Widowmaker is overrated and I'm going use NUMBERS to prove it in this topic

General Discussion
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Numbers!? Whatever shall we do!?

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Or maybe you just haven’t been paying enough attention to their arguments. Nobody’s denying that Widowmaker takes skill, but when you have a character that’s nothing more than a throw pick in the hands of a Gold player, and is ridiculously powerful in the hands of a GM player, that’s bad game design.

Other characters have a much better skill curve; there’s a big difference between a GM Soldier and a Gold Soldier, but unlike a Gold Widowmaker, a Gold Soldier isn’t throwing.

Widowmaker’s kit is an unsalvageable mess. She needed a rework a long time ago.

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False

Then why are gold/plat players complaining that an “op” hero that is “op” only in gm should be nerfed? Do they really care about gm players feelings that bad?

I disagree, it means that gold players aren’t good enough to properly utilize her.

The devs has stated that soldier is an intro character hero for people coming from other shooters, thus his skill floor is lower, allowing golds, the average rank, to utilize him in an appropriate way in that rank. Widow has always been a high skill floor hero, so only higher ranks can use her correctly.

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Because the design of Widowmaker’s kit leaves you almost entirely at the mercy of Widowmaker’s aim. There are very few ways to reliably avoid death at Widowmaker’s hands. You can try to throw off her aim by moving erratically, but you can’t actually dodge the attack.

When you look at the kill cam after dying to Widowmaker, you often find yourself asking “How could I have possibly avoided that? That’s BS”, rather than “Next time I can do XYZ to avoid that”. There just isn’t enough counterplay to Widowmaker, and that’s why she frustrates people. It has nothing to do with her skill requirement.

Okay, then there’s a big difference between a GM Zarya/Zenyatta/Lucio/Ashe and a Gold Zarya/Zenyatta/Lucio/Ashe, but the Gold Zarya/Zenyatta/Lucio/Ashe isn’t throwing.

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This is a great post. You’ll probably be met with a wall of emotional plays, but this is great. Facts are hard to dispute.

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So then they’re making a case for an unfun hero, but the majority of the times widow is discussed she is called op. And, there are many ways to avoid getting headshot by her.

Because widow has a high skill floor. All of the heroes you mentioned have an aspect to their kit that makes them team reliant, so the team can pick up their slack.

Maybe I’m just different, but I used to have a TRASH widow, this is reflected in my qp accuracy stats for her, 32% accuracy? yikes. But at no point was I mad or upset that players who were good enough to use her killed me. I just accepted that I wasn’t good enough. But after I was dominated by a plat widow in a comp game, I decided to make a widow account and to go into many widow hs only games. Now I can contest an enemy widow just fine. I actually made the effort, and it seems the complainers aren’t even trying.
That’s just playing her into the widow mirror, there are still other heroes that you can learn to dispute her.

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Jesus, Dink…you are still completely missing the point.

It’s not about how many kills Widowmaker gets. It’s about what she does to the game when she’s played. Honestly, a Widow could go and get zero kills and still feel oppressive to play against. It’s just the way she is because of how she is designed.

Go here, and read the OP in this thread: Why Widowmaker is hated, but Ashe is loved

It’s long, but it’s 100% true and answers all of your questions.

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Plat post

11 chars required.

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yeah, Snipers usually get more solo kills and final blows. Whats going to get more solo kills, a soldier who takes time to kill someone, giving time for others to damage, or a person who an one shot

also, same as before. in COD, kill stealing happens with machine guns. not with snipers.

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Not going to say she is or isn’t OP here, but I will say that the data isn’t exactly conclusive here. Mostly because stats especially on the GM level are dependent on what is meta at the moment. In a meta where Widow isn’t a good pick, her stats will suffer in general. Likewise, in a meta where she excels, they’ll soar.

Now, what might be more interesting, and possibly damning, is to see what the average stats are in middling to lower ranks. Because there, people don’t really play only whats meta, and have a tendency to play whatever they want. However, the problem then becomes private profiles not giving the full picture either. All in all, players probably don’t have enough information at their disposal to really say one way or another with data like this.

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It’s not so much the elims or damage done though. If she did more damage than a hero like soldier there wouldn’t be much of a reason to pick soldier at all. I mean even now there isn’t. Widow’s advantage is that she can one shot people. Burst damage. Most other damage dealers should be dealing more overall sustained damage over the course of the game and participating in more elims. But the one shots triumph over all. And she just doesn’t have much counterplay other than a better widow.

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Another funny stat from the best WM players is the ‘scoped critical hits kills - average per 10 minutes’

Most common number is a bit above 3.5

So many one shots.

So oppressive.

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Stats in OW can be kind of different in comparison to other games. Without context to the stats, do you really understand what the numbers mean? I remember Your Overwatch did a video that was (for lack of better words) shaming an Ashe player and in that video the commentator explained about how even if the Ashe is doing high Damage numbers, it isn’t very significant. So, let us go point by point on these and just ask a few questions:

Elims in this game is very hard to track because as long as a person did something during the kill time, they get an Elim. I would honestly take this stat more seriously if Mercy always had a 0 in that stat (unless she fired her gun that is). With things like Zen’s Orb, Sombra Hack, and Mercy’s beam contributing to Elims, then that stat is hard to come by. So how can you measure someone’s worth in Elims given that info?

This is another hard one to look at Widow for, since she is a burst style of hero. I’m wondering on Blizzard’s end if you are capable of going above say 150 damage against a 150 HP hero.

That being said, people who are more sustain damage style are going to wrack up more damage in this stat. Hero like Ashe with her Dynamite, or Mei with her Freeze can wrack up the numbers, especially if you add healing into the mix. Normally in games Burst damage don’t have the same numbers as Sustain damage.

With how law that number is, and it being ranked 20th, tells me more that either a) Overbuff is maybe not accurate, or b) goes along the lines of what I said above about Elims. That is a very ranking, especially when you add this stat:

Just seems that her Elim/Death ratio would be higher ranked, but that is hard to look at.

Now Deaths is where I have the biggest issue in the stats that you provide:

If you watch OWL (not assuming you do or don’t) you would see that there are times that players would die in order to reset with their team. Also, many times during a Widow duel, Mercy would Rez them and they can get the revenge kill, or die on the point to either go into Overtime or reset with the team. Unfortunately, with this knowledge, deaths can be inflated to not tell the whole story.

Now, with stats, you can not tell how good or OP/UP a hero is. Two heroes that I can give examples about this are Wrecking Ball and Sombra. WB is not a hero that is designed to wrack up the stat numbers. He is a displacement tank that set up kills and situations for his team to do their job better. If his stats are high, either he is doing beyond well for his rank, or his team is not doing well at all.

Sombra is the same way, but in her case being so team dependent MORE than WB, she is considered by most as being UP. So if we use Overbuff and look at her stats, we could determine that her nerfs that are coming are not warranted at all. So how do explain them coming?

It is because of her kit that is interacting with other heroes and how OW is designed. This is the main reason why I feel that Widow needs to be looked at as well. They are heroes that at the Top levels of play can produce vast changes that can’t be seen by stats. For Sombra, supports like Lucio and Zen had to pull a Mercy (hide-and-Ult) style of play when they knew that Sombra was about to EMP. This changes the dynamic of the game because 1 EMP at the high levels of play is the difference between winning and losing.

Now for Widow, she literally has created 3-4 different “metas” just for existing:

  • Dive (counter the Widow)
  • Double Sniper (contains the Widow)
  • GOATS (to stop the Widow OSK potential)
  • Bunker (to cover the Widow / hide from the Widow)

Tell me 1 other DPS hero that can define so many “metas” just for existing, and nothing gets nerfed? Even Hanzo, who arguable could compete for that other DPS hero, needed an ability rework and still gets nerfed because of how strong he can be. So if someone like Hanzo, who is the only one who can compete with Widow on the grounds of “meta” defining, still gets nerfs, then why not Widow?

Also, since we are using stats, these stats are pretty interesting to me (on the OW wiki for reference):

  • 45% charge is the minimum required to one hit kill 150 health heroes with a critical shot.
  • 63% charge is the minimum required to one hit kill 200 health heroes with a critical shot.
  • 82% charge is the minimum required to one hit kill 250 health unarmored heroes with a critical shot.

So really, Widow doesn’t even need to have a 100% charge to be effective. Imagine RH being able to kill you as soon as his Hook landed, or as you were being pulled in. People would be calling for nerfs almost immediately! So the questions I pose is this:

  • If Sombra, who is significantly weaker in Ranked than Widow can see “justified” nerfs, why not Widow?
  • If Hanzo is just as oppressive as Widow is can get nerfs, why not Widow?
  • If OW itself is changing so much, why does Widow still get to stay the same and/or buffed?

TL:DR: Stats without context don’t tell the whole story. There is more to Widow and why she is oppressive that stats can’t show. Other heroes get nerfed all the time, why does Widow get to stay the same and/or buffed.

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man, if only her counters weren’t terrible right now.

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Wrong she has lots of counterplay:

  • Tracer rounds
  • Loud footsteps
  • Tall unmistakable profile which also makes her easier to hit
  • Good sized head hitbox as a sniper
  • The slowest movement in the game while scoped making her easier to hit than what she is aiming at, meaning if you’re in range of your own falloff range and see her first you should win.
  • crouch spamming is limited and is the only “spam” she can really do in scoped mode
  • Strafe spamming is not limited for her opponents but next to useless for her while scoped
  • Barriers
  • Cover
  • mobility to get in on her and make things hard to hit
  • flankers, she’s scoped in and has limited FoV
  • necessity to relocate if people suppress her perch, which is easy to do for many reasons listed above
  • far from help or support when flanked, making her even more vulnerable to flankers
  • genji reflect, he can literally shut her down with just a well timed reflect
  • doesn’t have a teamwipe ult like most DPS allowing more opportunities vs her in general and no crutch

Feel free to debunk ALL of them to match your statement of NO counterplay as that is the only way your statement could be right.

By definition counterplay is the ability of someone to perform an action based on information or design that will effect the outcome in their favor vs a certain hero which will be pitted against the other players skill.

Tracer rounds for example give away Widow’s position very easily if she fires even a single shot. Players can use this information to find cover, use ADAD strafing, mobiilty, or to use suppressive return fire, or even just outright kill her and more. Because the tracer rounds exist, you are given information to react to.

Using the map and sightlines is another example of counterplay. Widow can’t shoot you if she can’t see you. And sightlines are often narrow especially over long distances. Knowing her location is counterplay for this reason, which ties back into tracer rounds and loud footsteps and even her tall profile.

You said she has NO counterplay. That has been shown to be not just wrong a bit, but completely.

Also you say there’s data to back up your claim but provide none, that’s not how this works. The burden of proof is on you since you are stating it. It just makes it appear you have no data to back it up and are trying to cover it up.

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I’m not in favor of nerfing Widow, but I do love playing Devil’s Advocate.

Widow is actually not good at getting damage. Picture this, a Genji being pocketed by a Mercy. Widow headshots Genji for 200 damage, Genji dies. Soldier, however, is going to need closer to 250-300 damage to kill Genji, because Mercy will be healing him through Soldier’s damage. It’s not surprising that she doesn’t get a lot of damage per game compared to other heroes, because it takes effectively less damage for her to kill the same enemies.

Elims/Game and Elim/Death ratio aren’t great metrics for how strong Widow is either. Her gun isn’t something you’re meant to spray with. Soldier will get more elims than Widow because he’ll be dealing damage to more enemies on average. If he just clips someone who dies he gets elimination credit even if they kill themself. In fact, out of the 6 heroes you pointed out that have more elims per death, only one of them doesn’t have a single AoE.

Widow should be first (or at least top 5) in solo kills and final blows based on the nature of her kit.

Also, her pickrate may not be #1 overall, but in the last 3-6 months she is the #1 DPS hero as all heroes chosen more than her are tanks and supports. In fact, in the last 3 months Widow’s pickrate is 5.68%, Hanzo is 5.67%, and the next DPS hero is Genji at 3.85. The next most used DPS hero that isn’t a sniper has nearly half the pickrate.

So your numbers aren’t wrong but they lack context, and because of that they don’t prove anything.

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If mirroring should be an excuse to dismiss these stats, Orisa is almost 100% mirrored and still flops around a whopping 56% winrate.

  • But she is a meta main tank so it’s understandable for her to be picked this much

That is fine and all, but the argument here is that the stats more than prove she is, way more often than not, gets picked by both teams in every game, yet still manages to have a higher winrate. This proves that “mirroring evens out the average winrate” is not a practically correct statement, even if it theoretically makes sense.

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Elims and damage don’t make any sense for you to use as an argument. Sym gets credit for a kill if one of her turrets deals 2 damage to someone before they die. And damage doesn’t matter if you don’t actually end up killing the person you’re damaging.

If you were to actually find out who actually kills Widow the most, that would be interesting… because I suspect it’s mostly other Widows and Hanzos or a team diving her… which wouldn’t exactly help your cause.

Edit: Also, lets not forget that a Widow forces the enemy to play completely differently to avoid getting oneshot out of nowhere. That alone is pretty powerful IMO

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No, people are denying it. They’re saying that any skill Widow takes is negated by the fact that “no one” can contest her. That she can take an infinite number of shots, and eventually one of them would hit.

Unless it’s Ana, or Ashe, or McCree.

What, no, that’s ridiculous. If a Widow isn’t killing anyone (like when I play her) then she isn’t doing anything. She doesn’t provide any threat to the enemy team, which is the one thing she should have because she doesn’t have anything else. Playing against a Widow who gets no kills is an easy game, because it’s a 5v6 right off the bat. 4v6 if the Widow is getting pocketed like everyone claims the red Widow is.

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You’re gonna have to show me some of these posts. I definitely haven’t seen any such posts that actually got a like.

Huh? None of those characters are a throw pick in Gold. There are plenty of characters that perform worse than all of them, in both pickrate and winrate.

He’s saying that even if Widowmaker doesn’t get any kills, she changes how the enemy team plays, and she makes the game less fun. Because you have no way to know how good the red Widowmaker is. For all you know, your head will be blown clean off the moment you aren’t behind a barrier, and that makes her feel oppressive to play against. You are at the mercy of Widowmaker’s aim.

There’s little that you can do to keep yourself from being deleted; you mostly have to pray that Widowmaker isn’t good enough to land her shots. And I have yet to meet anyone who says they enjoy it when they feel like they have no control over whether they live or die.

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