Sierra Gameplay Discussion

I have seen some people call Sierra boring or a skip character (if you don't like playing DPS I don't judge saying she's a skip tbh) I have some speculation that Sierra's kit is purposefully basic not because they "ran out of ideas" or are "pumping out basic characters for the sake of having more characters", but because this year's 1 hero per season 10 new heroes total format allows Overwatch to release more "generic" heroes that can feel good to play but don't need to look particularly showy or exciting enough to carry a 3 heroes per year format since there's going to be a hero every season anyways so eventually everyone will be satisfied. A lot of people are being too quick to judge the character as a whole too.

As an example for his reveal I thought Emre looked extremely boring, especially compared to Anran, but when Season 1 released I actually enjoyed Emre's gameplay feel a lot more even if it's "Basic John Halo". I think Sierra looks like she could be fun to play even if she doesn't look particularly exciting to me and some people I've been seeing online.

Still, I have some concerns about Sierra's kit design and Recon Subrole in general. She is the first character designed with the Recon Subrole in mind, and she doesn't really feel like she sells on that fantasy either. She looks more like a Specialist character who they decided would be too strong if she had more frequent reloads.

So far recon characters' most defining trait is "flight" or some form of vertical movement (besides Sombra). Which yeah I guess makes sense since they can see the whole battlefield, but on practice Sombra and Echo have a flanker playstyle, Freja is pretty much a Marksman and Pharah could be a specialist. It feels more like this subrole was designed to bring these characters down because they'd be too strong with other subrole passives and there isn't really a gameplay feel of being a "recon" character. OW1 Sombra is the closest to a true recon character in the game's history but she's gone.

I love the idea of a recon subrole, and on many games it's treated as a class of its own, but it doesn't really look like Overwatch is into committing into that playstyle, that's what disappoints me the most. Sierra's kit is fine on a vaccuum but really disappointing for the first hero designed with the subrole in mind.

Some of her perks look stupidly OP on paper, we'll see how they fare on release, but I'm generally not a fan of giving self-sustain to DPS heroes specifically (in some cases it's fine but it feels braindead on movement abilities) I wish she had a perk that made her drone reveal nearby enemies like Crypto from Apex Legends. (I don't think she should embrace a full drone playstyle with POV changes like the rainbow six agents because it would feel too clunky and slow for overwatch and be a nightmare to fine tune if they were committed to making one).

While I don't want to form opinions before getting a feel in-game, and it may have some crazy damage numbers and uses, her ult does look kinda underwhelming in terms of novelty and excitement (especially since she already has her grenade which is pretty similar, at least Freja's ult is made to charge faster than others and it does something different from the rest of her base kit), I guess her ult charges faster than others or something. If she had this drone wallhack perk that whenever she used abilities related to the drone I think her ult would be a bit more exciting since it could be a way to put pressure and find stragglers hiding from it at the same time idk.