A good Hanzo will use his Sonic arrow to duel Widowmaker, and is able to kill her without even presenting a target for her hitscan weapon thanks to projectile travel time. It is very easy for Hanzo to observe the Widowmaker, predict her peek, fire before she exposes herself, and then take cover after his arrow is already in flight.
A good Widowmaker may notice or predict the sonic arrow and relocate to avoid this, but it’s just delaying the inevitable. Played properly, a top-tier Hanzo should always beat a top-tier Widowmaker in a peeking duel solely because of the sonic arrow advantage.
TIL my #1 strategy for dealing with a good Widowmaker on the other team is apparently ineffective for everyone else. Maybe I’m some kind of strange and unique individual, but to me it’s incredibly easy to take out Widowmakers with Hanzo, and I’m a support main.
And no, it’s not because the Widows are bad. I play in Masters and have been in games with people like Kephrii… though he was thankfully on my team at the time. Hanzo has always worked for me, since long before his rework.
Hanzo can shoot the wall near Widowmaker’s position with Sonic Arrow without ever moving into Widow’s line of sight. It’s not even possible for Widow to prevent that, and Hanzo can contest her with the aid of sonic arrow at any range.
Having capabilities as DPS doesn’t make Symmetra not a Support. She’s a non-healing Support as the devs intended her to be.
Sadly this is a concept that they’re gonna drop in the next Symm rework…
And Widow is 100% a Defense. “Defense” afaik are heroes who can hold a point using damage and whatever kit they have in their arsenal, and snipers fits perfectly into that category.
Hog is also 100% a tank. Might wanna look up the definition of “off-tank”.
Hanzo has always been used at close to mid-range, and of course he rushed you when he had Rein and it was 2v1, any iteration of Hanzo would have killed you there.
This is objectively false. Hanzo simply needs to shoot roughly in the general direction of where Widow was standing in order to get vision, and can do so within complete cover, out of wallclimb.
Actually, Hanzo has routinely been a softcounter to Widow for quite some time now.
Based on the objective truth that Hanzo has, at any given moment where Widow has height advantage, more surface area to hit her by nature of his arrow arc.
You must be joking… Right…Please for the love of whatever tell me that you are joking… Let me get this straight. You think that a projectile arrow that flies in an arc, with the smallest projectile hitbox in the game. Is easier to land than a 100% hitscan sniper shot? Okay. Yup, you know what you are talking about.
Even though Hanzo’s projectiles are very small, the size of the target area for Hanzo to score a hit is still slightly larger than the size of the target area for Widowmaker’s hitscan weapon. Since his buff, the arc is also negligible except at the very longest ranges. It does depend on the target and how fast it is moving, but in many cases Hanzo’s weapon is, in fact, easier to land a hit with than Widowmaker’s hitscan weapon. That’s especially true for people who are going for high shot volume rather than perfect accuracy, because Hanzo is more likely to just get lucky.
higher pickrates, winrates, on-fire times, average eliminations, damage per 10 minutes, objective kills, medals, elimination-to-death ratios, and objective times
the ability to shoot straight out of wall climb without any penalty
user-controllable movespeed bumps to vary strafe patterns
doesn’t receive a penalty to firing rate every time he gets a movespeed bump
projectile hitboxes and peeker’s advantage with movespeed bumps, after each shot
hitboxes that are deceptive and do not correlate to his skin visuals
arm/shoulder hitboxes that can block headshots
I repeat myself, Hanzo is a soft counter to Widow.
Every single time there’s a Widow balance discussion, Widow players repeatedly say they find the matchup against Hanzo frustrating. I’ve been the creator of several dozen of these threads… and have seen a multitude of Widows from across every skill level (except Top 500) complain about Hanzo.
Data-wise, and experience-wise, from multiple Widow-main anecdotes across various skill levels, Hanzo is the number one hero that Widows struggle against.
The hero that bad Widowmaker players struggle against. It just so happens that most players are bad at Widow.
Nothing you mentioned really justifies Widow losing to him. Widowmaker will always kill Hanzo before he even draws his bow. Unless of course you want to contest Hanzo at the range he is meant to beat her but that’s like going melee range against Reaper.
A good Widow will always win against a good Hanzo if she can use the map to her advantage. Widow’s gun beats Hanzo’s at a distance and she’ll always win the peak battles.
That is objectively not true, Hanzo routinely kills Widow before she has an opportunity to fire at him because of peeker’s advantage around walls, mobility options that Widow doesn’t have, and animations that benefit Hanzo whilst hindering Widow.
Stop talking in absolutes if you don’t have the data to back it up. Widow and Hanzo are equals, and soft counter each other.
And if you resort to rank shaming, despite Hanzo statistically being more viable at almost every single mark than Widow, then maybe you need to re-evaluate how you play.
Of course if you let Hanzo stalk you with Sonic Arrow and peek when he has the advantage he’s gonna win. You gotta position in places where Hanzo can’t contest you without risking his positioning.
Hanzo being “statistically more viable than Widow” is irrelevant. The game has more aspects to it than a Widow vs Hanzo battle. You don’t win against Hanzo by having better aim, you win against Hanzo by having better positioning and game sense.
Lmao look at you trying to peek a Hanzo, you have to make HIM try to contest you, not the other way around. And then using irrelevant data to justify it.
You can’t let Hanzo stalk you with sonic arrow, you have to make HIM get into positions to try and contest you so he becomes an easy target.