Tracer's biggest advantage, her mobility, wasn't really nerfed in the May 4th patch, because Blizzard did nothing to stop the incredible power of the Get out of Jail Free Card that is Spatial Echo. Instead, they made very small adjustments to her health pool and her base damage. It turns out though, that the base damage nerf doesn't matter all that much, because they ALSO buffed Locked and Loaded.

- YOU DON'T DIVE. YOU SURVIVE. YOUR PRIMARY GOAL IS TO LIVE THROUGH EVERY TEAMFIGHT. That being said, don't be a *****, either.

You don't have leeching rounds in this build, which is a big hit to your survivability during teamfights. But you also CAN'T DIE. Otherwise you lose your stacks. Be safe.

- POSITIONING IS A THING AGAIN. Staying safe is going to help you stay alive, and that is going to keep you from losing your Untouchable stacks. It's also going to help you mentally focus on Locked and Loaded, because when you're in danger, your brain has to do too many things at once in order to rely on the bonus 40% damage. So STAY BACK. Pretend you're Raynor or Valla if you have to, I don't care.

- DON'T BE AFRAID TO HEARTH!

- NO SERIOUSLY! HEARTH!

- NO FOR REAL SERIOUSLY! HEARTH A LOT!

Tracer is probably the squishiest squishy there is apart from Abathur and Murky. I suggest you get used to hitting B, and then holding down the SHIFT key and clicking where you want to go. Your health is so low that just popping up back at the nexus will almost always fill up your health entirely. You should NEVER go into a fight without full health if you can help it. And avoid simply running back to base unless you're right next to it, defending your core.

RICHOCHET MAKES YOUR RANGE HELLA LONG.

If you can't get close enough to hit a squishy hero, then target the minion, structure, or hero in front of them. Ricochet will still do damage to the hero you can't reach. Hitting walls and towers while pushing lanes defended by heroes (in the case pushing with your team, or a punisher, immortal, terror, boss, etc.) will allow you to damage the defending heroes as well as zone them, all while simultaneously taking out their structures.

RICOCHET HELPS YOU FIND THE STEALTHIES

Ricochet ALSO procs your Tracer rounds, which is perfect for fighting against Zera and Nova, or on maps like Garden of Terror where there are lots of bushes around key objectives that will break your line of sight.

RICOCHET HELPS WITH WAVE CLEAR

It's actually a lot more effective than you'd think. I'm not sure at this point whether it's as effective as Bullet Spray, simply because I'm not sure how to do the math. But it's not negligible, and it's certainly better than Leeching Rounds, which only works on enemy heroes.

BONUS!

Ricochet also has a chance of hitting Zagara's creep tumors and Abathur's mines.

Focus the majority of your mental energy on mastering the Locked and Loaded minigame. It's the key to this build actually working well.

When you proc Locked and Loaded at level 20, your going to be doing ~1k damage a clip to your primary target, and about 500 damage spread out among the rest of the team/creep wave because of Ricochet. Again, this is PER clip.

If you're intimidated by Locked and Loaded, go into try mode before your first game of the day, and practice on the target dummy. In about 5 mins you'll become familiar with the rhythm.

PRO TIP:

DO NOT ACTUALLY FOCUS ON THE BAR. This will take your eyes away from what matters: what the heroes on the screen are doing. Instead, try to place the bar in your peripheral vision to use it as a mental cue. When practicing on the target dummy, close your eyes and listen to the noises of the clip reload success and failure. You'll find that the process is a lot easier than you think it is.

It doesn't matter if you miss the buff on a clip, you reload so often that you'll almost always have the chance to try again. You can hit D to reload early in order to proc your damage boost, and if your clip is full, attack a merc camp or enemy structure in order to be able to reload again. It doesn't matter how much ammo you're missing from the clip, it always takes the same amount of time to reload.

Start with a goal of getting half of your clips to have the damage boost, and then increase that goal. Set a goal of being able to proc the damage buff ~80% of the time, and you'll guarantee that you're doing more damage than you'd be doing with either of the other two level 16 talents.

You're choosing Sticky Bomb with this build for the CC it provides. Your Pulse Bomb won't be your primary source of damage. But a well placed Sticky Bomb is going to put a 60% slow on whoever it hits, so you're looking to use it in three different situations.

1) A teamfight is happening, and the enemy team is clumped together. This is great for Chain CC with ETC, Jaina, etc. Remember, with this build, you're trying to do AoE damage during teamfights.

2) Your team has caught a highly mobile hero out of position, and there's a danger they might get away. Instead of chasing them into enemy territory and risking death to get the kill yourself, it's often a much better strategy to simply put the slow on them and let your whole team do the work.

3) In QM, against an enemy Tracer.

Be careful using your pulse bomb on an enemy tracer! There's almost a 100% chance that when you catch a Tracer out of position, her Recall will be off cooldown! When a Tracer stuck with a Pulse Bomb uses recall, it will completely negate your ult.

BUT...

If the enemy Tracer went leaching rounds, you didn't catch her out. She caught YOU out. She can 1v1 you in a straight fight most of the time. (Unless..she will probably be able to 1v1 you though. So running from her will cause a chase that you can't win. At this point, using your Ult will allow you to escape. She must either take the slow, and thus she can't catch you, or she will use her recall, and thus she can't catch you. Make sure to wait at least four seconds of chase time to do this, however. It's situational, but it's helped me numerous times against a leeching rounds Tracer, trust me.

Using this build, and assuming perfect play, you can do over 1,000 damage per clip by level 16, and almost 1500 damager per clip by level 20.

But only about 2/3rds of that damage goes to your primary target

Calculations are done using level 1 base damage of 27 per attack, at 10 attacks per clip, and a per level increase of 4% damage.

The post May 4th nerf to damage is therefore taken into account, as well as the post May 4th buff to Locked and Loaded.

The final numbers were to the nearest whole number for simplicity. I only included level increments where notable changes occur. Level 1 for reference, level 10 because that's when everyone else gets Ultimates, Level 13 because that's when you get ricochet, level 16 because that's when you get Locked and Loaded, and Level 20 because that's when you get your Storm talent. Everything else doesn't matter as much in understanding her damage curve.

Finally, DPC means "Damage Per Clip", which is easier to conceptualize with Tracer than traditional DPS.

THE NUMBERS

Level 1 -
Base Damage - 270 DPC ;

Level 10 -
Base Damage 384.3 DPC ;
With Full Untouchable Stacks - 499.59 DPC ;

Level 13 -
Base Damage - 432 DPC + 216 Ricochet DPC ; TOTAL DPC - 648 DPC
With Full Untouchable Stacks - 562 DPC + 281 Ricochet DPC ; TOTAL DPC - 843 DPC

Level 16 -
Base Damage - 486 DPC + 243 Ricochet DPC ; TOTAL DPC - 729 DPC
With Full Untouchable Stacks - 632 DPC + 316 Ricochet DPC ; TOTAL DPC - 948 DPC
With NO Untouchable Stacks + Locked and Loaded - 681 DPC + 340 Ricochet DPC ; TOTAL DPC - 1021 DPC
With Full Untouchable Stacks + Locked and Loaded - 827 DPC + 413 Ricochet DPC ; TOTAL DPC - 1240 DPC

Level 20 -
Base Damage - 569 DPC + 284 Ricochet DPC ; TOTAL DPC - 853 DPC
With Full Untouchable Stacks - 739 DPC + 370 Ricochet DPC ; TOTAL DPC - 1109 DPC
With NO Untouchable Stacks + Locked and Loaded - 796 DPC + 398 Ricochet DPC ; TOTAL DPC - 1194 DPC
With Full Untouchable Stacks + Locked and Loaded - 967 DPC + 483 Ricochet DPC; TOTAL DPC - 1450 DPC

While I believe this build has the most overall applicability in most situations, consider these situations for when you need to deviate from it slightly. No build is perfect for 100% of all comps, maps, and situations. This is not a paint by numbers guide.

Level 1 - If there are no stealth enemies, and you aren't fighting in a map where there are lots of vents or bushes that will break your line of sight, consider going SlipStream at level 1. It was nerfed, but it still might help you once you get Total Recall at Level 20.

Level 7 - Enemy Tracer getting you down? Try going for Jumper. Most Tracer players agree right now that Spatial Echo is the way to go... but when you try to blink away 3 times from a Tracer with Leeching Rounds, and they just follow you with three Blinks of their own... you still die. That extra 4th blink can be the difference between you keeping all of your untouchable stacks or dying in the worst possible way: by someone who plays your character better than you do. D:

Level 10 - Is your team obsessed with Focusing the tank, and somehow never manages to kill them? Consider going for Quantum Spike. This is great for a Cho'Gall, for example. And if they have a Lt. Morales, you're going to need a LOT of burst anyway, because you can't dive with this build without accepting the fact that you might die and lose all your stacks.

Level 20 - Far ahead, and not having to worry at all about your health? Consider going for Composition B to do more damage with your Pulse Bomb.

This is my first build, and I seemed to have some problems with getting the Heroes to Load properly for case by case counter-play suggestions.

If you have any suggestions, feel free to message me and let me know, and if they make sense, I'll update the build.

Good luck, and see you in the Nexus!

-nSpyer