The PC version of Overwatch has received a patch this week that significantly altered two of the game’s more popular characters. McCree’s Fan-the-Hammer alternate fire was finally nerfed, while sniper Widowmaker was rebalanced to keep them from being “must-picks” and “unstoppable.”
McCree’s Fan-the-Hammer alt fire has been brought down from the ludicrous 70 damage it was doing previously to a much more reasonable 45. Additionally, the period of time before he starts to reload has been buffed to 0.3 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds.
“McCree was performing too well against all targets, making him feel like a must-pick in many situations,” read the developer comments published with the patch. “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’s Widow’s Kiss alt-fire scoped shot also copping a nerf, dropping from 15 to 12, but her scoped shot damage multiplier hasn’t been changed. Further, her headshot damage multiplier has been buffed from 2 to 2.5x and you’ll now have to wait for the unscoping animation to complete before you can scope again. Lastly, the cost of using her ultimate ability has been increased by 10.
“In the right hands, Widowmaker can often feel unstoppable — even when just landing body shots instead of critical headshots,” reads Blizzard’s developer comments. “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.”
In addition to the character rebalances, the patch also brings better stability to the high bandwidth option in custom games and has fixed a bug that was allowing Mercy to build her Ultimate while damage boosting an enemy as they attack a barrier or ice wall. Another bug that allows Reaper to Shadow Step to map locations the developers would prefer he didn’t has also been squished.
Lastly, the patch has also resolved an issue with collision detection on different parts of the Dorado map that weren’t blocking line of sight.
Blizzard says that all of the changes listed above will roll out as part of a larger update for the PS4 and Xbox One versions at a “later date.”
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