honestly Blizzard had to do something to stop all the players from complaining and this was the best course of action
Once players realize this did nothing expect anothe wave of nerf snipers / nerf Widow
Nerf anything that kills us
Thanks for making a hero that was already horrible below Masters even worse. You know the games where the entire team says âNo widow please switch.â Itâs even moreso a throw pick in Silver/ Gold now.
Itâs sad that the nerf is literally only because of OWL and how OP widow can be in GM. As someone else pointed out, the grapple is already so incredibly glitchy. Dive is still very effective against a good Widow, despite what others are saying.
It was a senseless nerf and itâs pretty comical that this nerf comes before any real nerf to Briggite.
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brigitte got a nerf on her shield bash
its an ability that should have never been in the game to begin with
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glad you help develop the game. Next time speak a little louder in the balance meetings
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But you canât say that about widow because apparently itâs ok for a hero to be op if they have to aim.
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The 8 second cooldown buff was meant to make her more viable during dive. Now that dive heroes arenât as prominent, theyâve been a little too good at getting away.
This is coming from a Widow main, btw.
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Thatâs how balancing SHOULD work.
If youâre at a low tier and canât play her because you canât hit the broad side of the barns fault, thatâs your fault for not being able to utilize an OP hero.
Also nice âSilver/Goldâ smurf :^)
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Been saying that for almost a year.
No, it isnât. Pro players are going to utilize whichever strategies that are most abusable at any given moment in time. You donât balance around them, because theyâll always complain about something that frustrates them.
Virtually every single eSport (ignoring the Battle Royales) have been balanced at just ahead of where the most populated âtierâ is. In CS:GO itâs Master Guardian. In LoL itâs Gold.
If you start balancing by the high end, then itâs unplayable for anyone below them.
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A lot people donât know how it feels to play against widow in masters and above. She is as annoying and oppressive as hanzo there and most of the time the whole game is decided by a widow vs widow 1vs1.
You can come up as much as you want with this âshe is only op in the top 1%â argument but ow choose the competive way with owl. That means they balance the game for the highest level of play. Itâs not fun to watch owl and see the same comp every time. Because of that they also nerfed dive.
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When 90% of the player base is below Master⌠No. That is not how balancing should work.
Also yes, I know this because Iâve played at every level of this game. So clearly my perspective is way broader than yours.
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Balancing for the highest level of play just to make pro play interesting isnât how you balance a game.
The players, the core playerbase that comprise over 90% of the gameâs population, arenât pros. The effects of the changes that affect the top will not be felt at the bottom. In fact, many of the changes (especially the nerfs) will make heroes borderline unplayable for players below Master.
Buffs to the lesser heroes to make them viable in OWL is the only thing you can do to make OWL spectator friendly.
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This logic doesnât make sense though. If pro players use the most abusable strategies, doesnât it make sense that you fix those abusable strategies? Whether it be Triple Tank, Dive, or the current Double Sniper meta.
In either case, that argument only works if you believe that the game is completely balanced, which will never be the case. Balance requires constant iterations to fix the problems of the game (thatâs Widow, Hanzo and Mercy in this patch) as well address any issues that may pop up in the future, like how Hanzo being reworked basically broke Zarya and Mercy (well, broke Mercy even more).
Most eSports balance philosophies, including Overwatchâs, boil down to âbalance for the high end without adversely impacting the low endâ.
If something is a problem in Challenger/Professional play in LoL and Riot can fix it without breaking the game for low end players, then theyâre going to fix it, even if that hero/item isnât an issue in uncoordinated play.
This is why Brig got dumpstered so fast after launch, because despite being weak against Double Sniper, she still stomped games where people arenât skilled enough to play that comp.
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While I donât really agree why Widowmaker got this nerf, I can understand the POV people have about it and why it was as big of a nerf as it was.
Hanzo on the hand⌠1 sec vault change. Lol BlizzardâŚyeah heâs balanced now.
Ok.
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Starting from 3300 sr I noticed widows basically carry almost all games.
Itâs a widow 1v1 with 10 spectators, the better widow wins the game
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She 100% did. Sheâs extremely oppressive in any elo where people can aim, and on top of that can reposition easily. I want to play overwatch, not peekaboo.
Now, if only hanzo wasnât snipey reaper.
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People generally emulate the pro scene. Ex. The dive meta (even though people rarely had the coordination until around mid/high-Masters).
High skill heroes should (generally) be either:
- Be better than low-skill heroes in high ranks, but not by a ton.
- Be map/comp specific and dominate in those specific settings.
I agree with that. Especially the Hanzo part 
They need to stop tip-toeing and just ACTUALLY nerf him. This is stupid lol.
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Exactly. Especially with this long into a gameâs life, you want to keep those people whoâve committed to the learning so much of it. If the lower level players really cared, they would work harder to improve. People are going to either A., commit and really learn the game, and appreciate the high level balance changes, B. acknowledge that it the game just isnât for them in the long run and leave, or C. just casually play the game and not care about little changes from time to time.
No. When a strategy involves a high level of coordination and mechanical skill to pull off, you donât have to âfixâ anything. You buff the lower end to make them viable competitors to create upsets.
This makes a counter-snipe from a McCree incredibly exciting when it happens.
To which, Widowmaker is a crowd pleaser. If you were at the grand finals, you would have seen how loud crowds got just from seeing Widow get an assist â on an actual Elim the cheers were so loud you literally couldnât even hear the casters talk over the loudspeakers from inside the Barclays Center.
Balance does not require iteration. Balance requires players to be happy.
Quake, Unreal Tournament, Counter-Strike 1.6, Halo 1-3 (and to name some other games that arenât FPS games), Melee and Street Fighter 2-4 were all games that achieved fun and exciting gameplay with a nearly completely static balance patch state.
You do not have to balance the game according to ânecessityâ or âfrustrationâ. The game doesnât have to be perfectly balanced, because perfect balance is all subjective. You simply need to find a state where a large majority of playtesters and target audience find it fun.
This is outright false.
Capcom outright says that they buff more than nerf in conference panels. They make the game accessible (read, more friendly to lesser skilled players) to encourage players to keep playing and enter the eSports scene so that players can actually upset and rock the existing players, whilst at-the-same-time bolstering their existing pros (if they can continue to stay top dog despite the constant potential upsets from newcomers, it adds to their legacy and gives them more notoriety).
Riot Games has gone on the record that they balance things according to the most impact on the population.
For their balance, they simply remove the most excessively powerful things on the high end (like broken item builds that are numerically too high, or changing character stats that might enable a non-conventional build, so that it more closely aligns with their character archetypes), whilst still keeping the skill ceiling intact.
They donât balance towards the high end, they just keep the high end in check. Thereâs a very distinctive difference between the two.
On the low end, they consistently throw the characters that underperform a bone, and redesign older and mechanically harder champs to be more accessible.
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