Health
Decreased to 150
Scoped Shot
Damage decreased to 110
Headshot multiplier decreased to 2x
Unscoped
Damage a shot increased to 15
Notes:
Health decrease: If you manage to get to a widow she should be an easy kill but that is currently not the case. At 150hp she’s much more susceptible to spam damage and such.
Scope nerf: Right now 300 damage headshots are a bit much as due to how her rifle charges up she can shoot 200hp headshots at 66% charge.
Unscoped Buff: By increasing her unscoped damage we allow Widow to deal with flankers with her primary and not rely on her scope as much.
29 Likes
this is what she needs honestly
7 Likes
I’d much rather make the charge for a 300 damage headshot longer from 0.7-3.0 seconds.
I think this would be a slight buff to Brigitte (which for the first time ever, would probably be a good thing), using the armor they could survive a headshot.
More or so, I’d say just make her grappling hook cooldown start whether she misses a ledge or not, so if she panic grapples and misses she could be punished.
2 Likes
I hate widow with all my guts but this is too much and 15 is too little. Raise to 16 and then we’re talking, if the health goes the damage can stay, if damage goes health can stay.
Also, someone mentioned doubling her zoom that would make force her to fight with the assault rifle at close range, that would be a nice addition too, and both a nerf and a buff.
i would just increase the requirement to one shot 200hp heroes. make it 75% charge or so (believe right now is 63%). see what happens and then maybe do more drastic changes.
1 Like
How to nerf widow: Dont nerf her.
She doesnt need any nerfs btw.
People just need to stop complaining about her & about every other heroes whos balanced on these forums instead. 
13 Likes
This (110) would require 82 charge
If you keep the 120 damage she oneshots at 67%
If you reduce it a further 5 damage to 105 she 1shots at 91%
Of course at 100 damage she oneshots at 100%
1 Like
Honestly, these changes are garbage. All they’ll do is make her more frustrating to play, while leaving in the things that make her frustrating to play against unless you’re playing Reaper, Mei, Torb, or Brigitte.
She needs the following things fixed (and they can also be applied to Hanzo):
Nobody should be able to one-shot-kill someone else without some kind of wind-up, with the exception of an environmental kill. Your wind-up for those is the opponent hitting the tab button and seeing that you picked someone with a boop on a map with an accessible z-kill.
Nobody should be so useless that the majority of the time you see them on your team you know you’re going to lose. It wasn’t fair to the Symmetra or Torb players, and it’s not fair to Widowmaker either.
Buff her out-of-scope kit enough to make her not useless outside of her scoped shots.
Restrict her scoped headshot insta-kills to being within a distinct callout or windeup so the enemy team has a chance to properly react to what she’s doing. That way she can still insta-kill with headshots, but she’ll actually have to outplay her targets instead of just flicking inside of a draw-frame advantage.
Kind of butchers the idea of a sniper, she should still be able to get quick kills and be a sniper. I mean an alternative is to fully remove the charge sequence and have it take 0.9 seconds to load the bullet after scoping. Just seems unfun though.
…so if every other hero is balanced, what is the point of the forums?
Out of all the dumb and ridiculous widow topics I seen today, this ones not entirely crazy since this nerf widow fad went into overdrive.
Personally though I’m 100% ok with the current state of widow and I probably have less then 20 total hours on her.
I’m opposed to anything damage wise, but the HP nerf seems completely fine with me. There no real reason she need 200hp if she’s half a map away and not gonna be up close.
My personal favorite is to restrict her OSKs to her ult.
If necessary her ult duration can be lengthened from it’s current 20s to give her more time to do stuff, and it’s ult charge requirement can be adjusted to make sure she gets it often enough to make her presence felt.
This restriction would free up kit-budget for the rest of her abilities, and that can only make her easier to play. Especially in the lower ranks where she suffers the most.
I also have a theory that her design focuses on headshots to the detriment of her players since it’s easier to miss completely when you only go for the head. But I’ve got absolutely no way to prove it.
Current Widow is fine, there is no reason to make her weaker in health and damage done.
3 Likes
150hp and can no longer OHK 250 HP heroes - mei mains eyes light up and start an evil laugh it’s widow hunting season for long range ice to the face.
By the time she waddles up here I will get 12 shots off.
My main issue with the damage is that she can shell 200hp headshots too quickly.
Yeah I get that but she needs that damage to help bust shields too sometimes and just plain old kill tanks.
But widow is one of those heroes that for years was considered a bad pick, then dive went away and apparently she’s the most OP thing on the game and really it’s not widow maker that had anything to do with that.
The health nerf be a good start before playing with damage and cooldowns I think. See how she does when she’s more killable before you go messing with how she gets her kills.
One example that would completely change how Ashe fights her. It would force widow to have to play long range cause ashe could 1 shot her then mid range and be an actual threat to her.
1 Like
I have 0h on Widow and mostly play support: leave the woman alone. She is the typical sniper, it is what is it, learn to use cover, swap to Winston, deal with it. Good snipers are oppressive in any game that has them. And is not just aim, a real good sniper is not oblivious and can escape or kill their counters. That’s skill.
1 Like
I like these changes,
I would just add one more: Venom Mine damage increased by 25 (100 total) and cooldown made 10 seconds.
That way it’s on par with other “grenade” type abilities and it allows Widow to have a bit more of a defense if someone is trying to get behind her. She’d be rewarded for good use.