Sniper watch is killing the game, not Rivals

General Discussion
22

i think the comparison with rivals is a bit exaggerated to define sniping, considering that the gameplay (perception speaking) is highly different between TPS and fps. the sniper does hER job, and it is right that she has her reward after practicing with aiming.

the solution is not to deny the oneshot, especially considering the huge impact that there was in the nerf to the distance / falloff (and i say this as a NON main widow). rather the problem is how easy it is to ignore the threat that widow represents in the map, it is clear that the voiceline “there is a sniper, be careful” is not enough. and if players are not satisfied with taking advantage of the additional cover in the maps (placed precisely for the fear of a tank with 5v5) then they need to act in modifying the signals of enemy sniping.

a praiseworthy example we had in battle for olympus, where we could see widow’s laser during the ultimate :flashlight:. it could be interesting to reintroduce it for when she has the wallhack +scope. or put it right when widow has mercy’s pocket boost, a signal that communicates caution.

the only nerf I could propose for widow is the impossibility of crouching during the scope (but make it available in deathmatch, rightly so).

I say this because I see many topics complaining about oneshotting, but… come on, let’s be serious: what job does widow have if you take away the fatality of the scope? it’s her job and frankly it’s hard to learn (especially when you shoot in the air). it seems like an unjustified complaint if then honest gameplay is not proposed to the role of the sniper. and black widow in the context of marvel rivals tps is not exactly a good comparison to make.

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23

I agree that Widow needs her health scaled back, but otherwise the game is fine in 6v6 and beyond saving in 5v5

24

They could add scope glint, but I don’t know that it would do much. They could have the intensity scale with Widow’s charge level, which would better communicate when players are “safe” from a one-shot.

They could add dispersion to her scoped shots when she isn’t standing still, which would make shooting back at her more practical in some situations.

The most straightforward way to ease up her raw pressure would be increased charge time and/or reduced ammo to widen response windows. If they do that heavily though, her body shot damage probably needs to go up to compensate. SMG ammo might need to be decoupled from sniper shots.

They could make grapple break if she takes damage during the movement, reducing her odds of escaping.

What it keeps coming back to for me though is slowing her down in what is generally a fast game (in terms of character movement) might just make her too ineffective even in “the right hands”. The main reason it might not be worth trying is that the people who really hate playing against Widow aren’t satisfied by small tweaks like this. I’d be inclined to start here anyway though, unless she’s not actually winning as much as perceived (even narrowed to the relevant maps and ranks). 0.667s or 0.75s delay before charging resumes (probably we should increase her min scoped damage to at least Sym turret health and recalibrate accordingly if we do this), but if we add more than maybe 0.25s to the time to full charge itself (excluding the delay), her peak damage would probably need to go up.

They could also try changing charge from linear scaling to something threshold based, with the intent of making it so she needs full charge for a one-shot on 250 HP characters (maybe even 225). Makes the window to respond after she shoots more consistent, in theory.

I know DoT crit damage (body damage portion is always instant) from headshots has issues, but
it’s still the closest thing I’ve seen to a middle ground in the debate.

I don’t think making her have to descope every couple seconds would be a good idea. Either it ends up being so disruptive she can’t play, or she plays around it with a little care and the complaints barely go down. Depending on its exact numbers/properties.

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25

I’ve been saying this for a long time, maybe one day Blizzard will realize this as well.

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26

You’re whole obsession with Widowmakers job being one-shotting is just appeal to tradition. Traditional snipers on games like cod or counter strike have had that but overwatch isn’t cod or counter strike is it?

Widows one shot has made her such a dominant DPS that it has made countless streamers and content creators jump for joy when the competition has hero bans to prevent them from playing sniper watch again.

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27

That’s all it boils down to every time its brought up. Their argument (if you can call it that) is just its always been this way like that’s a reason for it existing now. Like every game needs to have a character or gun that can send people back to spawn with 1 shot.
No it doesn’t, its a terrible idea in any multiplayer game and in a team shooter like ow its outright stupid.

Imagine if every single player game had you run back and forth on the same map collecting blue, red, yellow and green keys before you could progress to the next level. Because that’s how games where made so that’s how they should stay, right?
No, nobody would seriously make that argument. But we still have people making similar arguments when it comes to ohk snipers. Its laughable.

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28

it’s not a matter of tradition or “obsession” :sweat_smile:: simply if widow can’t oneshot someone with a standard hp bar she’s not a sniper, it’s very simple.
it’s a fps game and the thought of sniper = one shot in a standard situation is correct. it seems a bit forced to say that “humpf, 🫸cod and counter strike do not count as examples :see_no_evil:”, seriusly?:person_facepalming:

the nerf to falloff they gave her was already extremely effective enough not to guarantee one-shotting from many maps, unless you abuse the mercy boost combo. but that’s exactly where I suggested the laser visibility.

let’s also include in this topic the inverse problem of “widow makes oneshotting”: there are some widows who do not conclude anything for the whole match, partly due to poor ability to exploit this peculiarity, so what do we conclude by nerfing widows? that those already terrible will be even worse in “diff” situations. :roll_eyes:

at a certain point you have to ask a minimum of tactical effort from those who face the sniper, we agree on this, right?

do you mean a lower precision as counter strike? it could be a problem to the uniqueness of the aim in flight, returning to the discussion of giving an unfair nerf to those who have committed to aiming correctly by training their reflexes.

nerfing widow more than she is now is a problem, because it basically means helping her in other departments that are not designed to be a great fighting alternative.

for this reason I believe that the best nerf for widow… is the surrounding environment or the rigidity with which she obtains the maximum power while aiming to be cautious that she exposes herself. punishing those who learn to use her is wrong (and I repeat, I’m absolutely not good with her to talk about it with a preference)

the best nerf for widow is a buff to everyone in dealing with her while avoiding her. in the past this was the double shield that continually annoyed widow. today, with ow2 offering a tank that doesn’t always pay attention to the sniper and leaves the team exposed… everyone’s tactics must be valued and she has already had her nerfs. you have to be so stupid as not to understand when maybe it’s not the right time to expose yourself or go down that central path, right?

Delaying the cooldown of the grappling hook similar to Sombra’s hacking when she gets hit could be an idea to be able to deal with her when she is flushed out by flanker opponents who have reached her using cover on the map.

breaking the grappling hook i don’t think there is real time to do this, but i would leave this tip for wrecking ball instead. :thinking:

29

Yup, I rarely play now because of Widow.

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30

Removing headshots will tame Widow, on their own they already make it too easy for luck to swing whole engagements

Slash anti-heal to 50% like it should have been in her first patch, and you can rework sleep dart to a reduction to enemy move speed and damage, still helpful but no longer a delayed death sentence

31

all I’m reading is “make widow not widow”. The threat of widowmaker is having a clear LoS. If you don’t die with a well placed headshot her threat becomes null.

The only alternative would be her being able to land 75hp bodyshots, 150hp headshots with no actual charge of the scope but guess what, that makes her even more of a threat.

counterpoint: anti-heal time should be about distance from radius of explosion, not 50% reduction. If you get hit dead on you have the full antiheal duration, but if you just get splashed on the edge you have 1s of anti.

Sleep dart needs to stay as is, tbh. You just want things that make certain heroes able to function without drawbacks coughyouravatarcough

32

I’m more annoyed with Sombre, tbh.

33

Same appeal to tradition argument as always. Laughable

And then when you respond to it they respond with some innane drivel that basically boils down to lmao skill issue git gud. Absolutely laughable.
I’m playing in t500, when are my team mates and i tactical enough to not have the match completely dominted by one character? The answer it never, because the problem just gets worse as the enemy get better.

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34

The most important fix they need is to remove hitscan completely.
This is the first thing. Teleporting your bullets into the enemies brain is just wrong in the first place.

Second point would be to edit 2 things

  1. Weapon Sway: 1 to 2 seconds when aiming freshly after moving and restarts if you move or shoot. Your shot charges only when your weapon is not swaying anymore.
    This would stop the most annoying playstyle of widow: run->aim->shoot as if it was the easiest thing ever. This would also mean that her positioning is actually important, as she can stand literally everywhere, even in fully open space and barely be afraid of getting jumped.
  2. First shot when aiming fresh MUST be a charged shot, consecutive shots that do not go out of aim-mode can be done uncharged but are under weapon sway.

Of course this will instantly be denied because Widowplayers can’t do their fancy aim and shoot after 0.2 seconds thingy or walk around while shooting but this would actually be a change that makes sense, keeps her oneshots (which never should exist at all as a non-ult) from across the map. All this adds is: PATIENCE and not a deadly headshot salvo from an ever moving character.

The only alternative is to remove one-shot capabilities as no character should have a non-cooldown-leftclick that kills like 60% of the whole roster instantly.

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35

Reins my least played tank and forum profile pics have been broken for years. you’re projecting your own need to defend Widowmaker and Ana as they drive players out of the game on me.

36

My playtime as widow is in the 5th lowest OW1 heroes on the damage category, so I guess you’re also projecting?

Ana is one of my most played supports though. She’s extremely powerful due to anti, that’s why I’m vouching for lesser time on splash damage. 50% healing reduction is simply not it, much less if you also want it coupled with sleep dart not sleeping lol.

37

I said and Ana in my post, my post was based on your constant already debunked appeal to tradition arguments whenever widow was brought up, and you completely ignore how Ana got to be the only non tank hero with a free hard stun, despite it directly going against there supposed 5v5 balance philosophy

The fact of the matter is many of us are tired of seeing the game be reworked back and fourth around the fact that no one enjoys playing tank, instead of addressing the reasons why no one enjoys playing tank.

38

Which is a problem in Overwatch, because none of the mechanics that exist to balance snipers in other games exist in Overwatch.

There’s no scope swap or no scope glint, no weapon economy, no other weapons that can compete (even if they’re weaker) at similar ranges and of course, Overwatch healing is EXTREMELY powerful compared to pretty much any other game on the market, so chip damage is essentially worthless.

Widowmaker is a Valorant hero masquerading as an Overwatch hero and that’s the core root of her problems.

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39

Not true. Only a problem for tanks, especially the few of them that have no mitigation. The solution is to rework those problematic tanks to have an easier time against nade

Also not true, and it’s essential for her kit. It’s also fairly hard to hit, especially on squishies.
Unlike sleep in Rivals, where it’s an AoE, easy to hit cooldown that leaves the head exposed to headshots.

GOATS has nothing to do with Ana or Widow. It was a synergistic comp, based on the idea of high sustain and death ball, enabled by AoE healers like Lucio and Brig. It was first introduced by a team called GOATS, then copied by other teams.
GOATS also existed mostly in high ranks and E-sport

40

on other words, the team balance is killing the game again

41

I’ve seen a great suggestion in a video, essentially making her Snipe like Zen’s Volley:
You scope in, you charge up to 100, still have your 1-shot headshot kill but the bullet auto releases after 2 seconds or so… AKa, you have to pre-charge any shot and you can be waited out if you’re seen… no longer just aiming down an angle waiting for a squishy to come by to click on. . Doesn’t remove her identity but also removes her pretty much permanent lethal precense in sight line

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