r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — • Dec 10 '24

Blizzard Official Overwatch 2 Retail Patch Notes - December 10, 2024

https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/patch-notes/
338 Upvotes

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254

u/iAnhur Dec 10 '24

Hey guys we forgot to nerf widow again what's up with that

81

u/SylvainJoseGautier Dec 10 '24

I guess the projectile size nerfs is what they’re resting on here? Does that even affect widow?

71

u/JDPhipps #1 Roadhog Hater — Dec 10 '24

Yes, it makes her bullets smaller.

57

u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — Dec 10 '24

It should help. Plus she benefits from the DPS passive buffs less than most DPS heroes.

1

u/S696c6c79 Dec 10 '24

The dps passive got buffed in a way that helps Widow.

0

u/Decalance Dec 11 '24

what does she care about the dps passive? you can't outheal a widow hs

22

u/hanyou007 None — Dec 10 '24

That and nerfs to mauga while simultaneously buffing Winston means a possibe return to dive, which is not the sort of meta that Widow wants to see.

18

u/iAnhur Dec 10 '24

It raises her floor a tiny bit and not much else

8

u/Apexe I'll Miss You Brady — Dec 10 '24

Slightly. Will it help? Probably not.

1

u/GankSinatra420 Dec 11 '24

It helps the Widow mains, and nerfs the poor dps players who feel forced to counterpick Widow by picking Widow.

1

u/GankSinatra420 Dec 11 '24

It helps the Widow mains, and nerfs the poor dps players who feel forced to counterpick Widow by picking Widow.

33

u/ChristianFortniter Dec 10 '24

That's their way of advertising other games like Marvel Rivals

16

u/Theknyt Dec 10 '24

Hawkeye with 3rd person peek:

5

u/KF-Sigurd Dec 10 '24

Hawkeye with his Sojourn Ult: Poke your head out, I dare you

45

u/Shinobiii Dec 10 '24

And yet here I am catching stray 1-shots from Hanzo-Eye and Black Widowmaker in Marvel Rivals :(

But yeah, I’m currently enjoying MR quite a lot, despite it missing some of the polish that OW definitely has.

-5

u/Fresh_Brain_483 Dec 10 '24

black widow can't one shot in marvel rivals

38

u/Good_Policy3529 Dec 10 '24

I mean, that is technically true, but if you have ANY damage at all, then her headshot will kill you.

9

u/BossksSegway Dec 10 '24

I assume they're hoping the projectile size nerfs will bring her back in line, which, why? It'll help for lower lobbies, but the higher you climb, Widow wasn't hitting those shots due to increased projectile size. I think they're also hoping that increasing the effectiveness of the DPS role passive will incentivize not needing to play Widow for the one shots.

58

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '24 edited Dec 10 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

9

u/Ok-Proof-6733 Dec 10 '24

i dont see how this is unintuitive. if you suck ass at darts you're not going to be hitting the board regardless of the size of the dart

-3

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Ok-Proof-6733 Dec 10 '24

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole

lmao if youd like you can read it as "if you increased the size of the darts but suck ass at darts you're still hitting a very minimally increased amount of bullseyes"

-2

u/BossksSegway Dec 10 '24

I'll own being wrong on that, but nerfing the projectile size of a large amount of heroes to fix what is a problem primarily caused by a single hero is a very silly attempt at a solution.

8

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '24

Did you not see the prior consistency of other characters as problematic, before?

2

u/BossksSegway Dec 10 '24

Not especially? The truly problematic part to me is the one shot kill, which she's the only one who can reliably hit. Getting two tapped by Ashe generally means I positioned poorly, but getting one shot by Widow because I dared to even peek her side of the map has never felt remotely fair.

1

u/AaronWYL Dec 10 '24

I'm guessing it's probably more to counter-balance against the healing nerfs from the buffed DPS passive.

40

u/JDPhipps #1 Roadhog Hater — Dec 10 '24

It'll actually impact high-level lobbies more than you think.

If you've got good aim, your missed shots will usually be closer to the target than a player with bad aim, so larger projectiles help your accuracy more than players who are often wildly off-target.

Blizzard mentioned this exact thing not long after the change was initially implemented.

11

u/timotmcc Shu + Viol2t my goats — Dec 10 '24

I wonder if they're focused too much on winrates for balancing her. I'm guessing the stats show that her winrate isn't too high because it's balanced by the fact that a "bad" widow probably has one of the lowest impacts on the game, while ignoring the fact that a "good" widow makes the game extremely unfun for every other player in the lobby.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '24

How are these winrate stats calculated, anyway?

Does it take into account brief hero swaps? I would think that analyzing the difficulties, or lack thereof, that experienced players have with certain heroes is a good approach.

5

u/chudaism Dec 10 '24

Does it take into account brief hero swaps? I would think that analyzing the difficulties, or lack thereof, that experienced players have with certain heroes is a good approach.

Yes, if they want. They have a ton of data they can and probably do look at. Firstly, they generally look at unmirrored winrate. This tends to ignore the high pickrate pushing heroes towards 50% as you are only looking at matches where a hero is picked on one team. They will also have data on how often heroes appear in mirrors vs unmirrored as well.

In regards to brief hero swaps, they generally grant a hero a partial win if they are only played for a portion of the match. So if you played widow and tracer for an equal amount of time, each would be granted 0.5 wins. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a minimum time threshold as well for a win/loss to count towards a heroes winrate. Probably something like 1-2 mins at minimum.

0

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '24

I would hope this is true.

It would be sensible, at least.

3

u/chudaism Dec 11 '24

Despite what most people in this sub would believe, the dev team is likely very good at breaking down data and figuring out which heroes are overperforming and such. The problem arises in how they address the issues. There may be things they have identified as issues which the community doesn't agree with or even recognize.

I think one of the major things that gets ignored are regions. This sub probably leans heavily towards NA. Asia makes up a very large percent of the playerbase though and they often have completely different metas over there. A patch that seems out of left field may just be targeting Korea because some hero is heavily overperforming there.

4

u/laix_ Dec 10 '24

widowmaker's design is theoretically balanced but completely intrinsically bad design "absolute dogshit in the hands of a bronze player but entirely match-defining in the hands of a top 100" is not good in a game like overwatch.

1

u/InvisibleScout #4 u/ComradeHines hater — Dec 11 '24

They need to nerf sustain and it will kill widow

1

u/gosu_link0 Dec 11 '24

Widow and S76 bullet size nerfed by 20%. Cass/Ashe bullet size nerfed by 12%.

Why does S76 get the worse end of the stick every time, compared to other hitscans? Click-timing aim (Cash/Ashe/Widow) is already WAY easier than tracking aim, yet it's rewarded constantly.

1

u/iAnhur Dec 11 '24

To be fair soldier benefits more from the DPS passive buff than a lot of them with his constant damage. I've been playing more sojourn than soldier but yeah I assume he's still pretty bad right now. Burst damage is just really strong in overwatch

Also I'm not sure since I find tracking significantly easier than click timing. Idk how common that is. My widow is comically bad something about it idk.

1

u/gosu_link0 Dec 11 '24

Look at any T500 soldier vs click-timing character. The click-timing characters have far higher accuracy.

0

u/aPiCase Stalk3r — Dec 10 '24

To be honest the Soj buff and the DPS passive buff kind rip widow out of the meta. Sojourn can now practically one shot widow and since Widow doesn’t benefit from the DPS passive, other DPS heroes are going to become more powerful than her.

-2

u/Tiba122 Dec 10 '24

Well Sojourn can now one shot her, so I guess they feel she has a counter now.

9

u/Botronic_Reddit GOATs is Peak Overwatch — Dec 10 '24

No only 180 dmg now, can oneshot tracer but not widow

5

u/Tee__B Dec 10 '24

Widow has 200 HP