How to Fix: WidowMakers One Shot in Overwatch 2

Widows Turn!

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Opening song was made by the RemoteIslandSyndrome on youtube

[subzro]

great video as always, man. but as a nerf that id like to suggest, you can put a laser on her scope and so that way, you know if a widow is looking at you. this would be easy to impliment as well because we saw it happen in the battle for olympus event. we can also work around your idea of the "huntress" mechanic as an idea to indicate that widow has eyes on you, maybe if her crosshair is near you when she's scoping at you, you hear a hiss noise or something like that. we can also make her grapple audible, to provide some counterplay for when a widow is doing a jumpshot on hollywood first point, for example.

[CancelTeenTitansGO]

When you have teammates who are basically Stevie Wonder, Widow is basically impossible to be dealt with

[cobaltsnake]

The problem with widow is that her one shot is literally the only part of her kit that's fun to use. that's why people play her.
I think the best way to do it would be to give her an ability like sombra to put a target on so she can do more damage to that target specifically. and an interesting thing to do would be to not give that ability an infinite range. so basically what I see is widow first get in the middle of the fight to mark a target, then she uses her grapple (with a now shortened cooldown, maybe two charges?) to position herself like a sniper usually do. This produces a few things. first of all, it goes with the general direction of overwatch which is to make every character more mobile. widow is probably the only character in the game who can still create value by never moving, even bastion is out of that state now. second, it prevents cheesy kills from the spawn room like on king's row. finally, widow now can still put pressure on the ennemy team just by existing but only on one character at a time, forcing only that character to play safely while the rest of the team can move more freely. Of course widow can still shoot the other team members but it would do way less damage but she can still help her team while waiting for an opportunity to hit the marked target.
The target would stay on a character with no time limit until they either die or widow puts the target on another character, and the ultimate would automatically put a target on every character on top of the current wallhack so the old widow can still shine for a few seconds.
venom mine could also temporarily put a target on the ennemy so that widow can defend herself if she's jumped on or as a way to surprise an enemy that didn't see the mine in the middle of the fight and is now exposed and marked, leaving widow a short moment to kill them before they hide.

[strawberrygemz]

Ok that Venom Sniper idea though???? Actually would fit so well and actually make her feel unique. Unfortunately Widow doesn't really get much of a character fantasy in her gameplay because she's literally just a normal sniper character but with a grapple hook..
Honestly I always felt like they weirdly never really tapped into Widow's whole feel and fantasy, especially after u watch her cinematic.
I feel like Widow should've always been, and could be, almost a different side of the Sombra coin, right? I mean definitely no invisibility or hacking (unless she stops being a one-shot hero) but like come on, she's a spy and she's supposed to be spider-like. We see her all over the place in cinematics and even highlight intros and victory poses, her doing the thing where she hangs upside down from her grapple hook, LIKE A SPIDER, sneakily.
I feel like she should be able to do that, and honestly making her a venom based sniper could actually make that work!

[rage_tv]

Reverse fall off damage is a really good idea I’ve never thought about. Games like battlefield 1 have this mechanic for snipers and I despise it. It doesn’t make sense for a game like that on a balancing standpoint but for Overwatch it does.

[Pixel-rcqn]

My suggestion for reworking Widowmaker would be to rework her sniper rifle into that of a railgun trope. She already has a charging mechanic that could be used as a base. She could hold primary fire and charge up her sniper rifle to 100% damage over the course of 1.5s. It could make a very mild, but recognizable noise for very aware players. A beam of light would also emit from the barrel for her maximum range, getting more intense and noticeable the more her railgun is charged. Maybe if the beam is close to you or directly on you, you will receive a subtle visual warning so you won't have to rely on team callouts to spot the beam constantly. She would not be able to fire a sniper shot until it is fully charged. She could hold a fully charged sniper shot for a few seconds before it decays back to 0% to prevent hard camping. Her damage could be buffed from 120 to 150 but with her headshot multiplier being reduced from x2.5 to x2.0 to keep her max damage per shot at 300. I also think damage falloff should be properly implemented to discourage being across the map sniping as Overwatch has evolved to be a different game than when it was first conceptualized, and incredibly long range characters don't fit it in my opinion. Maybe a range greater than Ashe's, but not by an incredible amount. A health buff back to 200 and a reduced cooldown on grappling hook would fit her less in the generic sit and wait sniper role that doesn't fit Overwatch's gameplay to more of a hybrid with a fun mobility item to mess around with and hit shots with.

[FrostedKellogg]

Great ideas!! Especially the wild card sounds like fun. I was thinking, for the one shot, giving her scope a glare. That way you know when your getting scoped but it’s not a HUGE indicator. Also as a wild card idea, it would be cool if her ultimate did the same thing as it does now, BUT she gets ONE shot that shoots through walls and give you the opportunity to kill anyone you want IF your skill is good enough.

[Neeeeeeeeeto]

the best, to me, was the prey mechanic bc it makes her more "overwatch" and less "generic fps game"

[JLAME.OFFICIAL]

I think Widow is totally balanced. Because I came from Team Fortress 2. And there Sniper can quick scope you (headshot) for 150 hp. And looking at Widow she looks pretty ok

[tenterment]

i play widow a lot, and i like the ideas of the reverse-fall off (gives a real reason to use her nonscoped primary fire instead of going for snapshot flicks) and the huntress mechanic. My only issue with the huntress mechanic is what would classify being 'prey'? Usually, looking down heavy active sightlines, I have tons of people im my scope at a time. Would that mean I need to perfectly track this person as well to even give them the debuff? Or is it more of a proximity of the crosshair? And if thats the case, who does it target? It sounds like a good rework, just the tiny bits got me thinking about how it would work more in depth. As mentioned from other comments, i agree with the sentiment that high dps/low dmg just turns her into a diet ashe. The venom sniper also sounds cool, but I feel this could become even more annoying to the enemy team.
My idea to throw it in is very simple. More recoil. Widow has (or at least it feels like) no recoil. This allows moderate shots to easily domino the whole team. Forcing the cross hair high and making the widow recenter her aim I feel would really help lower the threshold for just destroying everyone. Keep the ideas comin!

[tau-]

I think the venom sniper is the best idea, however playing basically it during the April fools patch wasn't very fun. I'd say to split the difference between current Widowmaker and that version, make scoped shots only do 140 damage, with no headshot multiplier, however getting a headshot applies both a wallhack effect and 160 damage over time. So against isolated enemies who don't have a support or can't get to a healthpack, she's just as deadly as now, (like an assassin should be) but shooting into a team with two supports, her lethality is severely reduced.

[Veliladon]

I think the ultimate problem is that sniping isn't really indicative of the real world. In the real world you have a lot of movement just from the body itself going into the gun whereas in OW it's just limited to the mouse inputs. If I don't move mouse, target doesn't move. So if I was going to do anything I'd make the scope have a fair bit of smooth jitter by default and then when you're scoped your LSHIFT becomes a "hold breath" mechanic which would have a D.Va defense matrix style duration and recharge which would tone down the jitter a lot more. This would take her beyond "aim training and click heads 5Head" gameplay.

[calvinnowicki]

My biggest problem is that a widow with high enough skill has no disadvantage at any range, her falloff isn’t significant enough to matter, at close range she can still one shot, unless you have your own one shot there’s no way to match the ttk of the widow at any range. This makes widow straight oppressive on maps where there’s long sightlines because she’s at max advantage when the fight starts and never really loses her advantage even when she’s at 50hp and getting dove by a flanker because she can still land a one shot and nothing the flanker did mattered

[RewindMods]

"Fun for me but not for thee" might as well be her motto seeing as the only counters she has is praying your team is good or that she's absolutely dog water. I genuinely do not understand how people are so accepting of a one-shot hitscan character in a game like OW, especially with the changes that have been made with OW 2.

Edit: I am often genuinely impressed by the aim of Widow players but the fact that no other character can freely get one shots with the same level of range or frequency as her is another reason I don't like the kit.

[coreypark]

i like your huntress idea, i think while it takes away the one-shot part of widows kit that most people love, it adds enough depth that it will still be fun. #3 though, just feels like widow would become ashe

[xythiera]

The problem comes from map designe . Most maps right now basicly make it so that your widow wins or loses you the game you cant ever get to a good widow befor you or your team is dead . Specialy with how easy it is for supports to just perma pocket widow . So the frustration isnt widows 1 shot its the fact that you cant punish a good widow without your own good widow so when your own widow gets diffed its a lose and go next the same happens when you have a dominant widow and just rolle the enemys . Hitscans in general are so much better then everything els in the game . If you get into a skill rang were every widow hits it becomes widow vs widow or lose

[Corryx]

I agree with everything here unfortunately you're expecting everyone to be humble and know they fucked up.

[kubaxterg]

Just play behind the wall, sure but whos gonna push the palloud? Also idk about my dps but then there is a good Widow they just cant kill her, we are diamond and master Players btw. And if they have a good Widow and her team is protecting her, thats a gg
But interested to see the full vid youre planning

[diobrando]

Play cover okay cool but for how long? somebody eventually is going to have to come out and push they objective or payload. And diving her when the enemy team is protecting her is so dead, especially when mercy is pocketing her too.

[Vandassar]

To be fair. The whole venom thing although it sounds like t would suit Widow. It could work fine as a main mechanic for another whole hero. Why not have both?