The underlying issue with Widowmaker isn't the oneshot (please read ALL of this.)

General Discussion
1

One shots are not the issue.

With Widow, one shots happen infrequently, if the shot even lands, buttttttt–

As someone who despises playing against Widowmaker, I can concede that Widowmaker

  1. Does in fact take a whole lot of skill, skill I don’t have.
  2. Has added difficulty since movement acceleration isn’t a mechanic.
  3. Has even more difficulty considering 1/2 of the roster is hypermobile.

HOWEVER… The issue with Widowmaker is for all of that potential, she still is quite formidable at fending off flankers–supposed counters–and a lot of those normally can’t reach Widow without dying or giving Widow ample time to escape. Lemme go FLANKER-BY-FLANKER to illustrate my point–

–Winston: If you leap up, Widow hooks away and lands potshots on you and your shield until either you leap away or die.

–Wrecking Ball: Piledriver gives Widow ample time to hook away, same situation as Winston

–Doomfist: Hook perfectly escapes slam-uppercut-LMB combo, which leaves the Doomfist a tiny window of oppurtunity to attempt to punch away, or suffer potshots.

–Genji: Tries to swift strike up to Widow, she hooks away leaving a vulnerable, likely deflecting, character against someone who is in utter safety and can do 50% damage on a body shot.

–Reaper: Shadowstep leads to an instant headshot, so that’s not an option. Wraith clears poison, but that leaves the Reaper with no defensive options, and forced to suffer the same fate, attempt to flee and suffer potshots.

Finding a common theme?

–Sombra: If Sombra tries to sneak up and burst down, Widow can hook away (not to mention Venom breaks Stealth), and hack is easily interruptable. I broke down the math and SMG mode on Widow’s gun, assuming 50% accuracy for both, very nearly BEATS Sombra’s DPS. That’s assuming Widow dosen’t hook away to healers, and (luckily for Sombra) Widow dosen’t have time to land potshots because of Translocator.

–Symmetra: Robbing the team of Teleporter to attempt to kill a Sniper is a wrong move, and Sym has no burst damage to keep Widow from hooking back and attempting to land potshots from safety.

–Tracer: If Widow is on high ground, Tracer can’t reach her.

–Moira: LUL

So clearly, in her current state, flankers don’t ACTUALLY counter her (they do in theory, for example everyone knows that if Genji LMB Shruikens headshot and he swift strikes, it’s 200 HP.), so what about Counter Sniping?

–Ashe: hahahaahahahahahahahahaha no. Wanna know why?

  1. Ashe has falloff starting from 30m. In addition, even if she is in that distance her shots don’t oneshot, and they happen once every 0.7 seconds. That’s nearly the same time Widow needs to attempt headshotting 200hp heroes.
  2. Coach gun is LITERALLY useless because it allows any competant sniper to line up a headshot.
  3. Dynamite is useless because it only travels 25 meters a second with strong gravity, like trying to shoot a Widow with a Junk grenade.
  4. BOB is a wasted ult if trying to duel Widowmaker.

Now, anyways, Ashe is not a good countersniper.

–Hanzo: Arrows are slower and much harder to hit from range than Widow, especially since he too slows down. He might be good at tank busting and midrange fighting, but he is no longer a counter sniper.

–Widow: Both players can do the same thing. It’s a balanced matchup™

–Ana: If your Ana, your MAIN HEALER is trying to duel the Widowmaker, something is terribly wrong.

So, apparently, countersniping is only an option with… Widowmaker.

The final answer to Widowmaker is, simply, barriers. The rise of Goats happened during stage 4 of OWL1, and the dominant comp at the time was Moth Double Sniper, back when Storm Arrows was horribly overtuned.

The only counterplay professional overwatch players could find were, “Widow duels” which basically decided the match, or, “Barrier Spam” which consisted of… Rien, Winston, Zarya, Brig, Zen, and Lucio…

Not to mention, if you’ve ever watched Pros play, they ALWAYS take the path that has the least sightlines, to avoid that deadly Widowmaker, even during Goats.

You made it! To my conclusion!
Anyways, I understand a Widowmaker that couldn’t one-shot would be a literal useless corpse on the battlefield, BUT the fact that she so easily mitigates her supposed counters and requires the cooperation of the entire team to properly counterplay means a change is in order, somewhere.
My ideas are–

  1. Slightly increase the delay between shots.
    This curbs the potential for good Widowmakers more, and increases the chance for other characters to attack the expert widow.
  2. Lower her HP to 150 (!)
    This punishes bad Widowmakers, but this time allowing her to keep her potential for kills while allowing dive characters to properly counter her.
  3. Increase Hook Cooldown again.
    I know this already happened, but another 2 seconds off the hook could be good.
  4. Decrease hook range.
    By allowing her to hook 20m, it means she can safely get to high ground no one else can. Decreasing this makes it harder for her to get up high where she can safely land potshots.
  5. (My least favorite), rework her kit.
    Honestly, Blizzard’s reworks have made characters either unviable or brokenly overpowered as of late. But, with a character as EXTREME as Widowmaker, it might work.
  6. Remove the animation cancel on the hook shot that lets her launch herself in a direction. (Courtesy of Lynx17)
    If Widowmaker isn’t able to launch herself with quickspeed in any general direction, hunting her down as a flanker is MUCH easier.

Now, I’m Definintly NOT asking for all of these nerfs. But one or two could fix the uninteractivity of Widow’s kit. Yes, a high skill character SHOULD be rewarding, but a high skill character should be counterable–at least more easily than in her current state.

Anyways, let me know your thoughts, but this is my thoughts on the debacle.

P.S. Half the “WIDOWMAKER OP PLZ NERF” problem is the fact that smurfs are rampant in this game.

EDIT: Watched some OWL, the meta is back to Double Sniper with 2-2-2… HMmmmmmm :thinking:

21 Likes
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Good thread, you completely destroyed the argument of “dIvE cOunTeRs wIdoW” (also widow had high pickrate in dive even in OWL so yeahhhh.)

Not just that, she’s problematic in diamond and above, so you’ve got:

  • All of diamond and above suffering from her
  • When smurfs enter the game and obliterate teams with 0 counterplay.

That’s a huge amount of people dealing with widowmaker.

9 Likes
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I like this change, not because it punishes bad Widows, but because it punishes good Widows. A bad Widow isn’t going to line up a headshot every .5 seconds, a good Widow is.

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Good point, I’ll rewrite that.

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Legit question

why is the 150 HP one such an often given nerf

Like is Widow just constantly surviving dives and damges at exactly 50 HP

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Yeah, it reigns in Widow at upper ranks but doesn’t do a whole lot to her in mid ranks, where she… really almost needs buffs. We shan’t speak of low-ranked Widowmakers

Because HP in Overwatch is done in increments of 50 lol, so an HP nerf would just tick it down by 50

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It’s a critical threshhold for many characters
For example, Genji right-click into dash into melee kills at that low HP. So does an Ashe headshot. 150 HP allows a much higher amount of counter picking individual character wise.

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8

So you’re saying take Widow’s hook away and she can be more easily countered? Hadn’t considered that.

My vote’s always been to remove “hit scan” and give everyone projectiles. In the real world, snipers at long range even have to adjust for the rotation of the Earth (if you believe that round Earth stuff). Only seems fair that someone who can one shot has to at least lead their targets.

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9

At least nerf it, or rework, yeah.

That’d be a trippy update to try and learn lmao

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10

Well, for heroes who are really dependent on the consistency of their gun (i.e. Soldier, McCree), you could just turn the bullet velocity up really high. It’d be practically hitscan within their effective ranges

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How bout adding falloff damage?
People keep say snipers have to have no falloff, but she and Hanzo arent really ordinary snipers with such mobility.

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They just need to take off Grip shot’s, that thing is outright broken,

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I also love how none of the defensive Widowmaker mains haven’t said ANYTHING on this thread because it actually has some sort of logic

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Well said my friend. This post deserves more attention. Are you sure you didn’t copy from a post that I made a few days ago that pretty much said the exact same thing but less organized :stuck_out_tongue:

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The funny thing is, when she originally got her hook CD buffed was the turning point in Widow’s power. It used to be 12 seconds, but when they put it down to 8 everyone started playing her. They raised it to 10 soon after, but she’s still widely considered one of, if not the best DPS in the game.

I’m just saying, putting it back to 12 seconds would actually address the real problem she has. One shots are 100% fine, but when you have a hero who can constantly put down that threat and can consistently escape the people meant to chase her down because of it, it becomes an issue.

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16

Nope, these are all my own thoughts.

17

Good read OP, lot of good points here, solid argument

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I’m not even good at Widow yet I can play her at MidPlat well enough to contribute. That’s a huge problem being I’m a 1k hour Low Masters Junk 1 trick who never even plays Widow.

I should be able to play her at high gold at best with how bad I am at her.

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19

what i would do is lower her health to 150 and remove the animation cancel on the hook shot that lets her launch herself into the stratosphere.

With 150 health ashe (and mei) become more reliable counter snipers as they can one shot her with a headshot, but because of widow’s ability to be effective from long ranges it wont be that big a deal against heroes like soldier.
They could even buff venom mine so she can place two or three at a time (with the full cooldown between each placement, currently recasting the ability removes the first mine) this could help with flankers that might try and sneak up on her, but not by too much.

And removing the hook launch just makes it so she cant escape so easily and cant hook shot you from across the map as youre leaving spawn very annoying lol

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20

I like that a lot, ima add it to the post.

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