Not unlike its multiplayer adversaries, Overwatch has been prone to balance issues and a lack of content during its early days. Thankfully, these are things that will be resolved in time, beginning with today's update.
Blizzard has released an update for Overwatch that specifically targets major balance outliers, focusing on McCree and Widowmaker. As fun as McCree is to play, he has remained the most popular Offensive hero, one that is chosen in nearly 100% of pro level matches and regularly receives Player of the Game. After consideration, Blizzard decided that his ultra competitiveness has resulted from Fan the Hammer (right click) doing too much damage. Today's patch tones its damage down in an effort to bring him in line with other heroes.
Widowmaker's changes are minor, but will have noticeable implications for fans of the character. The biggest change comes from alteration of her Scoped Shot and its multiplier. Timings will need to be relearned as a result.
Below are the official patch notes.
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)
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
- Ultimate charge cost increased by 10%
- Improved stability of the High Bandwidth option in Custom Games
- 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
- Fixed an issue with collision on certain areas of Dorado not blocking line of sight
This patch is now available on PC. It will arrive on Xbox One and PS4 at a later date.
