, and Widow. High level tracking and reaction are required to be even remotely effective with her. In OW1, the value of all these characters directly scaled with mechanical skill.

However, I’m not really sure why in OW2, having high accuracy and gamesense isn’t rewarded with meaningful damage or picks. Instead of dealing 240 damage per clip, Tracer does only 200 hp with a full clip. At least for me, one clips were rare and were mainly on targets that were unaware and had no peel. Why does this matter?

2. Tracer is losing her niche to easier characters
In OW1, Tracer had many things going for her. High mobility, good burst, and the best neutral game out of any of the flanker DPS were things that set her apart. Tracer still shared many counters as the rest of the flanker cast, except that she had enough tools to make them 50/50 matchups instead of complete stomps. Just because a Tracer diffs a McCree doesn’t mean he’s barely a counter, it means that one side used their advantages more than the other. You have to actively work to counter a Tracer and respect their abilities.

In OW2, this is no longer. Her lackluster damage doesn’t allow her to properly fight McCree or other characters in her ideal range, and there are more forgiving options that can do what she can do easier. Her ultimate, though can still be effective, isn’t an outright win condition compared to Death Blossom, EMP, Blizzard, etc. Characters who take less mechanical skill to play, like Moira, Briggite, Torbjorn, and Sombra, destroy her with no chance for counterplay, something the Overwatch community has been stressing about for years now. You don’t even have to counterpick a Tracer, you can out-heal her damage now by anybody not named Zen.

For example, imagine that you flank as Tracer to attack an Ana in the backline. The Ana gets below half and pops Anti-nade on both of you. The other support comes to peel and you now have to use recall and run away and get little to no value.

Now imagine if you were Genji with the same skill level. Now instead of worrying about anti, you shuriken-dash instakill her and burst down the other support. A Reaper can wraith dodge and bully both supports. Sombra has an easier escape options through her translocator. Even characters like Echo can
just fly away to cover instead of worrying about blink management and a low healthpool.

3. Tracer wasn’t the most oppressive character in OW1
Most people would probably disagree, but I think there were more broken characters than Tracer in OW1, some of these are, but not limited to:

  • Genji with Nanoblade
  • Mei (who can only really be countered by herself; maybe Reaper, Pharah Sombra if you’re good enough)
  • The nigh-unkillable Pharamarcy
  • Pre-patched Doomfist
  • Ashe w/ Mercy pocket
  • Cracked Hanzos and Widowmakers
  • Brigitte in general
  • Unkillable Moira’s with damage orb or healing orb
  • Sombra (best DPS abilities and ultimate in both games)
  • Double builder comps (specifically for lower leveled lobbies)
  • Double barrier tank comps

The fact of the matter is, OWL is the only place where she could really be called overpowered. Even then, she’s only powerful in the right hands, as the difference between an average OWL Tracer and a top-tier one is like night and day. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I don’t disagree that Tracer could be tuned down a little bit, but I think nerfing her to the degree where even Kabaji struggles to find value with her is a little much. Besides, at the moment Soldier 76 is cut and dry the best DPS in the game for most players, and other hitscan (ex. Sojourn with her 1 hit kill railgun) are probably going to be right there with him. Even the new maps come with a significant level of high ground like Paradiso makes characters like Genji a better pick than her. Zenyatta is also far and away the best character in OW2 so far because of how much value discord has now that there is only one tank.

td;lr Tracer’s current nerf is too invasive for her across all ranks to solve a problem only meaningful in Masters+ or OWL games. A better nerf that would keep her niche could be one that reverts her damage numbers but decrease either her rate of fire or effective range. There are other characters that are more broken than Tracer at the moment, most of the which take less overall skill to be effective with.

8 Likes
2

I think they gave her a butt lift though it was a fair trade

17 Likes
3

And yet, still see Tracer being played regularly in the beta and being quite effective. Even on console.

She’s needed some toning down for years, and she’s finally at a good spot. Strong, but not dominant. And still with a very high skill ceiling that allows her to be extremely powerful in skilled hands, as we’re seeing with her regular use in OWL.

So if you’re having issues with her against certain opponents, you have to do what everyone else has had to do for years: swap characters.

Especially against characters like Torbjorn and Moira, who were specifically designed to counter her. Game finally working as intended? Perhaps.

39 Likes
4

I saw a video that explained the nerf was because quick-firing heroes like tracer are going to be stronger than ow1 with how the new armor system works, compared to slow-firing heroes.

5

I don’t really have a problem with anything you’ve said here. From a game design perspective though, I’m not exactly sure how over-nerfing high-skill floor characters would make the game better if people are going to be rewarded for choosing characters with a lower skill floor, or the fact that you can’t reliably punish out of position characters like you should be able to.

6

Without the abundance of CC I think a damage nerf for Tracer was imminent. A lot of her hard counters were impacted, and they are trying to help supports out, since they have one less person peeling for them. Mobility is a huge asset in OW2, and the more of it you have the more they need to ensure something stops you from dashing straight to the healers and destroying them.

6 Likes
7

To my understanding, armor reduces all incoming damage by 30% instead of reducing damage below 10 like in OW1. Her 5 damage per shot goes down to a measly 3.5 per bullet. One clip does 140 damage. Even if she had her original damage, she could only do 168 in one clip with 4.2 damage per shot. A Tracer shouldn’t really be dueling tanks in either game though, so I don’t really think this was why they nerfed her damage. The devs probably wanted to nerf her effectiveness in a 5v5 setting, which is understandable.

8

I don’t think over nerfing is the correct term here. It’s more Tracer was brought in line with more of the roster. She’s still strong, just not as strong as before. Effectively, they raised her skill floor a bit.

As far as skill, if all you see as skill is hitscan aim, I see where you’re coming from. But there’s more types of skill than that. Things like projectile prediction, resource management, and effective positioning are skills too. Different characters emphasize different skills.

13 Likes
9

I think there’s a few characters, specifically one I think we can all agree on, that were way more harsher than Tracer’s in the beta.

4 Likes
10

my experience with her in this beta (and the last, both on pc) is that she’s strong IF you have good pulsebomb accuracy, but if you don’t land them consistently, she’s feels mediocre compared to her alternatives. Last beta I described it as her value proposition just feeling weird.

Like, if I want to dive, why not go genji or echo lol. If I need to take duels and fight for angles, why not just go sojourn or soldier. After the blink cd increase, I’m pretty sure both of them are faster than her around the map, anyway. Tracer never stood out to me as the character you go to when you want to find value out of your ult, she was always the character to find value in the neutral fight or in duels.

I don’t think she’s bad, just masochistic to play, like a handful of other characters :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
11

I don’t disagree with the sentiment that Tracer could be a little too strong in OW2. However, I would argue that there’s still a lot of peel options in OW2. You can out-heal her damage output, supports not named Zen have either good self-peel or movement abilities, and specifically for brawl/rush comps the fact that everyone is closer together means more peel. I think most people that have problems with flankers rushing them put themselves in bad positions by either poor rotations, communication, or a lack of awareness. Some maps, like Circuit Royale, even have limited flank angles and long sightlines where I would just throw away Tracer and just use either Reaper or a hitscan.

Right now, she feels like where Genji was in OW1. You need to be in the top 10%-20% in your rank mechanically to be even remotely effective with her, and even then there are easier or more effective character options out there. I am a little biased as a Tracer main, but I don’t want to see her niche as a duelist go away.

2 Likes
12

I’d say her nerfs are in line with the OW2 philosophy and the new combat tempo. They’re definitely trying to move away from extremely binary hero playstyle designs, which is a good thing.

Tracer’s always been the game’s original balance problem child and has been overtuned for years, and only barely kept in check by having to flood the game with CC and other power creep. I’m glad to see Blizz finally going “What if we solve the balance issue by fixing the hero itself, instead of adding on other balance issues to counteract the problem?” for once.

6 Likes
13

Most picked hero in ow2 outside of genji and ana in owl.

I honestly think she needs a nerf.

5 Likes
14

There’s absolutely no way these heroes are more broken than “tracer,” let alone comparing one hero to a group of heroes (when you named genji nanoblade which takes account of 2 heroes and ultimates, double shields which consists of a team comp, ashe with mercy pocket is another one that consists of two heroes, pharamercy is another that consists of two heroes) is such a bad comparison to begin with. Also, lets not forget the fact that shes been perma meta for 99% of the game’s life span (except for brig day 1 era) and none of these that youve listed came even close to tracer’s viability being this good for soooooooo long.

I can argue that brig’s kit is arguably almost as busted as tracer’s as brig has been consistently good/strong despite the countless nerfs shes received and the nature of her kit, but there’s no way that the other heroes (even when they had their moments of being meta) have ever gotten close to tracer’s longevity of viability and meta status in OW1. The nerf she received in OW2 is fine as is.

11 Likes
15

I don’t think you are going to get much love here. Tracer feels very, very strong in OW2.

3 Likes
16

I don’t want to see a buff for Tracer anytime soon :slight_smile:

2 Likes
17

i enjoyed playing her during phase 1. Now she just needs a bit more help to take down a target if you aren’t on your A game.

18

imagine thinking that mei, doom, moira, sombra, torb/sym were more oppressive than tracer lol (or even oppressive in general. If anyone finds these heroes oppressive its because they are in silver…

tracer is fine in OW2, if anything genji is too strong, hes quite hard to kill for lots of people (maybe thats just the weird sensitivity in the beta)

2 Likes
19

If they just made it visible while playing it would be amazing. 3rd person PoV when?

20

I disagree wholeheartedly. During the first beta (Especially the first couple of days) she ran rings around the whole match. She was OP as hell. Her damage numbers was insanely high. Her movement speed and her blinks made her genuinely unkillable. Then with limited cc now, it was terrible. She needed the nerf and considering she’s still one of the most picked dps in high level play and the league, I don’t think it matter that’s much