Overwatch 2Jun 14, 2016 1:13 pm CT

Overwatch patch nerfs McCree and Widowmaker

By Alex Ziebart
Editor-in-Chief, Emeritus

Overwatch received a new PC balance patch today targeted specifically at McCree and Widowmaker, bringing nerfs to both of them. McCree’s Fan the Hammer ability will now be decidedly less deadly against tanks and require more accuracy against smaller targets. Widowmaker’s base damage has been lowered, with an increase to her damage multiplier on headshots — meaning headshots will do just as much damage as they ever have, but hitting anywhere else will be less deadly. Sorry, Widowmaker: You won’t be one-shotting Zenyatta with a bullet to the elbow anymore.

Originally Posted by Lylirra (Official Post)

A new patch is now live on Windows PC. Read below to learn more about the latest changes.

To share your feedback, please post in the General Discussion forum.
For a list of known issues, visit our Bug Report forum.
For troubleshooting assistance, visit our Technical Support forum.

Please note that many of these changes will be rolled into a larger patch for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at a later date.

Hero Balance Changes

McCree

Peacekeeper
- Alternate Fire
  - Recovery time (i.e. the amount of time before McCree starts reloading) decreased from 0.75 seconds to 0.3 seconds
  - Bullet damage decreased from 70 to 45

Developer Comments: McCree was performing too well against all targets, making him feel like a must-pick in many situations. By reducing the damage of his alternate fire, McCree is now significantly weaker against tanks like Roadhog and Reinhardt, but still maintains his lethality against smaller targets like Tracer and Genji.

Widowmaker

Widow’s Kiss
- Alternate Fire (Scoped Shot)
  - Base damage decreased from 15 to 12
    - Note: Scoped shot damage multiplier remains unchanged
  - Headshot damage multiplier increased from 2x to 2.5x
    - Players must now wait for the unscoping animation to completely finish before scoping
Infra-Sight
- Ultimate cost increased by 10%

Developer Comments: In the right hands, Widowmaker can often feel unstoppable—even when just landing body shots instead of critical heads shots. The changes to her alternate fire weaken body shot damage while leaving her headshot damage unchanged. Additionally, we felt her Ultimate ability, Infra-Sight, was coming up a little too frequently, especially considering its impact on the game.

Bug Fixes

General

Improved stability of the High Bandwidth option in Custom Games

Heroes

Fixed a bug that allowed Mercy to gain Ultimate charge whenever damage boosting an ally who was attacking a barrier or Ice Wall

Fixed a bug that allowed Reaper to Shadow Step to unintended locations on a certain maps

Maps

Fixed an issue with collision on certain areas of Dorado not blocking line of sight

While the changes to McCree and Widowmaker were likely necessary — both of them were unreasonably dominant — I wonder if the change to Widowmaker’s scope might prove more frustrating than anything. Players often popped in and out of scope to assess the battlefield; taking quick glimpses at the world around you allowed a good player increase their map awareness more than anything else. Widowmaker will become easier to counter entirely because she now needs to live in her scope.

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