I was watching TheRealKenzo’s stream (A top 500 Widowmaker main) and he made a good comment about how they good change Widowmaker.
He said that some people dislike Widowmaker because she can just shoot you across the map. But the Overwatch developers forced her to play at really far distances and away from her team because they increased her grapple hook cooldown, reduced her health, and increased her fall off damage range.
So Kenzo suggested that the developers could increase her health, decrease her grapple hook cooldown, and decrease her fall off damage range to force her to have to play closer and with her team. And less people would complain about her.
Kenzo said he would down to play Widowmaker like a medium range sniper, more like Ashe, but with a one-shot. With Widowmaker’s current design she has to play far away from her team and her enemies because she’s very squishy and has poor mobility.
Kenzo also said he thinks this change would be fair for Widowmaker while still having her one-shot because she has to charge up her shots, and she doesn’t have a dynamite like Ashe or anything like that.
That’s a good suggestion, that I think the Overwatch developers should try. A medium range sniper, with better survivability. It would allow more characters to be able to contest her since she has to play closer to her enemies. Widowmaker would have to play more with her team, rather than away from them. And at the same time, Widowmaker doesn’t die immediately when an enemy contests her due to her increased health, and decreased grapple hook cooldown.
All in all, a good idea to make Widowmaker have to play closer to her team and enemies which allows more opponents to contest her is:
A great suggestion, but I’d like to remind people that not every widow complaint is made in good faith. Some people simply hate how she forces people to use cover or learn map design; they genuinely think she shouldn’t be able to snipe them due to an error on their part.
I bring this up so that people can learn to filter out unhelpful widow complaints. Personally, I think anyone going “What? You want me to use cover and flank her? No! I shouldn’t have to do that!” is arguing in bad faith.
They are going to have to reduce her fall off range by quite a bit to achieve this. It is currently 70-100 meters. Depending on where the fall of starts and ends, I think this could be a really good idea.
I do love the idea of being able to be shot by a widow at a certain range and knowing I cannot be 1-shot. Especially places like Havana 3rd point Junker Town and so on.
I would also be be fine if she kept her current range and her headshot only did 245 damage non damage boosted. That way you give some of these heroes like Mei, Reaper and torb the chance to be viable somewhat-counter options. I just really don’t like the 300 damage headshot where the ALL but one of the dps cast is headshot. Also the headshots are annoying on tanks like JQ, Zarya, Ram.
Except in some maps this isn’t much of an option, but yeah that’s mostly a garbage map design problem rather than a sniper one. There’s no reason they should have LoS of enemy spawn from high ground.
I think the majority of Widow hate originates from players who have never played a different multiplayer FPS before. And because the design of Overwatch allows players to do somewhat well without even mastering FPS mechanics, they may never become good at FPS mechanics.
Because of this you see a lot of hate when they face against a Widow player who can actually play her well. These players themselves can’t play Widow due to them having poor FPS mechanics, and they don’t know what to do against her also because of their FPS mechanics.
So some players see a good Widow in their lobby, end up losing without having a clue on how to beat that Widow, and then complain.
it might happen someday. hell they are changing a bunch of heroes to be differerent somewhat heh. kind of reminds me of world of warcraft. just when you get use to a character/class and how it works. rotation/abilities they go and change everything in the next expansion and you have to relearn everything
only that snipers have a different problem in those other games. In the games he lists, the sniper is also a monster in close combat and even competes/beats with the shotgun. That’s not the case in Overwatch though, since you don’t have quickscoping or bodyoneshot. Overwatch is special in that regard. one gets upset in this community that a sniper does his job: very lethal at long range. a non problem in any other FPS. Widow is perfect according to the video because she is not a Close Quarter monster.
As long as Widow can oneshot, you won’t be able to silence the widowhater, and even then, simply two shot becomes the next target of the witch hunt.
The Devs have shown that they cater to content creators.
The new Ashe Raijin skin sights was changed because Warn, a streamer, organized a meeting with the Devs to address the problem. Although I think the sights still needs improvements.
The Devs listened to Flats about Reinhardt when he met with them.
And there’s probably a bunch of other examples of changes due to content creators.
I only can hope the Kenzo has access to talking with the Devs, so he can get the change on Widowmaker that he mentioned implemented. Note that the way he worded and talked about this change is to make players will stop complaining about Widowmaker.
Granted I’m only in diamond but this ‘‘oppressive widow who head shots you flawlessly everytime you poke your head out of cover’’ doesn’t even exist, it is a complete exaggeration. We shouldn’t ruin a character because of people exaggerating.
Although look at how they ruined Mei and Sombra because of people saying rubbish like '‘when you go against Mei or Sombra you literally can’t play the game!’
Idk about the decreased grapple cd, I feel a hyper mobile hero that can 1 shot at range and has more health even worse than what she is now.
As far as the range goes, i guess it depends on how much. Even after sojo’s range nerf, it didnt change much because of fights rarely happening that far.
Increase minimum damage from Scope shot.
Decrease charge rate of scope shot so one hit kill zone of squishies requires 4 seconds of charge.
Charge level does not deteriorate when you exit scope mode and remains where it was until a scoped shot is fired.
Scoped mode and full auto have different ammo pools.
Revert HP to 200
Recoil bloom in full auto decreased to allow mid-close range engagements.
2 venom mines.
Grapple hook reloads her weapon.
Ultimate increases her charge rate to near instant. (What it is now)
Ultimate scoped shots pierce Barriers for reduced damage of shot.
Widow is mobile, but not hypermobile (360° or verticality doesn’t automatically make it hyper). A hypermobile hero would be something like Ball or Tracer. Heroes like Widow and Soldier are mobile heroes. Ana would be one of the few heroes without any mobility… even Zen has mobility, though at the cost of using his ult for it.
I think that would be a good idea. Keeps her hero identity. I still think some of the maps also need some natural cover like Junkertown as well though.
The best widow change would be to add much more cover to every map she excels on. Also improve the quality of cover, there’s so many pieces of cover where you both can’t hide from widow and engage the enemy team.
But that wont happen so i suggest she loses max health so other snipers have more duel potential without a mercy pocket. And she becomes more diveable so she has to play with the team.
Lower max health will also fit with her lore because having a blood rate as low as hers would mean she’d die much easier then a healthier person.
