Please note: I’m not talking about in game shenanigans; just strictly speaking from a narrative perspective.
As an example, why doesn’t Winston carry like 5 of Tracer’s pulse bombs on a belt before jumping into battle? It kinda dawned on me when thinking about the Overwatch 2 announcement trailer when Mei asked Tracer for her pulse bomb. I just thought, “Wait, those things are tiny and light. Why doesn’t everyone have a few of them on hand to use as grenades?”
I know the easy response is “It’s just a game, just go with it”, but I can’t help but think there’s no logical reason why some utilities are segmented among team members in the story when they could benefit everyone in battle if shared.
Practical purposes and different expertises. Tracer is the most experienced with a pulse bomb, so she uses it. Winston wouldn’t since he has his Tesla Cannon, which is already effective enough at dealing with targets. It’s like if Iron Man gave a suit to every Avenger. They wouldn’t care for it since they prefer their own equipment.
I don’t mean nitpick or sound patronizing, but Iron Man has created a suit for Spider-Man called the Iron Spider. There were also other instances in DC Comics where superheroes lent Batman their own utilities for his Hellbat armor.
But anyway, yeah I get what you mean in a way. You won’t see anyone else using Genji’s shuriken, except maybe Hanzo, due the lack of familiarity with how to use it.
That’s the thing though, isn’t Tracer’s pulse bombs just a click and throw type deal? When you mention Winston’s Tesla cannon, I realize he’s able to take down vehicles rather quickly. But what about giving Genji some pulse bombs? Could you imagine how crazy it’d be if Genji in a cinematic just dashed and stuck a pulse bomb to Doomfist? You have to admit that some characters would benefit greatly lore-wise if they borrowed each other’s utilities like in the OW 2 reveal trailer, right?
Fair enough. Those were more on the tech upgrade side for foes that exceeded Spider-Man and Batman’s capabilities. I’d love to see more moments like the aforementioned one in Zero Hour though.
Iirc the only time we’ve seen Tracer use it by herself in canon was in Alive, where it curved like a boomerang. Genji could probably use it, but again, he would rather use a sword.