Blizzard Entertainment has revealed the latest Overwatch hero’s kit, with Sierra getting quite a few interesting abilities. The kit has some exciting lock-on stuff, which makes people think she might be a bit of a skill inflator, maybe OP busted, or just downright silly.
The latest hero is a recon-type character for damage players, so you can already see where this is going. Though she’s got a bit of a rep for being goofy already, thanks to her reveal trailer. Maybe her kit will reinforce that in a second.
Sierra’s kit in Overwatch
Before we go into why she looks like a low elo stomper, you need to first take a look at Sierra’s kit.
Weapon:
- Helix Rifle: Automatic weapon. Shoots in spiral patterns that gains accuracy over sustained fire
Abilities:
- Tracked Shot – Mark an enemy. Helix Rifle shots automatically track marked enemies
- Anchor Drone – Launch an Anchor Drone. Reactivate to launch yourself towards it
- Tremor Charge – Throw a charge that creates a shockwave on impact
Ultimate:
- Trailblazer – Deploy a drone that flies forward and drops explosives.
Why Sierra’s kit could dominate lower ranks
As you can see, Sierra is a bit of a spray and pray character with her assault rifle, which will likely cause issues with the first few rounds. But when it comes to shredding tanks, that accuracy will help rather nicely.
The trick, though, is her tracking.
Applying a tracking shot to something with a lot of movement, or just if you aim patiently with the tracker and land it on a key target, you will likely drill someone with that automatic weapon. It’s rather handy for catching Jetpack Cat, Hammond, the Mercy flying around, or one of the flanking heroes that love to get around the map.
The other benefit is that Sierra is quite hard to track down. Many of the maps have elevated areas, so Sierra can use those drones to grapple to areas and get elevated. You should be able to find ways to land an easier-to-fire Tracking Shot from those positions and get creative.
Furthermore, the drone can serve as a nice way to escape diving tanks and flanker damage heroes too. So honestly, Sierra might be generally pretty good for outplaying in ranked lobbies.
Throw on top the recon perk of revealing enemies when you drop them to 50%, and it gets rather helpful value for teams. Considering your tracking rounds, chances are enemies are seeing where that disengage is off to, or that key DPS you chunked down is running to find health packs or a healer hiding to the side.
In higher elos or pro play, I expect Sierra to get wrecked. If you’re pushing a cart in a more open area, chances are Sierra is getting caught. Or when you’re playing CP and Sierra has no choice but to get on point. Those will be her big weaknesses. But those longer maps with elevations, lines of sight, or more chaotic movement characters may have a rough time against her with strong skill expression.
As for low elos, it reminds me of early Overwatch days. I remember when Torbjörn was meta on consoles and in lower elo PC lobbies where aiming was harder to do. It’s still kind of the same now if you check Overwatch’s official quick play win rates. Torbjörn is still a beast. But as you switch to ranked, he falls off a cliff.
Again, in ranked queues, the hero meta is fairly diverse at the minute and might be lobby- dependent. Some of the highest win rate picks are not exactly mobile where tracking matters more. Illari and Zenyatta are two high win-rate healers at the moment. Hazard can be quite a mobile tank, so that might be a decent counter, especially when you use your drone to jump his ultimate. D.Va will counter your tracking. Then, from win rates, it’s somewhere you may counter like Tracer or Genji, but for others, there’s no general benefit to it.
So overall, she’s not really that much of a power pick in the meta. More of a situational recon counter.
Chances are lower elo or console players with some good aim can really abuse this and climb rather well with Sierra’s kit. But expect to hit a wall when you’re getting CC’d and dived on the more obvious spots recon players want to get to on various maps. Abuse early and often. But you’d better learn to aim too.