Hello, in this forum I will be taking a deep dive for a specific character and, per request, I will attempt to take a deep dive into nerf and buff ideas for specific characters overall. I hope this sparks a conversation among the higher ups and gives us all a platform to voice out certain ideas for PTR experiments. See you in OW!
Now to tackle one of the many problems at hand.
The character I wanted to take a deep dive into for a while has been Mccree, for a while now I have noticed more and more that people seem to use him for his incredibly cheap flash and hammer take downs on squishies. That with his added 25 health and fan hammer buff makes him beefy enough to get those cheeky kills off even if the enemy gets healed or before he himself gets taken out.
Problem being, when it comes to having fun it’s a total let down and the ability along with his kit is incredibly lackluster (becomes a bit broken when he gets nano or mercy pocket). My solution to this is simple, I’ll be breaking down his flash and hammer into several of it’s different problems as well as some issues with his overall kit.
First, how or why it Flash and hammer used? To start off, the intention behind the buff to his fan hammer ability wasn’t fully intended for easier picks. The reason behind the buff initially was to apply more pressure to shields due to the rise of the double shield meta. That is fine and dandy, in certain cases, it’s even a good tool for applying a ton of pressure (too much tho) to tanks trying to rush him by themselves.
So what’s the problem? Well, the issue is and always has been that the flash and hammer combo is incredibly strong against squishy targets and it use to be semi-ok at dealing with tanks before the buff. After the buff to hammer, this problem cemented itself even deeper. Now squishies are dead for sure unless you waste imo, ults, bubble, or a tank very unlikely gives up half their health for you in the back line.
Solution for fan hammer? Several things come to mind really but here are the unofficial patch notes, some are more extreme, others are more realistic which I can single out if need be.
Mccree
*Fan Hammer Now has better spread making it more accurate for longer ranges
*Fan hammer Now does 38 damage per shot with damage drop off after 6 meters
*Primary rate of fire has been increased
*Primary accuracy has been increased
*Primary damage has been decreased
*Primary range has been increased
*Reload speed has been increased
*Flash has been reworked, it will now blur your screen (or flash you) for 2.3 seconds while still stunning you for 1 if you are in it’s blast radius which remains unchanged
*Flash cooldown will now be increased if you fan hammer right after
*New Passive: Disrupter rounds. Any time Mccree fan hammers he gets a 32% increase damage against shields as well as the ability to take out Zarya’s bubbles. (Yes I ran the numbers, it would round up to 50 like his fan hammer does overall right now which fixes the main problem rather than adding on to it. This is also assuming SHIELD health isn’t programmed to be the same as zarya or symms shield health too but It can be made super lore friendly and I will be sure to update this as well cause I don’t know the damage of his primary overall either.)
So yeah these are some quality of life changes for Mccree, his kit, and his unfortunate fan hammer victims. Hope you enjoyed reading it.
