Im tired of the comparison between Widow and Hog/McCree

General Discussion
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So, something that often gets brought up when discussing the balance of certain heroes (McCree, Doom, and Hog are the most egregious), is that while they have one-shot combos, Widow can one-shot anyone from any range every 1.5 seconds.

This… is a dumb comparison.

For one, Hook/Doom Combo/Doom Punch/Flashbang literally hand you the kill on a platter. There’s very little aiming that needs to be done for either of these four one-shot combos (outside of hook, but hook is also full of buggy jank that makes it hit more often than it should). On the other hand, Widow has to hit a headshot on an erratically moving target with no movement acceleration without any outside assistance unless she’s lucky enough to notice a stunned/CC’d target while charged up.

Secondly, Doom/McCree/Hog all have defensive capabilities as well as already good kits in addition to their one-shot combos. Widowmaker has a crappy Soldier: 76 knockoff, a buggy hook, and… venom mine (yay?). Compared to Air Roll and 3-tap primary, or Take a Breather, or Rocket Punch jumps, Widow’s defensive capabilities crumples (especially when you consider that her HEALTH was nerfed to 175, making her even weaker to dive)

Lastly of course, they all have real ultimates compared to Infrasight. Unless you are on a GM team with full comms, Infrasight is legitimately just making it slightly easier to get headshots, while Deadeye (arguably the weakest ultimate out of the three) can usually secure a pick on at least one enemy hero. Meteor Strike is garbage but at least does something (repositions and maybe gets a pick on a slow moving character like Ana), and Whole Hog can win teamfights if used creatively.

Anyone who thinks Flashfan/Hook/Doom Combo are balanced in COMPARISON to Widowmaker’s sniping is incredibly deluded. Widowmaker has no real kit other than her potential infinite range headshots. The rest of these characters have full fledged and good kits in addition to their much easier to land one-shots. If anything, this comparison is better suited to Hanzo, who can just one-shot by randomly spamming a choke and has better escapes against Dive than Widow.

TL:DR

Claiming that Flashfan/Doom Combo/Hook Combo are balanced by citing Widowmaker is dumb because headshots actually take a modicum of skill.

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Why are people even comparing characters that aren’t even in the same niche…?

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Because they are trying to justify their reliance on cheap gimmicks to win them games.

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Widow is powerful in her own right, the biggest is that she has far greater range and consistency. Hog is the only one with decent range on his hook but that every 8 seconds whereas for Widow it takes 1.4 seconds (0.5 start up + 0.9 charge). Meaning that Widow dispose 7 Squishies or 2 tanks, compared to a hog hooks with takes 8 seconds to dispose of 1 squishy or badly injure a tank. So considering how much better her secondary fire is, thats why her ult and abilities are sub par and built around her secondary fire.

Realistically in a normal game unless your a bot, your not gonna kill 7 squishes within 8 seconds however i have seen potg that had like 2-3 Squishies killed in rapid succession so you could potentially wipe everyone but the tanks if everything aligns and you got the skill for it.

Oh and regarding infrared. It’s not as useless as it feels using it. It can be pretty helpful knowing how the team will approach and can foil any plans they had and let you surprise them easier. Though I’m not going to say it’s the most powerful ult either but it’s an ult that you’ll probably never know how useful it was

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I’d qualify clicking on capsule hitboxes from ten miles away with minimal counterplay as a cheap gimmick. Why do anything interesting and fun when you can just ape the same stuff you do in every other fps, except easier?

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The range actually only matters on a few maps (Junkertown and Havana come to mind), and her consistency is only chip damage unless the Widow is actually really good at aiming. And anyways, McCree’s damage is more consistent outside of niche scenarios (against a Widow for example)

Since when has POTG been a balancing concern? I have a Hog quad kill with Whole Hog saved in my highlights, yet I know that ultimate is weak as balls.

How is Flashfan/Hook Combo more interesting and fun than sniping an aggressive genji/tracer in your face?

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Well see with hog you can pretty much make his whole hook useless by keeping away. With Widow the only hope you have is cover not only that but hog can’t position himself in the tricky spots that Widow can.

I mentioned play of the game just because that’s where I’ve seen widows take out two to three people within the span of a few seconds. Sure you probably see whole hogs take out a good amount of people too but that’s his ultimate ability this is widow’s secondary fire. You know how long it took for that whole hog too actually charge? Compared to the 6 seconds it would take Widow to do the same.

Of course Widow requires a bit more aim, but to a person who has that aim, Widow is far more powerful that any of the characters listed. But of course I don’t mind because it takes a lot of skill. But if we’re comparing characters I don’t think your argument holds up.

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Why are people even complaining about hog, doom and mccree? You can outplay hog by keeping track of cooldowns. You can outplay doom by going sombra and making him doomn’t and you can outplay mccree by just… not being in melee range

Compare that to a hitscan with no fall off and she’s leagues worse than the others

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Great if that’s the only thing you are doing this is easy! Too bad there are five other baddies all shooting at you!

Can’t wait to sacrifice literally all my damage output as well as any respect from either team to minorly inconvience one of the enemy DPS.

EDIT: Also, you could just switch to McCree and counter Doomfist even harder, while keeping your damage

Oh no it’s almost like he has one of the most broken primary fires in the game, what ever will he do?!?

With the lowest DPS in the game even assuming 100% weapon accuracy

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Right off the bat that strikes me as a silly comparison, maybe even produced in bad faith.

Despite her 300 damage peak point, she’s not a tank buster by any means.

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Hogs have a tendency to either stick in the front or take the long way to flank. If you know a hog is flanking then your team adjusts accordingly. If you and your team can’t do that, then that’s on you. If your team is also just hog/ball THEN you have more reason to complain

Who cares about respect? You’re complaining about doom so why would you care. Besides, sombra can smack down an uncoordinated team so she’s not entirely useless

His primary fire isn’t broken though? He has a peashooter outside of his effective range, which is puny. Ya know, his niche being close range anti-flanking.

DPS doesn’t really matter when you’re 1-clicking non-tanks. A widow who hits some shots and secures a kill before a team fight starts is doing a lot more than a mccree who can hit a few shots but not secure a kill. Not securing kills means healers build ult; something they can’t do if you die in 1 hit instantly

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Your assuming most teams are even using VC let alone coordinating.

Wow if every game is Hog/Ball, maybe there’s a problem with tank balancing you think?!?

Sombra has some of the lowest DPS in the game and is entirely reliant on allies to secure picks on hacked targets for her.

Which, thanks to Overwatch Map Geometry, there aren’t a lot of places where there’s a fight happening outside of McCree’s effective range.

All it takes to counter a good widow is someone diving the widow and (wow) callouts. McCree and Hog both require multiple heroes coordinating to deal with.

EDIT: Also, Widow has never been an issue in any rank other than GM and OWL, because she (wow) requires a modicum of skill to aim with and not just feed. Amazing.

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Hit enter > “Guys hog keeps flanking let’s watch our flanks” > hit enter again

Hog and ball are both independent tanks and not nearly as constrained to their teams are the other tanks. It sucks but people have a right to play what they wanna

She often relies on allies, but she’s not low on DPS. She has very high damage in her optimal range, which is very close due to spread

Plenty of maps have the space. Unless you’re playing a class that he counters, which are close range flankers, you have plenty of options to range him out

Hanzo, mccree, reaper, mei can all solo a hog in close range. You just need to do the magical thing of baiting his cooldowns which can be done with abilities or natural cover.

As for widow, a widow with the ability to click a couple heads here and there has enough power to make a team scurry for natural cover and afraid to peak. Not even hog is that bad and mccree can’t even hope to command as much respect as a semi-okay widow can. Diving her can be a mixed bag as well unless you’re using multiple heroes because she can simply shoot people mid-movement

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You’re assuming people even pay attention to that lmao

Let me fix that for you

160 dps assuming every shot hits (with massive spread and fall-off means you have to be on top of your character) is not high. Hell, McCree has better DPS.

Widow, Soldier, or Hanzo, right? That’s not exactly a long list of options

Assuming that Hog doesn’t land hook and instawin, a lot of characters can solo a hog. Hog is a gimmick–if he lands hook consistently, he wins. If he misses, he loses and his team loses. What a fun game for everyone!

You should be utilizing cover anywho against any hitscan. Hell, all it takes is for someone to see a Widowmaker bullet line, and then she’s gotta reposition or get dived on by kingdom come.

Again, much harder than you are saying this is lmao

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1-shot characters in general should not be in the game in general

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Except one of those cooldowns kills you instantly. It doesn’t matter what state his cooldowns are in if you’re already dead. As it is the only hope you have to kill him is if you’re at least 3v1.

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Yeah, I’m not usually mad if I die to a Widow, that’s my bad for not paying attention to her location or walking around recklessly without taking cover, her shots are loud, visible, and usually coming from fairly standard locations, but dying to the BS that is hog hook combo or Doom or Cassidy, like that just pisses me off. Nothing about it feels fair, it’s just stun->dead. No contest.

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All hail the truth

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Its the feeling of unfairness that comes from what they do.

Its immediate death. Its annoying. Its just what its intended to be. Annoying intended death.

flash hammer.
hook and kill.
Charge and snipe.

All annoying and kill.

Special mention to almost hitscan hanzo with the enlarged arrows and critting rapid-fire with infinite ammo even though he should have ashe’s reload. tho.

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honestly, was going to mention that comparing Hanzo to Hog/McCree is more accurate because he can spam down chokes for one-shots, but that might have seemed a little too salty.