Just give her the ability to do unscoped sniper shots (semi-joking). Finishing off low-health targets was literally the only good use the SMG had, and that’s basically being taken away.
She needs a compensation or something.
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It is only at max range though, stop acting like she has been gutted…
It’s meant to finish low health targets that are decently close, not far away… Why are you complaining? Widowmaker is a balanced hero in a good spot and she should definitely stay that way.
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To be fair it’s a dumb nerf that didn’t need to happen.
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It is to been on par with other hitscan heroes, no drama thougg
It’s more of a matter of principle to me. The nerf may be insigificant, but the SMG was already utter trash anyway. Why give even more nerfs, however slight?
I am not saying it is deserved, I say it is about equality.
Her SMG has genuinely been gutted. That’s what people aren’t fully understanding… we’re not overexaggerating.
SMG has one niche – to finish of low health heroes with a quickly timed burst. Panic shooting SMG in the close range is a complete waste of time, since that’s time you aren’t spending grappling away or avoiding line of sight.
The SMG is no longer capable of filling that niche;
- Opportunities to fulfill that niche were already few and far between, and Sym’s new ult makes them even more uncommon
- The few times that you get an opportunity to do this, you literally can’t now… people who are one-shot survive typically with 10-30 HP remaining, and duck for cover/healing almost instantly
- In order to even deal any consistent form of damage with the spread, you have to one-tap the SMG once every 0.33 seconds
- Falloff reduces the damage down to 6.5, meaning the maximum amount of consistent DPS she can do at range is literally 19.5 damage (2x headshot multiplier makes that 38.25)
- Armor can reduce the falloff damage to literally 3.25 damage (rounded down)
Furthermore, since SMG is a close range weapon that already had absurd spread or abysmal manual rate of fire, and falloff is a interpolated-distance mechanic that starts kicking at McCree flashbang ranges, it’s a huge damage nerf.
She’s hopeless to fight back against flankers in the close range;
- Variable damage at kiting ranges for divers where anything around Winston kiting distances can deal between 12-9, and those tiny bits of damage lost add up if you one-tap, and spread makes it largely inconsistent that it would give flankers potentially another quartersecond to kill Widow
- Armor cuts all damage below 10 damage down by half – against armored opponents, at range, she’s dealing 3.25 damage.
Other considerations;
- Constructions like turrets, teleporter, and translocator now have way more durability that Widow can’t clear them at a distance without sniping them, which wastes time and gives the enemy team openings to advance on her while she’s hardlocked into the scope animation
- Widow’s sniping is going to be harder – McCree, Soldier, Bastion got their max-range damages buffed, because aim punch increases the more damage you deal to Widow… she will both die more because of that damage and miss more shots because of that same damage.
- Widow duels are now way more one-sided, and fully cemented as sniper-rifle only fights. Previously, “dishonorable/noob” Widows could use descope and SMG burst to clean up mistimed snipershots, because it was smarter, safer, faster, and more damaging than waiting for the sniper rifle firerate recovery. That was a trick that less-skilled Widows could use on better Widows – that trick is now gone making better-aim Widows win every time by spamming 0% shots instead.
- Spamming 0% shots is now the “correct” way to clean up a kill. A noob technique suddenly becoming the “right way to play” is a mistake, just on principle of the thing.
Sounds like you don’t play Widow. Currently, on Live servers Widow’s SMG is always pinpoint precise on the first shot, and the second shot usually hits in close proximity to the first.
If, in an all-too-familiar scenario of you putting an enemy to oneshot status, and they duck for cover… as Widow you have two options.
- wait 0.5s to fire a 12 damage 0% sniper shot
- descope for 0.33s, fire a 3 round burst where the first shot is guaranteed to be as accurate as a sniper shot, and deal between 13-39 damage.
Tell me, which one is better?
Obviously, #2.
But #2 is gone with the falloff changes. #1 is now the correct way to play, and it means that the enemy now has a padded 0.17s of safety, plus additional safety because Overwatch still suffers from the horrible misprediction hitreg bug which is more riskier/more likely to mispredict off of a sniper shot than a 3-round burst.
This is a huge deal.
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If you’d look at my time and profile, you’ll find the contrary. For what reason would you ever use it at long range? That’s what her sniper is for. It’s pinpoint so you can hit the enemy that is too close.
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You didn’t read a single thing I just said, did you?
Descoping and firing an SMG burst has always been the better option to deal more damage, faster, in those split second moments where you’re trying to mop up a one-shot enemy.
That’s gone.
It’s now slower and less reliable to mop up a one-shot enemy ducking for cover.
Profiles are private now, bud.
Can’t check even if I wanted to. And that aside, since you clearly don’t know the above issues, you must not be a well-versed Widow
Or, you git gud and tap the heads 4Head
Edit: Yeah I stopped playing a week ago, if there’s a way to set it to pubs on the forums I will now
Edit edit: I’d have to log on for that, not doing it now
There’s a hitreg bug that happens quite frequently where sniping is unreliable. This bug isn’t as likely with SMG.
Seriously, just read my post above.
And we’re all human. Mistiming a scope charge shot happens all of the time, even pros do it on stream sometimes.
Yes, but there is always room for improvement. And the bug will be fixed, I find sniping was just find a week ago, unless it surfaced in the last 7 days I’ve been just fine.
holy crap they they actually nerfed widow… yea like…
unless good balance changes start happening im not going to come back… this is rediculous, the smg wasn’t overpowered or anything, it was pretty useless.
It’s been over 9 months since the bug was discovered, and they have not fixed it.
That’s an anecdote. Good for you that you don’t experience it because your internet connection is rocksolid and you have plenty of bandwidth allocation.
But you aren’t everyone.
I test the bug on major patch releases, and nothing has changed… it still happens.
Well, then that’s you.
It’s not just him. The bug objectively exists. It’s not like he imagines it. Happens to Kephrii all the time, and he always goes back and shows the footage in slow motion on his streams whenever it happens.
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Never denied that. I’m sure it’s fine for many other people, too.
No, it isn’t. It’s a netcode bug where resent packets don’t honor the dropped packets raytrace coordinates.
Made even worse because camera recoil after a sniper shot is literally to blame for the change in raytrace coordinates.
out of all of the things in widow’s kit why did they nerf the smg, the weakest part? grapple was the problem.
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