by JR Cook - 8 years ago     show comments

Tracer has finally blinked her way into the Nexus. Bringing insane mobility and many tools at her disposal to keep her safe. We’re going to cover a build that I think will take advantage of her incredible talent. She also has the best character trailer ever. Seriously. Watch this.

Abilities

Trait Reload

This refills Tracers current ammo clip entirely. Unlike other heroes Tracer can move while auto attacking. Think of it like stutter stepping without the effort of stuttering.

Q Blink

She teleports to an area. It’s like Li-Ming’s teleport, but much more annoying. Tracer gets 3 charges of Blink. They refill somewhat quickly being on a 6 second cooldown. But don’t get greedy with them. Tracer has a catastrophically low HP pool. To put it in perspective it’s less than Raynor’s by a wide margin but, not worse than Murky.

W Melee

This is simply a melee attack when you get up in someone’s face. It does a base 264 damage and priortizes heroes. This also will give you 5% extra charge on Pulse Bomb when you hit creeps and an additional 10% when hitting heroes.

E Recall

Aka you get out of jail free card. You have to somewhat memorize where you’ve been in the last 3 seconds, but popping this will take her back to her position 3 seconds earlier on top of removing any negative status effects. This essentally breaks everything on you. Pyroblast, triple tap, bone prison. They all just get disjointed from her. Be careful to not get baited into using Recall early with its 24 second cool down.

Ultimate

R Pulse Bomb

Tracer only has one ultimate that she has at the start of the game. However at level 10 you pick one of three talents that will buff this ultimate. You can throw it at the ground or you can stick it on someone if you land it on them. It deals a nice 443 base damage and when it explodes it also does a small AOE dealing 221 damage. This recharges quicker than you would think.

The Build

Level 1 Pulse Strike

Bumping up melee’s pulse bomb charge to 15% on heroes. If it were not for Tracer’s insane mobility I would say take Slipstream for that 4 second reduction onto Recall. But getting pulse bombs out faster is never anything to sneeze at.

Level 4 Parting Gift

Someone get up in your face a little too hard and you were forced to recall? Leave behind some bombs to damage them a bit more. With this talent using recall drops three bombs that deal a base 249 damage to different targets.

Level 7 Spatial Echo

This is more of a get out of jail free talent. Using recall grants you 2 charges of blink, letting you be a little more loose with your blinks.

Level 10 Sticky Bomb

I also really love Quantum Spike for the 10% damage to a hero’s health, but Sticky Bomb is amazing for the increased AOE as well at the 60% slow it brings to the table for Pulse bomb.

Level 13 Bullet Spray

I really feel like there’s no other option here at 13. Increasing the range of melee by 50% as well as now making it an AOE gives Tracer amazing wave clear and team fight ability. This may be one of the best talents in the game for any character.

Level 16 Slight of Hand

This one is really a toss up for me but I’m going with Slight of Hand for now. You almost don’t realize how often you’re reloading with this talent. If you like gears of war or whatever go with Locked and Loaded for that sweet bonus damage per clip. I like being able to focus on other things besides reloading though so take my love of Slight of Hand with a grain of salt.

Level 20 Total Recall

Now when you recall, you heal all the damage you took in those 3 seconds back. It makes her super annoying in team fights when you think you’ve got her almost dead she just recalls, leaves bombs in her wake and comes back with all that damaged healed.

Strategy

One thing when using Tracer you need to realize you do not have tons of HP. One polymorph from Brightwing and a followed by a stun and you’re pretty much dead. Any kind of stun or ability that disables your ability to control Tracer will spell doom for you. Do your best to not get hit by those.

However, what you lack in HP you make up for in spades with her mobility . You move while attacking at the same time, this alone puts you leagues above all other auto attackers. You have your ultimate starting at level one. With your mobility and access to that from the start of the game, you can get quick pick offs on people. You’re going to want to play by applying safe pressure. Poke your enemies constantly, using 1 or 2 blink charges to go in for a kill with a melee or a sticky pulse bomb. Help other lanes out by putting pressure on enemy heroes and help force them out of lane so your team can pick up an XP advantage.

Once team fights start breaking out fairly consistently, take note of who your squishy targets are and get in, put as much damage on them as possible and get out or secure the kill. Bullet Spray is going to put in a whole lot of work here, it almost entirely wipes out creep waves and puts a great amount of damage on heroes as well. With your ability to blink around fights, recall out of trouble and leave damage behind, and have a quickly charging ultimate, you can be a forced to be reckoned with in the nexus.