This idea struck me as perhaps the “least friction” way to solve Widow/Hanzo. In a very “Overwatchy” sort of way.
Halo Infinite has a game mechanic where if you shoot a scoped-in player, it de-scopes them.
But instead of de-scoping, what if instead it reset the scope-in charge to zero.
For example:
Lower Hanzo base arrow damage to 75, increasing to 125 with full Bow charge level
When Widow/Hanzo take any damage, they lose their scope-in charge. But do not lose their scope/bowpull.
Optional: Make the charge/damage conversion be exponential instead of linear, so the first half of the charge doesn’t do much.
So if you continually pepper a Sniper with damage, then they can’t spam out instant kills.
Without making Widow/Hanzo overly flimsy, or removing the instant kill aspect of their oneshot. And they can still do enough damage to where they can kill in 2-3 shots
Notably, the 75 damage breakpoint for Hanzo allows him to fend off Tracers.
I’d imagine they could add some UI elements to make the mechanic more obvious for Hanzo. Either some HUD elements. Or add some spiritfire animations on the arrow.
I don’t like the idea of damage causing charge reset. It would be very frustrating for the Widow to shoot someone right after charging a shot and have the damage be negligible, but still leaves the 1-shot problem when she does get the shot off.
I would prefer to see them remove the 1-shot and lean into the venomous aspects of her character. Without the 1-shot a big challenge is going to be differentiating her from Ashe.
I think an interesting passive for Widowmaker would be her primary fire applying quick acting DoT effect that is not affected by a Mercy’s damage boost. This can make it so that an unboosted headshot from Widowmaker will do more damage than Ashe without Mercy pushing her back into 1-shot range. Something like 85 Headshot damage, 85 poison for a total of 170 unboosted damage, but 195.5 while boosted.
For her ult, I think it would be fine for her to have her 1-shot back during that time frame.
From there, Venom Mine will need to be reworked into a more actively used and useful ability.
They’d need to buff the ROF for them (probably Hanzo’s arrow speed too) if they reduced their damage by 40% for being shot. Widow would always be under suppressive fire, and Hanzo would be at a higher disadvantage than her being a med range projectile sniper.
The way I look at it, the devs could easily gain more players than they lose over Sniper changes.
So you gotta justify why Blizzard should intentionally lose millions of dollars in microtransaction revenues, just to make a tiny handful of players happier.
Storm Arrow would be his only life saver if he would still need 1 regular crit 1 SA body, or 1 regular body and 2 SA body while under fire. At minimum, he should be able to OHK Widow even while under fire. So, either he’d need a higher ROF, more consistency, or more SA damage and/ or arrows.
I don’t even think 3 is sufficient, and that she straight up should not 1-shot. I think 1-shots/combos in a hand like Overwatch need to be very deliberate in how they are designed and added in. Widowmaker having a 1-shot feels more like it was put in simply because snipers 1-shot in other games without really looking into how that plays out in a game with a relatively high TTK. Rein’s charge probably the best designed 1-shot because it has a telegraph, well defined threat range, moderately long cooldown that can be played around, high risk associated with using it, and it gives team mates time to try to save the victim.
If Widow can’t 1-shot that does open up some aspects of snipers that could be added back in like allowing her to quickscope.
Well, what would be your preference then, to give oneshot DPS heroes more of a trade-off, and to alter the counterplay interaction to be more interactive?
Easier to kill Snipers
Shooting the Sniper prevents InstantKills
The oneshot is a damage-over-time that can’t instant kill
FWIW you can’t shoot a sniper to reset their charge if they’re camping a corner or sightline. A lot of frustrating deaths involve this or just random spam down said sightline.
Hanzo should have max 150hp and Widow should have less. AND there should be a reactive way to counter their 1-shots if the maps are gonna be like they are.
Otherwise you have to remove (or decimate) stuff like Fan the Bow, Grapple, and Lunge. Perhaps add in reverse falloff so they’re just completely weak to dive and that’s the tradeoff.
Risk vs reward on snipers, please. Everyone else has to deal with it minus some gross stuff like Orisa.
How about none. If a Widow and Hanzo almost always need 2-3 shots to kill a non-tank, you’re better off playing Ashe, Cassidy, Kiriko, Mei, Ana, Sojourn, or Bap. Widow and Hanzo won’t be snipers otherwise. This would be the only compromise I’d accept:
Hanzo reduced to 175 hp.
Both do 145 to the body, 175 to the head.
Hanzo gets an extra Storm Arrow, damage raised to 75.
He gets 25-40% more projectile speed.
His ult will adopt the SA/ Sonic Arrow buff from the April 1st mode, allowing it to turn around/ track players hit by Sonic Arrow.
Widow gets a faster ADS/ charge speed.
Her mine does 125 at a faster rate.
She gets bonus damage against Revealed targets.
She gets an adjustable scope.
Her hook gets a longer reach and pulls her faster.
Except there still is a reason to play them. Range/mobility, most heros have damage fall off except widow and hanzo, you can be across the map and still deal damage as if your next to them. Then their mobility, they have ways to get to areas most other can not.
I feel as if the body damage is a bit to high but a headshot should feel as if your chunking their health so it being around 175 sounds fair.
If it charges faster, then here damage would need to be lowered as we dont want to get into the area of rapid fire sniping.
Agree that here mine should get buffed if she loses 1 shot potential.
This is fair as then only during her ult can you 1 shot targets at full health and its only for a duration of the ult.
If that does happen, maybe a slightly longer cooldown or something like when taking damage it goes on CD for 1 second or something.
On the other hand, this also means that if you apply any pressure to a sniper, they’re completely useless up close. Hanzo’s design goal is to allow someone to play a one-shot hero from a more flexible mid-to-long range, rather than Widow’s long-to-extremely long range–if his bow is basically useless if a Tracer starts heckling him from 20 meters away, how is he supposed to do anything?
This change promotes snipers playing in positions where they simply can’t take any damage, and the problem doesn’t really go away.
