Overwatch is a new direction for Blizzard, but still part of the same family of some of the most memorable characters in modern gaming. With Tracer's inclusion into Heroes of the Storm, it only further cements Overwatch's position as Blizzards new darling IP poised to capture the hearts of gamers everywhere.
With that said, it's hard to predict just how a character originally designed for an FPS might fair in a MOBA like Heroes of the Storm. To start theorycrafting some possible ideas, let's look at the things we know for certain.
The obvious.
Here are three abilities we can already 100% expect to see in Tracer's Heroes of the Storm incarnation. They exist seamlessly in the Overwatching universe and they are key components of her play style and design:
Blink:
Tracer zips horizontally through space in the direction she’s moving in, and reappears several yards away. She stores up to three charges of the blink ability and generates more every few seconds.
Recall:
Tracer bounds backwards in time, returning her health, ammo and position on the map to precisely where they were a few seconds before.
Pulse Bomb:
Tracer lobs a large bomb that adheres to any surface or unfortunate opponent it lands on. After a brief delay, the bomb explodes, dealing high damage to all enemies within its blast radius.
In addition to these iconic abilities, Tracer's auto attack will be her shooting her Pulse Pistols. But how might that actually work? Will she have to aim them with a skillshot to capture the FPS play style? Will she shoot one-by-one at a Raynor's pace, or will she have insanely fast attack speed like Tychus?
Maybe Tracer will have passive "Hot Shots-esque" ability that operates the same as Novas. Each auto attack would represent her maximum assault of 40 Pulse Pistol bullets, while the slow attack speed emulates having to re-load after firing like in an FPS.
And what about her stats? She will probably have extremely low HP, especially if Recall allows Tracer to negate damage through burst healing. Just imagine how broken Zeratul would be if he had with 3 blinks and a instant self-heal? Tracer, in comparison, might end up doing a lot less damage than a traditional assassin because of these powerful abilities
Q, W and ... ?
But even if they include Blink and Recall, that still leaves her missing one basic ability. Will she have a vault ability like Valla? A dive ability like Chen that represents her Melee attack? And what about a second heroic ability other than Pulse Bomb? All the other Heroes of the Storm characters have extensive lore and abilities to choose from their respective games, but Tracer has only ever been seeing doing a few things. This includes shooting stuff, blinking around, jumping, crouching, saying catch phrases, having deja vu (guarantee that becomes a name of a talent) and throwing Pulse Bombs.
It seems that Blizzard designers have a tough job ahead of them in trying to stretch the minimalist design of Tracer over 6 different core abilities and over 20 different talents. However, if they do a good job of it, there is no reason that fans can't expect more Overwatch characters to join Tracer in the nexus.
