Your job as Tracer is to be the mosquito in enemy team's room while they're trying to sleep.

Fundamentals can be boiled into two categories:
1. Abilities
2. Positioning

1. You need to have constant uptime on these, never stop shooting as long as there's an enemy in line of sight, doesn't matter if they're near or far - as long as you're filling their screen with red indicators, that's all that matters.
   
2. Keep them loaded at all times, you don't want to take a duel with 10 bullets then reload.
   
3. They do the highest damage at 10 meters, which is roughly your Blink range.
   
4. Recalling reloads your pulse pistols.

1. Pretend that you have only two blinks, this will help you get out of sticky situations instead of having to waste Recall.
   
2. You can use Blink in two primary ways:
   
   • Aggressively: Constantly be on the move when in combat, take multiple different angles, when you shoot, enemies receive a red indicator indicating the direction of your attack, changing angle would mean that they would be looking at your position before you blinked.
     
   • Defensively: Reserving a blink ensures that you have an escape in case Recall is on cooldown
3. It's good to have some awareness of your surroundings when blinking, so as to not fall off the map randomly when your recall is on cooldown.
   
4. Right click can also be used to blink instead of shift.

1. Use it if you feel or see that your health is about to go below 50, due to it's long cooldown, it's best if you use it consciously.
   
2. Briefly think about where your last position was a second or two ago in the back of your mind, this will help you decide whether using Recall will land you in a safer position or not. You should also account for a blink or two that you might have!

Just use it as soon as it is available instead of waiting for the perfect moment. It recharges really fast as long as you're shooting! But be wary- there are heroes that can completely negate it (e.g. Kiriko - Suzu, Moira - Fade, Reaper - Wraith), so if you're going to use it on them, you'll have to either:

• Wait for them to use their cooldown then bomb them
  
• Bomb somebody else

Tracer excels at creating openings for the team. A general rule that you can follow is that you should always be roughly two blinks away from your team.

You might have come across two terms when it comes to playing heroes like Tracer; Flanking and Off-angling.

To put it briefly:
Flanking:

• When you're more than two blinks away from your team.
  
• High risk & high reward - you are isolating yourself far away from your team and could potentially put your team at a one person disadvantage, but if the flank is executed well, it can create a major opening for the team to capitalize on.

Off-Angling:

• When you're within two blinks away from your team
  
• Low risk & moderate reward - you are within your team's reach but you're also far away from them that you can become a major point of distraction for the enemy team
  
• Default to this playstyle as you will be relatively safe and it will help your team find any openings while you're picking up the heat from the enemy team.

Tracer is incredibly good at flanking and off-angling due to her mobility. As a fundamentalist, you should know how to flank and off-angle as she revolves around these two more than anything else.

It's time for a little exercise. Assume the below scenario on King's Row where all the heat from your allies and enemies is packed towards entrance near the red bus(Focus Point) and try to figure out the following from your perspective.

• When flanking (Long):
  
  • What could be the highest reward you could get after flanking?
    
  • After getting the reward, where could you be in relation to your team? (Assume best case scenario)
    
  • What could be possible worst case scenarios?
    
  • What could be an OK case scenario?
• When off-angling (short):
  
  • Will you ever be in an unsafe position where you could die? (Assume average scenario)
    
  • How many enemies can you distract? Will that have an impact on your team? (Assume average case scenario)
    
  • Can you make an impact in this position? Will you get kills while doing so or are you just creating space so your team can move forward?

When you enter a game, there is no set rule on whether you should always or off-angle, you can always do a mix of both, if flanking works, keep doing it until it doesn't, if off-angling works, keep doing it until it doesn't. You'll know whether it is working or not based on how much progress your team is making.

You can now start incorporating some of the intermediate and advanced mechanics and strategies into your gameplay in order to smooth out a few rough edges that fundamentals might have lead to. These may have included shortcomings such as struggling to finish off low health targets or dishing out a lot of damage but having no meaningful impact on the game.

These tips can be categorized into two
1. Strategies
2. Mechanics

Familiarizing yourself with maps will allow you to:

1. Identify flank routes
   
2. Locate health packs
   
3. Route high ground

General rule of thumb is to go for the supports whenever you can, no supports means no heals and/or utility for the enemy team. But this is only a general rule and it is up to you to assess based on the flow of the game, enemy team composition and the situation that you are in on what or who to prioritize first. Do you need to go for kills because you're short on time? Do you need to build up your ultimate charge by shooting the tank so you can hit the enemy team backline later? Actively think on what needs to be done to progress forward.

There are many scenarios so it's best you decide what or who should be prioritized. Factors may include:

• Supports
  
• Low health targets
  
• Isolated targets
  
• Damage dealers
  
• Tanks

1. Flanking / Dive - High Risk & High Reward: Coordinate dives with your teams, especially if you have a dive tank like Ball/Doom to make the most out of their dives. As with fundamentals, don't stay near the divers, stay away from them at a different angle so that you can draw the heat away from them.

2. Off-angle / Poke - Low Risk & Moderate Reward: This will be your default playstyle, by positioning yourself at a different angle from your team, you can divert enemies attention while still having your team within 2 blink distance.

3. Duelist - Very High Risk and High Reward: Tracer excels at dueling due to her high mobility and damage potential, if you see an isolated enemy and have all cooldowns available, go for it.

Always remember, the longer the enemies are onto you, the more value you're bringing to your team.

Chances are, you've already used this to finish off very low health targets.
There are two variations of these that you can keep in mind:
Short Range Melee - If enemies are closer to you, then you can press the melee button BEFORE blinking to make sure it hits.
Long Range Melee - If you feel that enemies are further than your melee blink range, then you can blink first then melee.

You're probably managing blinks really well because you're always keeping one in the bank to get out of very sticky situations, but are you actually using blinks effectively?

The one good way to use blinks is to always use them to reposition yourself behind natural covers instead of blinking around enemies, this not only disrupts the enemies even further when they see damage indicator only to find out that you're not there but also helps you stay much safer!

It helps a lot when you think about your ultimate as your melee given the difficulty of landing it.
There are 3 variations of this based on distance, which you can also incorporate into your melees.

1. Blink Pulse - This will be the usual blink then pulse bomb, very similar to how you melee, Pulse Bomb can be used before or after blinking.
   
2. 90 Degree Pulse - If you have enemies that are strafing left and right. Blink, Pulse Bomb while turning towards the enemy.
   
3. 180 Degree Pulse - If you are too close to the enemy. Blink behind them, Pulse Bomb while turning towards the enemy.

Spamming crouch while walking achieves two things:

1. Allows you to move while making lesser noise than you would while walking, you're not dead silent but the noise is relatively less.
   
2. Allows you to avoid potential headshots when dueling against heroes like Cree

Oh and, did you know that you can animation cancel your melee with recall?

Tracer is not the easiest hero in the game and definitely not the hardest, she just requires a wee bit more dedication than other heroes due to her low health pool and risky playstyle, which you can get used to in no time!

Ultimately, success with Tracer comes down to practice, experimentation, and willingness to learn from both wins and losses. Try watching your replays and see what you could've done differently.

I myself did not even think about playing Tracer until I played her for 10 hours straight in the hero mastery course and when I entered into quickplay with her, she clicked instantly, and she still remains my go-to hero for having fun.

• Awkward - Just watching his U2GM Tracer will suffice for understanding how to position
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA2DanAqwBo
  
• GameLeap's Analysis of Dafran's Gameplay
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhQ78dY9Is0
  
• Xyfer's Tracer Tips & Tricks Playlist - This guide is also heavily influenced by his playlist :D
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QG21T7upOk&list=PLvyyKrrvD6UVkhN80-EelLxwbt6DDgf7b&pp=iAQB

If you have additional tips, strategies, or insights that you'd like to contribute to this guide, please feel free to leave a comment or reach out to me directly. Your contributions are highly appreciated and welcomed to make this guide even more comprehensive and helpful for the community!