Oh well. Widow is going to get a ton of value from reduced barriers in the game.
If people can’t tolerate the idea that Widow would need to be a lot weaker, to compensate for the easier sniping angles.
Then they aren’t really looking for balance in the first place.
High skill should = high value, widow being a hero with one of the highest skill ceilings in the game should get a lot of value when someone can make use of it.
1 less tank in the game isn’t going to mean that widow instantly gets more value because of the possibility of having 1 less shield on your team anyway, the way the game is played is going to change and so are a lot of heroes. and if you currently only rely on shield heroes to get cover from being one-shot by a widowmaker you have no one else than yourself to blame for being killed either.
Kinda impossible to see how it won’t.
I would beg to differ. Damage boosted pharah, junkrat and echo spam is far more rewarding and enable lethality at a way lower skill threshold.
a sniper should (some may not like that) always have the clear upper hand at a distance and be weak in close combat.
Widow was, up to the 175 HP Nerf, a problem in Diamond to GM , which includes less than 14% (as of 2018) of the total player base.
The problem wasn’t widow per se, but that Widow usually gets peel up there. Due to the -25 HP, the teams and Widow themselves had less time to react and to save Widow.
In the lower ranks there is enough counterplay for widow: Sombra and Hammond. Zen, Ashe and Hanzo can compete with her and on maps without large open spaces, Pharah (even without mercy) is also quite effective. A good Doom, Genji or Lucio can also quickly become a major threat.
I think you also overestimate the strength of snipers in OW2 because there is one tank. Practically all other DPS benefit from one less tank. in addition there are the new maps, which offer more flaking options and the greatly reduced CC.
Tracer, Doom and partly Genji can hardly be stopped by the reduced CC.
One less tank will make Pharah stronger. And Echo will be a must, as it can become a tank itself for 15 seconds.
As a widow main I have to say that I prefer shields, even if annoying, to rush and dive comps.
In my opinion, it makes no sense to think about possible changes in balance at the moment, as a lot will change and so far we have only seen a small part of what is coming.
(New Heros, Maps, Modes, Balance etc.)
Personally, I still hope that the devs will come back from the stupid 5v5 idea. Overwatch is and always will be 6v6.
How is it equivalent to brig?
If you want to be able to survive a sniper headshot currently, you have to have the health pool of a tank.
With a new type of health youre squishy enough to be countered by a monkey, roadhog, reaper, soldier, etc. while being able to survive getting your head clicked once.
Barriers, Fortify, Defense Matrix, Kinetic Grasp, Take a Breather.
Largely this makes no sense.
Either the critical hit modifier is 2.0 for everyone (and Widow gets to remain the special exception for reasons), or you end up hurting snipers specifically.
Brigitte can’t critically hit, so her damage is adjusted accordingly. 70 damage on her Whipshot is “critical hit” from her 35 damage flail, with a 15 meter range with the added bonus of a knockback effect, available every five seconds.
Folks, Tanks already have all the tools they need to mitigated burst damage. Not only that, but most of them can’t be killed with burst, either way. This is a huge problem when it comes to multiple tanks putting out competitive and burst on par with the less resilient Damage-role heroes. It doesn’t really matter what their size is, either.
When Reinhardt is putting 300 damage off a single charge every 9 seconds, or up 600 damage against an enemy team every 6 seconds, and still being able to wall off 1,600 damage. That’s huge problem. Double that with a co-tank and you have mitigation for days, vastly slowing down TTK.
Come OW2, barriers aren’t going away, but Tanks will remain very strong and very resilient. And still capable of blocking huge amounts of burst via the various abilities they have.
If you’re dead-set on this; the only thing they could do (short of introducing yet another new defensive mechanic for Tanks) is change armor from a flat damage reduction to a percentage damage reduction of 15%, the since current average mitigates around 30% to 55% for low damage high-fire rate heroes.
This would make heroes like Reaper and Tracer stronger on Tanks, and even beam-weapons would be more powerful, but burst-damage would also see power curbed. Instead 295 damage critical hits on Reinhardt. It’d be 255. Thereby increasing the number of shots needed to kill Reinhardt by two. And more if the target is being healed.
Obviously, Orisa will still be immune to critical hits via Fortify. So the damage reduction will be even better.
The devs said they are considering changing armor in OW2 to be percentage reduction to damage.
If so, having armor would act as a way to reduce burst damage.
All they need to do is have armor kick in AFTER a given threshold. This way, low damage (and pellets) aren’t affected since that damage is actually countered more by healing.
This is also why they are removing armor from Brig’s healing and Torb’s E and changing both to Overhealtb. It is also why the devs said they need to balance their kits since they were a bit underwhelming at their current Overhealth values.
What about these specifically counters hitscan and not everything else too?
Not to mention these are all tank abilities. So again, what are DPS and healers to do.
They’re not going to add a critbox debuff. It violates a golden rule of game design in that it punishes skill.
Imagine a scenario where there’s a Widow on each team. One is a GM and the other is a plat with the critbox debuff on their side. The GM could land more shots while simultaneously contributing less value. That’s a bad mechanic, and it’s a mistake Blizz already made – and learned from – when they put armor on CD.
I think more likely you’ll see armor reworked to provide the same protection against all damage types.
Like Widow’s headshot?
That sounds like the opposite of widow’s headshot, that’s something like Tracer’s primary fire which is a super high fire rate of 40 shots per second but only 6 damage per bullet.
It’s inherently easier on foes who try to be evasive.
If your opponent isn’t trying to be evasive like peeking corners and A+D strafing then tracking aim is probably easier.
Barriers can’t be critically hit. Neither can Fortify, Defense Matrix, or Kinetic Grasp. Hitscan or projectile. And several projectiles can’t critically hit, either (Frags, Rockets, and other explosive weapons). Beams are a little more specialized, but they can’t critically hit either, but then, they tend to have lower damage outputs and armor is more resilient against them.
Damage-role heroes have options to prevent critical hits too. Deflect, Ice Wall, Crouching, and generally being smaller targets. Average critical hit rates are fairly low too, overall.
Supports, also, have tools to help mitigate critical hits. Sound Barrier, healing, Transcendence, Fade and others.
It is also typical that barriers wielded by tanks can also used by allies. Teamwork wins games, and it is encouraged.