Overwatch 2: How to Play Tracer | Abilities and Role in Combat

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Tracer’s Abilities+−
Tracer’s Role in Combat

There are a lot of characters to choose from in Overwatch 2, but it would be unrealistic for a single player to master them all completely. It’s not a bad idea to know a handful of characters so that you can play any role depending on your team’s composition, but truly mastering a hero takes practice.

While there’s nothing I can write here that will make you better at the game without you sitting down and actually playing matches, having the proper information to hit the ground running with a character can save you plenty of time. Instead of needing to dedicate time to understanding their moves and how to best use them, you can begin the mental process of Overwatch 2 early and devote your play sessions to improving your matches in practice.

Tracer is an extremely popular character in Overwatch and because she’s unlocked automatically when starting up the sequel, plenty of players are choosing her at the start of matches. While she’s relatively easy to pick up, mastering her abilities and role in combat takes practice. Use the guide below to develop some strategies for properly playing Tracer.

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Tracer’s Abilities

Tracer’s kit isn’t jam-packed with numerous abilities, but her loadout does give her some unique advantages and is essential in keeping her alive since her health pool is so low.

Pulse Pistols

The Pulse Pistols are two automatic handguns that can deal a lot of damage when in close quarters. They fire extremely fast and, if you can get an entire magazine into an enemy, can massively reduce their health or even get an elimination in just a few seconds. If you miss, reloading is extremely fast so you’ll be back dealing damage quickly.

It’s important to remember that melee attacking is always faster than reloading, so if you’ve brought an enemy down to a sliver of health, you’ll likely be able to quickly eliminate them with a fast melee attack since you’re likely in close quarters anyway. Melees don’t deal major damage, but they’re an often overlooked element of Tracer’s abilities that can ever so slightly turn the tide in a firefight.

Unfortunately, the Pulse Pistols lose just about all of their damage potential when engaging with enemies at medium range or farther. Luckily, just because they won’t eliminate threats from far away doesn’t mean that they aren’t useful at range. If you’re working with your team to secure a choke point, spraying into a doorway where enemies are pouring out of can not only deal a little bit of chip damage but discourage them from using that route. This can break up groups, making them easier to take care of.

Tracer’s pistols are great for damaging other Attack characters as well as Support characters. They can be the final push to taking down a Tank, but if it’s Tracer versus any Tank in a one-on-one fight, the odds of getting out of there alive with the Pulse Pistols alone are drastically small. Instead, focus on taking out Attack and Support heroes while you wait for your Ultimate to charge.

Ultimate: Pulse Bomb

While Tracer should be focusing the majority of her attacks on Attack and Support characters, her Ultimate, the Pulse Bomb, should ideally be placed on a tank. The bomb sticks to whatever surface it lands on and doesn’t have much of a range to it so you’ll need to Blink in close in order for it to be effective, but if you can land it on a Tank, you’re guaranteed to deal some major damage.

The Pulse Bomb can take out just about every Attack and Support hero that gets caught in its blast and will take down most Tanks to roughly half health. Although it doesn’t guarantee a kill on a fully healed Tank, because of the Tank’s size and central role in combat, they’re great targets. Landing a Pulse Bomb on a Tank is usually pretty easy since they’re so big and, because they tend to have a few teammates in their immediate vicinity, you’re likely to either deal additional damage to the rest of the opposing team or even snag an additional elimination or two.

Be warned: because landing a Pulse Bomb on an enemy requires you to get in so close, you will be very vulnerable. It’s a good idea when Blinking in and dropping a bomb to have Recall fully charged and ready to go for a quick exit.

Blink

Blink allows Tracer to do a quick teleport and can be used up to three times in a row before needing to be recharged. While it might seem like a simple movement ability, it’s extremely versatile and a huge tool in the belt of effective Tracer players.

Because most of Tracer’s damage output requires her to be directly pushing back against enemies in close quarters, Blink allows her to quickly get in to do damage and pull back out to safety just as fast with either another Blink or her Recall ability. When in a more extended firefight against multiple enemies, blinking once to fire a few rounds, then blinking again erratically can do a lot to stall them and take the heat off of other members of your team.

If you’re alone at an objective facing multiple enemies while you wait for backup, this method can also keep you alive while you stall for an organized assault from your team. It’s not sustainable for extended periods of time thanks to Tracer’s small health pool, but it can be the difference between letting an enemy team end overtime in their favor and taking the objective back, getting a from-behind win.

A practiced Tracer player is constantly Blinking in order to throw off the opposing team’s rhythm. Blink also makes Tracer invincible for the split second she teleports, so it’s a great way to both avoid being hit and reduce incoming damage if it’s unavoidable.

Recall

Recall and Blink are the one-two punch that makes Tracer such a devastating Attack hero. Recall lets the player go back in time a few seconds, teleporting them back to their previous position and health value. This means that if you get hit and aren’t near a healer, you can Recall and regain that health as long as you aren’t dead.

Typically, you’ll want to use all three of your Blinks to get into close-quarters firefights to deal damage and use Recall in order to safely get out. When Recalling, Tracer is invincible so if you find yourself in a situation that was hotter than you expected, Recall is a “get out of jail free” card of sorts.

As mentioned above, when your Ultimate is ready and you’ve Blinked into a group of enemies to drop the bomb, throw it and then quickly Recall out of there to stay alive. Recall is on a much longer cooldown than Blink, however, so make sure to use it meaningfully as it’s not as quick to recharge.

Tracer’s Role in Combat

As mentioned above, Tracer’s role in combat is to quickly get close to the enemy to deal damage in short bursts before retreating. Rinse, wash, repeat. On a basic level, that’s what Tracer players should be doing at all times, making use of her abilities to benefit in each combat encounter, however, with a character who has a pool of health as small as Tracer does, attacking in a frontal assault usually isn’t the best method for taking care of enemies.

Generally, Tracer is good for taking out individual enemies with a focus on other Attackers and Support heroes. Because she’s so quick, she can run circles around them while dealing damage before they can hit her. Keeping an eye out for stragglers to pick them off one by one is key to playing effectively. While you can get lucky in an all-out frontal attack with the rest of your team, it’s not an area where Tracer truly excels.

When playing Tracer, try to avoid engaging with Tanks while alone but if you are going to try to take one out, make sure they’re not at full health and that you have backup incoming. While Tracer excels at taking out Attack and Support heroes, they’re dangerous in pairs as the Support heroes will buff the Attackers either with health or increased damage or mobility making them much more difficult to eliminate and ultimately giving them the edge. In situations where you’re facing both, prioritize the Support character and then start with the Attacker.

Throwing off enemy rhythm and tempo is the most important thing that Tracer can do. That can mean Blinking around a firefight causing chaos, or disrupting the flow of battle when things start to turn in your opponent’s favor.

For example, there are plenty of choke points throughout Overwatch 2‘s maps that, if controlled by the enemy team, can be nearly impossible to break through unless you have an organized plan. Because Tracer is so quick, however, she can dart past the enemy’s blockade without being noticed and start attacking them from behind or start securing the objective. Often when this happens, there’s an overcorrection from the enemy team as multiple members turn around to return fire or rush to the objective area. This resets the tempo in your team’s favor as retreating enemies are easy pickings which opens the door for forward momentum with the objective.