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Widowmaker and McCree get nerfed in the latest Overwatch patch

by: Nathan -
More On: Overwatch

While the madness of E3 is in full swing right now, there have been some other non E3 

Blizzards Overwatch dropped a new patch today and with it brought nerfs to two of the games heroes. It should come to no surprise that those two were Widowmaker and McCree.

The problem with McCree was his stun and alternate fire ability being able to absolutely melt tanks. With Widowmaker, she could essentially shut down entire teams by being able to do ridiculous body shot damage. 

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 (Probably reverse patch form this)

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 (Ult)
  • Ultimate charge 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.

I have put more time into this game with Widowmaker more than anyone else and I agree with this. Her damage is BS at times and can easily shut down an opposing team on payload maps. She still looks like she can shut down teams if she can hit those headshots but she really shouldn't be able to drop enemies with a single shot if they aren't headshots.