If we Nerf McCree to his old state, what will be different?

General Discussion
1

If we nerf Cree again, because he in all likelihood will still be too statistically good, what will be different? Has the game really shifted enough to make vintage McCree good? I say no, considering power creep is higher than when Cree was at his worst.

The changes I am hearing as most popular right now are back to 200 HP. If we WERE to do that in addition to his other nerfs, what would be different between him then and when he was battling sombra, bastion, and reaper, for the lowest winrate in the game? People like to say winrate doesn’t matter to balance and I literally don’t understand how you can say that when such a statistic literally denotes an imbalance. People say the pick rate makes up for it but Tracer has AROUND where Cree’s PR has been, actually more at times, and her WR in GM isn’t bad, isn’t okay, isn’t good. It is excellent.

Then, some suggest FB nerfs. Which would be huge and instantly tank him. Still, I would prefer an actual different direction we can build on than a revert to Cree being one of the worst characters in the game.

I still think the actual correct direction is to nerf FTH combo from 600 to 450. You could do this in multiple ways.

People suggest 45 damage per bullet. I think this is a bad direction, frankly. If Cree can’t kill people by the 4-5th bullet, genjis and reapers and many others just kill you for flashing them, and many others simply have to pop their escape. For a ten second CD. It makes it a almost useless ability, and at that point you might as well rework it completely.

Others suggest a CD on FTH. This could work, but honestly, if it’s a CD I want it to be better. When storm arrow and dynamite exist, 300 damage channeled over a second with insane spread be one of the worst CD’s in the game. Decidedly D tier. Not as bad as widow mine mind you, but bad.

I think the ACTUAL way to do it is to make roll only give you three bullets. Frankly, Cree having 12 shots is a lot for a character like him anyways. Extended periods of uptime should really be a luxury afford to Ashe and Soldier. And in Ashe’s case, she pays for it with an extremely long reload if you can’t manage it. This will rectify McCree’s endless shooting into the enemy and doing lots of poke damage with no consequences. The other side to that is it creates a much bigger window for tanks and their shields to play around Cree. 300-450 just creates way more space for them to operate, but is still well within the realm of being punishing if used correctly.

TL;DR: If we nerf Crees health he will be no better than he was when he was one of the worst heroes in the game. This shouldn’t be the aim of balance. Nerfing flash would be too fundamentally destructive to the hero. FTH is what needs to be looked at, and I state some of the popular ideas above and then give me own, which is to nerf roll to giving three bullets only.

1 Like
2

Ashe is not an excessively broken hitscan anymore

2 Likes
3

She’s…very good. I don’t think she’s broken either but 2.5 PR and 55 WR in GM as the second best HS? What is she going to look like if McCree falls of favor? Its a very real possibility that she absorbs Cree’s PR and actually goes up or stablizes in WR. We’ve seen a character whose actually capable of being the best hero in game held in check by a more broken or meta defining hero before.

2 Likes
4

The factor that too many people are conveniently forgetting. Obviously he’d underperform when his direct competition was broken.

Instead of nerfing her and waiting to see what happened instead Mccree also got multiple buffs.

1 Like
5

4 45 damage FTH shots + flashbang = 205 damage.

5 45 damage FTH shots + flashbang = 250 damage.

Add possibly a melee there as well and bingo bingo, oingo-boingo, we good to go.

Plus McCree has a great primary fire plus the stun itself is a lot of value even without the kill.

If McCree still needs tuning after latest patch - which he may not - I do like the no reload on roll idea, albeit 270 FTH is a good alternative as well.

1 Like
6

45 dmg fth vs 50 only really matters vs tanks and barriers. So they can change that, w.e. But taking away reload on roll, something he had for 5 yrs without it being an issue, is a bad choice imo. And will lead to it feeling much worse. With it only moving 5.7m now, pretty much the distance ppl cover walking for 1 second in this game, what would even be the point of it. Majority of the time is it used just for the reload.

2 Likes
7

25 HP doesn’t make brawl/rush comps go away. A lot of other things have changed to make McCree a better choice than Ashe/Widow, and a big part of that is the shift from poke comps to rush comps that are much more suited to how McCree’s kit is designed.

8

Yep, why I like it.

Oh I prefer to reduce FTH damage for sure, but if people are maried to 300, I’m just spit balling alternatives.

Furthermore I don’t think something existing for long is a reason to keep it. Shields were fine for a long time, then they weren’t because Sigma suddenly existed. Game changes, hitscan as a whole is alot stronger now than before, despite receiving as many nerfs as buffs overall (besides McCree).

But once again, 45 FTH, I’m in. And that’s if changes are needed in the first place. This patch is low key very good in my opinion.

1 Like
9

Sure, being around for 5 years isnt reason enough, but the reload is the main point of the skill at this point. Might as well give him a new skill instead of removing reload imo. And who has ever complained reload on roll is too stronger other than ppl in the past few months who just want every single things about him nerfed so he is never played.

10

That’s exactly the point. The people calling for these nerfs don’t want him in their games, period. They want him to be like Bastion or worse.

3 Likes
11

This is not true. I played Cree during the 45 damage era, and don’t say it’s cuz I’m bad because I saw it happen to streamers too, and Literally reaper would shoot you in the face before you got enough shots off, genji would end up deflecting the end of your fth back at you and then dashing thru or just killing you with his projectile, and sombras could get away before the needed damage came out.

1 Like
12

If we factor is flash, which we should, it takes the same amount of bullets to kill a 200 or 250 hp hero.

25+50(4) = 225 25+45(4) = 205

25+50(5) = 275 25+45(5) = 250

If they are getting a tiny bit of healing, then yes it could matter. But without they are dead in the same amount of shots at 45 or 50 for fth.

13

You’re right, the difference for that particular era was stun was also shorter.

1 Like
14

Maybe, his flash duration was only 0.7s for like 5 months. The rest it was 0.85. Was 0.85 the entire time he did 45dmg with fan.

1 Like
15

Basically if they nerf McCree again the way we know blizzard will. McCree will be dumpstered. Leaving really no good hitscans .

16

I’m not sure that he needed any buffs to begin with. As far as I’m concerned, he was perfect with his .45 recovery speed, before his health and roll distance and reload speed got buffed.

17

With the nerfs McCree got recently, Blizzard needs tune McCree from a glass-cannon hitscan to a tankier but weaker hitscan. He no longer has the buffs to make him viable with 200 HP anymore but still has that “cannon” aspect of a glass-cannon.

That’s why I’ve changed my stance on McCree to advocate for a FtH nerf if it turns out that McCree is still OP.

18

Tell that to the Widow tilting at me last game.

Add a huge damage fall-off to FTH so it can’t be used (for full damage) against shields at anything less than spitting distance. Leave the damage and reload on roll. That makes the risk/reward ratio more in favor of tanks without gimping McCree in his bodyguard role.

If roll loses reload, it needs to gain I-Frames. People will lose their minds, and I also doubt Blizzard wants to put in the work for a soft-rework at this point.

I wouldn’t expect anything other than number tweaks at this point in the game (and stage of OW2 development).