Storm Arrow and FTH are really not good for the game

[Toast-22632]

@Ryom-1460

People seem to want to absolutely dumpster a hero that is already in a tough spot however.

Excuse me but what?

There is no way you genuinely expect anyone to believe that Mr hard meta in every rank and OWL for 6+ months is in a tough spot.

[GreyFalcon-11737]

“Tough”.

[SeraphLance-1303]

And then reaper will get an extra shot off while McCree has to roll, or two and a half shots if, god forbid, McCree has to actually reload.

I’m all for buffing Mr Reaper but this is a terrible comparison.

@tornado7909-1821

you cant play tank and not have a problem with MCcree

You most certainly can. This might come as a shock to the average tank player, but Overwatch is a shooter, and in shooters we generally expect to also be able to die every once in a while.

[Poytheon-1466]

@GreyFalcon-11737

Both teams can have a Lucio.

Correct. Half the tanks have great mobility without him, and the other half can be on top of you within a second with him, and all of them have defensive abilities to help close the distance without Lucio

@GreyFalcon-11737

What you’re basically describing is the idea that McCree should be strong against a coordinated team Dive or Rush comp.

Not really.

@GreyFalcon-11737

If it’s useless, why are you acting like taking it away would make McCree worthless?

It’s useless against competent players. You don’t nerf something with a sledgehammer because of poor play

[Toast-22632]

It’s such a hard life for Mccree how does anyone even play such an F tier hero. Look at how he’s not even 10% pickrate. He clearly needs buffs and cant ever be nerfed without dumpstering him. /s

[GreyFalcon-11737]

@Poytheon-1466

great mobility

On a “4 seconds or larger” cooldown.

[GreyFalcon-11737]

@Poytheon-1466

It’s useless against competent players. You don’t nerf something with a sledgehammer because of poor play

Exactly what is McCree using “Spam the Hammer” for besides killing Tanks and Barriers?

[Yvaelle-1484]

Fan the hammer is arguably more problematic because it actually has some pretty good stats associated with it for a secondary fire move. Its has a built in 1.2 second delay, but its damage is very respectable.

Storm Arrow is on a 10sec cooldown. I mean, its not an alternate fire mode, but a legit ability and is balanced around a long cooldown.

[Ryom-1460]

@Toast-22632

Excuse me but what?

@GreyFalcon-11737

“Tough”.

Sub-average global win-rate. Which appears to be what Blizzard PRIMARLY bases nerfs and buffs on. Secondarily on player perception. OWL power muddles things a bit.

Usually playing S76, so I just tried McCree

Blizzard appears to make most balance decisions based on the overall ladder win-rate, which has been below 50% for McCree. Aside from that, a 53.5% win-rate is not particularly impressive in GM and he’s picked OFTEN, but not ALWAYS so the win-rate isn’t really being affected by that so much. Overall, the team WITH the McCree loses more often than the team without on the ladder. They do adjustments based on player perception as well however, so yes, I wouldn’t be surprised if McCree eats a ligh…

[GreyFalcon-11737]

@Ryom-1460

Sub-average global win-rate.

Winrate math has always been garbage, as confirmed by RobotWizard, who is/was a game design engineer, and spoke with the Overbuff dev. Because he’s building a similar system.

[Ryom-1460]

@GreyFalcon-11737

Winrate math has always been garbage, as confirmed by RobotWizard, who is/was a game design engineer, and spoke with the Overbuff dev. Because he’s building a similar system.

The total aggregate win-rate is fine as it samples the ENTIRE player population and every hero the same way. Individual win-rates at certain ranks may be iffy. It’s perfectly useful for our purpose here.

[Toast-22632]

@Ryom-1460

Sub-average global win-rate

Win rates are weighted based on play time. It’s not just wins vs losses.

This causes counterpicks to have lower winrates as they are swapped to when a team is already losing. This has two effects.

1. If a team is already losing a swap is often not going to change what was already going to be a loss.

2. Even if they win, they were played for less time so their win is weighted less.

This leads to his low winrate. It’s why he’s always had a low winrate regardless of his balance state. Think of a hero like Sym historically having a high winrate despite being fairly bad, but reversed.

If anything Mccrees winrate spiking by 4% since his buffs on top of his extremely high pickrate to be pretty average in high ranks is actually a huge red flag.

[GreyFalcon-11737]

@Ryom-1460

@GreyFalcon-11737

Winrate math has always been garbage, as confirmed by RobotWizard, who is/was a game design engineer, and spoke with the Overbuff dev. Because he’s building a similar system.

The total aggregate win-rate is fine as it samples the ENTIRE player population and every hero the same way. Individual win-rates at certain ranks may be iffy. It’s perfectly useful for our purpose here.

You seem to be unware of the heavy data skewing on winrate math.

@RobotWizard-116887

Win rate - How likely a hero will win in a game, subject to a large number of caveats.

• Win rate is influenced by SR, because the games player base is set out on a bell curve, low ranked players TEND to play against people higher ranked than they are on average, and the reverse is true. So, you need to compare it to the base line of that rank.
• Even within a rank, that same bias comes into play to a less of a degree.
• Hero which are swapped to, to counter, have a lower win rate, JUST because they tend to be picked when you are already losing.
• Win rate is weighted by how long the hero was played in the match. This means heroes which are played on defensive more than attack, tend to have over inflated win rates. After all, if they do well, defense lasts a long time, and has a higher weighting. If an attacking hero does well, the attack phase is MUCH shorter, so they have the reverse effect, artificially pushing their win rate down.
• Heroes which have a lot of mirroring tend to push the hero towards the middle of the rank. Since for every win there is a loss. (but middle of the RANK, rather than towards 50%, because the win is still more likely to go to the higher SR person) (see Moth Mercy for a VERY good demo of this)
• Heroes which are one tricked a lot, ALSO get pushed towards rank average, the players are typically stable in their rank, so, run the rank average. This means the win rate is MOSTLY made up of people who don’t run the hero all the time. They will be winning on one hero, and losing on another.

The last point is a VERY interesting one, since, it means that their win rate is heavy biased towards “how easy is a hero to get value from for people who play more than one hero” - they are represented in the win rate WAY WAY more than the one tricks. The more someone one tricks, the less they are represented in the win rate.

[AngryPuckmen-1981]

Fan the hammer has always been an odd tool.

Considering that even a slight nerf can make it so that two head shoots from his primary would out perform in damage.

Especially when dealing with armor. As it subtracts five damage from every shot.

Not saying that it doesn’t need a change how ever one could east make it pointless again.

[Poytheon-1466]

@GreyFalcon-11737

On a “4 seconds or larger” cooldown.

And? You don’t need blink as an ability to have great mobility. Those 4 seconds or larger cooldowns can take you across the battlefield

@GreyFalcon-11737

Exactly what is McCree using “Spam the Hammer” for besides killing Tanks and Barriers?

Large bodied high HP heroes in close range

Doomfist, Mei, Reaper

Or for players who don’t have very good aim. You would be surprised at how many players miss even a single followup primary shot after flashbanging someone

But yes, it’s primarily for tanks/barriers

[tornado7909-1821]

@SeraphLance-1303

in shooters we generally expect to also be able to die every once in a while.

Not instantly as a tank

[GreyFalcon-11737]

@Poytheon-1466

Large bodied high HP heroes in close range

Doomfist, Mei, Reaper

Maybe McCree should be at a disadvantage at close range. Especially if he wiffs his 325 damage combo.

[Ryom-1460]

@Toast-22632

Win rates are weighted based on play time. It’s not just wins vs losses.

@GreyFalcon-11737

You seem to be unware of the heavy data skewing on winrate math.

I’m very aware. We are talking about a sample of the entire open player-base, for every game, in every rank, over a long period of time.

Data bias in this instance will be normalized to a large degree. Robot’s thesis is largely applicable to an individual’s win-rate stats or highly concentrated samples, the global effects are minimal and we can still make comparisons because everyone is analyzed identically.

[Poytheon-1466]

He is at a large disadvantage if he doesn’t have flashbang.

He is only ever at an advantage if he’s able to land it

Have you ever played McCree & tried to kill a Reaper in close range without flashbang? Or Genji, or Tracer, or Doomfist? Good luck…

[GreyFalcon-11737]

@Ryom-1460

@GreyFalcon-11737

You seem to be unware of the heavy data skewing on winrate math.

I’m very aware. We are talking about a sample of the entire playerbase, for every game, in every rank, over a long period of time.

Data bias in this instance will be normalized to a large degree. Robot’s thesis is largely applicable to individuals win-rate stats, the global effects are minimal and we can still make comparisons because everyone is analyzed identically.

So a hero known for getting picks, at range, while on attack, might have on average shorter duration while on attack. Meaning there’s less time played on the hero.

Would it surprise you to know, almost all heroes that fit the “ranged pickoff” heroes have low pickrates?