No Significant Widow Nerfs in S14

General Discussion
82

the thing is thought, there is no true right or wrong. Balance and what OP or not is highly subjective. You let 1000 people balance the game and you would get 1000 different versions.

Is widow truly a problem? IDK, and I honestly does not even care about it anymore since the game itself has so many problems (I did not even touch QP or Comp since OWC) and the discussions generally have become so toxic and overflow with bad faith.

The only thing I care about is that Widow retains her identity in a playable state, which is not the case with most Nerf suggestions let alone Reworks (incl. yours).

Oh and on your point about Widow being balanced for bronze, Think again.
If widow was balanced to be Good in Bronze, she would be a God in any other ranks.

83

As far as widow is concerned you’d have 975 people nerfing widow so I wouldn’t be too sure about that. And most of those 975 would be masters+ before we start typing skill issue

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84

Pov you’re losing the argument

Not really.

Which weapon is more powerful? :

Hitscan that does 300 damage

OR

Projectile that does 240 damage

Pretty simple and objective answer to that question. (Hint : the hitscan is more powerful)

I could let 1000 monkeys run the stock market and it would actually… probably turn out better than the current stock market but back on topic : you should let COMPETENT people that understand how the game works balance the game (it’s unfortunate that at no point in the game’s lifespan has the dev team been competent enough to nerf Widow though.)

Stop pretending that she isn’t, or that it’s even ambiguous. She’s caused all of the bad things that i’ve mentioned in this thread in addition to the mass exodus of the playerbase during s13.

Because we’re tired of people being wrong and genuinely having an affect on game balance (because blizz has said they balance around what the community considers “acceptable”), and we tried being reasonable. Didn’t work.

Oh she’ll be playable with my rework alright, just exactly as playable as sym, reaper, junkrat, and s76 are currently, where you actually have to put effort in to get results and don’t just have a free fight win weapon with no cost or cooldown.

Hmmmmmmmm… let me think for a second…

It’s

Almost

Like

She

IS

If you can’t make her work in her current gigabusted state then i’m sad to say that is the mother of all skill issues. There is 0 excuse for that.

Go play Moira maybe, that seems like about the amount of mechanical skill requirement you can handle if you can’t make Widow work in the current state of the game.

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85

It’s funny how despite there being lots of dumb crap such as Jeff’s ult, games of Rivals don’t get up my nose like season 13/14 OW can. Even something as daft as Hela doesn’t feel as obnoxious or tiresome as playing against a Widowmaker back in OW.

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86

You’re keeping track of who likes posts? Lol

Are you sure you’re right? You seem the petty sort

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87

The hitscan bullet reduction hitbox sizes are a Widow nerf by the way.

Log into Marvel Rivals right now and try out Black Widow. Black Widow cannot 1-shot heroes in Marvel Rivals (this typically leaves most heroes that have 250 HP with around 10% HP). Guess what this all means? Black Widow is a C-Tier character who is massively overshadowed by the entire rest of the cast of heroes in the game. Not giving this character a 1-shot removes her viability, because as a sniper, executing a kill can be impossible since by the time you go to take the second shot to finish the kill, the target is either fully healed, has already hidden behind cover, or they’ve been defended by a tank in that time.

All this to say, Widowmaker in Overwatch can’t just “lose her 1-shot” and be fine. It will destroy her character. Look at how badly doing this to Hanzo BUTCHERED his viability until they rolled it back a bit for him again recently.

88

Okay so, Black Widow cannot quickscope THAT easily and quickscoping is pointless on her anyway because she does the same amount of damage of a scoped shot up close unscoped anyway. Falloff on Black Widow’s shots wouldn’t make or break her character anyway because she is incapable of 1-shotting.

Her mobility is NO WHERE close to many of the heroes in the roster, she literally sprints like Soldier 76 and jumps high with a bar that limits how often she can do both of these things.

She DOES NOT fire as quickly as Ashe. It’s like a full 1.5 second delay between each shot for Black Widow with only 8 rounds per reload, which can make missing shots extremely brutal. Black Widow’s gun functions like a sniper rifle regardless of scoped or unscoped, and NOTHING like a marksman rifle like Ashe uses.

And as far as how easy it is to dive her, most of the roster has insane mobility in Marvel Rivals (e.g. Spiderman) and can very easily tackle her. She doesn’t have a sub-machine gun unscoped like Widowmaker, Black Widow’s shots are always a “sniper round” so she has to hit unscoped shots and pray she doesn’t miss against these highly mobile heroes.

All in all, Black Widow in Marvel Rivals is MAYBE a C-Tier hero, and cannot even slightly compare to most of the roster. Hawkeye gets a 1-shot mechanic, and Hela is just disgustingly broken and these both blow Black Widow out of the water as far as sniping or 1-tap style heroes in this game.

89

The only “nerf” she got was a 0.01 reduction in projectile size, a nerf for any hitscan or large projectile hero.

As for whether it changes anything:

The short answer is no.

This reduction in size is pretty irrelevant. It is still ridiculously easy to hit shots on hitscan.

Just revert S9 already (except global regen passive).

90

But not a significant enough of one to do anything.

MR and OW2 are not 1:1 the same game, stop pretending they are.

It’s quite interesting to note that in MR where the balance philosophy seems to be “everyone is OP” the archetypal hitscan sniper cannot one-shot. That was a smart decision by the MR team.

Hmmm. It’s really weird… this… concept… you’re describing here… could it be… no…

COUNTERPLAY?!?!?!?!?!

She will be fine, she’ll just be OK, not completely broken, and not solely dictate the pace of every game she’s present in. A lot of other less problematic heroes have had their hero identities lost and viability removed over less significant things than completely ruining the game for the entire duration of its lifespan (Symmetra, for example was reworked several times, although she never really was viable in the first place), so I think it’s high time the devs wise up and take Widow down a peg so their game doesn’t fully die.

I even was generous enough to let her keep her one-shot during her ult, and have it bypass the reduced headshot multiplier that tanks get, which is something that most reworks don’t bother to do, and yet that isn’t enough for you for some reason. Odd.

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91

I disagree with you. Removing Widowmaker’s 1-shot with destroy her character just like Hanzo, and just like how badly Black Widow performs in Marvel Rivals. Whenever 6v6 rolls around, Widowmaker’s 1-shot won’t feel nearly as much of a problem as 2 tanks will make it easier to handle her or straight up defend against her. I hold that this is a 5v5 design flaw, not a hero flaw.

92

She was played in one meta with moth mercy and tracer+widow combo. It did not last long.

Double sniper was played during double shield 90% of it being ladder. Some stretches was played in pro play, but majority of times it was swapped off before finishing maps.

Double shield was played cause sigma and orisa was simply the d ft best. No matter what heroes were being played. Ball+sigma was a thing when ball was strong and orisa weak.

Just like GOATS was played coz it was simply the best regardless of what enemy played. If you believe it was to counter widow you are legit clueless and delusional.

93

The counterplay to a 1-shot hero or a head tapper of any kind is using cover and diving them. These are VERY effective already. Will be even more so effective when 6v6 arrives.

94

Good. She deserves it infinitely more than Hanzo ever did because being a projectile sniper is infinitely more difficulty than a free point-and-click sim. Also, again, Hanzo’s not the one that has, you know… COMPLETELY RUINED THE GAME FOR ITS ENTIRE LIFESPAN!

Well there you’re at least semi-correct in that having 2 tanks will somewhat make it easier to deal with her as there are now 2 players on the enemy team that are able to contest her without dying instantly and getting 0 value but have you considered the fact that removing her one-shot would stop the need for this garbage alltogether? Widowmaker should not command the attention of at least one tank at all times for 0 cost with 0 cooldown. There is a clear imbalance of effort here, and the problems that her one-shot causes are merely lessened, not removed with the move back to 6v6. And what if your team goes Mauga Hog? Should you just be screwed if the enemy team picks widow with literally no-one being able to peek anything and the game being unplayable unless your tank counterswaps the Widow? No. No you shouldn’t be.

What rank are you in? You seem like a bronze player who started in OW2 if you think like this. Cover doesn’t work because if you’re in cover the whole game nothing gets done. The whole gamestate freezes until the Widow is either distracted or killed. Trying to go out of cover when the Widow is alive at all is suicide if you’re not a Tank. You just die. 0 counterplay without using a movement or defensive ability, while the Widow incurs no such cost. Massive imbalance of effort and resource drain. Diving her doesn’t work because of the broken amounts of sustain in the game. She has historically been run alongside dive comps in dive metas because of how busted she is, even in the meta designed to counter her she is widely played at high levels.

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95

The GOATS team LITERALLY designed it specifically to counter Widow because they didn’t have a Widow player. You’re the delusional one here.

96

You just seem like someone that has a very strong hate for the character. I like Widowmaker and I don’t need to feel shamed for that. I find her fun to play and believe that not every game needs to be a Soldier 76 game where we’re just battling for who the better healers/supports are.

I think Tracer ruins many of my matches, but I’m not in here calling for her entire character to be ruined. I’m not calling for Pharah’s rework to be undone so she’s less maneuverable and easy to shoot again. I actually want the heroes in this game to be fun and viable.

6v6 will assuage Widow’s plight on the game we are experiencing right now to some degree, and even the new hero Hazard and I’m sure many other new high mobility and dive style heroes will further offer counterplay options against Widowmaker in the future.

97

I hate skill-less hitscan one-shots in any game. Snipers, Shotguns, AKs, you name it. Widow specifically isn’t special.

Ok, well clearly you need to get some outside perspective on how it feels to play into a Widow when you’re not Widow.

You find sitting in a corner getting free kills with 0 risk of dying fun? To each their own IG

Ideally if the game was balanced better other DPS than Widow would be able to have significant impact over the game. That was the other problem introduced with 5v5 because of the massive increase in sustain. Also it’s a bit hypocritical that you don’t want everyone playing the same hero but you playing Widow forces the enemy team to swap to a dive tank and/or mirror your pick.

You can’t really pull “holier than thou” when you’re a Widow apologist NGL

If you truly wanted that you would want Widow dumpstered like she deserves because Widow gatekeeps so many fun heroes from being viable and Widow completely ruins the fun of every match she’s present in.

So you admit there’s an issue. You know what would be a better solution to that issue than bandaid-fixing it with a second tank? Removing the issue altogether.

Hazard is absolutley not a Widow counter or a dive hero lmao.

Again, dive isn’t good counterplay to Widow as mentioned previously.

98

These are not skill-less. You need aim, which is the most potent form of skill expression in the game. If you want more no-aim heroes in the game to show off your skill, ask for them.

Yeah, I said I enjoy sniping.

Not sure if sustain will ever be “fixed” or lessened. Immortalities can be very annoying as well, but here we are. Not sure 6v6 will make this any better.

I’m not putting a moral compass on a character in a video game…

I find her fun to play as and playing against her can be a unique challenge as well. I don’t find it all that hard to use flank routes and cover to navigate the map. Maybe maps could be designed even better though. I usually always have 1 eye on her all match as I’m playing, but I guess some players find that challenging.

K so. I actually think 5v5 is a chalked format in general. 6v6 is not a “bandaid fix” it’s the holy grail for the game.

99

The reworked maps are really laughable because they literally changed nothing. Widow still has full los of entire maps. Idk what they thought they cooked by adding a window to havana 1st poi t when that arguably makes her harder to dive

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100

I agree with this. Map design issues are a huge problem and have been for a long time. Sometimes I don’t understand what the team is thinking.

101

Yep widow will always potentially be the best dps in the game as long as she has her one shot… and i think that is fine. not everyone is consistent enough to climb in ranks with her and that is what separates the very few good widows who have great games back to back and consistently…seems like she has always been that way, very few can handle her well

like a high tuned racing car that your average joe cant handle, takes experience and a finessed touch.

thats the novelty of playing her, you have this high performance tuned sports car but yea good luck handling it or being the next formula 1 champion

of course… once in a great while and when the stars align you are that “RED TEAM WIDOMAKER”… and then you’ll have players running to the forums and start the witch hunt for nerfs

hehe

i lost 8 games in a row a bit ago with widow, terrible times…but then i had this game here and yea… i was the boogy man forum widow

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