Hmmm... The Sniper Issue

General Discussion
17

It is not particularly easy to land precise headshots repeatedly, but it isn’t hard to either. Widowmaker only really need to hit one and she does her part but she also has access to her scope and is usually able to find these shots without being hassled by the enemy (who are usually far far away).

Pick rate doesn’t exactly show balance.

“Just deal damage” is a piss-poor excuse for a counter-argument, mate. Widowmaker can easily escape from targets with her grapple and deter close quarter ganks with venom mine and her auto-fire.

The problem is that the mobile, high damage, rapid fire, long range sniper damage is still there. There is a problem if the only way to break her is to engineer an undesirable situation for her. Of course she’ll be weak if she is reloading while stunned on 1% health while in a corner stuck between a wall and a Lucio-ulted Reinhardt - she isn’t impossible to kill!

But she is still a problem as a sniper with almost all of the drawbacks taken away. Her shoulder should be shattered from recoil of repeated close sequence shots and she should not be able to stand and aim with such precision with that same recoil. Talon-augmented Agent, sure, but she has little to no scoped sway, no weapon fatigue from firing repeated high powered rounds and no physical exhaustion at all from lugging a proper sniper around the map.

The problem with Snipers is that developers seem them as a cool power fantasy weapon. They put them in their games and then forget that there are reasons that AWPs or M82s are not standard-issue among regular infantry.

I know Widowmaker was meant to be a butt-expanding deadly femme fatale but honestly if she was a sinister, crouching patient shot Hero then that’d be cooler!

Heck, my idea for her would have her baseline weaponry be a machine-gun, some venom mines and the grapple. Even an option for her venom mines to “detect” enemies and grant her old team-wide wall hack ability. Maybe even hunt them down. Her ultimate would allow her to use her sniper rifle for a number of shots. Her scope would mark enemies through walls and detect them if they begin to move within her zoom. Her shots would have a degree of penetration through solid objects.

At least that would give her reasonable threat with reasonable drawbacks. Her machine gun and venom/spider mines allow her to help her team mark targets and hamper the enemy. Her ultimate would put a lot of fear into the enemy. Reasonable fear. She’d be powerful during open fights but also prepared for if the enemy goes and hides. If Widowmaker had prepared properly, she’d be able to combo her scuttling venom mines with her ultimate to give her enemies a tough choice - run and be detected, marked and potentially shot through a wall, or stand still, found by a venom mine, DoT’d, detected, marked and potentially shot through a wall.

At least it would mean that the anti-fun of instant death is restricted.

18

So in short it isn´t at all, it is the hardest thing to hit in game and you only have 1 shot, that needs recharging so no spraying and dragging (praying to hit it), you have to be dead accurate, most of the time on very fast moving objects, which btw has no deaccel.

Not always, but in general you can always get something from it. Her winrates and pickrates clearly showcase, that anyone below GM, is not able to carry with her, meaning that she is easily countered/is not OP at all at these ranks. Even in GM she only has a slightly higher pickrate than Hanzo and not even the best winrate in the game as a DPS. That in no way is a “Holy sh*t she is crazy OP”.

If she has to use grapple to escape close combat, most of not all characters have a shorter CD ability to catch her, making it an almost won fight all the time in that case.

First off there are many things outside close combat that completely negates her, shields and cover. There are a plethora of this on any map.

Also, it is exactly the same way to counter many other heroes. For example doomfist is the exact opposite, generally just harass and poke him so much from range, he cannot get in easily, you effectively stop him from doing his job a lot of the time.

Neither do any other f*cking character, but because it is Widow, she has to have these ? Soldier doesn´t tire, heals wounds with a small light and have no weapon sway either.

Neither is requiring more than one bullet to the brain, there is a reason CS is a completely one shot centered game, it is way more realistic, yet the AWP is still an insanely powerfull weapon for that reason and it functions near identical to Widows except it needs no charging.

You miss all points about this game, it is filled with gap closing mobility, insanely fast heroes, no real long sight lines or long range friendly sniping opportunities and generally a decent TTK and few one shots, outside of HS sniping. Yet you want to have snipers be slower, bulkier have disadvantages that no other character/hero archetypes have, while all this is also present. That is insane.

1 Like
19

High skill, high reward

22

Nerf Widowmaker and Hanzo please Blizzard people are begging you from the start, they ruin the game

1 Like
23

widow and hanzo has nothing to do with skill, they are overpowered so it’s easy to get kills

24

Widowmaker is pretty much useless in the current meta.
Unless your team isn’t running any barriers.

The only situation where hanzo and widow are "op"are 2-2-2 comps

But even than they can be easily countered using a winston.

I’ve said this a hundred times before and I will do so again.

This game has a large variety of heroes to choose from each with their own unique mechanics and game play.

As a means to create a diverse and in depth game experience utilizing them in a strong and balanced setup.

Not a means to pick 1 and stick to it for the rest of oyur life.
Nope, widow in enemy team? pick a winston.
Tracer in enemy team? pick a mc’cree.
Bastion in Enemy team? pick a genji or Sombra.

It’s not the characters that are op it’s people lacking the will and knowledge to counter.

1 Like
25

And Genji

20 blah blah

26

I believe that people get rekt by widow and hanzo mainly because they dont respect the need for cover, you need to stay close to cover ALL THE TIME! Even with a shield tank on youre team, positioning and cover is a skill is something everyone should try to improve on. This is something that is easily forgotten, especially in low ranks. Thats something i have learned while ranking up from silver to mid diamond. If i get taken out by widow or hanzo then most of the time its my own fault for not paying attention to enemy positions and my need for cover.

2 Likes
27

Lol how on earth is genji overpowered?

I mean, maybe in silver genjis go uncontested, but that could be said for any DPS character. A good mcree could make mcree look overpowered (he isn’t).

Literally pick any of the following to combat genji.

  • Soldier 76 : Your self heal makes it hard for genji to confirm a kill on you.
  • Sombra : Right click.
  • Ana : Antinade will make him want to unbind X.
  • Mcree : E + RMB
  • Roadhog : Hook + tankiness, but be careful of feeding
28

This is true for an overwhelming majority of interactions, especially in lower and even middle ranks.
However, widowmaker and hanzo’s fire rate is still complete nonsense.
I genuinely don’t understand how widow is allowed to fire a hitscan shot that does helix rocket damage every second.

29

How is he not…?

30

I see your point, but… that is like the only ability that needs to be respected from her, the primary fire. She has no utility to the team unless you count her ult, which is mostly beneficial to herself. As someone else said, high risk high reward hero. If she was so easy every pleb would be in masters by now.

You also has to count in that we are all different as players, some have great aim but low game sense and plays on same SR that have not so great aim but better game sense. This making her look overpowered when a great aimer uses her. If that makes sense :thinking:

31

Well he is hard to play as you need to utilize all his abilities to the fullest, that includes the clucky wall climb, double jumps, maps needs to be memorized very accurately so you can use that movement and get an advantage from it, and a very good understanding of when and how to flank properly. This making his skill set hard to use and even harder to master and match other heroes performance, easily unconsistent dmg if not played by a skilled player that has alot of time on him.

Meanwhile any previous fps player can pick up 76, widow, hanzo and do pretty great right off the bat.

32

When it comes to Genji I feel like he is simply too fun to play hence his pickrate. Kind of like Pudge in Dota 2 - not the best character but so satisfying he has always been one of, if not the top pick.

1 Like
33

If it wasn’t obvious from the counters I mentioned, CC is his complete downfall.

Literally just stun him. He does less damage than other DPS but is excellent on confirming kills.

34

if you can hit him with it, his mobility and range allow him to dodge 90% of the time, especially at mid to low ranks

not to mention his deflect,

flashbang?.. ohh wait “NOPE.AVI” lemmy just activate deflect 3 years after you’ve thrown it and hit it back at you

shield bash?.. ohh wait “NOPE.AVI” lemmy just double jump out of its effective hitbox

boop?.. Ohh wait “NOPE.AVI” lemmy just swift strike back into kill range ohh and I get a reset on that 0.00001ms latter when someone else kills that tank I tickled earlier

anything else?.. ohh wait “NOPE.AVI” Ryūjin no ken wo kurae! ohh dear the whole enemy team just died…

hmmm yes just “stun” him… funny how saying it is a lot easier than doing it

35

Umm whats so hard about hitting a cc on genji? Its kinda rare that you can outplay cc like that. If you are not hitting you are either A. out of position or B. not aiming/timing it right. Not one single player has the reaction time to dodge a shield bash, let alone the reaction time needed to deflect a flashbang after its thrown is also VERY small, usually its done simply by timing. The flashbang can be thrown on the ground in front of genji, that way not even his deflect will save him. I sense your just too salty and naive to think otherwise.

36

that’s not dodging, that’s staying outside of its range vertically as it is a linear forward thrust, not an aim able stun

favour the shooter

in this case, flashbang is thrown, deflect happens, and the server is told that the deflect takes precedence… happens all the time…

secondly… because genji is always double jumping, moving etc, if you hit a flashbang he doesn’t stop dead and allow you to follow up, he keeps his momentum making it insanely difficult to follow up with a shot…

37

shield bash?.. ohh wait “NOPE.AVI” lemmy just double jump out of its effective hitbox

“that’s not dodging, that’s staying outside of its range vertically as it is a linear forward thrust, not an aim able stun”

Dude, genji cannot float in the air all the time, he has to land on the ground, hence the timing is important to hit a bash :wink:

"favour the shooter

in this case, flashbang is thrown, deflect happens, and the server is told that the deflect takes precedence… happens all the time…"

“secondly… because genji is always double jumping, moving etc, if you hit a flashbang he doesn’t stop dead and allow you to follow up, he keeps his momentum making it insanely difficult to follow up with a shot…”

This is also done simply by timing…

38

again, easy to say, literally impossible to do in practice considering the other 5 players on the enemy team, at least in lower levels