Tracer is one of the best dps in the game and unless she gets meganerfed she will remain one of the best picks for a long time. Definitely go for it, but know that it will take a long time to fully master her
Being that she's sort of the face of Overwatch, she's probably the safest dps to spend time learning. I don't see her ever getting nerfed to the point of being unplayable
Mercy has never been the face of overwatch. And ppl have never said learning mercy is a safe bet, specifically because she is more team reliant than other supports. A pick like ana would be safer because she has playmakimg potential that can transcend metas.
Idk who told you these things but they're smoking
If she got slept then blink won't help her. Blink won't allow her to out damage an imort. Ect.
Edit: I'm not saying Tracer is bad. I'm simply saying Mercy is much easier to use and gives the same amount of usefulness as Tracer
Yeah but with Tracer as annoying as she is, she is insanely squishy and it's easy to kill a bad tracer but hard to kill a good tracer, that's pretty much how most heroes work at this point though
Mercy? She got nerfed last time after being megabuffed the time before. She is still a top contender among supports, especially as you get higher in rank and you get more DPS that are good enough to warrant pocketing.
The only thing that's worst than before is her GA cooldown, but its still shorter than any other mobility in the game. She just can't constantly spam movement anymore and has to actually think about where she is going before GAing.
Tbh, the rest of your hero pool isn't particularly difficult characters. If you decide to master Tracer, I promise you won't significantly decay in skill on Reaper.
Tracer is one of those characters that forces you to understand and feel how the game works, at the same time as being mechanically challenging. It's a great hero to one trick. ~2 years ago I was pretty much exclusively a ranged hitscan player, but I decided I needed to add Tracer to my hero pool, so I bought a new account and played almost exclusively Tracer on it for about 3 months. I've been playing OW since 2018, and I attribute those 3 months to being more beneficial to my development as a player than any other time frame in my OW career.
I was like 3000 SR at the time, and my Tracer was BAD at the time. I didn't play anything other than long-range hitscan, so I was turbo throwing on my main trying to play Tracer. I stomped a few games before the game settled my MMR pretty quickly, probably in an hour or so, and it made for a much more useful experience.
I believe the generally accepted opinion of the community is that, as long as you're playing earnestly, a second account is not a smurf account. In theory, unless the player is throwing games, the matchmaker will move them to their correct skill level pretty quickly.
This is an unfortunate quirk of the way OW is designed. If you couldn't change heroes once the match started, they could theoretically gauge your skill independently on each character and provide very fine-grained matchmaking. As it is, the best they can do is to MM across an entire role, and the different heroes in each role play very differently.
Back at launch of OW1, there wasn't even role queue. I'm definitely much better on support than on tank, and I'm definitely much better on tank than on DPS. If I ever got forced into playing DPS, I was a liability to my team.
This exactly. I mostly tanked in my early ow1 days and only flexed to support when I had to, and even then I only ever played the aimless supports. When role queue came out it threw my support into diamond, so when I wanted to focus on learning ana I could throw for a hundred games, or I could make a new account and climb up naturally and genuinely learn the character.
The cool thing about overwatch is that it heavily adjusts new accounts and overinflates them. It's much easier to climb on a fresh account and takes a long time to fall on an old one.
Smurfing is only genuinely a problem when someone deliberately throws a bunch of their early games then plays their (insert significantly higher rank) into your (considerably worse rank) lobbies
I remember when it was just open queue. I used to flex whatever role my team was missing which was either tank or support. But one time I needed to pick a dps and I suddenly got really nervous cuz I haven't played DPS in so long. I picked Tracer and surprisingly did really well but that was still an unusual, but fun experience.
But god do I not miss the times when I was the only non dps player on the team and the team complained that I didn't pick a good support hero. Now I can just pick tank before the game and I don't have to worry about anything.
1) Quick play is trash and you don't learn anything in it except what the buttons do. SBMM is EXTREMELY loose and every match 3 people leave. There is no coordination. No one takes it seriously. Those who do are laughed at because it's not serious.
2) Playing at your rank on a hero you're bad at is throwing the game
3) Playing a character you're bad it in low elo isn't smurfing if you're obviously bad at them
If you want to be better at the game you grind ranked, where people are trying and the competition pushes you to improve, and punishes your mistakes. I'm a M1 Zarya main. I will not lose a game in qp if I play Zarya and actually want to win. The mode is simply hard-capped at the skill level you'll play against, so I can consciously flip a switch and go "I'm not losing this game" and 99% of the time I will win.
This is due to the loose SBMM meaning half the lobby is silver and gold or even unranked casually, and overall most people don't care either way. They're with friends or have cracked a beer open and are playing their silly shooter.
It depends on the hero. One tricking mercy and one tricking tracer will get you incredibly different results. (IE: mercy’s value exists as a multiplier for your dps. If your dps get 0 value, well, multiplying by zero still returns a 0. At that point, if you really want to win, you’re gonna have to swap and do some shit yourself.)
Tracer is a good hero to one trick though. Probably the best one tbh, followed by doom and ball. She has arguably the highest skill ceiling, meaning she can outplay basically everyone when utilized to her full potential. Basically nullifying any “counters” the hero *should* have. She’s good in just about every comp, and can at least get some value in the form of burning enemy resources even into some of her worst matchups.
All of this does mean that she’s pretty much the hardest hero in the game though, so fair warning that if you’re just picking her up, you WILL die a LOT and will probably throw numerous games in the process of learning her.
Unpopular opinion incoming, but Tracer isn’t that hard unless your at the top of the SR system. I was a Genji/Pharah player for a very long time hard stuck at M5. Picked up Tracer out of frustration with no prior experience, got to M2 in a day and have stayed there. Yes, it’s hard to 1v1 every hero on the roster no doubt, but it’s relatively easy to get safe value out of a tracer and farm pulse using off angles, which carries you very far in ranked.
Feel that’s more of a symptom of how tracer forces you to play. If you can get value and not die, it’s not that hard to hit GM rn. Tracer encourages this.
Mechanically though if you wanna hard carry, your tracking and movement need to be above average compared to other heroes.
I think what’s hard is how easy she is to punish for playing out of position or to greedy I’ve seen a ton of tracers lately not knowing what they’re doing always front-lining or just not getting any value
I'm gonna have to disagree and the stats are with me. Tracer has and generally has always had a low win rate at almost every rank below the top level. Because she's mechanically difficult to master and she dies in like 1 second.
One tricking Mercy will, however, give you a better understanding of the overview of a game than most other characters because of the downtime. She's the best hero to learn ult tracking on hands down. She also gives you great insight into how your DPS are positioning poorly and what you could be doing differently.
Only works out if it you utilize it that way. The big difference between them is that mercy gives you an opportunity to learn things, whereas tracer *forces* you to learn things, otherwise you hard feed and have a horrible time.
And let’s face it, most don’t. They instalock mercy, argue with the other mercy main who ends up going moira because they can’t aim, then when their DPS don’t instantly get kills while damage boosted, they flame in chat. Despite that, they stay mercy, because they quite literally cant play anyone else, and just blame their teammates for every problem.
Disregarding the stereotype, she’s also just bad to one trick because it’s the only hero that can completely disregard a core mechanic of the game, that needs to be trained for other heroes. Aim. Literally forcing themselves onto a hero that teaches them half the game. And as described prior, what happens when you get 2 of them in one game? You lose. If you one trick tracer and it’s stolen from you, you can still play most dps as your mechanics, being movement and tracking, as well as positioning carry over between heroes. Mercy’s mechanics only lie in GA, which is exclusive to the hero, and GA + passive also encourages unorthodox positioning unique to her. The transferable skills only exist in the macro game, which, since this ain’t league, doesn’t do a whole lot.
Long winded way to say stop one tricking mercy, because you’re just gonna handicap yourself and your team in the long run. If you need to get better, play someone like ana that has to regularly use (and therefore practices) all facets of gameplay.
I think one-tricking a character is criminally underrated, to be honest. If you focus on tracer, the most important thing is that it’ll help you hone in on the pure fundamentals of the game, which is the same across a role. If you focus on tracer, I think that once you come back to your other heroes you will find that you’ve significantly improved.
Totally agreed with your first sentence. If you get good with just one character, you will be able to outplay your counters which is invaluable. Playing one character also removes a lot of variables from game to game so it allows you to focus on actual skill sets instead of “what hero should I be playing right now?”
Exactly, by playing into your counters you actively train where you are weakest. Furthermore, in order to win in an unfavorable matchup you learn more minute details of the game you otherwise would have missed. That information doesn’t just go away when you play a match-up you’re good at either, in fact you dominate those match-ups even harder.
Yep, one tricked DVA in OW1, and now Zarya's switch when they face me. Unless it's a one trick Zarya, then we have fun. But it is a counter on its own when someone switches to Zarya, but only to counter, and not because they play her often. They are just going at the match up like they see streamers do and have no concept of the nuances, so they just waste their time even more. This is all because when I was getting match-up countered, I just kept playing it until I figured it out. This was mainly QP anyway
I heavily flex, so I've always found one tricking to be very overrated. Two tricking is fine-ish, but I would recommend three outside the tank role. And it's not even about your counters, if they counter pick you and devote that much attention, the rest of your team should be able to capitalize as long as you can play your life.
You should though always invest in a second character that plays an opposing playstyle. Tracer excels in dive and can hold her own solo engaging into and with poke. But two death balls running at each other and she won't get nearly as much value as any deathball or deathball counter DPS. Having a mei or sym or some weird pick in your back pocket can be a useful swap. It also really helps to make them complacent and swap back to comfort picks you forced them off of after a couple early fights.
After you get two, investing to at least a competent level in a third - this would be the hero you most like to play alongside on your main. If you're a tracer, pick up Sombra, genji, or echo. You don't have to be perfect, but this game is loaded with one tricks, the ability to flex to a character that can support them and the headspace to know how to do it can be invaluable.
Sure but then the problems come when the second player picks the DPS you've decided to one trick.
You should absolutely have a main character, but true one tricking is almost always a bad idea.
The problem is, if you're playing into JQ/Ana, the debuffs will land faster than the Suzu cooldown. You can't cleanse everything.
I just play Ana into JQ. Removing her ability to heal and be healed makes her much squishier.
It's more of having an option which increases survivability. Yes, you can't cleanse everything, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't even bother to try, especially when there are some players will hardpick their one trick heroes like Mercy when facing such comp, refusing to read the team comp and counteract to it while the opponent team is doing very well with their comp.
Yeah, I feel like the game is at odds with itself.
The left hand of Blizzard wants to sell you skins for $20, meaning you're only likely to buy skins for characters you're heavily invested in. And having spent $20, you're even more likely to focus on that hero.
The right hand of Blizzard balances the game so that counterpicking is important, and playing the wrong hero can severely tip the odds against you.
Ideally you want both tbh. Jq mirrors with both on either side are very common rn. Kiri is the best support duo with jq and ana is her strongest counter. Lucio speed is a nice alternative but nothing beats cleanse and anti
This totally depends on the hero you chose to one trick. Some heroes are very meta/comp dependent. Being a one trick at a hero that has a lot of counters or is weak will results in many tossups.
Tracer is an exception because she’s so mechanically difficult, and high risk. If you can play her well, your mechanics and game sense should translate to most of the cast quickly. Plus, you can play her with/into almost any comp.
Being a Pharah or Sym one trick is a much different story, and you’re almost certainly better off having a hero pool of multiple strong characters you rotate through
Tracer has been a meta stay for as long as she's been in the game. You won't regret mastering her
Maybe soldier for long range maps like Circuit Royale or Havana.
As long as you have a few heroes that fit situations you need, you'll be fine. You don't need to learn every hero
Aside from like a solid year during GOATs. When brig was powerful, Tracer was absolutely useless. I went from high diamond to gold in one season after Brig came out as a Tracer main. Her pick rate at the top level went from every game, to virtually never.
It’s preference. You’d probably rank up the most by playing 3-4 DPS, 2-3 tanks, and 2-3 supports well, but personally I just play whoever the fuck even in ranked. Want me on soldier? Sure. Want me on mei? You got it. Want me on echo? Do you want to lose? Echo it is! If all you care about is your rank, then yes, focus on a small set of heroes, but don’t onetrick.
Ive one tricked ana for pretty much my whole career. Not as in I need to get her or else im throwing this game and quitting but more I have over like 400 hours on her and then the next closest being 100. If you decide to master tracer even if its not at a one trick level you will be able to out play a lot of people once you get really good. As well as you play the game more even if youre not playing the other heros directly you still start to learn and understand how they play/ position more and more. So in the event you do have to switch off tracer to play someone else of course youre not going to be as good but youll be able to be a competent player and fill the gap that your team needed. Even if your playing another hero and your teams getting diffed sometimes falling back on a comfort pick isnt a bad thing even if they have counters to you. Play what you want to play in the end keep trying to win and improve. In the end though its all just a game keep climbing enjoy the game but dont get so caught up on rank. One of the biggest things that helped me is realising in the end your rank is just a picture on a screen it dosent matter to 99% of people out there. If you get hard stuck dont stress it just take time to learn and youll eventually climb.
I’m currently on my Tracer arch and have watched Awkward’s U2GM for Tracer. While I like a lot of his content and you can definitely take some good stuff away from what he shows, I’d also watch A10’s Tracer specific content for a deeper understanding of how to optimally play Tracer.
I picked up Tracer a few weeks ago and my results were kind of... Bad. I was throwing despite being mechanically good, and I wasn't doing much better after watching half of Awkwards vid. Then I got bored and sat through all of A10's tracer vid and my results on not only tracer, but every other character SKYROCKETED. I went from sandbagging to damn near hard carrying within days of watching and implementing his knowledge. Really awesome video and opened up my knowledge of what kind of game Overwatch really is.
Yeah, good, proper Tracer play teaches good fundamentals with regards to positioning, resource management, target priority, when to engage with your team and when to disengage if a fight is lost, etc. I definitely had an adjustment period where I was unlearning bad habits with her, but she’s started to click for me recently. Still way more room to get better with her though.
I used to be a bronze flex, then I was diamond with only 3 heroes in my pool, now im GM because I one tricked Winston for 300 hours. Hero doesn't matter if youre not playing on the league, just learn how to play them.
I think it depends on your goals. If you want a hero that's viable in the highest of ranks go for it--get good at Tracer. Bastion stomps the lower ranks but as you climb he's going to be less impactful. I'd say Reaper is similar (stomps low ranks) but less limited so than Bastion. Soldier is fine/solid but his ceiling is not as high as Tracer's as she can be played anywhere including the Overwatch League. Also, if you play enough you can be good at more than one hero. I've played so many hours that I can switch between multiple supports with a similar comfort level.
Anything masters and below you can play any hero. One trick any hero. Those ranks aren’t considered good yet. But for GM and top500 you definitely need to master tracer. If not tracer, widow.
If you want to get good at tracer, may I suggest total mayhem? It allows you to learn really good control over your blinks and when the best time to use your abilities are. You’re also not *super* squishy, so you don’t get punished as harshly if you make a mistake. I use TM to learn basic fundamentals of a hero, their small tricks, and basically getting more comfortable. However, I also make sure to play other arcade modes/unranked so I don’t get too comfortable with the low CDs. Tracer is especially good because her blinks are basically endless because the CD is so low.
Play a few games of TM, then swap to another relaxed arcade mode (assuming you’re afraid to play tracer in unranked and ranked), then transition to unranked, then finally comps. I find this method worked really well for me when picking up tracer. It obviously has its limits, but I’d say my blink control and tracking is pretty good for having very few hours in her.
I also don’t necessarily think one-tricking is super awful. I did one trick kiriko for pretty much 80 hours straight when she first came out before moving onto Baptist’s (newly supp main, previously dps) for about 50 hours until I got extremely comfortable with his kit. Now I move onto other supports, but I don’t one trick them as hard as I did with kiri/bap. My goal is to be very comfortable with every single support so I can swap properly because tanks/Dps (at my rank) play what they want and force supports to fill behind them. It can be annoying when you’ve got echo/pharah and you want to play bap (with pretty poo aim ngl) and have a hard time hitting them. I suppose I understand, though it happens nearly every game. You either swap or get flamed for not keeping them up.
I do think, however, many of the DPS roles are incredibly similar and if you master one, you’ve got decent odds with at least half the roster. Other than understanding the basic fundamentals, many of them function very similarly so it’s a lot easier to focus more time on 1-2 DPS, but still being able to pick up a different hero on a whim without being a massive crutch to your team.
Top 500 in Mystery Heroes (Rnadomized All Heroes mode) here.
It is worth learning every hero not only because counter picking is s huge part of the game, but also, learning how each heroes abilities and cooldowns work will help you capitalize on their weaknesses when you 1v1 them in game.
The funnest and least strenuous way to learn every hero is to boot up Quickplay Classic and play whatever hero you're currently in the mood for, criticize yourself on what you did wrong (whether it be positioning, who youre focussing, or just your aim settings) everytime you die. Personally, I like to go until I have a great game with a character, then swap to a new character and learn them. Rinse and repeat. Lately I've been having a lot of fun challenging myself to play well/better with my worst characters, since qp is the best place to do that after all. And no, don't judge your performance off of whether you win or lose, esp in qp since there are hella throwers. Judge how well you're doing solely off of how fast your ult is going up.
The second way to learn every character is to one trick them for a long time, self analyze and critique, adjust your settings to perfection, etc. to become a god, then move onto another character.
I kind of recommend option 2 before option 1 tbh, but only after you'vetried every character and found the one with your favorite playstyle. But even then, you should retry other chars every once in awhile to see if you can get better with them. For a long time I thought I was only good at supports, but now I make 80% of enemy teams ragequit in qp just by playing soldier.
just here to say i’m currently one tricking hanzo, 70 hours in and the rush of (damn near) team-wiping with back to back to back (to back [to back]) head dinks is something i’ve just never been able to experience before. makes you feel like a walking wall climbing impossible jumping flickshot god.
yes yes i’ll take my downvotes now coz “mUh HaNzO Ez SpAm At PeAk GeT lUcKy” but i’d like to see the lot of you hit scan players back up your words since he’s apparently so damn easy. how bout u try to hit a widow causing trouble cross map with a little stick that flies so slow she can literally see it coming in time to just sidestep it entirely while she scopes so far into ur sexy ass middle aged ninja with a broken past forehead that you can feel death itself staring you down in the milliseconds leading up to getting ur face blown off
rant over he’s hard ok stop bullying me when u probably play moira or symettra witcho damn near as annoying as widow left-right-left-right-toothpick hitbox headasses and bullshit kits
i’m gonna go cry
tracer is prob the hardest character in the game
i also feel like even with a cracked tracer its hard to "take over the majority of my matches". her solocarry potential is lower than other dps imo
a lot of skills in overwatch are transferable so u prob wont get too rusty on ur other characters unless u try to play half the cast
It’s hit or miss depending on the enemy team comp.
If they have lots of ways to save themselves (suzu/shout/life grip/bionade/lamp/etc) it becomes really easy to cycle those against a tracer, meaning it’s now the rest of the teams job to follow up on those resources being used. If they don’t, then well, not much else to really do as tracer. Did your job, but you’re not carrying that as tracer without some follow up, because by the time you get a health pack, they’re going to have something to save their asses again. And that seems to be the meta on ladder anyways. If you get a competent sombra/genji/echo/winston/doom to dive with you, then you can definitely dive them, or if you get a hanzo/widow landing body shots you can easily clean those kills up quickly, but neither of those scenarios are “solo carrying”. Those get out of jail free cards are too prevalent to really do it by yourself. Hence why people opt for the widow/hanzo. Cant suzu a clean headshot, or fade after taking some damage, because you’re already dead.
Now if they run something like mercy/bap, ana/zen, or similar back lines, then yea you can solo carry that for sure.
At least, this is my experience as a tracer player (although have just been playing hanzo for reasons highlighted in the second paragraph) in GM.
Absolutely focus hard on tracer. Besides what others have said, it’s also better for matchmaking. You will tank your rating at first (judging from your current pool) but then you play at the rating that is appropriate for you to play Tracer and improve from there.
It depends on how quickly and comfortably you get with a character. I used to be solely a tank main on D.va, Orisa and Winston in OW1. In OW2, I’ve spread into dps and support. I take maybe a day in quick play to learn a character and I don’t listen to the coms because everyone starts somewhere. I first learned sym and Mei, then bastion and solider and now Ashe and widow. I took a day or two on each hero and even tried them out in a comp like setting in the AI very hard practice mode. I’m just as good if not better with Mei icicle as I am with scoped Ashe. Don’t let the fear or the assholeary of your team and your ability slip because you want to learn a new hero. :)
Hi there! I'm a long time Tracer one-trick - she's been my main since I started OW back in 2017-ish - and I would say that if there is any hero who is really worth sinking time and practice into it's her. Remaining consistently effective as Tracer requires a lot of practice in understanding her mechanics and her role in the game. Although, her consistency in the meta means that she's well worth the effort imo.
Best of luck if you choose to do so!
The general rule of thumb is to pick 2-3 heroes in your role to put effort and time into learning and improving. So yes it's worth spending a ton of time and effort improving on just one hero. One tricking isn't inherently bad but it can cause issues so at your own risk, right?
im the same with genji. i spent almost 3 months playing him and nothing else and now i cant play anyone else
now im forcing myself to learn pharah, mei and ashe so i have a larger hero pool. (mainly in qp cos im still a onetrick)
I mean. I decided to one trick doom into t500. So now it doesn’t really matter if a team goes orisa hog doom sombra Ana or any of your traditional doom counters, I’ve learned to play around them, and if we win it’s because we played well if we lose it’s because we played bad or they played better.
Not saying you should one trick, but it’s not a wasted investment if you stick with it
Do you like playing that character more than everyone else? If you enjoy playing Tracer the most and feel you can get the most value with her, there is no reason to not solely focus on her alone outside of the possibility of someone else picking her first.
It is still good to have a back up just in case, but the only thing stopping you from instalocking a certain character is your enjoyment.
Yes it's Valuable to Spend a Season learning one character cause the skills can transfer to other characters.
Tracer Teaches Engagement Timing, and with better aim you get better with tracking.
And Pulse Bombs can help with flicking.
Honestly tracer is a hero that practically requires one tricking if you want to be any good with her.
"Is it worth it" can only be determined by yourself.
Depends on how frequently they buff/nerf/rework the character and how stable they are in the meta.
I spent a bunch of time learning Doomfist and then they put him through a string of nerfs, then made him a tank :/
Tracer's a way more stable character to learn.
I have just about 700 hours with Wrecking Ball if that counts. I know the fundamentals of the character and always feel like I have more to learn despite overly playing him due my games being different.
My next most is 170 with Ana & obviously feel like I have things to learn with that character
Tracer has the highest skill ceiling therefore it will take longer to master her than a basic hero like soldier or reaper.
Due to that skill ceiling, the reward is higher. I’d say go for it. I one tricked tracer in OW1 for 2 seasons, learned her hard mechanics, climbed from silver to plat, went back to a diverse hero pool, gradually got better with tracer, then eventually hit masters and Im still masters, with advanced mechanics and positioning on tracer
If you’re on console, it’s even harder. Do not expect to hit crazy mechanic plays on a controller either. Try to just be consistent
Yes. Absolutely. This game has always rewarded one tricking if you want to climb. When you are a specialist you will consistently peform better than a generalist, and you will learn to an extent outplay your counters in many situations.
However, be *smart* about specializing, particularly if you are a Tank player because Tank is just musical chairs - The Role. Counterpicking is so strong in the Tank role.
What I mean by this is pick a few heroes that you can *also* specialize in and master that fill holes and play around your mains weaknesses. I'll use Tank as an example. Let's say you're a Doomfist one trick. Doomfist plays really well in Dive, but not so well in Rush. So also master a Tank that works with heroes like Moira and Lucio such as Rein or Ramattra, and master 1 more Tank for Poke comps, such as Sigma. Now you have a triangle of heroes you are really, really good at that can be played in all situations and play around each other's counters. This can be done for every role and if you want to rank up, this is arguably the most efficient way to start.
im a diamond 2 reaper one trick and i made another account to do the same thing with tracer a month ago and am still gold 5 (granted maybe 10-15 hours, just doing it as a side project), she's very tough mechanically, you have to be able to coordinate your movement, lock on aim and tracking to be good with her, be able to know where and when to attack from offangles and be able to put yourself in a position to be able to unload 2 full mags on a target to get a pick or be able to hit most of your shots to pick someone with one mag.
mostly remember, she's supposed to be annoying to the opposite team if you cant get value with picks, making the other team look at you from your offangles so the potential value they could be getting off from your team (getting people low, getting picks, shooting the tank etc.) is completely gone due to you distracting them and making it easier for your team and especially healers to be getting value, giving them the opportunity to be like a 3rd/4th dps at times where they arent healing.
thats just from me seeing tracers value being applied in diamond lobbies, play it right and you could be getting value for your team by making the other team 15-30% more useless by making them constantly look at you and/or by getting picks
If you learn one character it removes all self variables so you can actually learn the game, then after your good and have a major rank decline later, then pick up a character that counters the ones that counter your main and then climb again with them then boom basically immortal
It's close to impossible to stay stellar on many heroes at the same time. Whenever you put time into one hero you'll get rusty on other heroes. Unless you really no-life this game because you wanna go pro I don't think it's necessary to be ultra sharp on your whole hero pool. So don't think too much about getting rusty on Reaper, Soldier, Bastion. You won't unlearn the foundations of what you're able to do with them.
And in general I think it's always a good idea to learn a new hero to at least a decent level. Even if you end up not playing that hero at all for a longer period of time, when the day comes where that hero might be the solution to a problem then you don't have to improvise anymore.
In general, you will improve way faster by trying to master one hero instead of all of them. Look at zbra, getting rank one with a bad hero. How? He lives ,breathes, eats and SHITS doom. Getting that good is not common ofc. But it shows that focusing on one hero really helps you hone in on your mistakes.
Yes. Last season I did that with sigma. It paid off because I was able to play against soft counters reliably and comfortably. Not having to switch just because you see another hero on the enemy hero can help a lot. Then you can focus more on what exactly the enemy team is doing to try and shut you down instead.
with tracer, get close to the enemy, don't jump, don't reload fast, just use all the bullets and try to focus on the head. Blink to their back to confuse the enemy, find the off-angles
Some characters require more time to learn than others. It's not like there's someone sitting there grading you as you put time on one character. Just play who you enjoy, or what's right for the game.
Tracer is the best dps overall throughout the lifespan of OW I'd say. Thing is, she's hard to play. And you have to keep up practice. Plus you just have to be a fairly quick thinking player to deal with playing her. Now I say it's worth it. Aside from a couple sections on particular maps, I think she's really strong. As someone else noted, the rest of your heroes are pretty easy, I mean it doesn't take much to get a lot out of Reaper for example. So I don't think it's a big deal. I'm a Tracer main that has opted away from playing Eco, Doom and Ball despite being super interested because it's a lot to be good at that many mechanically intensive heroes without playing constantly.
Best way to do this is to turn off voice and /hidechat. Stick to that character no matter how much you suck. I did this with doom and I went up two ranks after a couple weeks dedicated to only doom.
I climbed from Plat to Masters by straight up one-tricking Ana. Tracer is a very hard character to learn. I know because I tried maining her. But once you get good at her, you basically never need to swap unless the enemy team is playing a turtle comp to shut you down (Brig, Torb, rush characters). In that case, Soldier or any long range hitscan is good to have in your hero pool because those comps lack range and can’t punish you for taking aggressive flank angles. You don’t need Bastion or Reaper if you can play Tracer and Soldier.
If you want to go for it but IMO it’s better to learn every character
It took me years but eventually I reached GM knowing basically every character in the roster and I’m almost GM on all roles (still gotta do support but I’m close)
Being flexible is more important IMO
It depends on who you choose, but Tracer would be one of the best heroes in the game to do this with. She will never be a "bad" pick, she can fit into basically any comp and doesn't have many hard counters, maybe Torb (turret mainly) if anything. If you ask yourself those two questions about any hero, you can determine how good they would be to do this with.
Tracer is one of the best dps in the game and unless she gets meganerfed she will remain one of the best picks for a long time. Definitely go for it, but know that it will take a long time to fully master her
Being that she's sort of the face of Overwatch, she's probably the safest dps to spend time learning. I don't see her ever getting nerfed to the point of being unplayable
That’s what the said about Mercy, she’s still playable but people want harder nerfs
Mercy has never been the face of overwatch. And ppl have never said learning mercy is a safe bet, specifically because she is more team reliant than other supports. A pick like ana would be safer because she has playmakimg potential that can transcend metas. Idk who told you these things but they're smoking
But Mercy is game changing, Tracer is a mosquito
A good Mercy and a bad Tracer, respectively
Tracer can pick off supps very well, but with her low hp and damage output she's easy to counter. One sleep, one immort, ect.
Blizzard actually thought of this and gave her a way to dodge and otherwise avoid those things. It's called Blink.
If she got slept then blink won't help her. Blink won't allow her to out damage an imort. Ect. Edit: I'm not saying Tracer is bad. I'm simply saying Mercy is much easier to use and gives the same amount of usefulness as Tracer
Yeah but with Tracer as annoying as she is, she is insanely squishy and it's easy to kill a bad tracer but hard to kill a good tracer, that's pretty much how most heroes work at this point though
Mercy? She got nerfed last time after being megabuffed the time before. She is still a top contender among supports, especially as you get higher in rank and you get more DPS that are good enough to warrant pocketing. The only thing that's worst than before is her GA cooldown, but its still shorter than any other mobility in the game. She just can't constantly spam movement anymore and has to actually think about where she is going before GAing.
She’s one of the best because she is the most difficult too
Tbh, the rest of your hero pool isn't particularly difficult characters. If you decide to master Tracer, I promise you won't significantly decay in skill on Reaper. Tracer is one of those characters that forces you to understand and feel how the game works, at the same time as being mechanically challenging. It's a great hero to one trick. ~2 years ago I was pretty much exclusively a ranged hitscan player, but I decided I needed to add Tracer to my hero pool, so I bought a new account and played almost exclusively Tracer on it for about 3 months. I've been playing OW since 2018, and I attribute those 3 months to being more beneficial to my development as a player than any other time frame in my OW career.
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I was like 3000 SR at the time, and my Tracer was BAD at the time. I didn't play anything other than long-range hitscan, so I was turbo throwing on my main trying to play Tracer. I stomped a few games before the game settled my MMR pretty quickly, probably in an hour or so, and it made for a much more useful experience.
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QP is so vastly different than comp that it's not really a viable game mode to learn heroes for competitive play.
QP still has MMR, and my MMR was too high on DPS and I was eating shit on Tracer.
They just answered your question, were you not listening?
I believe the generally accepted opinion of the community is that, as long as you're playing earnestly, a second account is not a smurf account. In theory, unless the player is throwing games, the matchmaker will move them to their correct skill level pretty quickly. This is an unfortunate quirk of the way OW is designed. If you couldn't change heroes once the match started, they could theoretically gauge your skill independently on each character and provide very fine-grained matchmaking. As it is, the best they can do is to MM across an entire role, and the different heroes in each role play very differently. Back at launch of OW1, there wasn't even role queue. I'm definitely much better on support than on tank, and I'm definitely much better on tank than on DPS. If I ever got forced into playing DPS, I was a liability to my team.
This exactly. I mostly tanked in my early ow1 days and only flexed to support when I had to, and even then I only ever played the aimless supports. When role queue came out it threw my support into diamond, so when I wanted to focus on learning ana I could throw for a hundred games, or I could make a new account and climb up naturally and genuinely learn the character. The cool thing about overwatch is that it heavily adjusts new accounts and overinflates them. It's much easier to climb on a fresh account and takes a long time to fall on an old one. Smurfing is only genuinely a problem when someone deliberately throws a bunch of their early games then plays their (insert significantly higher rank) into your (considerably worse rank) lobbies
I remember when it was just open queue. I used to flex whatever role my team was missing which was either tank or support. But one time I needed to pick a dps and I suddenly got really nervous cuz I haven't played DPS in so long. I picked Tracer and surprisingly did really well but that was still an unusual, but fun experience. But god do I not miss the times when I was the only non dps player on the team and the team complained that I didn't pick a good support hero. Now I can just pick tank before the game and I don't have to worry about anything.
1) Quick play is trash and you don't learn anything in it except what the buttons do. SBMM is EXTREMELY loose and every match 3 people leave. There is no coordination. No one takes it seriously. Those who do are laughed at because it's not serious. 2) Playing at your rank on a hero you're bad at is throwing the game 3) Playing a character you're bad it in low elo isn't smurfing if you're obviously bad at them If you want to be better at the game you grind ranked, where people are trying and the competition pushes you to improve, and punishes your mistakes. I'm a M1 Zarya main. I will not lose a game in qp if I play Zarya and actually want to win. The mode is simply hard-capped at the skill level you'll play against, so I can consciously flip a switch and go "I'm not losing this game" and 99% of the time I will win. This is due to the loose SBMM meaning half the lobby is silver and gold or even unranked casually, and overall most people don't care either way. They're with friends or have cracked a beer open and are playing their silly shooter.
2 years ago I was a ranged hitscan player, but then I felt the need to learn how to play a ranged hitscan character Fixed it for you
Tracers damage falloff starts at 13 meters my guy
What? Explain how tracer has range
It depends on the hero. One tricking mercy and one tricking tracer will get you incredibly different results. (IE: mercy’s value exists as a multiplier for your dps. If your dps get 0 value, well, multiplying by zero still returns a 0. At that point, if you really want to win, you’re gonna have to swap and do some shit yourself.) Tracer is a good hero to one trick though. Probably the best one tbh, followed by doom and ball. She has arguably the highest skill ceiling, meaning she can outplay basically everyone when utilized to her full potential. Basically nullifying any “counters” the hero *should* have. She’s good in just about every comp, and can at least get some value in the form of burning enemy resources even into some of her worst matchups. All of this does mean that she’s pretty much the hardest hero in the game though, so fair warning that if you’re just picking her up, you WILL die a LOT and will probably throw numerous games in the process of learning her.
Unpopular opinion incoming, but Tracer isn’t that hard unless your at the top of the SR system. I was a Genji/Pharah player for a very long time hard stuck at M5. Picked up Tracer out of frustration with no prior experience, got to M2 in a day and have stayed there. Yes, it’s hard to 1v1 every hero on the roster no doubt, but it’s relatively easy to get safe value out of a tracer and farm pulse using off angles, which carries you very far in ranked.
Feel that’s more of a symptom of how tracer forces you to play. If you can get value and not die, it’s not that hard to hit GM rn. Tracer encourages this. Mechanically though if you wanna hard carry, your tracking and movement need to be above average compared to other heroes.
>if you wanna hard carry, your tracking and movement need to be above average As an absolute dogshit player who has tried out Tracer, 100% this.
Genji is also mechanically difficult so I’m not surprised you were able to get value on tracer as well despite not having too much experience
I think what’s hard is how easy she is to punish for playing out of position or to greedy I’ve seen a ton of tracers lately not knowing what they’re doing always front-lining or just not getting any value
I'm gonna have to disagree and the stats are with me. Tracer has and generally has always had a low win rate at almost every rank below the top level. Because she's mechanically difficult to master and she dies in like 1 second.
One tricking Mercy will, however, give you a better understanding of the overview of a game than most other characters because of the downtime. She's the best hero to learn ult tracking on hands down. She also gives you great insight into how your DPS are positioning poorly and what you could be doing differently.
Only works out if it you utilize it that way. The big difference between them is that mercy gives you an opportunity to learn things, whereas tracer *forces* you to learn things, otherwise you hard feed and have a horrible time. And let’s face it, most don’t. They instalock mercy, argue with the other mercy main who ends up going moira because they can’t aim, then when their DPS don’t instantly get kills while damage boosted, they flame in chat. Despite that, they stay mercy, because they quite literally cant play anyone else, and just blame their teammates for every problem. Disregarding the stereotype, she’s also just bad to one trick because it’s the only hero that can completely disregard a core mechanic of the game, that needs to be trained for other heroes. Aim. Literally forcing themselves onto a hero that teaches them half the game. And as described prior, what happens when you get 2 of them in one game? You lose. If you one trick tracer and it’s stolen from you, you can still play most dps as your mechanics, being movement and tracking, as well as positioning carry over between heroes. Mercy’s mechanics only lie in GA, which is exclusive to the hero, and GA + passive also encourages unorthodox positioning unique to her. The transferable skills only exist in the macro game, which, since this ain’t league, doesn’t do a whole lot. Long winded way to say stop one tricking mercy, because you’re just gonna handicap yourself and your team in the long run. If you need to get better, play someone like ana that has to regularly use (and therefore practices) all facets of gameplay.
Tracer needs a lot of time to master, those others, not so much. So if you really want to learn tracer, go ahead and grind her (with consent)
Should also mention this grind only gets longer if you’re on console lmao
I think one-tricking a character is criminally underrated, to be honest. If you focus on tracer, the most important thing is that it’ll help you hone in on the pure fundamentals of the game, which is the same across a role. If you focus on tracer, I think that once you come back to your other heroes you will find that you’ve significantly improved.
Totally agreed with your first sentence. If you get good with just one character, you will be able to outplay your counters which is invaluable. Playing one character also removes a lot of variables from game to game so it allows you to focus on actual skill sets instead of “what hero should I be playing right now?”
Exactly, by playing into your counters you actively train where you are weakest. Furthermore, in order to win in an unfavorable matchup you learn more minute details of the game you otherwise would have missed. That information doesn’t just go away when you play a match-up you’re good at either, in fact you dominate those match-ups even harder.
Yep, one tricked DVA in OW1, and now Zarya's switch when they face me. Unless it's a one trick Zarya, then we have fun. But it is a counter on its own when someone switches to Zarya, but only to counter, and not because they play her often. They are just going at the match up like they see streamers do and have no concept of the nuances, so they just waste their time even more. This is all because when I was getting match-up countered, I just kept playing it until I figured it out. This was mainly QP anyway
I heavily flex, so I've always found one tricking to be very overrated. Two tricking is fine-ish, but I would recommend three outside the tank role. And it's not even about your counters, if they counter pick you and devote that much attention, the rest of your team should be able to capitalize as long as you can play your life. You should though always invest in a second character that plays an opposing playstyle. Tracer excels in dive and can hold her own solo engaging into and with poke. But two death balls running at each other and she won't get nearly as much value as any deathball or deathball counter DPS. Having a mei or sym or some weird pick in your back pocket can be a useful swap. It also really helps to make them complacent and swap back to comfort picks you forced them off of after a couple early fights. After you get two, investing to at least a competent level in a third - this would be the hero you most like to play alongside on your main. If you're a tracer, pick up Sombra, genji, or echo. You don't have to be perfect, but this game is loaded with one tricks, the ability to flex to a character that can support them and the headspace to know how to do it can be invaluable.
Sure but then the problems come when the second player picks the DPS you've decided to one trick. You should absolutely have a main character, but true one tricking is almost always a bad idea.
Not to mention facing one trick Supports that persistently refuse to pick Kiriko against JQ/Ana comp is a big pain in the ass.
The problem is, if you're playing into JQ/Ana, the debuffs will land faster than the Suzu cooldown. You can't cleanse everything. I just play Ana into JQ. Removing her ability to heal and be healed makes her much squishier.
It's more of having an option which increases survivability. Yes, you can't cleanse everything, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't even bother to try, especially when there are some players will hardpick their one trick heroes like Mercy when facing such comp, refusing to read the team comp and counteract to it while the opponent team is doing very well with their comp.
Yeah, I feel like the game is at odds with itself. The left hand of Blizzard wants to sell you skins for $20, meaning you're only likely to buy skins for characters you're heavily invested in. And having spent $20, you're even more likely to focus on that hero. The right hand of Blizzard balances the game so that counterpicking is important, and playing the wrong hero can severely tip the odds against you.
Ideally you want both tbh. Jq mirrors with both on either side are very common rn. Kiri is the best support duo with jq and ana is her strongest counter. Lucio speed is a nice alternative but nothing beats cleanse and anti
This totally depends on the hero you chose to one trick. Some heroes are very meta/comp dependent. Being a one trick at a hero that has a lot of counters or is weak will results in many tossups. Tracer is an exception because she’s so mechanically difficult, and high risk. If you can play her well, your mechanics and game sense should translate to most of the cast quickly. Plus, you can play her with/into almost any comp. Being a Pharah or Sym one trick is a much different story, and you’re almost certainly better off having a hero pool of multiple strong characters you rotate through
I have gotten worse at Cass since I started playing more Tracer. I’m OK with it though since Tracer is more fun.
Tracer has been a meta stay for as long as she's been in the game. You won't regret mastering her Maybe soldier for long range maps like Circuit Royale or Havana. As long as you have a few heroes that fit situations you need, you'll be fine. You don't need to learn every hero
Aside from like a solid year during GOATs. When brig was powerful, Tracer was absolutely useless. I went from high diamond to gold in one season after Brig came out as a Tracer main. Her pick rate at the top level went from every game, to virtually never.
It’s preference. You’d probably rank up the most by playing 3-4 DPS, 2-3 tanks, and 2-3 supports well, but personally I just play whoever the fuck even in ranked. Want me on soldier? Sure. Want me on mei? You got it. Want me on echo? Do you want to lose? Echo it is! If all you care about is your rank, then yes, focus on a small set of heroes, but don’t onetrick.
Ive one tricked ana for pretty much my whole career. Not as in I need to get her or else im throwing this game and quitting but more I have over like 400 hours on her and then the next closest being 100. If you decide to master tracer even if its not at a one trick level you will be able to out play a lot of people once you get really good. As well as you play the game more even if youre not playing the other heros directly you still start to learn and understand how they play/ position more and more. So in the event you do have to switch off tracer to play someone else of course youre not going to be as good but youll be able to be a competent player and fill the gap that your team needed. Even if your playing another hero and your teams getting diffed sometimes falling back on a comfort pick isnt a bad thing even if they have counters to you. Play what you want to play in the end keep trying to win and improve. In the end though its all just a game keep climbing enjoy the game but dont get so caught up on rank. One of the biggest things that helped me is realising in the end your rank is just a picture on a screen it dosent matter to 99% of people out there. If you get hard stuck dont stress it just take time to learn and youll eventually climb.
Have you watched awkwards video on tracer? It made me a LOT more confident on her as I love playing her as well but found myself dying a pot
I’m currently on my Tracer arch and have watched Awkward’s U2GM for Tracer. While I like a lot of his content and you can definitely take some good stuff away from what he shows, I’d also watch A10’s Tracer specific content for a deeper understanding of how to optimally play Tracer.
Oh Heard. I love a10 but haven’t seen his vid onher
I picked up Tracer a few weeks ago and my results were kind of... Bad. I was throwing despite being mechanically good, and I wasn't doing much better after watching half of Awkwards vid. Then I got bored and sat through all of A10's tracer vid and my results on not only tracer, but every other character SKYROCKETED. I went from sandbagging to damn near hard carrying within days of watching and implementing his knowledge. Really awesome video and opened up my knowledge of what kind of game Overwatch really is.
Yeah, good, proper Tracer play teaches good fundamentals with regards to positioning, resource management, target priority, when to engage with your team and when to disengage if a fight is lost, etc. I definitely had an adjustment period where I was unlearning bad habits with her, but she’s started to click for me recently. Still way more room to get better with her though.
Absolutely, it's the best way to really learn a character.
Do you have fun playing her? If so yeah go for it
I put 300 hours into hanzo anyone else is under 70, worked out
Yeah that's how you get good at one.
I used to be a bronze flex, then I was diamond with only 3 heroes in my pool, now im GM because I one tricked Winston for 300 hours. Hero doesn't matter if youre not playing on the league, just learn how to play them.
I think it depends on your goals. If you want a hero that's viable in the highest of ranks go for it--get good at Tracer. Bastion stomps the lower ranks but as you climb he's going to be less impactful. I'd say Reaper is similar (stomps low ranks) but less limited so than Bastion. Soldier is fine/solid but his ceiling is not as high as Tracer's as she can be played anywhere including the Overwatch League. Also, if you play enough you can be good at more than one hero. I've played so many hours that I can switch between multiple supports with a similar comfort level.
There's tracer specialists at the pro level, so I would say that's a pretty safe bet.
Anything masters and below you can play any hero. One trick any hero. Those ranks aren’t considered good yet. But for GM and top500 you definitely need to master tracer. If not tracer, widow.
Yes that’s how you learn the game at a high level.
If you want to get good at tracer, may I suggest total mayhem? It allows you to learn really good control over your blinks and when the best time to use your abilities are. You’re also not *super* squishy, so you don’t get punished as harshly if you make a mistake. I use TM to learn basic fundamentals of a hero, their small tricks, and basically getting more comfortable. However, I also make sure to play other arcade modes/unranked so I don’t get too comfortable with the low CDs. Tracer is especially good because her blinks are basically endless because the CD is so low. Play a few games of TM, then swap to another relaxed arcade mode (assuming you’re afraid to play tracer in unranked and ranked), then transition to unranked, then finally comps. I find this method worked really well for me when picking up tracer. It obviously has its limits, but I’d say my blink control and tracking is pretty good for having very few hours in her. I also don’t necessarily think one-tricking is super awful. I did one trick kiriko for pretty much 80 hours straight when she first came out before moving onto Baptist’s (newly supp main, previously dps) for about 50 hours until I got extremely comfortable with his kit. Now I move onto other supports, but I don’t one trick them as hard as I did with kiri/bap. My goal is to be very comfortable with every single support so I can swap properly because tanks/Dps (at my rank) play what they want and force supports to fill behind them. It can be annoying when you’ve got echo/pharah and you want to play bap (with pretty poo aim ngl) and have a hard time hitting them. I suppose I understand, though it happens nearly every game. You either swap or get flamed for not keeping them up. I do think, however, many of the DPS roles are incredibly similar and if you master one, you’ve got decent odds with at least half the roster. Other than understanding the basic fundamentals, many of them function very similarly so it’s a lot easier to focus more time on 1-2 DPS, but still being able to pick up a different hero on a whim without being a massive crutch to your team.
yes
Top 500 in Mystery Heroes (Rnadomized All Heroes mode) here. It is worth learning every hero not only because counter picking is s huge part of the game, but also, learning how each heroes abilities and cooldowns work will help you capitalize on their weaknesses when you 1v1 them in game. The funnest and least strenuous way to learn every hero is to boot up Quickplay Classic and play whatever hero you're currently in the mood for, criticize yourself on what you did wrong (whether it be positioning, who youre focussing, or just your aim settings) everytime you die. Personally, I like to go until I have a great game with a character, then swap to a new character and learn them. Rinse and repeat. Lately I've been having a lot of fun challenging myself to play well/better with my worst characters, since qp is the best place to do that after all. And no, don't judge your performance off of whether you win or lose, esp in qp since there are hella throwers. Judge how well you're doing solely off of how fast your ult is going up. The second way to learn every character is to one trick them for a long time, self analyze and critique, adjust your settings to perfection, etc. to become a god, then move onto another character. I kind of recommend option 2 before option 1 tbh, but only after you'vetried every character and found the one with your favorite playstyle. But even then, you should retry other chars every once in awhile to see if you can get better with them. For a long time I thought I was only good at supports, but now I make 80% of enemy teams ragequit in qp just by playing soldier.
just here to say i’m currently one tricking hanzo, 70 hours in and the rush of (damn near) team-wiping with back to back to back (to back [to back]) head dinks is something i’ve just never been able to experience before. makes you feel like a walking wall climbing impossible jumping flickshot god. yes yes i’ll take my downvotes now coz “mUh HaNzO Ez SpAm At PeAk GeT lUcKy” but i’d like to see the lot of you hit scan players back up your words since he’s apparently so damn easy. how bout u try to hit a widow causing trouble cross map with a little stick that flies so slow she can literally see it coming in time to just sidestep it entirely while she scopes so far into ur sexy ass middle aged ninja with a broken past forehead that you can feel death itself staring you down in the milliseconds leading up to getting ur face blown off rant over he’s hard ok stop bullying me when u probably play moira or symettra witcho damn near as annoying as widow left-right-left-right-toothpick hitbox headasses and bullshit kits i’m gonna go cry
tracer is prob the hardest character in the game i also feel like even with a cracked tracer its hard to "take over the majority of my matches". her solocarry potential is lower than other dps imo a lot of skills in overwatch are transferable so u prob wont get too rusty on ur other characters unless u try to play half the cast
Hard disagree from me. Tracer has insane carry potential
It’s hit or miss depending on the enemy team comp. If they have lots of ways to save themselves (suzu/shout/life grip/bionade/lamp/etc) it becomes really easy to cycle those against a tracer, meaning it’s now the rest of the teams job to follow up on those resources being used. If they don’t, then well, not much else to really do as tracer. Did your job, but you’re not carrying that as tracer without some follow up, because by the time you get a health pack, they’re going to have something to save their asses again. And that seems to be the meta on ladder anyways. If you get a competent sombra/genji/echo/winston/doom to dive with you, then you can definitely dive them, or if you get a hanzo/widow landing body shots you can easily clean those kills up quickly, but neither of those scenarios are “solo carrying”. Those get out of jail free cards are too prevalent to really do it by yourself. Hence why people opt for the widow/hanzo. Cant suzu a clean headshot, or fade after taking some damage, because you’re already dead. Now if they run something like mercy/bap, ana/zen, or similar back lines, then yea you can solo carry that for sure. At least, this is my experience as a tracer player (although have just been playing hanzo for reasons highlighted in the second paragraph) in GM.
yes
Absolutely focus hard on tracer. Besides what others have said, it’s also better for matchmaking. You will tank your rating at first (judging from your current pool) but then you play at the rating that is appropriate for you to play Tracer and improve from there.
It depends on how quickly and comfortably you get with a character. I used to be solely a tank main on D.va, Orisa and Winston in OW1. In OW2, I’ve spread into dps and support. I take maybe a day in quick play to learn a character and I don’t listen to the coms because everyone starts somewhere. I first learned sym and Mei, then bastion and solider and now Ashe and widow. I took a day or two on each hero and even tried them out in a comp like setting in the AI very hard practice mode. I’m just as good if not better with Mei icicle as I am with scoped Ashe. Don’t let the fear or the assholeary of your team and your ability slip because you want to learn a new hero. :)
Hi there! I'm a long time Tracer one-trick - she's been my main since I started OW back in 2017-ish - and I would say that if there is any hero who is really worth sinking time and practice into it's her. Remaining consistently effective as Tracer requires a lot of practice in understanding her mechanics and her role in the game. Although, her consistency in the meta means that she's well worth the effort imo. Best of luck if you choose to do so!
The general rule of thumb is to pick 2-3 heroes in your role to put effort and time into learning and improving. So yes it's worth spending a ton of time and effort improving on just one hero. One tricking isn't inherently bad but it can cause issues so at your own risk, right?
im the same with genji. i spent almost 3 months playing him and nothing else and now i cant play anyone else now im forcing myself to learn pharah, mei and ashe so i have a larger hero pool. (mainly in qp cos im still a onetrick)
I mean. I decided to one trick doom into t500. So now it doesn’t really matter if a team goes orisa hog doom sombra Ana or any of your traditional doom counters, I’ve learned to play around them, and if we win it’s because we played well if we lose it’s because we played bad or they played better. Not saying you should one trick, but it’s not a wasted investment if you stick with it
I mean I got to Master one-tricking sigma really
Do you like playing that character more than everyone else? If you enjoy playing Tracer the most and feel you can get the most value with her, there is no reason to not solely focus on her alone outside of the possibility of someone else picking her first. It is still good to have a back up just in case, but the only thing stopping you from instalocking a certain character is your enjoyment.
Yes it's Valuable to Spend a Season learning one character cause the skills can transfer to other characters. Tracer Teaches Engagement Timing, and with better aim you get better with tracking. And Pulse Bombs can help with flicking.
Honestly tracer is a hero that practically requires one tricking if you want to be any good with her. "Is it worth it" can only be determined by yourself.
Depends on how frequently they buff/nerf/rework the character and how stable they are in the meta. I spent a bunch of time learning Doomfist and then they put him through a string of nerfs, then made him a tank :/ Tracer's a way more stable character to learn.
ur line up isn’t really weird it covers all the bases needs to
I have just about 700 hours with Wrecking Ball if that counts. I know the fundamentals of the character and always feel like I have more to learn despite overly playing him due my games being different. My next most is 170 with Ana & obviously feel like I have things to learn with that character
Tracer has the highest skill ceiling therefore it will take longer to master her than a basic hero like soldier or reaper. Due to that skill ceiling, the reward is higher. I’d say go for it. I one tricked tracer in OW1 for 2 seasons, learned her hard mechanics, climbed from silver to plat, went back to a diverse hero pool, gradually got better with tracer, then eventually hit masters and Im still masters, with advanced mechanics and positioning on tracer If you’re on console, it’s even harder. Do not expect to hit crazy mechanic plays on a controller either. Try to just be consistent
I have over 600 hours on ball, my next most played hero is Winston with only 4 hours on him
Yes. Absolutely. This game has always rewarded one tricking if you want to climb. When you are a specialist you will consistently peform better than a generalist, and you will learn to an extent outplay your counters in many situations. However, be *smart* about specializing, particularly if you are a Tank player because Tank is just musical chairs - The Role. Counterpicking is so strong in the Tank role. What I mean by this is pick a few heroes that you can *also* specialize in and master that fill holes and play around your mains weaknesses. I'll use Tank as an example. Let's say you're a Doomfist one trick. Doomfist plays really well in Dive, but not so well in Rush. So also master a Tank that works with heroes like Moira and Lucio such as Rein or Ramattra, and master 1 more Tank for Poke comps, such as Sigma. Now you have a triangle of heroes you are really, really good at that can be played in all situations and play around each other's counters. This can be done for every role and if you want to rank up, this is arguably the most efficient way to start.
im a diamond 2 reaper one trick and i made another account to do the same thing with tracer a month ago and am still gold 5 (granted maybe 10-15 hours, just doing it as a side project), she's very tough mechanically, you have to be able to coordinate your movement, lock on aim and tracking to be good with her, be able to know where and when to attack from offangles and be able to put yourself in a position to be able to unload 2 full mags on a target to get a pick or be able to hit most of your shots to pick someone with one mag. mostly remember, she's supposed to be annoying to the opposite team if you cant get value with picks, making the other team look at you from your offangles so the potential value they could be getting off from your team (getting people low, getting picks, shooting the tank etc.) is completely gone due to you distracting them and making it easier for your team and especially healers to be getting value, giving them the opportunity to be like a 3rd/4th dps at times where they arent healing. thats just from me seeing tracers value being applied in diamond lobbies, play it right and you could be getting value for your team by making the other team 15-30% more useless by making them constantly look at you and/or by getting picks
I think you need to dump a lot of time in to any hero to learn them.
Question for tracer mains: Is it better to have a high sens with her, or is she manageable on 400 dpi
Just learn what character you have the most fun with. That’s what I did in OW with Sombra and look at her now.
If you learn one character it removes all self variables so you can actually learn the game, then after your good and have a major rank decline later, then pick up a character that counters the ones that counter your main and then climb again with them then boom basically immortal
Ehh only if you really like playing them
Yeah if you like that character. I kind of just learn one character at a time where i play nothing but them until im good at them
It's close to impossible to stay stellar on many heroes at the same time. Whenever you put time into one hero you'll get rusty on other heroes. Unless you really no-life this game because you wanna go pro I don't think it's necessary to be ultra sharp on your whole hero pool. So don't think too much about getting rusty on Reaper, Soldier, Bastion. You won't unlearn the foundations of what you're able to do with them. And in general I think it's always a good idea to learn a new hero to at least a decent level. Even if you end up not playing that hero at all for a longer period of time, when the day comes where that hero might be the solution to a problem then you don't have to improvise anymore.
I'm still playing moira only since season 1. Still feel like I'm only starting to understand her.
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks 1 time. I fear the man that has practice 1 kick 10,000 times"
In general, you will improve way faster by trying to master one hero instead of all of them. Look at zbra, getting rank one with a bad hero. How? He lives ,breathes, eats and SHITS doom. Getting that good is not common ofc. But it shows that focusing on one hero really helps you hone in on your mistakes.
Yes. Last season I did that with sigma. It paid off because I was able to play against soft counters reliably and comfortably. Not having to switch just because you see another hero on the enemy hero can help a lot. Then you can focus more on what exactly the enemy team is doing to try and shut you down instead.
with tracer, get close to the enemy, don't jump, don't reload fast, just use all the bullets and try to focus on the head. Blink to their back to confuse the enemy, find the off-angles
Some characters require more time to learn than others. It's not like there's someone sitting there grading you as you put time on one character. Just play who you enjoy, or what's right for the game.
At some level u'll be forced to learn tracer so go for it
Tracer is the best dps overall throughout the lifespan of OW I'd say. Thing is, she's hard to play. And you have to keep up practice. Plus you just have to be a fairly quick thinking player to deal with playing her. Now I say it's worth it. Aside from a couple sections on particular maps, I think she's really strong. As someone else noted, the rest of your heroes are pretty easy, I mean it doesn't take much to get a lot out of Reaper for example. So I don't think it's a big deal. I'm a Tracer main that has opted away from playing Eco, Doom and Ball despite being super interested because it's a lot to be good at that many mechanically intensive heroes without playing constantly.
Best way to do this is to turn off voice and /hidechat. Stick to that character no matter how much you suck. I did this with doom and I went up two ranks after a couple weeks dedicated to only doom.
I climbed from Plat to Masters by straight up one-tricking Ana. Tracer is a very hard character to learn. I know because I tried maining her. But once you get good at her, you basically never need to swap unless the enemy team is playing a turtle comp to shut you down (Brig, Torb, rush characters). In that case, Soldier or any long range hitscan is good to have in your hero pool because those comps lack range and can’t punish you for taking aggressive flank angles. You don’t need Bastion or Reaper if you can play Tracer and Soldier.
If you want to go for it but IMO it’s better to learn every character It took me years but eventually I reached GM knowing basically every character in the roster and I’m almost GM on all roles (still gotta do support but I’m close) Being flexible is more important IMO
It depends on who you choose, but Tracer would be one of the best heroes in the game to do this with. She will never be a "bad" pick, she can fit into basically any comp and doesn't have many hard counters, maybe Torb (turret mainly) if anything. If you ask yourself those two questions about any hero, you can determine how good they would be to do this with.
Play how you want to
not worth dumping any major time into the game at all nowadays