Right, sorry. I forgot Zen is the hero we hate this week
because of thruster and DM, she is also the only tank that can stand up to any given dps
Reduce fall-off range to 6-7m, increase spread by 10-15% but also increase her damage by 10-20%. Now she’s a close-range menace that has to risk her life to get kills. Not the current “haha you can’t hit me with Bash and I one-clip you” bs.
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Honest take: as a 1k+ hr Tracer main (across accts) I get more done as Widow. Tracer is just fun.
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Zen and Dva have been in EVERY meta… I know forums are braindead but… They were even in GOATS (both of them, funnily).
Both of them are stronger than Tracer. Just forums always think whatever is the most picked DPS is OP.
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I’d be ok with this if recall reset cooldown on blink like in experimental.
most forum users actually believe DPS is the strongest role LOL… even if we admit that Tracer is the strongest DPS, which I’m willing to admit, still she is OP only when compared to other DPS, her impact overall is still lower than what any tank or support can do.
I mean forums think that: “get kill = carry”. No wonder the majority is hardstuck gold/plat/diamond with such mindset, OW is THE ONE game where often you can have an impact without getting kills. Think for example of how Ball can force a ton of cooldowns by being very annoying, you can get very few if any kills as Ball and hard carry. Likewise a Mercy who constantly Rezes/dmg boosts. But I am 100% sure most forum users think Mercy is 1 of the most team reliant heroes in the game only because she can’t get kills when she’s literally a strong solo queue hero.
Also, when it comes to DPS, one HAS TO engage with the thought that about 50% DPS are badly designed/not fun to play against or both. Going over the DPS list rapidly:
- Ashe: pretty fun to play against, although BOB is a bit cancer especially when you are allowed to farm it ultra fast due to DMG boost. Overall though Ashe feels FAIR, you die vs a good Ashe and you farm a bad Ashe and the hero has a long skill progression, for example, a Diamond Ashe is better than a Plat Ashe and a GM Ashe is yet better. She also has reasonable counters from all classes. Overall fun to play vs vote: 7.5/10.
- Cassidy: pretty fun to play against. Has a 1 shot combo but it’s limited by range and can be shielded/zoned by walls. Stun + FTH is a bit on the lower end of skill side and for this reason overall “fun to play vs” vote is only 6/10. Again, he has reasonable counters from all classes, perhaps support struggles a bit more as the best counter is Zen who is still decent but not insane vs Cassidy.
- Genji: could use smaller right click hitbox, but overall he is pretty skill-based and fun to play vs. Nanoblade is a braindead W + M1 combo however and for this reason only 6/10. Has reasonable counters from all 3 classes (Orisa, Sigma, Rein, Zarya from tanks, Cassidy, Torb, Echo from DPS and mostly Brigitte from supports).
Now let’s go over to some of the heroes that “haven’t been meta in a while” and that forum users would LOVE to see meta “just for the sake of change!”:
- Doomfist: extremely oppressive especially if you are playing support, can 1 shot you in several different ways and come from about any angle on the map. Extremely limited time for your 2nd support or a DPS to save you, often this time is zero. Fun to play vs rating: 3/10.
- Junkrat: he takes some aim at 15m+ range, but still it’s too inconsistent to call it true aim as most projectiles can be easily dodged. Most of your time, on this hero you are spamming a choke or tanks. There is little difference between a Plat and GM Junkrat. Fun to play vs rating: 4/10.
- Mei: provided you can aim well-enough to place walls correctly, it’s a hero that requires legit 0 aim. You just need to cycle cooldowns correctly. Absolutely unfun to go vs Mei as a tank player as you are basically forced to hold shield whole game. Fun rating: 4/10.
- Symmetra: this hero is actually meta in scrims/rush but on ladder she requires a full comp to be viable. Overall though, boring right click spam hero, turrets are basically playing vs AI, you might as well play a single-player game at that point. Beam has large hitbox and is a tank killer (unlike Reaper, strong vs armored tanks also). Fun rating: 2/10.
As much as forums might hate hitscans, Hanzo and Tracer, those are still the more fun heroes to go against, because you can actually outplay them and they can outplay you, there is nothing deep about a Symmetra beaming down 4 people, 2 of them tanks, by standing behind a tank, in contrast.
That’s because most people base their opinions on feelings. It feels more impactful when you are shooting things and see things dying by your hand. So you feel like the carry.
As far as your point about which DPS feel the best to play against, I agree that hitscan meta is generally more fun. The alternative is much worse.
If you think balance changes do not affect all ranks then you are really naive.
Get your head out of your butt.
I get that people perceive her as the glass cannon, but I don’t think the “cannon” part is her design philosophy. I think it’s more accurate to say she’s designed as a solo-duelist and an opportunist
Regarding the former (duelist), she’s arguably one of the best solo-duelists, but not the best duelist in general as many other characters can take their duels from better positioning. Though still her being a strong duelist is probably the trait I see people bring up the most because it’s the most insulting when a smurf plays her. I see quite often people will complain because they can’t kill a tracer in a duel because “she’s too hard to hit” or something, but not being able to hit shots isn’t why Tracer’s still good against people who will hit their shots. If her being a good duelist is what you struggle with, this is probably one of the easiest challenges to overcome because her 1v1 potential starts falling off as people start positioning better (“git gud™ because it solves itself”)
The latter is the real reason why she’s a solid pick through so many types of metas. Opportunistic characters are stupidly powerful in overwatch, especially in the chaos of ranked or during scrappy teamfights. Tracer’s kit benefits from working well in this regard at almost every level of play because she’s one of the few characters that can immediately disengage and opt not to fight you, for any reason, and her cycle isn’t very long. You can respond to more mistakes more often and for less resources than other characters can, usually.
The result is that she’s really good at fighting for positioning (mostly in terms of denying it) and trading very expensive high impact cooldowns for objectively weaker ones (anti nade for recall, hook for a blink, immortality for a few blinks, etc). It’s actually stupidly hard to deal with people who play like this and bleed your team of positioning and resources. (protip you can rocket up the ladder by applying that concept on just about any off angling character, offtanks are amazing at it)
If I were to bet, I would guess OW2 is going to at least partially attack these by moving further away from stupidly expensive high impact abilities (though not specifically for this reason) and lengthening tracer’s cycles (I believe I spotted a 4s blink and a 14s recall in the broadcasts)
I don’t really have a conclusion to draw from this (agree or disagree with anyone), I’m just rambling because I’m bored but maybe someone will enjoy reading 
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I have honestly never really seen Tracer as this monster the forums do. Even streamers like Kabaji and Wanted, who play/used to play Tracer don’t sit there and carry games nonstop. Most times I see them switch mid match, even now, or they don’t do a ton.
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Happens when you solve an issue by flooding the game with CC.
This one is a hard no.
Listen I do play Tracer. I agree its way too easy to get value from her with her range fall off. Yeah they should revert it.
But youre doing that thing where you suggest a reasonable change, and then throw in another thatll make people resistant to hearing you out.
I think you seem to misunderstand what “one shotting” means…
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hardstuck diamond/masters players consider 1 shots only things where 1 SHOT/ability kills you. True pros like me, and GM/top500 players understand that “extremely quick bursts of damage” and 1 shots are virtually the same so belong in the same boat.
So yes, if you wanna put the dots on the i’s and j’s, Dva “doesn’t 1 shot”. But for all intents and purposes, she has something that is functionally equivalent to a 1 shot.
Having a flexible mind in general helps you both rank up and have great success in life, you should try to not always go by textbook definitions but expand your mind.
“True pros” LMAO get off your high horse buddy, you aren’t that amazing.
By that logic, half the roster one shots.
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Here some numbers from wiki:
primary fire:
6.67 shots per second
11 pellets per shot
2 damage per shot (starts falling off at 10m+ which is not the range at which you want to try your 1 shot)
Total: 146 DPS
micro missiles:
11 missiles per second
7 on direct hit
4 splash
Total: 121 DPS
Adding the 2 gives you 267 DPS, which is more than 1 Reaper shot, a hero that in high elo lives and dies on “1 shotting you”.
it’s not easy to execute this combo, but not impossible, either. Dva is still a shotgun hero, this is not a Widowmaker headshot at 60m+ range which is a “1 per game” type of thing. This Dva 1 shot can happen very well 2-3 times per game and since you can do it at the start of the fight, in pure 6v6 scenario, and supports generally can’t react to it, it’s very impactful.
Sure, we can call whatever Reaper does to get value in GM+ 1 shotting also, and technically Cassidy combo is 1 shot also.
she needs 1 whole second with 100% accuracy on critbox to land this 1 shot, I would say it’s quite different from Dva one who needs ~60% accuracy and some headshots in there.
Funnily Dva’s damage output would be fine if she didn’t happen to also be by far the tankiest tank in the game (not last because 300 armor is around ~500 of effective HP so she “feels like having” ~800 HP vs a hero like Soldier and even more HP vs a hero that suffers max armor reduction like Tracer).
She is the hardest tank in the game to send to spawn (mini Dva re-meching in solo queue mid-fight is VERY common and VERY impactful while being rare in OWL/scrims), the tank with the most mobility, a tank with a top tier ultimate (I rate Dva bomb as better than Graviton surge, Whole Hog and Earthshatter, for example) and this is without even going into her Defense Matrix, an ability that since OW release has been both very problematic, annoying to play against and one of the best defensive cooldowns that a tank can have (compare to Zarya bubbles which have long cooldown and are punishing when used, in contrast you can juggle matrix on and off with little punishment).
I play Dva all the time and I would hate to see her go away from the meta, I think even in her overtuned state, even masters/GM player misplay her all the time, but she is fairly objectively the best tank in the game and has been for most of the game’s life, if you hate on Tracer because your claim is that “Tracer has everything”, mobility, sustain, burst, HP regen, then Dva is the Tracer on tanks and a Tracer with 600 HP and a defense matrix.
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At 12 meter Tracer is good at harrassing Tanks, that s about it. When she comes for squishies, she wont start shooting until she gets into close range to not waste ammo, element of surprise as well as the change to finish off target with blink+melee.