I am at diamond and I find when I form a full group and play against another six stack with a good widow I nearly always lose if we don’t have one of our own who is comparably skilled.
The six stacks are usually too uncoordinated to dive efficiently especially since widow is usually pocketed by mercy and often are very stubborn and refuse to switch off their beloved rein,zarya comp to full dive,
even without a mercy pocketing her they she just grapples easily away from a winston or dva to then get healing, she restricts space for the DPS which makes them far more effective increasing the effectiveness of the other DPS hero, full stacks at my rank will usually have multiple over aggressive players who will push past the shields in a bunker comp or she will flank and get a kill even if people watch out for it,
The only comp that actually works against her in a full stack that does not include a widow is a bastion comp on payload maps.
Does anyone have any solutions that do not include getting good with widow or hoping sym counters her somewhat once she is allowed to be played in comp?
In my experience against most diamond widows, Pharah is a pretty good counter if you know what you’re doing. The pharah widow matchup is pretty simple, use your mobility to get close (staying out of sight lines) and dive her, most widows cant handle a pharah 1 foot above them. If shes being pocketed, I would recommend a coordinated winston-genji dive.
That can work but only if your team knows how to play when you have a mercy pharah and only if you have cover to peak out from but on something like ruins if the widow is decent you have no chance.
Ruins is one of the maps i usually use this matchup (im a pharah/hanzo main), you would be surprised what weird flank routes you can find with pharah. On ruins i usually go just under the ledge that runs along the side of the map, they never expect that route. If your team does not know how to play with this style, try telling them “dont go in untill the widow is dead”, or just get a mercy pocket so you dont really need that much coordination.
Lol she has so many counters if you know what you’re doing.
- Winston
- genji
- hanzo
- Pharah
- soldier
- need
- window
- orisa
- dva
- reaper
Most of these take skill and sneakiness but they are good counters in the right hands.
I would agree with all of these, except reaper. But yeah being sneaky is your best tool against any widow, good or bad.
Anyone that can contest high ground so Winston, Dva, Genji
Anyone with range: Hanzo, Widow, Pharrah
Orisa can pull her off high ground but she can just grapple off right as soon as that happens so wouldnt lean to heavy on it.
I’ve seen good hogs that can jump hook a widow out of a sneak spot.
Well reaper/ tracer. Shadow step is a really good tool. But people use it in direct line of sighy of widow and thats bad
You catch my drift. Although i dont pull her off high ground. I pull her into Line of sight then blast her @ss off
Tbh all you need to do is be aware that there’s a widow and where she is. Most characters can handle her.
Just to add on to what i said, Tracer is also a good option tho it requires a lot more skill and a bit more patience.
See its easy to know where the widow set up but timing her grapple is the hard bit. once she has no movement its easy to one clip. then if the other team has a mercy you can bait the rez and get the mercy for free because most mercy’s are, let be honest, brain dead (assuming youre tracer is good enough to pull this off)
these are the things i typically do in high plat, low diamond that work for me.
Osira and Soldier is not a great counter to Widow.
Osira shield can provide cover from a Widow that’s about it.
Note sure what you mean by “need”…
Other than that, yea I agree with your list.
Orisas pull, her shield and fortification is perfect for widow. But obviously of others are shooting at you aswell then she can take advantage of that and bring you down.
Soldier can helix her and burst her down. If you’re a good solider you’d know you can helix the wall next to her, that would boop her into position, do some damage as well then you can finish her off.
Both of those become ineffective against a good Widow if she is at sniper range.
Good Widows want 2 things - Sight line and distance. More on Sight lines.
Soldier can’t beat a Widow that is far away. Halt is a slow projectile and Helix rockets is a faster projectile, ultimately they are projectiles.
It’s not an effective counter; because, it’s so easy for the Widow to survive and quickly get back into the fight.
Well you’re right. About orisa. I feel soldier is better than mccree at being her counter. So if you agree about mccree and not the soldier then…
Mecree is as bad. He has damage fall off, so at range he is similar to Soldier.
With that said, his damage will be more consistent at a range than Soldier and Osira. So if he can get like 4, 5, 7 shots on the Widow; then, he can kill her. That’s a lot of shots on a small target from a long range though.
4, 5, 7? How do you calculate. Lol. 2, 3 heads shot and she’s dead.
With soldier, a quater clip and a helix rocket.
Orisa, don’t count. Just pull her in and open fire.
I don’t know. I’m more afraid of Hanzo than widows.
Mcrees buffs will help him be more valuable at rang, but now youre taking into account headshots from one end of the road on 2nd point dorado to the other and no mcree, not even Pine could pull that off.
Again, damage fall off and distance.
Soldier has spread, at long range he will hit very little bullets. Even when managing the spread. Helix is a ability. He can’t spam it. It’s easy for the Widow to fallback and heal if her team is nearby.
Mecree has damage fall off. Headshot on squishies at sniper range? Unlikely except at top tier. That’s like less than 5% of the Game’s player base. Source - Competitive Mode Tier Distribution
You forgot about Mei with her falloff removed