I have myself played Widowmaker extensively. She is maybe my 3rd or 4th most played hero. I mained her at one point.
What about making the last step of her charge longer? That way she can not fire off so many deadly shots.
I suggest something like this:
2nd step: 180 damage
3rd step 300 damage
3rd step takes 1½ second longer than now
That way she will have great value from charging to 2nd step and can even insta-kill some heroes, while making plays that, if the team follows up, can have great value.
Step 3 shots will still be a major factor in her kit, but will be rarer as follow-up shots.
If a Step2 shot is a headshot, then a simple Step1 bodyshot will kill a 200 hp target. It gives a small window for the squishy to survive - a very small window.
The thing is, I don’t want a nerf. I have no problem with her, but a huge part of the OW population does, including GMs.
Widowmakers at 4400+ will just hit everything. She becomes really, really oppressive at that level, and also at levels below that.
What I suggest I think is a fair tradeoff between spending more time for that lethal shot, or get a shot faster that is almost lethal - and can be with a lvl1 shot follow-up, giving the opponent a very short window to survive.
I am really suggesting this in the best interest of Widowmaker, because she may recieve nerfs you wouldn’t like instead.
This doesn’t solve the issue the community has with widow. Its not that shes op and that she can’t be counterd.
Its the fact that being one shot is horrible and frustrating. Delaying her one shot just makes it harder to play Widow while also the problem still existing.
Watch streamers at that level and that’s not entirely true, youtube will skew that though, since people just clip the best bits of games where people play exceptionally.
I can both not want a nerf, and then suggest a fair nerf, realizing that that is the way it is probably gonna go.
IMO my suggestion opens up for interesting choices for Widowmaker, which is at the heart of gameplay.
She can be buffed in other ways to compensate (like increasing damage on lvl1 and lvl2 shots), but the result of this suggestion is, that there will be fewer insta-kills from her.
Which makes her a budget/poorlyDesigned Ashe.
If Widowmaker couldn’t one hit kill, people would just pick Ashe instead of her.
Ideas are great, but not in isolation, there’s more heroes to think about when trying to nerf one, and these just make her a wonky ashe with no benefits over Ashe.
So she should rely 120% on her team and not be able to secure kills in one shot?
(With an extremely precise and well timed shot, mind you)
What world are you living in?
This is what I don’t get really. One shots have been in the game since the very first second it was launched, notably Widow.
When other people complain about the effectiveness of heroes that don’t require much aim (or any other aspect that they don’t like about the game really), they’re inevitably met with the counterargument ‘well, OW isn’t your typical fps and non-aim heroes have always been in the game. If you don’t like it, then OW isn’t for you.’. The exact same argument can be used for one-shots, but for some reason it’s then suddenly not a valid argument anymore.
As you requested.