Overwatch Season 2: Summit is well underway, with a new DPS hero joining the roster, a fresh battle pass, and of course a whole host of patch notes and hero updates. There’s been some big nerfs and buffs, but one of the heroes to come off the strongest is the latest arrival Sierra.
Sierra’s Helix Rifle does some impressive damage, even at great length, and if you pick the Tight Grip perk which tightens the bullet spread 100% faster and widens it 30% slower, it’ll become even more lethal at long distances. Her Anchor Drone also lends itself to a quick dive and escape. But her Tremor Charge grenade is by far the most impressive ability.
Once the grenade hits the ground, a cascading tremor rips across the floor with a radius of 0.12 metres, dealing up to 100 damage for those caught inside the tremor and 60 damage for those hit by the edge of the attack. It also knocks enemies caught up in it at six metres per second. I’ve found it to be an excellent finishing move to take out pesky heroes who are slightly too slippery to execute with a bullet.
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I’m enjoying it right now, but I suspect the breadth of the tremors will be reduced in the near future. The payoff is just too much greater than the skill it takes to execute as is. Emre’s grenade may also be pretty lethal, but at least that takes some skill when it comes to angling the throw and getting the bounce just right.
The biggest issue other players are having with Sierra, however, is not with any of her standard abilities, it’s her ultimate. “This might by far be the only ult in the game that can solo kill a tank,” player MokNaruto says. “You can think of it as a better Pharah Barrage. You want to fire it close to the floor so that the bombs are more clustered and you want to fire it in narrow places. This ult will instantly delete all tanks in the game.”
It’s very early days for Sierra, so like her grenade, I doubt her ultimate will stay this strong for much longer, but it’s still another horror tank players have to face right now.
Other notable changes to heroes after the latest patch include:
- Soldier: 76 being can reload while sprinting now—it’s going to take me a long time to get used to that one—reinforcing his role as a “mobile damage dealer”.
- Echo can now duplicate allied heroes—great, because what’s worse than going up against one Junkrat? Going up against two.
- Roadhog’s chainhook has been nerfed, thank the heavens.
- Wrecking Ball and Winston’s base health have been reduced for 6v6 (lol).
- Vendetta’s survivability has been reduced, meaning she can no longer just carelessly bayblade her way through the enemy team.
- Jetpack Cat’s acceleration has been slowed by 11%, proving there is a god.
- Kiriko’s mobility has been reduced “to limit her ability to escape from long distances and require her to play closer to her teammates”.
- Mercy’s baseline healing and mobility have been slightly reduced as Flash Heal has been moved from Perk to her base kit—the Mercy Mafia won’t take this lightly.
- Saving the best for last (as far as I’m concerned): Ana’s Biotic Grenade has been buffed, reducing the cooldown from 14 seconds to 12, which is the bane of any tank main’s existence.
I’m sure more tips and tricks will emerge based on the new hero changes as the season continues, but for the time being I’m pretty happy with my reduced Biotic Grenade cooldown and will stay thankful for fewer chainhooks coming my way.
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