The more I think about the issue with characters like Widowmaker and Hanzo, and even Roadhog — the more I realize that issue is the accessibility to 1-shots. Which have existed even back in OW1 (and was especially oppressive in Hanzo’s case, when he had Scatter Arrow/Shot). And honestly? No. They aren’t OK. And no, simple positioning isn’t the end all and be all solution to 1-shots.
And to the people who say, “It’s part of the identity of a character, and overall design intention(s) of a character.” Tell that to the people who had to watch Mercy get gutted. Tell that to the people who had Mei lose her freeze outside of ult. Doomfist now being a tank. Reaper mains. Bastion mains. Torb mains. Symmetra mains. Pharah mains. And ESPECIALLY recently Sombra mains.
People love to say how bad designs shouldn’t encourage other bad designs. So, why is it for so many years 1-shot heroes have been given a pass to? And don’t give that bs it taking “skill”. No it doesn’t. Standing at the furthest point of a map’s choke line, and waiting for a brief moment to click on someone’s head isn’t skill. Shooting massive arrows, that just so happen to hit a character’s head hitbox when it clearly missed isn’t skill. Throwing down a damn caltrop (pigpen), and hooking someone and clicking their head (with a melee animation cancel) isn’t skill.
All of these things are basically cheese. And people gravitate towards them, because of how much of an advantage they provide for your team. It’s that simple. Because if there wasn’t these 1-shots, most people really wouldn’t use them. And that’s the truth. You use them, because of the distinct advantage they provide in a team right scenario. If WM lacked 1-shots, you’d use: Ashe, McCree, or S76 in place of them. Hanzo? We saw what happened when he didn’t have his 1-shot. Roadhog? Wouldn’t touch him with a 10-foot pole. And I seen it in OW1 when Hog’s combo was tuned down (before pigpen’s implementation). Plus! I was a Hog player back in OW1.
And to the folks who say, “But WM and Hanzo isn’t a problem in Platinum and below tiers!” No. That take is genuinely stupid. You don’t balance your game based around the majority. And the reason why, is because your best players? Have mastered a specific technique. They’ve reached that ceiling. So when you have people who haven’t reached that pinnacle finally reach that pinnacle, now you have a genuine problem in your hands in more ways than one. Because now those people at the top? Are going to devour anything below even more so than they currently are.
I think there is room for certain 1-shots to exist in OW. The features that make a 1-shot feel fair are telegraphing, a well defined threat range, risk, and frequency of threat. Rein’s charge is an example of a very well defined 1-shot. He grunts and leans into the charge animation telegraphing it is happening, he can only go in a relatively forward direction giving a clearly defined threat area, it is fairly risky for him to execute, and not spammable.
Widow is the exact opposite on all accounts. Her charge up doesn’t telegraph the shot, there is no practical limit to the range, and no meaningful cooldown, and the threat area is anywhere not behind a wall. The only risk is her lowered HP, but even then she does the 1-shot from a range that the vast majority of the cast can not meaningfully interact with her.
For the most part, no. I don’t think one shots belong in Overwatch. The only one I can think of that doesn’t bug me is Rein charge unless I’m forgetting about one.
You made an absolutely amazing point. Which is precisely why I didn’t include/mention Rein. For that exact reason you stated. His 1-shot isn’t what I feel to be a true 1-shot (although it clearly is lol). His charge is a textbook case of major risk and reward. You charge? You risk: Putting yourself in a bad position (to get picked off), your team can get picked off, the charge can miss, and the charge can connect but instead push your target away instead of pin.
Rein’s charge is definitely a fair 1-shot (if such a thing exists). But, that isn’t really the case for: Roadhog, Widowmaker, and Hanzo. There’s not really any risk for such a high reward. You just simply try again, with no real punishments outside of waiting for your short CD to expire (in Hog’s case).
I think there is a balance to achieve where a 1-shot can feel fair like Rein’s charge, but it is a very difficult one. I don’t believe something like Widow’s 1-shot should exist in a game like Overwatch. She feels like a holdover from Counter Strike or Call of Duty, but those games have much shorter times to kill and are built around 1-shots and near instant kills.
Considering dive heroes and mercy pocket exists, the one shot is very much a necessary evil. Without one shots, certain things would never die, certain heroes would be overly oppressive (cough, cough, pocket sojourn). In a game where you cant really rely on your team, the sniper heroes are the very best rogue type heroes in the game when playing overwatch. Now if we wanna talk about the hitscan one shot in particular, yeah I agree thats busted. The hanzo one shot? Its not consistent, if the hanzo is consistent then that hanzo has actual skill. Considering hanzo has the smallest projectile in the game, if you keep dying to him then you know its a skill issue. Widow hits different though, skill or no skill, if she points and clicks at your head, you are dead. Widow is the real problem with one shots in this game, hanzo is like a battlefield sniper, actually balanced.
Longer answer: Oneshots from an ult are okay. Oneshots restricted by a sufficiently long cooldown can be ok. Oneshots restricted by nothing more than a short charge time are not okay unless the character gives up a lot for it. Neither of the heroes with unrestricted oneshots give up enough for that ability.
They are hardly comparable. Widow and Hanzo are instant. Hog can be interrupted by about 20 different things, most of them easy to do (sleep, boop, bubble, pull, etc.) and his shot isn’t even a guaranteed kill any more without pigpen.
Reinhardt Charge, for reasons previously stated - sometimes its pull range feels cheap, but it’s not consistently killing you every fight.
Roadhog Hook combo, definitely controversial and I understand why, but Hog is a very clear threat and nine times out of ten you know where Hog is, its cooldown window leaves windows of opportunity to strike, several heroes have means to escape it, and without the threat of a Hook combo, Roadhog would be terrible at threatening space (we see this every time they nerf it and his PR/WR plummet).
Pre-S9 Ashe v. Tracer headshot. Maybe I’m biased 'cause Ashe is one of my more comfortable DPS, but it also doesn’t quite feel consistent enough to warrant too much hatred, and Tracer was the only character Ashe could one-tap unboosted.
Jury’s still out on Hanzo arrows.
Widowmaker being able to play at uncontestable ranges and one-shot with no resource investment other than ammo needs to go, however.
“But her one-shot is needed to combat powerful sustain!”
Then the solution isn’t to introduce one (1) character that solves this, that’s a textbook bandaid patch. You address the problem directly so Widow doesn’t have a monopoly on beating out sustain. Nobody likes Ana/Kiri jail, and it’s a similar story there.
“But she’d lose her identity without her one-shot!”
Clearly, with how often they put Sombra through the wringer, and the tides of whether Hook leads to a one-shot, Blizzard doesn’t seem to have a huge problem toying with “identity”.
“But she’s such a high skill-ceiling character!”
There are heroes with steeper learning curves. Nobody gets every Ball or Doom mobility trick down the first time, Tracer blinks are tricky to leearn not only how to use effectively, but also keeping your tracking while doing so, so on and so forth. Aim is a tangible skill and I’m not denying that, but again you’re clicking heads from pretty much riskless positions most of the time.
Even outside of all this, it just makes her more polarizing than everything. If your Widow lands her shots, GG, if she doesn’t, you are playing a constant 4v5. People say Genji is a feast-or-famine character but I’d argue Widow is even more so.
I have no idea how in the world that conclusion was came to regarding Hanzo’s projectile size being the smallest. Because if that’s the case, then hitboxes are even more screwed than I initially thought. You can see from your opponent’s kill cam that the Hanzo clearly misses you, but still somehow connects and drops you. This is magnified with Storm Arrow’s shots. The dude shoots logs/tree trunks.
Becuase it’s a objective fact tht Hanzo’s primary fire (0.1m) is the smallest (single) projectile in the game now. The second smallest projectiles are ana and ram (0.15m), which are still 50% larger. Technically, you can say projectile shotguns (torb, doom, 0.05m) are the smallest projectiles, but I don’t think shotguns are relevant in this topic.
Replay/killcam is not accurate representation. The arrow bending thing is just purely visual effect. His arrow has a special vfx that it will sticks to enemies it hits while other projectiles just despawn once they hit the target so that’s why you never see other projectile bending. However, hitbox/detection wise, there is nothing speical about his arrow.
There is nothing to be argued about his arrow hitbox. If hanzo is shooting logs, then I guess you should say many other heroes are shooting cars/trains.
I’m one of the people who believes that one-shots with risk can be in the game. But, one-shots without don’t belong. Same with two-shot combos on heroes who don’t need them. And, as those above and below have stated, VISIBLE CUES SO WE HAVE A CHANCE TO AVOID THEM.
IE: Reinhardt’s one-shot is the only one I find perfectly acceptable, because he’s putting himself and his team at risk to charge someone.
Widowmaker is standing 2394832 feet in the backline and that’s not really being in the face of danger in any way. Sure, they gave her falloff but she can still stand very far back an away from the enemy.
Hanzo doesn’t need a headshot on his spam arrows. Change my mind. Though, because he’s usually in the mid-range of fights, he’s alright to keep his oneshots with his new 225 HP.
Roadhog’s new 2-hit combo doesn’t belong in the game because all he literally is is a fat DPS. He has no way to defend his team as a brawler tank, either. Even Orisa, another fellow brawler tank in this iteration, has more team defense than him. Until they find a way to make him more team-defense, he doesn’t need the 2-hit.
But I think one shots should all have reasonable windups, tells, cues, and just as important - appreciable downtimes where that power is off the table.
They should put Grapple on cooldown whenever Widow uses a Snipe shot.
She doesn’t have enough Risk, to justify infinite Range/Killspeed/ProjectileSpeed. While also having a strong selfpeel ability, that fully counters most her counters.
WIDOWMAKER
Grappling Hook
Cooldown reduced to 4 seconds, down from 12.
Widow’s Kiss (Secondary Attack)
Firing a scoped shot, puts Grappling Hook on a 4 second cooldown.
Comments:Any time an opponent see’s that red line and a loud bullet noise. They know it’s Dive time. Like ringing a dinner bell. Make sure to mind your positioning with Widow, use teamwork, and coordination to stay alive.
It’s not physically possible to immediately counteract the Play of a ranged instakill. (i.e. The actual meaning of “Counterplay”)
If the Counterplay isn’t following all 3 of these points, and it’s not compensated for elsewhere in an emotionally fulfilling way for the opponent, then there’s a major design problem. (i.e. Comparable to getting your turn skipped in Chess)
#1 The opponent can technically defeat the opponent with this Choice.
#2 The opponent has the time and awareness to Choose how to counteract the attacker’s play.
#3 The opponent has options to counteract the attacker’s play, that have enjoyable variety to them.
So give Widow some “Synthetic Counterplay”, where it’s obvious to her opponent when she is vulnerable. And she’s forced to forfeit her “Get out of Jail Free Card” if she wants to Snipe.
This is more of a Wind-down with a tell.
Literally a big red line saying “Go here, now. You got 4 seconds”.
I think it’s okay if certain characters have a one shot. That would be Widow, and Widow only. But, only when they land headshots. The problem with OW is that there are also tanks with massive crit boxes that are too easy to hit… and even for DPS heroes, their hitboxes tend to be too big too.
Other characters like Hanzo having a one shot are far too problematic since whenever he misses, he has 5 more arrows to spam… and, Hog also having a one shot, at least previously, is in my mind, also problematic…
I suppose what I’m saying is that IF there is skill involved, one shot is fine. But other heros who can one shot don’t have to use much skill, and the hitboxes make it a little too easy.
Complainers just need to stop ruining my game even further. Every hero should be fun to play. Evey hero should fulfill the hero fantasy that the people playing them want.
Anyone who disagrees with this objective fact genuinely is invalid both in opinion and as a human being
WIDOWMAKER
Grappling Hook