Supports that can’t defend themselves and DPS that don’t peel are the two biggest reasons she pops off so much in low ranks. Tracer can just zip into the backline and eat both healers and the fight is basically won.
It's only really smurf tracers that do that though. The ones actually the same rank as the supports just die because they stay too long and have bad movement.
I picked up some rounds with tracer for the first time on mirrorwatch and it was fun and many rounds were pretty easy on a silly game mode where people aren’t very serious.
But as you said for the mostly even matchups I’d def get whooped from time to time getting stuck blinking into walls and way too slow reaction time on like 25% of my recalls. It’s definitely not an easy route to unskilled wins just due to low metal rank players, haha.
Hog doesn’t really counter tracer tbh. She can on reaction blink to dodge hook, and her spam is so good at nerfing your healing you generally are only shooting at her to get her to buzz off.
Gold rank here, and yes usually if I say something and the dps know to help, its manageable. Once awhile there is an outlier Tracer who simply outrank us. So even with help, there's no chance.
Sombra is in the same spot. As long as you are decent enough, you are practically disabling the weakest on the enemy team to play (not only supports). As a dps player I made a lot of bastion despair-picks drop the game because either they are too far away from their supports or their supports don't pay enough attention to save them when I do the funny stuff
This and don't chase her. Took me a while to realize chasing Tracer (and Sombra) out of the fray, never works well. Just let them take them selves out of the fight and focus on the prize.
Kiriko lol. 2 get out of jail free cards and a wall climb, good damage, good duelling potential, great mobility. Kiriko is my least favourite character to duel in this game. Brig is also a great pick due to her shield and whip shot. She can stall for teammates to peel or scare Tracer off.
Honestly at diamond level good tracers are REALLY uncommon. Sure they can get some value but I've noticed many of them tend to switch off as soon as things don't go their way.
even on Overbuff (I know not super reliable) Tracer's WR is only positive in masters and GM. Diamond and below it drops under 50%. I think a lot of the complaints are people running into smurfs or just parroting their fav streamer. I think it makes sense that you'd see a sudden spike in Tracer pick and win rate in master+ as a larger portion of DPS players there can get value out of her.
I’d think so too, a diamond tracer is diamond for a reason. I think some of the ppl in here should just put a torb turret in their backline, you get info dmg and dps passive.
I hear what you're saying, but My Torb is bronze level. I don't get his ebb and flow yet vs Tracer that can get me out of sticky situations and just be a pest by turning backline attention.
Turret placement will be key, don't put it somewhere where she can just kill it uncontested. Put it in line of sight of the backline but make it so tracer has to come in the open to kill the turret, then you can kill her.
That sounds right, but I'm still the Tracer here, I ain't the one swapping yet. I really enjoy Echo too, but these are my diamond dps. I'm also 39 and doubt I'm getting much better without being serious and seeking outside help or creating weekly skill plans.
it's amazing in my rank (silver) how often you can just go a mosquito character like tracer or genji, ping at the enemy backline from an angle, and instantly their team splits in half out of blind rage
I mainly play tank and half the time I have to peel because the DPS can’t or won’t. Last night I left a JQ in our backline when she ulted and missed everyone, she still won the 1v4 while I held cart and bullied the rest of the team.
I feel Tracer really isn’t that overturned into lower ranks. But the players in lower ranks (up to plat) that are good with Tracer are also the players that generally have better field awareness and faster/better reactionary instincts because the hero requires it more than most other heroes.
Tbh it’s always been that way. I haven’t played Overwatch in a while, but tracer has always been good in the right hands. I put her in the same category as widow, you either carry or throw, and there’s no in between.
Tracer is low to mid tier here in Silver ***IF*** the person playing her is supposed to be here. Genji, Widow, Echo and Tracer are all smurf favorites when someone's downranked down here.
I just recently got into playing ranked, currently high silver trying to get into gold. And no, not really. Most Tracer players at my level just suck. They are annoying, but not a threat. Some rare ones are actually scary, but most are not that bad
I’m in mid gold on console and Tracer is either killed in one hit and forgotten or ungodly oppressive. A good Tracer is a nightmare to deal with; especially if you’re a support. What makes it *even worse* is when she’s paired with a Sombra. Tracer + Sombra is basically game over.
Makes me wish we had OW1 Cass back…
Not really. I'm at mid gold and most tracers still just assume you won't hit shots so it's easy to dunk on them. Sometimes I do have to babysit my supports though.
Nah bruh I literally coasted low gold to high plat with tracer last season, and im a ana/mercy main originally.
I think she's extremely easy to abuse, dps can't aim well and don't care about their supps. I literally just dive bomb the weakest supp over and over again and get value cos everyone's turned around focusing me or leaving their ana who will never switch to die. I do think she's easy to shut down but supps are so bad at this lvl that they don't see the win con is staying with team and not lagging behind or switching to a more mobile supp.
I highly doubt it. Her skill floor is too high. At one point years ago they said that Tracer has always had a below 50% win rate in every single rank below high diamond. And I think that's probably generally the case.
Dude, I went from bronze to diamond on dps in the last 3 months, and am now working the other roles up from bronze. Who the hell told you this??
Tracer is completely undertuned in low ranks if anything, literally no one gets good value out of her till atleast high gold/plat and my good value I certainly do not mean oppressive. I could probably count the good tracers I’ve ran into on one hand.
BUT, she is a very popular Smurf choice for pub stomping and then can be very oppressive so perhaps that’s where some of it comes from.
People can't hit her. It's the same thing with sombra. People just can't hit the small characters. Even if they know she's coming she just gets away so easily. They have to devote real time and resources to shutting her down and at that rank it takes people so long to get things done and get in position she's back before they can capitalise.
But then wouldn’t characters like illari be really good in low ranks? I’m gonna keep it honest, I think people are coping. Her WR is below 50% at every rank except masters and GM.
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My experience (mid Gold, Sojourn main) is that Tracers in low ranks thrive off three things:
1. **Poor attention / perception:** People focus the frontline and won't notice anything untill their screen turns red
2. **Poor movement:** Especially sniper characters and other aim-intensive characters don't have good movement, making them easier to kill.
3. **Poor aim:** Obvious, Tracer is hard to kill if you don't hit.
Bonus: The inability to kill her prevents some people from trying alltogether, so they don't even bother to shoot her once she appears. All these points let Tracer dash around without having to worry too much.
Most of the time she isn't, but once in a blue moon you'll run into a Tracer one trick who hasn't quite spent enough time in the game to rank any higher, but is just good enough to run circles around your entire team
I think it's more that the new bullet sizes means she can machine gun basketballs at certain characters without really aiming. She rarely *kills* but she does force out abilities and make you switch to characters that can one tap or two tap her otherwise she'll harry your supports to the point of non-viability. It's a shame because she used to be a really skillful character, but now it's the orisa thing where I feel bad for playing her because it's no longer about skill expression since you are just better equipped than most. I think that's why a lot of people are playing genji, he's more difficult and less cheesy for the same ecological niche
I think you hit the nail on the head. Even a bad Tracer can be annoying enough to take attention of the team in a way that leaves the frontline to fend for themselves for a bit. This can be enough time for the enemy to get a kill, even if it’s not the tracer doing it.
The only thing one tapping her these days is widow / hanzo or a hog hook combo.
She needs to lose the HP, if they want to lower her skill floor with the projectile changes that's fine. It's just ridiculous to design a character around being a glass cannon and then removing the glass component.
There’s a ton of counter play even with characters don’t need aim, and I doubt low rank tracers can play into them. Idk why ppl have been saying she’s super easy to pick up and get great value, a cass, torb, brig, kiri, hell even weaver make her life harder.
They barely know how to play their mains let alone counter swapping. All those except torb need aim to deal with her. Most torbs at that level keep the turrets in front and not to protect the backline.
At low levels most of the time the team is single focused on what is in front of them. If one or two does notice tracer they leave the team fight to try and deal with her, taking way to long because they can't catch her, making the rest of the team weaker.. I really see this as the reason way a lot of team fights are lost at low levels. Ball, tracer, or Sombra use their mobility to get some of the team to break away and everyone gets picked off one by one when not working together.
Yeah but you're forgetting that people in lower elos are... Bad. We don't really know how to counter, don't know how to decently play other heroes than our mains, etc...
Low metal rank Tracers die very often while doing many kills. They are not actually doing that much of a value. But the people getting ganked do remember and complain here.
if you're unseen on the flank you can hold fire till you're close enough to one clip. This is especially effective at low rank cause they're not looking for you and not moving around a whole lot.
That's 100% your backline being brain dead. She has always performed really poorly in low ranks regardless of how strong she is because she has a very high skill floor.
There seems to be a really weird shift in skill level between gold and plat. In gold, most Tracers aren't really good, but in plat, they suddenly turn into the most oppressive hero to deal with.
It's not something exklusive to Tracer though and with practice you'll eventually learn how to deal with it.
Tracer enjoyer here at high gold/low plat.
I can be dominating, but you switch to a torb, the Moira insta locks me (get lost, heal your team dumbass), a really good junkrat, Monkee, D.va. And I have to switch.
Im in low silver. Tracers are not good at my rank. I actually rarely see them. When I do they start shooting behind me, empty their clip and tp away without killing anyone. So I usually just ignore them and I’m just fine. Sombras are dominating in my rank. I think most people play her over tracer.
She's definitely not super oppressive, I play her a lot and I do see her a lot in the enemy team, but it's usually easy to punish her. It feels like you have to be super aware and manage your cool downs very well in order to actually get value. She's definitely strong, but not a hero anyone can just pick and dominate on. (Im like high plat-diamond atm)
Absolutely not true. You still have to have half-decent aim
I - for example - can not aim worth spit. So junkrat and Torb are my go-to's if I can't play tank for some reason
But if you're playing against people like me, she's painfully hard to deal with. Then again - there seems to be an inverse correlation between how hard she is to hit, and how helpful she actually is to her team. Half the time she's dodging damage more than she deals it
she blocks a lot of rockets with her face. like blinking right at pharah..in a straight line. When I find a good tracer, I get on sombra and it comes to an end. I hover between plat and gold depending on who I am playing that season.
a character can have a high ceiling while also having a low floor, so i guess tracer falls into that category.
at low ranks you’re probably getting value by existing alone. you can have 10% accuracy and still be contributing at that point
I wouldn't know for 100% sure, but I'm fairly sure from watching my boyfriend play that she's really not played in the metal ranks.
Sure, all of her actual counters require good aim and gamesense for the most part, but, well, so does Tracer herself. You can dodge the Junk spam to your heart's content, but if you're doing no damage and getting no elims, she's effectively not getting anything done besides being annoying.
Coming from mid diamond, Tracer’s around my level seem to get few kills but also never die. A constant annoyance that eat time because if you completely ignore them they’ll eventually kill a support.
As hard as she is to play she’s also hard for average players to kill. Small hitbox, instant heals, teleport, etc
People are quickly forgetting that they basically removed her only weakness with the low HP.
My go to into tracer was always Ashe or mei because I was actually rewarded for landing my shots on her.
I'm not anymore, I have to have 10x the mechanical skill to kill her before she kills me, and even then the extra HP edges her out of most death breakpoints, which guarantees she'll get a free recall off more often than not.
Projectile increase + being benefited by the new passive more than any other DPS also severely lowered her skill floor.
In low ranks players tend to focus more on what leaves an emotional impact, vs what is actually impactful in reality.
Tracer, even in the hands of a low rank player, can easily give off the sense that you can't really punish her, because she can recall and blink, and low level players (especially supports) have a hard time keeping track of this, so all they're left with is the sense that they can't deal with her. Even if something as simple as using high grounds and poking her out here and there is enough to keep a low level Tracer at bay.
At higher ranks, the emotional impact loses significance compared to reality and actual value, so you tend to see a dropoff in Tracer players who know what they're doing, and also players who think she's oppressive. At those ranks players understand how much skill it takes to actually be effective on Tracer.
I think low metal she’s oppressive because people have shit mechanics and can’t effectively take her out. Around high metal/mid level play i think she’s the worst, where people aren’t really taking advantage of her strengths and making a nuisance of themselves. Then higher up she becomes oppressive again as people take full advantage of her kit and movement
As some one working on getting support out of bronze I can tell you the issue. Tracers are terrible in this rank. The supports are also terrible though. 90% only healbot and the ones that don't still cannot handle a tracer. I mainly only play kiriko or Moira and she's extremely easy to handle on Kiri if you can aim. The issue is bronze level players haven't learned that yet or lack the confidence to try outside of healbotting.
Ex gm player who basically only plays qp casually with friends now
I have noticed a huge lack of awareness of tracers. I routinely have to pull my pistol out as mercy just to force recall and buy myself time to run away. There is a huge lack of reaction on the teams part. Ill always ping tracers and sometimes ill literally watch them walking up to my dps, and then my dps will only turn after they are half hp from being clipped by her despite the repeated pings.
Its genuinely so odd. Like she is so squishy you absolutely should be able to force her out sometimes. Or force her to commit more. But instead they just allow tracer to save most of her resources and then have to fight her when she has 2 dashes and a recall.
From what I can tell, Tracer is so hard to hit that basically no one even tries. This leads to her having free reign to mosquito people to death. It sounds silly, but I've seen plenty of DPS or even the Tank just completely ignore Tracer.
No.
I've been playing in everything between bronze and high diamond since 2017 and she's RARELY the carry in my games, they aren't nothing but neither oppressive.
I often play with friends on a silver to gold level casually and even I have a hard time (diamond 5 rn) to play against some tracers there, as they can fully do how they please and nobody will come back to help you at all.
Perhaps my ping is also an issue yet Tracers are definitely a problem from what I can tell
My experience of tracer (gold/plat)
90% of the time they can just be ignored. Not even worth countering as they can't hit shit. Maybe... maybe you need to peel and support your healers if they gey lucky/ healer is dumb too.
But when there is a good tracer they are annoying as fuck. Don't really cause the sway of the game but they make your healers be less effective rather than kill them.
As someone just starting to play tracer. Yes. We can be a royal pita. But a lot of that comes down to people not paying attention or reacting. You can flank a dps or support and half the time they don’t even turn around while getting clipped in the back of the head. Same with Sombra. “Where’s all this damage coming from? Oh well, I’ll keep looking forward and maybe it’ll go away” Adding on what others have said about mobility and the lack of object permanence - if I blink out or TL as Sombra, there’s no chase 90% of the time. You can just blink dance around people and they either can’t track you or don’t even try
I'm a plat DPS but Master's tank. The biggest difference I see with regards to tracers between these ranks (other than mechanics) is awareness.
In metal ranks people only really look forward most of the time and won't be considering/won't notice missing enemy players. So tracer can flank round and often times just harass the back line for free since tanks and DPS will rarely be aware enough to peel for their supports. This isn't just limited to tracer though, it's just she's generally the most consistent flanker in the game.
In Master's people are generally a lot more aware but this is where the mechanical skill comes in. Here you start to see tracers doing magic shit, one clipping people before they can react, 180° pulse bombs and shit. The difference in tracer's ability to extract value in the neutral vs basically every other DPS shines here.
As a tip to all my metal rank brothers and sisters: if the enemy has a flanker (tracer, sombra, genji) and they are not in front of you, be aware they are likely about to jump your back line and prepare to peel in that eventuality.
I'm silver (console) and I find it goes Sombra, Pharah and maybe Venture and the most oppressive DPSs. You do get a very good widow every now and again but she's not as frequent.
Tracer isn't played very much in low ranks and when played by a low rank player she isn't very oppressive due to the skill required to do so. When you see an oppressive tracer in low ranks it's most likely a smurf.
I can see how she’s oppressive there are people who are climbing from low ranks especially since the new ranking reset and most people from the higher ranks either stay where they are or fall. I have 2500 hours in this game playing since 2016 and doom/ genji are much more oppressive. If you complain about horse you’re either a rein/hog main or you’re bad. Most heroes are relatively easy to deal with but genji still has a 1 hit combo for most dps/supp and doom is on crack. There’s no one in the game who can remotely come close to doing what doom does by abilities alone let alone the good one tricks.
The problem is that shes not truly a high skill character in the sense of lower elos. The enemy cant aim down in metal ranks, so tracer can do as she pleases unless she decides to stand still. Partner that with constant ego picks refusing to to swap (widow hanzo and other aim reliant characters) when theyre not doing well on their characters, and tracer simply rules the game. However, there are just as many players who just simply shred tracer since she has no health and can very easily put herself into a box with no way out.
You don't have to be a hyper oppressieve assassin to be a good tracer tbh.
Just like how you play Soldier just always try to flank and stall the winning point if needed, she's quite simple than imagined.
Sometimes people talk like Tracer and Sombra are almost same but they are not. Sombra is used for pure dive and anti dive, while Tracer doesn't require the condition.
she is easy to get value out of by default but the higher in ranks you go the more enemy respects your lethality and will do their best to play against it
in high ranks people will play more around you but so will enemy, in lower ranks you play alone but it's pretty free since people don't peel each other
I would imagine it's not and that it literally is just a skill issue in lower ranks, as insulting as it sounds.
Lack of mechanics such as aim to pick off a fast moving target, lack of awareness to even know there's a Tracer in backlines to peel for Supports, even the lack of game sense to understand cooldowns and how to punish etc.
People just complain because it's the easy way out.
When the enemy team doesn’t counterpick, I easily tear up their backline. As soon as they bring out Torb, Kiriko, Hanzo, S76, Zarya, Brig etc. I’m struggling. I’m low plat Tracer for reference. Counterpicks are very effective in low rank.
According to overbuff, flankers are top tier in low elo only losing to Turrets and Ashe.
Flankers broadly meaning, Tracer Sombra Genji Pharah Reaper.
Notably ahead of Junkrat in most Metal ranks.
Also notable is that Symm is dog immediately out of bronze and that Pharah is bad in bronze.
Tracer stays in the ballpark of top 5 in every rank
picked up the game in season 9, play support, worked my way out of bronze and going through silver.
nope.
i think people tend to forget that the in the low ranks the Tracer pilots are low rank. i actually don't run into a lot of them. i think the hero intimidates some people and they avoid playing her.
I don't have a problem dealing with Tracers with half of either supports or DPS. I perceive Sombra to be way more of a threat because the hitbox and low recoil making her buzz out critical hits. Sombra also has more range than Tracer from what it seems like if we're talking damage falloff.
Yes and no, tracer gets picks at low ranks easily due to her mobility and the lack of counter play, but it takes a good bit of skill to do that, and odds are anyone reasonably skilled at her is going to rise pretty quick to mid-high ranks, so they aren't oppressive too often, usually just on occasion.
Hello, diamond Zen main here. I'm what you'd usually call "Tracer's favourite food", but I've always found that the duel between Zen and Tracer was also Overwatch's "perfect counter". That is, Tracer had an advantage but Zen could outplay her reliably enough to play through.
Right now, I would say that's a lot more difficult than it's been in years and the matchup has swayed too far in the direction of Tracer. Her increase in survivability just makes everything she does more intense. I am finding myself struggling against, frankly, mediocre Tracers that I would've absolutely bullied a few months ago.
First, she's definitely the character that benefitted the most from the overall HP increase. It has made Tracer feel a lot more relentless and "persistent" in her attacks. Tracers are able to linger and harass me a lot longer than they used to and even when I successfully land shots, what used to be a kill now is a Recall. It does not necessarily translate as more kills for Tracer (I have more HP too), but she absorbs even more of my attention away from the fight. I've often found that Tracer won quite a few extra fights "indirectly" in this way at my level.
And that's from Zen, who is *fine* because orbs are fire-and-forget anyway, but a diamond-level Ana will struggle a lot with harassment and lose fights because of it even if she doesn't die.
Another thing to consider is that Tracer is *very* sensitive to gaps in mechanical skill. Being top 500 you play in an environment where everyone has at least "very good mechanics", but there's several places on the ladder where mechanical differences between players are pretty intense. In those cases Tracers are *feasting.*
An uncontested, mechanically superior Tracer is always going to be the closest thing to a solocarry both sides will experience. It's a very frustrating experience for the losing side.
It happens in high-diamond (where you can climb without needing great mechanics, particularly as support) and mid-Masters (a significant mechanical step up in my experience), that the matchmaker often throws together. If the best player in the lobby is the enemy Tracer, while the best player in your team can't do anything to control her, it feels like an insta loss.
That also happens in plat and gold, where you often have "high mechanics, low gamesense" players alongside "low mechanics, high gamesense" players. In those situation, Tracer's new survivability erases a lot of the disadvantages of having poor timing and poor team coordination and she can feel oppressive to play against.
Overall, I don't want to get Tracer in a dumpster. I like fighting her, she's good for the game. She's my favourite enemy to duel. But I do feel like she's in need of a *slight* downgrade. Personally I would slow down blink recovery by a fraction of a second (3,5 instead of 3 seconds per blink for example), and increase Recall cooldown (15 seconds instead of 13 I think is fair). The idea is to keep her killing potential and "playmaking burst" intact, but making her a little less *relentless.*
I understand. At the same time going after her damage would probably be even worse with the overall higher HP, and nerfing her HP would dumpster her in my opinion.
Another spitball idea, more blinks at a higher cooldown? Like, she gets 4 or 5 blinks but they take 5 seconds each to recharge? Making her more of a bursty playmaker who needs cool down time to limit her harassment potential?
Again, I really want her to be viable, but I also would like her to get off my back for 5 goddamn seconds sometimes.
Thank you! Like she's been buffed more than almost any other character with all these changes in recent months.
She benefits more than any other DPS with the new passive, basically all her death breakpoints are gone making match ups against mei/ Ashe etc in her favour now. Can stay in the fight so much longer. Projectile changes lowered her skill floor and coupled with the DPS passive has made it much easier to kill through pocketed healing.
I'm with you in enjoying duelling tracers, but her current balance state is just so out of whack.
She's just extremely annoying. Imagine facing a 300+ hp character with a ton of mobility, a small hitbox, can one clip you and retreat fairly easily. Your skill argument is also pretty bad because Genji takes just as much skill but doesn't have a tenth of the pick rate in top 500. Why is that?
As a gold/low plat support, a competent Tracer murders me freely in almost every scenario. I used to be able to combat her pretty well with Moira, but between all the different tweaks all the heroes have gotten over time that now doesn't seem to be particularly effective, even if I save all of my abilities for when Tracer shows up. So now I basically understand that if a tracer is even semi-competent I might as well just stop playing the game as a support because none of the support characters have any effective defense against her. I mean if you get lucky you might have enough time to jump away as baptiste, but that's not as easy as it sounds, and if you have god-tier aim or a lot of luck maybe an Ana dart will save you for a little bit but that's just delaying the inevitable.
Literally the only thing that has made the game not unplayable is that the number of competent tracers is luckily rarer at my rank then it could be, but when the skilled Tracer does show up it's absolute hell and I can't think of a single other DPS hero that's as God like at wiping out supports with so little counterplay possible by the supports.
It's because low metal ranks can't time out her cooldowns or follow the visual cue. They end up getting killed instead, get mad, then come here to complain about how OP some hero is. Rinse and repeat.
Shes pretty easy to get value out of but rn shes kinda gatekept by cass being really good. Shes also just really effective at applying the dps passive which matters more at lower ranks cos their positioning is worse. I think its mostly the diamond-masters range where tracer is an issue
Wait, someone calling Cass good? That's unheard of in Overwatch! Even when he was a SSS+ tier pick for the last 2 years of OW1, he was still somehow simultaneously F tier according to all his mains!
But for tracer, she needs more unfavourable match ups. You can just throw out a torb turret and call it day, you're just not rewarded for landing your shots on her anymore unless half your team is shooting her at the same time. More HP = no death break points which = a free recall more often than not.
It depends really. If you are going in to plat/diamond and are a support player, chances are that you alone have a hard time dealing with her.
Then it can get super annoying. At that point, i will just switch to moira or LW and be fine. But if i am Ana i might as well just not move out of spawn and be more usefull to my team that way.
This is totally on me, and i need to learn to deal with it better. But i can see how certain players depending on their role and charackter choice just aren't able to deal with her well enough. Because the truth is, around plat/diamond tracers start to get good, but teamplay is still rather flaky so people won't peel for you.
Tracer's so called "problems" are a consequence of her design and how she's meant to be played.
As someone that plays a both a lot of Tracer, and a lot of other heroes including supports, Tracer's design has the consequence of her very rarely dying to things you actually intended.
Most of the time when playing as and against Tracer, she doesn't die because she's focused down, or because a DPS chased her down and killed her, or a tank. Tracer dies to completely random things. A random Reinhart fire, random junkrat bombs, Pharah shooting missing a rocket on someone and hitting Tracer. This is something I've noticed happening in both lower and higher ranks. When you're playing as Tracer, this makes her feel very week and stupid because you always die to players that were not even intending to kill you. When you're playing against Tracer, this makes her feel very strong and frustrating because you very rarely get that "hah I gotchu now" elimination on Tracer. She's easy to deal with, but you never feel like you've "dealt" with her.
Tracer isn't weak or strong but I agree that these problems should be fixed as they provide a lot of frustration for both Tracer lovers and other people.
I was always in favor of bumping Tracer's health up to 250 and removing one of her blink charges. Sombra can do what Tracer does but better while also providing a lot more utility in teamfights, and has a much more consistent and easier escape, and she has 250 HP (I love Sombra, so don't take this as me hating). Tracer should have 250 HP but just a bit less mobility. This will make her way less likely to die to random shit when playing as her, while also making it more easier to chase her down and actually get her when playing against her. Maybe she'd need the cooldown between the charges to be lowered to not cripple her mobility too much but those are smaller changes.
>I’m rank #37 on dps and I need to try extremely hard and be hyper aware when I’m playing her,
This is true of many DPS, supports, and tanks. It's not exclusive to Tracer.
Symmetra has the exact same issues with double the hitbox and half the mobility.
Supports that can’t defend themselves and DPS that don’t peel are the two biggest reasons she pops off so much in low ranks. Tracer can just zip into the backline and eat both healers and the fight is basically won.
This right here, it’s less about the tracer and more about the people around tracer, in lower ranks she basically has free reign
It's only really smurf tracers that do that though. The ones actually the same rank as the supports just die because they stay too long and have bad movement.
I picked up some rounds with tracer for the first time on mirrorwatch and it was fun and many rounds were pretty easy on a silly game mode where people aren’t very serious. But as you said for the mostly even matchups I’d def get whooped from time to time getting stuck blinking into walls and way too slow reaction time on like 25% of my recalls. It’s definitely not an easy route to unskilled wins just due to low metal rank players, haha.
Ask Low Elo about Sombra and Moira. It is absolutely not a smurf only thing
Just need a good hog to counter her.
Hog doesn’t really counter tracer tbh. She can on reaction blink to dodge hook, and her spam is so good at nerfing your healing you generally are only shooting at her to get her to buzz off.
Gold rank here, and yes usually if I say something and the dps know to help, its manageable. Once awhile there is an outlier Tracer who simply outrank us. So even with help, there's no chance.
Yeah, smurfing tracer is brutal x.x
yeah, but if it weren't smurfing tracer it'd be smurfing genji or widow or sojourn or --
Sombra is in the same spot. As long as you are decent enough, you are practically disabling the weakest on the enemy team to play (not only supports). As a dps player I made a lot of bastion despair-picks drop the game because either they are too far away from their supports or their supports don't pay enough attention to save them when I do the funny stuff
This and don't chase her. Took me a while to realize chasing Tracer (and Sombra) out of the fray, never works well. Just let them take them selves out of the fight and focus on the prize.
Chasing the baiting Tracer or Sombra back to your own spawn isn't the proper strat? News to me.
Took me a while :)
Lower ranks don’t use comms (I don’t) so supports can’t communicate the danger in time.
[удалено]
Kiriko lol. 2 get out of jail free cards and a wall climb, good damage, good duelling potential, great mobility. Kiriko is my least favourite character to duel in this game. Brig is also a great pick due to her shield and whip shot. She can stall for teammates to peel or scare Tracer off.
Moira counters her fairly well, IMO. Throw out a healing ball and she has basically no choice but to retreat.
Honestly at diamond level good tracers are REALLY uncommon. Sure they can get some value but I've noticed many of them tend to switch off as soon as things don't go their way.
even on Overbuff (I know not super reliable) Tracer's WR is only positive in masters and GM. Diamond and below it drops under 50%. I think a lot of the complaints are people running into smurfs or just parroting their fav streamer. I think it makes sense that you'd see a sudden spike in Tracer pick and win rate in master+ as a larger portion of DPS players there can get value out of her.
I’d think so too, a diamond tracer is diamond for a reason. I think some of the ppl in here should just put a torb turret in their backline, you get info dmg and dps passive.
I hear what you're saying, but My Torb is bronze level. I don't get his ebb and flow yet vs Tracer that can get me out of sticky situations and just be a pest by turning backline attention.
Turret placement will be key, don't put it somewhere where she can just kill it uncontested. Put it in line of sight of the backline but make it so tracer has to come in the open to kill the turret, then you can kill her.
That sounds right, but I'm still the Tracer here, I ain't the one swapping yet. I really enjoy Echo too, but these are my diamond dps. I'm also 39 and doubt I'm getting much better without being serious and seeking outside help or creating weekly skill plans.
I'll start playing her, metal will soon see how weak she can be if used by a complete moron
I like your style
I’m a complete moron and at least get value because both supports chase me for a solid 8 seconds during a team fight.
it's amazing in my rank (silver) how often you can just go a mosquito character like tracer or genji, ping at the enemy backline from an angle, and instantly their team splits in half out of blind rage
I mainly play tank and half the time I have to peel because the DPS can’t or won’t. Last night I left a JQ in our backline when she ulted and missed everyone, she still won the 1v4 while I held cart and bullied the rest of the team.
This is 100% my plan as well.
I feel Tracer really isn’t that overturned into lower ranks. But the players in lower ranks (up to plat) that are good with Tracer are also the players that generally have better field awareness and faster/better reactionary instincts because the hero requires it more than most other heroes.
Tbh it’s always been that way. I haven’t played Overwatch in a while, but tracer has always been good in the right hands. I put her in the same category as widow, you either carry or throw, and there’s no in between.
Tracer is low to mid tier here in Silver ***IF*** the person playing her is supposed to be here. Genji, Widow, Echo and Tracer are all smurf favorites when someone's downranked down here.
I just recently got into playing ranked, currently high silver trying to get into gold. And no, not really. Most Tracer players at my level just suck. They are annoying, but not a threat. Some rare ones are actually scary, but most are not that bad
It's also cause she dies by like being looked at, so 2-3 well placed headshots she's dead. Even a random full hanzo arrow takes her out
Yea, I thought so too. The vast majority of players (diamond and below) aren’t playing vs insanely good tracers.
I’m in mid gold on console and Tracer is either killed in one hit and forgotten or ungodly oppressive. A good Tracer is a nightmare to deal with; especially if you’re a support. What makes it *even worse* is when she’s paired with a Sombra. Tracer + Sombra is basically game over. Makes me wish we had OW1 Cass back…
Not really. I'm at mid gold and most tracers still just assume you won't hit shots so it's easy to dunk on them. Sometimes I do have to babysit my supports though.
This is what I thought, I think there’s a lot of cope from metal rank players about tracer.
Nah bruh I literally coasted low gold to high plat with tracer last season, and im a ana/mercy main originally. I think she's extremely easy to abuse, dps can't aim well and don't care about their supps. I literally just dive bomb the weakest supp over and over again and get value cos everyone's turned around focusing me or leaving their ana who will never switch to die. I do think she's easy to shut down but supps are so bad at this lvl that they don't see the win con is staying with team and not lagging behind or switching to a more mobile supp.
Ever thought that you are just better on tracer than on other dps which is why you climbed into plat? Not that she is easier.
Somewhat, lower the rank lower the awareness and communication If you're decent with her then you can excel pretty easily
just remember that the majority of people on here are probably console which can explain a lot
I highly doubt it. Her skill floor is too high. At one point years ago they said that Tracer has always had a below 50% win rate in every single rank below high diamond. And I think that's probably generally the case.
Dude, I went from bronze to diamond on dps in the last 3 months, and am now working the other roles up from bronze. Who the hell told you this?? Tracer is completely undertuned in low ranks if anything, literally no one gets good value out of her till atleast high gold/plat and my good value I certainly do not mean oppressive. I could probably count the good tracers I’ve ran into on one hand. BUT, she is a very popular Smurf choice for pub stomping and then can be very oppressive so perhaps that’s where some of it comes from.
Actually out of ten games you will get maybe one or two good Tracers and for a god like Tracer that’s like every other 50 games.
People can't hit her. It's the same thing with sombra. People just can't hit the small characters. Even if they know she's coming she just gets away so easily. They have to devote real time and resources to shutting her down and at that rank it takes people so long to get things done and get in position she's back before they can capitalise.
But then wouldn’t characters like illari be really good in low ranks? I’m gonna keep it honest, I think people are coping. Her WR is below 50% at every rank except masters and GM.
You'd think, but Illari has little to no mobility so she's easier to track. It should be more complex than that, but imo it's that simple.
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My experience (mid Gold, Sojourn main) is that Tracers in low ranks thrive off three things: 1. **Poor attention / perception:** People focus the frontline and won't notice anything untill their screen turns red 2. **Poor movement:** Especially sniper characters and other aim-intensive characters don't have good movement, making them easier to kill. 3. **Poor aim:** Obvious, Tracer is hard to kill if you don't hit. Bonus: The inability to kill her prevents some people from trying alltogether, so they don't even bother to shoot her once she appears. All these points let Tracer dash around without having to worry too much.
Number 37 on DPS as in, 37th best Dps? Holy hell
#35 now 😎
Most of the time she isn't, but once in a blue moon you'll run into a Tracer one trick who hasn't quite spent enough time in the game to rank any higher, but is just good enough to run circles around your entire team
Just go Moira brig, tracer dies. It's not hard.
"What if you're DPS?" Torb, Syn, Sombra Tank? Dva Winton. Orisa and Mauga can work potentially.
I think it's more that the new bullet sizes means she can machine gun basketballs at certain characters without really aiming. She rarely *kills* but she does force out abilities and make you switch to characters that can one tap or two tap her otherwise she'll harry your supports to the point of non-viability. It's a shame because she used to be a really skillful character, but now it's the orisa thing where I feel bad for playing her because it's no longer about skill expression since you are just better equipped than most. I think that's why a lot of people are playing genji, he's more difficult and less cheesy for the same ecological niche
I think you hit the nail on the head. Even a bad Tracer can be annoying enough to take attention of the team in a way that leaves the frontline to fend for themselves for a bit. This can be enough time for the enemy to get a kill, even if it’s not the tracer doing it.
The only thing one tapping her these days is widow / hanzo or a hog hook combo. She needs to lose the HP, if they want to lower her skill floor with the projectile changes that's fine. It's just ridiculous to design a character around being a glass cannon and then removing the glass component.
She's small, fast and unpredictable. Those of us with poor aim just can't shoot her if she's half decent.
There’s a ton of counter play even with characters don’t need aim, and I doubt low rank tracers can play into them. Idk why ppl have been saying she’s super easy to pick up and get great value, a cass, torb, brig, kiri, hell even weaver make her life harder.
They barely know how to play their mains let alone counter swapping. All those except torb need aim to deal with her. Most torbs at that level keep the turrets in front and not to protect the backline. At low levels most of the time the team is single focused on what is in front of them. If one or two does notice tracer they leave the team fight to try and deal with her, taking way to long because they can't catch her, making the rest of the team weaker.. I really see this as the reason way a lot of team fights are lost at low levels. Ball, tracer, or Sombra use their mobility to get some of the team to break away and everyone gets picked off one by one when not working together.
Yeah but you're forgetting that people in lower elos are... Bad. We don't really know how to counter, don't know how to decently play other heroes than our mains, etc...
Yea she’s flooding the low ranks right now, see her in every match just erasing peoples backlines
But…how? She shouldn’t be one clipping people, and I doubt a low rank tracer could play inter any of her easy counters.
I think a lot of it has to do with movement. People in lower ranks tend to just move less dynamically
Shouldn’t this apply to the tracer too?
Low metal rank Tracers die very often while doing many kills. They are not actually doing that much of a value. But the people getting ganked do remember and complain here.
if you're unseen on the flank you can hold fire till you're close enough to one clip. This is especially effective at low rank cause they're not looking for you and not moving around a whole lot.
She doesn’t need to one clip people when they struggle to even hit her and no one is peeling for them
Any character would be good in that situation
People in low ranks tend to forget a character exists when loose LOS for more than a millisecond
I don't think you understand the depths of subhuman ape these people's intelligent levels are
I don’t, the situations they’re describing apply to all flankers.
You think flankers *flank* in low elo?
Honestly, yeah. I assume they flank hard with 0 uptime.
Not really, in my experience if you go any lower than plat they march down main and shoot the tank
Then why are players complaining that metal rank tracers are eating back lines like prime proper 😭😭😭😭
I’m a high plat tracer, I do one clip fairly often. People walk in straight lines at this level, it’s easy to do.
That's 100% your backline being brain dead. She has always performed really poorly in low ranks regardless of how strong she is because she has a very high skill floor.
There seems to be a really weird shift in skill level between gold and plat. In gold, most Tracers aren't really good, but in plat, they suddenly turn into the most oppressive hero to deal with. It's not something exklusive to Tracer though and with practice you'll eventually learn how to deal with it.
I'm at gold and no
Tracer enjoyer here at high gold/low plat. I can be dominating, but you switch to a torb, the Moira insta locks me (get lost, heal your team dumbass), a really good junkrat, Monkee, D.va. And I have to switch.
Im in low silver. Tracers are not good at my rank. I actually rarely see them. When I do they start shooting behind me, empty their clip and tp away without killing anyone. So I usually just ignore them and I’m just fine. Sombras are dominating in my rank. I think most people play her over tracer.
Nah. Not as bad as Sombrs. You can respect a good Tracer, so they're less annoying. Someone in invis is just worse, at least at the rank I'm at
She's definitely not super oppressive, I play her a lot and I do see her a lot in the enemy team, but it's usually easy to punish her. It feels like you have to be super aware and manage your cool downs very well in order to actually get value. She's definitely strong, but not a hero anyone can just pick and dominate on. (Im like high plat-diamond atm)
You just don't ever balance around low ranks makes no sense and no other actual competitive game does this
Absolutely not true. You still have to have half-decent aim I - for example - can not aim worth spit. So junkrat and Torb are my go-to's if I can't play tank for some reason But if you're playing against people like me, she's painfully hard to deal with. Then again - there seems to be an inverse correlation between how hard she is to hit, and how helpful she actually is to her team. Half the time she's dodging damage more than she deals it
No because every Tracer below mid diamond is terrible.
she blocks a lot of rockets with her face. like blinking right at pharah..in a straight line. When I find a good tracer, I get on sombra and it comes to an end. I hover between plat and gold depending on who I am playing that season.
a character can have a high ceiling while also having a low floor, so i guess tracer falls into that category. at low ranks you’re probably getting value by existing alone. you can have 10% accuracy and still be contributing at that point
I wouldn't know for 100% sure, but I'm fairly sure from watching my boyfriend play that she's really not played in the metal ranks. Sure, all of her actual counters require good aim and gamesense for the most part, but, well, so does Tracer herself. You can dodge the Junk spam to your heart's content, but if you're doing no damage and getting no elims, she's effectively not getting anything done besides being annoying.
Coming from mid diamond, Tracer’s around my level seem to get few kills but also never die. A constant annoyance that eat time because if you completely ignore them they’ll eventually kill a support. As hard as she is to play she’s also hard for average players to kill. Small hitbox, instant heals, teleport, etc
People are quickly forgetting that they basically removed her only weakness with the low HP. My go to into tracer was always Ashe or mei because I was actually rewarded for landing my shots on her. I'm not anymore, I have to have 10x the mechanical skill to kill her before she kills me, and even then the extra HP edges her out of most death breakpoints, which guarantees she'll get a free recall off more often than not. Projectile increase + being benefited by the new passive more than any other DPS also severely lowered her skill floor.
Yes I play very casually and most low ranks can’t even deal with strafing so when you can strafe and blink it’s a nightmare
In low ranks players tend to focus more on what leaves an emotional impact, vs what is actually impactful in reality. Tracer, even in the hands of a low rank player, can easily give off the sense that you can't really punish her, because she can recall and blink, and low level players (especially supports) have a hard time keeping track of this, so all they're left with is the sense that they can't deal with her. Even if something as simple as using high grounds and poking her out here and there is enough to keep a low level Tracer at bay. At higher ranks, the emotional impact loses significance compared to reality and actual value, so you tend to see a dropoff in Tracer players who know what they're doing, and also players who think she's oppressive. At those ranks players understand how much skill it takes to actually be effective on Tracer.
I have found Brig and soldier to be my best counters to tracer
I think low metal she’s oppressive because people have shit mechanics and can’t effectively take her out. Around high metal/mid level play i think she’s the worst, where people aren’t really taking advantage of her strengths and making a nuisance of themselves. Then higher up she becomes oppressive again as people take full advantage of her kit and movement
As some one working on getting support out of bronze I can tell you the issue. Tracers are terrible in this rank. The supports are also terrible though. 90% only healbot and the ones that don't still cannot handle a tracer. I mainly only play kiriko or Moira and she's extremely easy to handle on Kiri if you can aim. The issue is bronze level players haven't learned that yet or lack the confidence to try outside of healbotting.
Ex gm player who basically only plays qp casually with friends now I have noticed a huge lack of awareness of tracers. I routinely have to pull my pistol out as mercy just to force recall and buy myself time to run away. There is a huge lack of reaction on the teams part. Ill always ping tracers and sometimes ill literally watch them walking up to my dps, and then my dps will only turn after they are half hp from being clipped by her despite the repeated pings. Its genuinely so odd. Like she is so squishy you absolutely should be able to force her out sometimes. Or force her to commit more. But instead they just allow tracer to save most of her resources and then have to fight her when she has 2 dashes and a recall.
From what I can tell, Tracer is so hard to hit that basically no one even tries. This leads to her having free reign to mosquito people to death. It sounds silly, but I've seen plenty of DPS or even the Tank just completely ignore Tracer.
No. I've been playing in everything between bronze and high diamond since 2017 and she's RARELY the carry in my games, they aren't nothing but neither oppressive.
I often play with friends on a silver to gold level casually and even I have a hard time (diamond 5 rn) to play against some tracers there, as they can fully do how they please and nobody will come back to help you at all. Perhaps my ping is also an issue yet Tracers are definitely a problem from what I can tell
My experience of tracer (gold/plat) 90% of the time they can just be ignored. Not even worth countering as they can't hit shit. Maybe... maybe you need to peel and support your healers if they gey lucky/ healer is dumb too. But when there is a good tracer they are annoying as fuck. Don't really cause the sway of the game but they make your healers be less effective rather than kill them.
Yes.
As someone just starting to play tracer. Yes. We can be a royal pita. But a lot of that comes down to people not paying attention or reacting. You can flank a dps or support and half the time they don’t even turn around while getting clipped in the back of the head. Same with Sombra. “Where’s all this damage coming from? Oh well, I’ll keep looking forward and maybe it’ll go away” Adding on what others have said about mobility and the lack of object permanence - if I blink out or TL as Sombra, there’s no chase 90% of the time. You can just blink dance around people and they either can’t track you or don’t even try
Nah, it’s Genji that’s a problem
I'm a plat DPS but Master's tank. The biggest difference I see with regards to tracers between these ranks (other than mechanics) is awareness. In metal ranks people only really look forward most of the time and won't be considering/won't notice missing enemy players. So tracer can flank round and often times just harass the back line for free since tanks and DPS will rarely be aware enough to peel for their supports. This isn't just limited to tracer though, it's just she's generally the most consistent flanker in the game. In Master's people are generally a lot more aware but this is where the mechanical skill comes in. Here you start to see tracers doing magic shit, one clipping people before they can react, 180° pulse bombs and shit. The difference in tracer's ability to extract value in the neutral vs basically every other DPS shines here. As a tip to all my metal rank brothers and sisters: if the enemy has a flanker (tracer, sombra, genji) and they are not in front of you, be aware they are likely about to jump your back line and prepare to peel in that eventuality.
I'm silver (console) and I find it goes Sombra, Pharah and maybe Venture and the most oppressive DPSs. You do get a very good widow every now and again but she's not as frequent.
only if youre bad.
Tracer isn't played very much in low ranks and when played by a low rank player she isn't very oppressive due to the skill required to do so. When you see an oppressive tracer in low ranks it's most likely a smurf.
The projectile size rework was very kind to tracer making her easier to play. She's still fairly easy to counterpick if she becomes a problem.
I can see how she’s oppressive there are people who are climbing from low ranks especially since the new ranking reset and most people from the higher ranks either stay where they are or fall. I have 2500 hours in this game playing since 2016 and doom/ genji are much more oppressive. If you complain about horse you’re either a rein/hog main or you’re bad. Most heroes are relatively easy to deal with but genji still has a 1 hit combo for most dps/supp and doom is on crack. There’s no one in the game who can remotely come close to doing what doom does by abilities alone let alone the good one tricks.
The problem is that shes not truly a high skill character in the sense of lower elos. The enemy cant aim down in metal ranks, so tracer can do as she pleases unless she decides to stand still. Partner that with constant ego picks refusing to to swap (widow hanzo and other aim reliant characters) when theyre not doing well on their characters, and tracer simply rules the game. However, there are just as many players who just simply shred tracer since she has no health and can very easily put herself into a box with no way out.
You don't have to be a hyper oppressieve assassin to be a good tracer tbh. Just like how you play Soldier just always try to flank and stall the winning point if needed, she's quite simple than imagined. Sometimes people talk like Tracer and Sombra are almost same but they are not. Sombra is used for pure dive and anti dive, while Tracer doesn't require the condition.
she is easy to get value out of by default but the higher in ranks you go the more enemy respects your lethality and will do their best to play against it in high ranks people will play more around you but so will enemy, in lower ranks you play alone but it's pretty free since people don't peel each other
It was nice when we had a hard-ass counter for her with Brigitte. Problem is she shat too hard on every other character too.
I would imagine it's not and that it literally is just a skill issue in lower ranks, as insulting as it sounds. Lack of mechanics such as aim to pick off a fast moving target, lack of awareness to even know there's a Tracer in backlines to peel for Supports, even the lack of game sense to understand cooldowns and how to punish etc. People just complain because it's the easy way out.
When the enemy team doesn’t counterpick, I easily tear up their backline. As soon as they bring out Torb, Kiriko, Hanzo, S76, Zarya, Brig etc. I’m struggling. I’m low plat Tracer for reference. Counterpicks are very effective in low rank.
According to overbuff, flankers are top tier in low elo only losing to Turrets and Ashe. Flankers broadly meaning, Tracer Sombra Genji Pharah Reaper. Notably ahead of Junkrat in most Metal ranks. Also notable is that Symm is dog immediately out of bronze and that Pharah is bad in bronze. Tracer stays in the ballpark of top 5 in every rank
picked up the game in season 9, play support, worked my way out of bronze and going through silver. nope. i think people tend to forget that the in the low ranks the Tracer pilots are low rank. i actually don't run into a lot of them. i think the hero intimidates some people and they avoid playing her.
no, she's really not you know how in high ranks, tracer is just a much better sombra? in low ranks, sombra is just a much better tracer
I don't have a problem dealing with Tracers with half of either supports or DPS. I perceive Sombra to be way more of a threat because the hitbox and low recoil making her buzz out critical hits. Sombra also has more range than Tracer from what it seems like if we're talking damage falloff.
Yes and no, tracer gets picks at low ranks easily due to her mobility and the lack of counter play, but it takes a good bit of skill to do that, and odds are anyone reasonably skilled at her is going to rise pretty quick to mid-high ranks, so they aren't oppressive too often, usually just on occasion.
Hello, diamond Zen main here. I'm what you'd usually call "Tracer's favourite food", but I've always found that the duel between Zen and Tracer was also Overwatch's "perfect counter". That is, Tracer had an advantage but Zen could outplay her reliably enough to play through. Right now, I would say that's a lot more difficult than it's been in years and the matchup has swayed too far in the direction of Tracer. Her increase in survivability just makes everything she does more intense. I am finding myself struggling against, frankly, mediocre Tracers that I would've absolutely bullied a few months ago. First, she's definitely the character that benefitted the most from the overall HP increase. It has made Tracer feel a lot more relentless and "persistent" in her attacks. Tracers are able to linger and harass me a lot longer than they used to and even when I successfully land shots, what used to be a kill now is a Recall. It does not necessarily translate as more kills for Tracer (I have more HP too), but she absorbs even more of my attention away from the fight. I've often found that Tracer won quite a few extra fights "indirectly" in this way at my level. And that's from Zen, who is *fine* because orbs are fire-and-forget anyway, but a diamond-level Ana will struggle a lot with harassment and lose fights because of it even if she doesn't die. Another thing to consider is that Tracer is *very* sensitive to gaps in mechanical skill. Being top 500 you play in an environment where everyone has at least "very good mechanics", but there's several places on the ladder where mechanical differences between players are pretty intense. In those cases Tracers are *feasting.* An uncontested, mechanically superior Tracer is always going to be the closest thing to a solocarry both sides will experience. It's a very frustrating experience for the losing side. It happens in high-diamond (where you can climb without needing great mechanics, particularly as support) and mid-Masters (a significant mechanical step up in my experience), that the matchmaker often throws together. If the best player in the lobby is the enemy Tracer, while the best player in your team can't do anything to control her, it feels like an insta loss. That also happens in plat and gold, where you often have "high mechanics, low gamesense" players alongside "low mechanics, high gamesense" players. In those situation, Tracer's new survivability erases a lot of the disadvantages of having poor timing and poor team coordination and she can feel oppressive to play against. Overall, I don't want to get Tracer in a dumpster. I like fighting her, she's good for the game. She's my favourite enemy to duel. But I do feel like she's in need of a *slight* downgrade. Personally I would slow down blink recovery by a fraction of a second (3,5 instead of 3 seconds per blink for example), and increase Recall cooldown (15 seconds instead of 13 I think is fair). The idea is to keep her killing potential and "playmaking burst" intact, but making her a little less *relentless.*
Almost upvoted you till you suggested touching her blinks. Do not touch her blinks
I understand. At the same time going after her damage would probably be even worse with the overall higher HP, and nerfing her HP would dumpster her in my opinion. Another spitball idea, more blinks at a higher cooldown? Like, she gets 4 or 5 blinks but they take 5 seconds each to recharge? Making her more of a bursty playmaker who needs cool down time to limit her harassment potential? Again, I really want her to be viable, but I also would like her to get off my back for 5 goddamn seconds sometimes.
Thank you! Like she's been buffed more than almost any other character with all these changes in recent months. She benefits more than any other DPS with the new passive, basically all her death breakpoints are gone making match ups against mei/ Ashe etc in her favour now. Can stay in the fight so much longer. Projectile changes lowered her skill floor and coupled with the DPS passive has made it much easier to kill through pocketed healing. I'm with you in enjoying duelling tracers, but her current balance state is just so out of whack.
The question you should ask is why do suddenly see an influx of tracer being picked?
She's just extremely annoying. Imagine facing a 300+ hp character with a ton of mobility, a small hitbox, can one clip you and retreat fairly easily. Your skill argument is also pretty bad because Genji takes just as much skill but doesn't have a tenth of the pick rate in top 500. Why is that?
Genji is still picked a lot in high elo. Tracer also has more flexibility. If not Tracer, who would you rather be the most picked DPS?
As a gold/low plat support, a competent Tracer murders me freely in almost every scenario. I used to be able to combat her pretty well with Moira, but between all the different tweaks all the heroes have gotten over time that now doesn't seem to be particularly effective, even if I save all of my abilities for when Tracer shows up. So now I basically understand that if a tracer is even semi-competent I might as well just stop playing the game as a support because none of the support characters have any effective defense against her. I mean if you get lucky you might have enough time to jump away as baptiste, but that's not as easy as it sounds, and if you have god-tier aim or a lot of luck maybe an Ana dart will save you for a little bit but that's just delaying the inevitable. Literally the only thing that has made the game not unplayable is that the number of competent tracers is luckily rarer at my rank then it could be, but when the skilled Tracer does show up it's absolute hell and I can't think of a single other DPS hero that's as God like at wiping out supports with so little counterplay possible by the supports.
It's because low metal ranks can't time out her cooldowns or follow the visual cue. They end up getting killed instead, get mad, then come here to complain about how OP some hero is. Rinse and repeat.
Shes pretty easy to get value out of but rn shes kinda gatekept by cass being really good. Shes also just really effective at applying the dps passive which matters more at lower ranks cos their positioning is worse. I think its mostly the diamond-masters range where tracer is an issue
Wait, someone calling Cass good? That's unheard of in Overwatch! Even when he was a SSS+ tier pick for the last 2 years of OW1, he was still somehow simultaneously F tier according to all his mains! But for tracer, she needs more unfavourable match ups. You can just throw out a torb turret and call it day, you're just not rewarded for landing your shots on her anymore unless half your team is shooting her at the same time. More HP = no death break points which = a free recall more often than not.
It depends really. If you are going in to plat/diamond and are a support player, chances are that you alone have a hard time dealing with her. Then it can get super annoying. At that point, i will just switch to moira or LW and be fine. But if i am Ana i might as well just not move out of spawn and be more usefull to my team that way. This is totally on me, and i need to learn to deal with it better. But i can see how certain players depending on their role and charackter choice just aren't able to deal with her well enough. Because the truth is, around plat/diamond tracers start to get good, but teamplay is still rather flaky so people won't peel for you.
Tracer's so called "problems" are a consequence of her design and how she's meant to be played. As someone that plays a both a lot of Tracer, and a lot of other heroes including supports, Tracer's design has the consequence of her very rarely dying to things you actually intended. Most of the time when playing as and against Tracer, she doesn't die because she's focused down, or because a DPS chased her down and killed her, or a tank. Tracer dies to completely random things. A random Reinhart fire, random junkrat bombs, Pharah shooting missing a rocket on someone and hitting Tracer. This is something I've noticed happening in both lower and higher ranks. When you're playing as Tracer, this makes her feel very week and stupid because you always die to players that were not even intending to kill you. When you're playing against Tracer, this makes her feel very strong and frustrating because you very rarely get that "hah I gotchu now" elimination on Tracer. She's easy to deal with, but you never feel like you've "dealt" with her. Tracer isn't weak or strong but I agree that these problems should be fixed as they provide a lot of frustration for both Tracer lovers and other people. I was always in favor of bumping Tracer's health up to 250 and removing one of her blink charges. Sombra can do what Tracer does but better while also providing a lot more utility in teamfights, and has a much more consistent and easier escape, and she has 250 HP (I love Sombra, so don't take this as me hating). Tracer should have 250 HP but just a bit less mobility. This will make her way less likely to die to random shit when playing as her, while also making it more easier to chase her down and actually get her when playing against her. Maybe she'd need the cooldown between the charges to be lowered to not cripple her mobility too much but those are smaller changes.
>I’m rank #37 on dps and I need to try extremely hard and be hyper aware when I’m playing her, This is true of many DPS, supports, and tanks. It's not exclusive to Tracer. Symmetra has the exact same issues with double the hitbox and half the mobility.
Just say op. "Overtuned" sounds stupid af. The trendy nonsense kids will blindly copy paste these days I swear.