I’ll just post this again to appease the 150HP-ers.
Perhaps there may be a way to nerf Widow HP to 150, that makes sense in the context of 5v5. I think what makes sense in the same context as mega-buffed mini-boss tanks is a higher crit damage, so her headshot multiplier should be increased to 3.33x for 400 damage crits in order to maintain parity with new tank health pools. The damage ramp can be adjusted so that TTK on sub-250 HP heroes remains the same as it is right now, meaning that only Bastion and tanks are affected by the new damage and squishies get a 150 HP Widow to duel/dive.
I think scope sway when shot would help a lot. That way, even a tiny bit of damage could throw her aim off. The only issue with that is a character like D.va just spamming in her direction to ensure she never ever gets to shoot. That wouldn’t be too fair at all.
I’ve always wanted her reload time to be significantly increased. This would give larger windows for dive tanks/DPS to attack her, and also decrease the amount of time she completely locks down sight lines. Her reload speed is 1.5 seconds right now, and I think something in the range of 1.8-2 seconds would great. This would give her a very lengthy reload that fits her incredibly powerful primary weapon well, and just give her longer periods of vulnerability. It would also decrease her overall damage output and cement her role as a hero that gets picks rather than one that can actually deal fairly high damage over time if she’s landing her shots.
you sir, play tf2 at a completely different level than i… the only thing to counter a sniper. is a sniper
but regardless. giving her scope a red dot that is placed on the wall would require widow to hide the dot to not alarm someone that she is aiming at them. making her ult a lot less “free headshots here”
shes fair in a the aspect that you have to be accurate. but unfair in the aspect of her ability to one shot from across the map while having mobility options and anti-flank tools.
even a bad widow is going to get a lot of value just through the threat of the possible one shot. and it only takes 1 pick to win a match
And even then that’s mostly because they are getting hard pocketed by a Medic and/or a level 3 sentry.
In the context of +90% of the playerbase in pubs with autobalance there’s basically nothing a Sniper can do about a Spy with a DeadRinger+Spycicle and their preference of Enforcer/Ambassador/DiamondBack.
Or just any sort of enemy rushing them at close range, like a Scout, or Blackbox Soldier on a flank.
That said, yes, I’ve put a bit of thought into this.
i am talking high elo tf2 comp, like adv+… ive played with and against some of the best in the game. and let me tell you… THEY DONT MISS TWICE. and they dont have to be hard pocketed, they just need enough heals to beat the other sniper. then its merc season…
widow in ow2… is the same concept, as soon as whatever can/would pressure her is dead… shes free to just reign hell onto anyone that is in the open. and you cant play cover forever, you have to play the objective at some point…
for the tf2 portion of what youre saying… a sniper can still duel a scout. an unscoped body shot is 40% of his damage, and his smg isnt weak. its just short range… a blackbox soldier is going to take some damage rocket jumping, and only has 2 rockets to kill the sniper, assuming that he doesnt surf out…
a good sniper, is only countered by a good sniper, which is why A LOT of sniper’s unlocks, are banned in competitive play. otherwise the class as a whole would have to be banned, and thats not an option, especially for HL.
if your widow can win the widow-v-widow… their ENTIRE TEAM… has to swap to something that can challenge you. im not the best widow, but ive forced swaps to winston just to be able to get close to me, after winning the sniper duels… and even was able to kill the winston by softening them with a headshot when they jumped in… thats 300 damage…
there is only 2 heroes in the entire game that can afford to ignore the widow (at the cost of your team)… ball and sombra, ball can remove his head hitbox… and sombra can just stay invis.
killing a good widow, requires coordinated attacks from multiple people. and thats banking on all of them surviving… if the widow’s team peels for her… shes quasi invincable due to the range advantage
April Fools Widowmaker changes
Make it a damage over time on headshot, hell make it deal a bit less damage overall on top of that and let it mark someone through walls for up to .5 seconds based on charge.
One shots shouldn’t exist in multiplayer games period. I one trick her because I have to, not because I want to. Standing at the enemy spawn by myself and denying people from leaving isn’t fun for me or them.
The idea is to make Widow viable still. You’re essentially relegating widow into not being played anymore, but that’s not good for the game. Every tool must be as viable as possible. And also, I’m just going to ask straight out:
Why do you feel like you can just decide this?
You absolutely do not have to one trick widow. Nothing is at stake. You can not play her and your life will continue as normal.
But it is because widow would never get another kill again. Either she choses to shoot low health targets, and you guys complain anyway because that’s basically still a one shot, or she shoots a person for DOT damage and they get healed.
I hate that I’ve shared this so much but until I’m told it’s not a good idea, I’ll keep doing it.
I genuinely believe that, if we were to agree that Widow is too strong, it’s the value she gets from aim and aim skill.
She has less cover to deal with since Double Shield can’t completely nullify her sightlines anymore. Mobility is not strong enough against her aim skill so zipping from cover to cover from her sightlines isn’t good enough and the counterplay to Widow takes either way too much coordinated team effort or team trust.
But I also think removing her oneshot or HP nerfs will be detrimental and, if we wanted to fix her as a character, doing it by those methods is not good. HP nerfs should be last resort and we only did it with Widow last time because there wasn’t a solid answer for how to tweak her.
If her rifle charge-up time exists simply as a tool to keep her from flicking and killing targets, there should be an extra incentive given to her to which makes it harder against teams that now objectively have less cover. If the devs have done things like increase Hanzo’s projectile speed which completely changed the way Hanzo players had to aim, surely they can make a change that overall would just mean Widows would have to adjust to the new aim and adjust her skill ceiling and possibly give the rest of the abilities of her kit a chance to maybe be balanced.
if you make the dot strong enough that it requires IMMEDIATE healing… then it offers counterplay, while still keeping it lethality. it devalues the pure 1 shot. while still keeping charged headshots viable for a damage source…
its still goign to do 300 damage, its just over time. meaning its going to require focused healing.
Widowmaker isn’t supposed to just camp in one spot and open fire. There’s supposed to be a penalty for letting the enemy know where you are before you get a pick. She’s supposed to reposition every few shots.
If D. Va can find her and spam her to the point that she can’t take charged shots at all, that’s Widowmaker’s fault for being predictable/obvious.
Then the casuals whined and gave Sniper easy options to kill him. Then also nerfed Spy’s best option to beat a comp sniper. I’ll never forgive the casual engineer mains for ruining Ambassador.
My hatred for casuals has been slowly festering for years now. OW2’s balance state was the final straw.