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Overwatch's next hero is the rifle-wielding Sierra, the sixth hero of the year after five new heroes were added during the popular online shooter's Reign of Talon season 1. A day after dropping the hero trailer, which showed Sierra in combat with Emre and Freja, developer Blizzard released a gameplay trailer for the damage hero.
Sierra is a mobile damage hero who can reposition through the air with her drone. She seems to have a mix of Sojourn's primary fire and Freja's mobility, with some extra grenades on top. Here's what we learned about her kit in the gameplay trailer.
Sierra abilities
- Primary fire: Sierra fires her fully automatic weapon. The bullets appear to be projectiles, meaning they have a travel time.
- Drone: In the trailer, Sierra uses her drone, which she calls Dorothy, to move herself over enemies, jump up to high grounds and dodge enemy abilities.
- Homing dart: Sierra can shoot a homing dart. If it lands on an enemy, her next few bullets track that hero, similar to Juno's Pulse Torpedos or the Needler from Halo.
- Grenade: We see a few shots of Sierra tossing a cluster grenade at enemies below her, causing damage in a small area.
- Ultimate: Sierra's drone flies forward and drops widespread explosive damage.
What else do we know about Overwatch's next hero?
Blizzard dropped its first look at Sierra last week, and a few details in the new artwork seemed to be in line with expectations that she's an ally of damage hero Ashe. Ashe's Deadlock Gang is mentioned in the new trailer, although Sierra is working with Overwatch in trying to stop them. We don't know yet whether Sierra has ties to other Overwatch heroes and factions.
Alec Dawson, Overwatch's associate game director, said in February that the next hero would be another damage hero with a "really satisfying skill shot," which appears to be her homing dart.
While I do love a good skill shot, the game has been struggling with damage heroes over the past year -- particularly heroes who have the ability to quickly eliminate someone out of nowhere. The newest damage heroes, Anran and Emre, didn't have this problem, but the previous two, Freja and Vendetta, were consistently banned by players after release because of their quick time to kill, combined with their ability to consistently surprise enemies. Sierra's skillshot appears to be less bursty, which would be a relief, but it's unclear from the hero trailer exactly how much damage you can expect if you get stuck.
Season 1 is wrapping up in the next week. The current season kicked off the year-long storyline about Vendetta taking over Talon and also introduced five new heroes into the roster. Devs have promised another new hero each season during the storyline, and Sierra appears to move the story forward as a key figure fighting against Talon's ongoing efforts to gain power and destroy Overwatch.
