Widowmaker Health Nerf

General Discussion
41

The one where she gains speed and consistency. As it prevents her from being a ticking meta-bomb that collapses an ecosystem. Once that happens, Widow will get nerfed ad infinitum. It would be much better for her to be powershifted to an less powerful, but more mobile assassin.

OW2 should refresh playstyles of every hero. Widow will return to either dominating or being useless as she’ll crunch like paper to dives with less peeling in the game. Do Widow players really want to play the game of “1 chance to hit your shot or die”? Or would they rather trade that for consistency and speed?

In all of the cinematics, Widow only ever did her one shot with infrasight active. Her activating her ult under this theoretical rework should grant her one shot back to her, albeit it has a limited time.

42

Im talking about everyone else so yeah that being the problem here is exactly what you said lol

The issue is oneshots in OW suck anyway. They just aren’t needed. This game doesn’t need a sniper but hey now we have 3.

43

I agree. Personally, I think the issue more lies on the maps itself than widowmaker. Some map like Havana third point enable snipers way too much. At the same time though, part of the issue is also coming from lack of counter play against the widow from the support class (besides reddit lucio).

The argument against this is that it’s not the support’s job to counter the widowmaker, but the tanks like winston, d.va and wrecking ball (or mirror widow from your ally DPS). But you can’t always rely on your teammates to counter the enemy heroes in ranked, especially in lower elo. So lacking in counter-play against widow as support especially when she is popping off and not being contested can feel oppressive.

On the other hand, even though the support roster doesn’t really have a good counter option against widow like they do with brig against flankers. At least they have a sniper of their own which is ana who can heal safely behind cover without giving enemy widow any LOS most of the time.

What I’m saying is that widowmaker (like doomfist and hanzo) is frustrating to play against as support because of one shot potential. And what does a DPS typically prioritize on? Killing the enemy’s backlines, which are supports. It’s more of an opinion than anything and you’re free to disagree with it. And in low elo, picking ana tends to work out better for me most of the time over mercy or zen against enemy widow. I’m not saying everybody should swap to ana against widowmaker in every elo.

You were saying that “Supports don’t have to peek widow. Supports getting picked off by her is almost always due to poor positioning”. And I showed you an example of rank 1 zen player frequently dying to a diamond widow in havana.

If even a rank 1 player is constantly dies to a widow in diamond rank, what chance would an actual diamond zen player have in surviving against widow? My point is that you can still die to the widow even if you think you’re in a safe position.

And if you’re too cautious and worrying about never getting one shot by a widow, you’d literally be playing behind cover all game and not doing anything. So there’s always a risk when you’re playing support and facing an enemy widow. Sometimes, you do have to put yourself in a slightly more vulnerable position to be able to do your job. And you don’t always die due to “bad positioning” either, sometimes the widowmaker will position herself to you.

And yes, it’s true that this applies to all roles including DPS. But again, enemy DPS tends to first prioritize taking out supports. And support’s job is to die the least so that they can keep their teammates alive.

I put quite a lot of effort trying to explain this. I don’t think I can explain anymore. If you still don’t understand or disagree, than we can agree to disagree and call it a day.

44

Allows players to breeze through the map, since widowmaker headshots are rare anyway, most people can’t player her, and widow landing two headshots is basically impossible while she’s getting dived and forced to reposition.

That’s not going to happen. That’ll never happen as Widow was never overpowered in the first place; people just complained and wanted her to be something she isn’t to make their lives easier.

Why? If you take Tracer, and then give her a brand new playstyle, they basically removed Tracer from the game. Its just some new woman in Tracer’s skin.

Widowmaker players would rather widowmaker be widowmaker, what are you talking about? Of course they’d like her as she is now since, you know, that’s why they play her?

Got it. In Reinhardt’s cinematic, he just rushed in and didn’t really tank anything. I purpose we buff Reinhardt’s damage to 250 per swing, reduce his health, and move him to the DPS role. Doomfist could also level buildings with one swing, so I think Doom should do 1000 damage on every attack.

Obviously, using the cinematics as an example for what characters should do is stupid.

45

Genji mains don’t have Widow souls. While Genji mains are using their 46 escape cool downs to run away from a Moira, the true Widow mains only use grappling hook to get to high ground, never to run away. SMG is also right out. In fact, tape RMB down, because if you bother to leave scope, you’re suspect. One shot, one kill. If you get a body shot, you let them heal. You didn’t deserve it. Genji mains will never understand what it’s like to have ice in your veins. They have to beg for Ana’s help, but Widow? Widow stands alone. 175hp is 174hp more than a True Widow Main needs. Genji? Not today. Not ever.

That was as copypasta as I could make a paragraph.

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46

Because she’s arguably the most oppressive hero in the game. She can create more space than tanks on certain maps by merely scoping in. She has the strongest primary fire in the game and has a huge presence in a match when being played. She needed to be a glass cannon, her design is flawed and this is probably the best way for her to be balanced.

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47

Well, she was too independent and had too much impact, especially after the big shield nerfs and all the counters and nerfs dive has seen after being a meta for so long and in the same time they started experiencing with +25 hp & -25 hp for certain heroes so I guess you can see where I’m going with it…

If you ask me, grapple break by damage was pretty much enough but sure, making the hero very squishy is also an option I guess.

Either way, a small hero in the back of the back of the enemy lines who can one shot most of the poor defenseless enemies and grapple away if an enemy somehow manages to risk itself a lot and reach her leaving it without any cool downs is just a bit op… (Not mentioning the fact she doesn’t even need to show herself for too long because she’s bursty so not only she’s hard to hit because she’s small but also protected by walls 85% of the time [not a real number, but she’s protected for most of her uptime even without a shield infront of her])

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48

I’m more ok with that than you would believe.

It wouldn’t be the first time they have done it to heroes. cough Sym cough

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49

“Ugh. Why am i here?”

50

She’s low risk + high reward character.

Reducing her HP will increase the risk.

51

So many braindead takes… These forums are a joke LOL

52

I mean I see it happen on a daily basis, and I’m not even high mmr.

53

She has a hitbox of a lamppost and she has high impact in infinite range. Glass cannon basically. Making her a bit more easy to take her out by diving or flanking.

54

Yeah, YOU’RE okay with that, but you’re not the entire community at large. People still complain about Sym to this day; don’t you think that means completely reinventing a character isn’t a smart idea?

55

I agree, I’m not, but I think Tracers design is way more of a problem than any hero which got a rebuild.

I think she will be getting some pretty heavy changes soon enough, I can’t see how OW2’s changes will mean she doesn’t.

It will be rebuild her or nerf her into the ground. I’d expect changes at the same level as the Sombra ones, which is pretty much a rebuild.

Remember I’ve played Sym, Torb, Sombra, Mercy they have all had their reworks.

Reworks are not bad, when the hero itself has deep game issues. They have reworked characters for far far less. Sometimes they screw them up, but sometimes they work out ok.

You don’t see people complaining about the Torb rework right?

But I DO know they will complain about the Tracer one, since they will have to tone down the hypermobility part of her kit. You remove all the counters to it, while she completely dominates t500 and something has got to give in a pretty big way.

56

TBH, tracer’s issues are a lot like Widowmakers. Which is to say, she’s not the one with the problem; its the people who refuse to learn to battle tracer that has the problem. You notice, like widowmaker, people say “Tracer should be nerfed because IN GM she’s a problem!”? To me, that criticism should just be ignored.

The complainer isn’t complaining because of GM. They’re complaining becuase they failed to kill a Tracer in Quick Play and must now find an excuse for it instead of just owning up to it.

With the exception of Sym, those reworks still kept the core identity of the characters. Sym’s problem is that she’s supposed to be a support, and then they sorta broke her down and shoved her in the DPS slot. So no I don’t see people complaining about Torb, since you know, Torb still fills his role well.

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57

Brigitte was created because of Tracer, and they complain about her all the time.

They are complaining about the symptoms not the disease, but that is still complaints still leveled at Tracer.

When people are begging for Brig nerfs, that is them complaining about Tracer.

People complain about the Balance changes which Tracer in her current state forces on the game all the time.

She could still be a flanker at the end of it, her identity as a time shifting flanker could still be fine. She won’t be able to stay as she is though. That much should be obvious.

Any counter has to have an ability which is just as easy to apply to her as to other heroes, because otherwise it will be more effective on anyone else.

AND it needs to be strong enough to stop her, and that will be applied to everyone else.

This means you will ALWAYS end up with a low skill ability which is crazy strong on a hero designed to be played in the high ranks.

It is THAT problem which means she will have to be reworked at some point.

58

Brigitte was created to have a tanky option for supports. She was not explicitly created for Tracer nor was it ever stated that she was created explicitly for tracer. That’s something streamers said and everyone else ran with.

But if you’re not complaining about the right thing, your complaints are irrelevant and you’ll never solve your problem even if they do change the thing your complaining about. It’ll just lead to more complaining even after the change, sound familiar?

People do the same about Sigma, yet they fail to understand that Sigma’s strong as a symptom of incredibly powerful DPS. We change Sigma, and we don’t actually fix the problem, do we?

No, the only thing obvious is that people dislike to look at the real issues ruining Overwatch.

59

She can stand to lose another 25 hp.

60

She has been the only effective counter to Tracer the game as ever had.

Tracer was dominate before her, and was dominate after her getting nerfed, totally regardless of Meta.

Her abilities were obviously designed to stop Tracer in her tracks when she was built. The damage break points on her were EXACTLY one Tracer in size.

Right, and when you pull away all of the CC, that will make Tracer a total monster in the ranks where Blizzard cares about balancing.

So, it is rebuild time.

Right, but we also don’t take away all his counters, because we would then nerf the living hell out of him if we did (hopefully with some of the DPS along with it)

The Dev team especially, but the changes they are making for OW2 will push her into a place they can’t ignore.