Soldier and Mccree viabiltiy discussion

General Discussion
1

Soldier: Let’s look at this situation. You get 9 bullets with no spread =171 damage with no crits. If you get at least 4 crits you can kill a 200 health target with the burst of 9 shots, which takes 1 second to fire all 9.

At max range damage falloff, he will deal 85.5 damage with no crits. So if you land a direct helix rocket, and you are at max damage falloff range, you do not need to crit with any of the 9 bursting shots to kill the target if all bullets hit the target. If the helix rocket just splashes them for 80, you will need 4 crits to kill the target at max damage falloff with the initial burst.

Nobody is 100% accurate, so lets say you miss a bullet here and there depending on how good your aim and tracking is, every bullet missed you will have to land with increasing rifle spread, or take a break and wait for the reset to try again.

What it means? Very good Soldiers should be able to carry games again. If a widowmaker misses or fails to score a headshot even once, a very good Soldier player can delete her with a helix rocket and 1 burst of fire at very long range. Soldier is much more likely to defeat Hanzo in a duel than previously, because he can take off over 100 health with a single burst and if Hanzo uses his leap ability, you can aim and time his leap destination with helix rocket to finish him off.

Soldier gets a huge boost in the meta. This buff is a bigger change than the previous nerf that brought his damage from 20-19. So Soldier will be stronger than the version of soldier that got nerfed, but obviously the game surrounding him is very different at this point.

Mccree:
As for Mccree, he has always been lethal with godlike aim, but has huge issues with mobiltiy and surviving. So now he can get more free reloads or mild evasion as needed. This will increase his DPS slightly from the extra reloads, and if the supports can keep Mccree healed for 6 seconds he can hit the ground a second time and potentially escape back to his team.

I’m not expecting this Mccree change to make a huge impact, but it does give him a much better chance against heroes like Genji and Doomfist, and in general being able to survive certain situations. You will still require godlike skills to make Mccree shine, but he gets a nice little boost here. If he wasn’t meta before, this buff will not change that, but for the Mccree mains they should see a little nudge to their win rate and make life a little easier and less stressful against dive heroes.

2

I think McCree is harder to balance than Soldier because unlike a more consistent amount of damage and burst damage dealt, McCree either fails horribly or destroys you, similarly to Widow.

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3

I’m really happy with both changes. I’ve never been good with McCree, but Soldier is pretty much the only DPS I feel comfortable flexing onto in the rare situation where all tank/support slots are filled up.

I think these changes will definitely make both heroes more viable, which is good. Soldier might even wiggle his way back into the meta, but I’m not entirely sure about that yet.

4

I don’t really understand the roll

Since they’re admitting it’s just a glorified reload I don’t see why don’t they axe it and just make him whip out a second, fully loaded revolver.

It could have an equip time, giving it the same effective “reload time” but without the clunky movement.

(Full disclosure, I rarely play McCree, but the roll mechanic has been a major reason why.)

5

The roll has two uses. The given explanation by the devs seems to explain things well:

I think this added flexibility will make McCree feel a lot more fluid to play. Long cooldowns are good because they make you think about the optimal use of an ability, but when they’re too long they just end up feeling unnecessarily restrictive and unfun.

6

I know it’s technically also a movement ability, but compared to Sword Dash, Translocator, Sprint, or even just Lunge it’s…underwhelming in that function, to say the least.

7

I suppose so, but any mobility options in a game as fast-paced and chaotic as Overwatch are incredibly valuable. With a 6 second cooldown, the player can use it for mobility more often without feeling like they’re shooting themselves in the foot. This could be just to get back to the point a little faster, to dodge an incoming attack, or to roll after a target to secure a kill.

It’s definitely a minor buff, but I think minor buffs can still have substantial impact.

8

The changes to roll are more meaningless than the ones to the damage falloff.
He can roll more often, sure but it still doesn’t solve the fact that his roll can’t be used as mobility let alone to dodge incoming damage.

9

Correction, 3 bullets with no spread and a total of 9 to hit max spread.

10

Not sure if you’re just exaggerating but the roll is indeed mobility and evasion from damage. It absolutely can and does make some shots miss and it increases the distance from you and your opponent. It’s not particularly great at moving and evading, but it is something, and the buff will be felt and make a difference, even if it is only a small difference.

11

A little bit, but before the Pharah changes it barely dodged out of her aoe. You can’t escape Zarya’s beam with it and you still can’t use it mid air which means any knockback can cancel it out.

12

Thanks, didn’t realize.

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