Seeing the reworks for sombra and roadhog, as well as hearing about possible reworks for reaper and ball, has had me thinking for a good while, thinking about who else I would want reworked. And I have that character in mind, widow. I have thought of a rework idea for widowmaker, changing an aspect about her kit while also adding something new.
I will start with something that already belongs in her kit, venom mine. Venom mine, is a pretty useless thing, it has such a small activation box that flankers can easily avoid it, and even if they are hit by it, often times it does not make a difference. It does 75 damage over time with no initial damage, which is not very great either compared to other abilities out there.
My idea to make venom mine better is simple, make it into a sort of land mine type ability. Not an actual land mine, but a mine that acts similar to one, having a small blast radius too. I believe that her mines should have red lines attached to the top of them, and if these red lines are walked over, the mine will go off. The red lines will be motion activated too, so even invisible characters like Sombra will still get hit by the mine, making them better for placing on walls. I believe the venom mine should have a blast radius of 5 to 7 meters, which would even make it useful for simply tossing at the enemy team too. More range means more enemies could be hit by it. Not only that, but I believe the venom mine should have initial damage, then do damage over time, 25 damage upon activation and 50 damage over time. This would make the mine more affective by far since the damage is more instant. The venom mine going off could cause a cloud of venom to linger for a second, not very long, just meant for a visual appeal more then anything.
Now for the more fun part of the rework. You know that widowmaker is capable of close range combat right? Well, from how she is in game, you would not really know that. In her cinematics, she is seen beating people up while close, and shows she has quite the leg strength, yet in the game you do not see any of that. She uses her gun to smack you, and when close she relies on her smg to kill something close. If she is not hitting heads, she is the equivalent to defenseless. Because of this, I came up with a new ability, one that shows she is capable of close range combat.
I did not come up with a proper name for this ability, so I will simply call it “Widows Dance”, which is an ability where widow sends a kick at the enemy. To be specific, Widowmaker will send a round house kick at the enemy in front of her, sending whoever they kicked flying in either one of two directions. The way the kick works is simple, you know how Moira works right? How she can use one orb or the other, picking damage or healing. Well, widows kick will work the same way. You can choose for widow to either kick to the left or kick to the right. Her kick will also work similar to zenyattas kick, where it sends the enemy flying a certain distance. But instead of going forwards, widows kick will send them to the side. Picture it, a reaper tps to the high ground, only for you to kick them right off it. But wait, there is more. Not only will widows kick act as a zen kick, but also a mini doomfist punch. Widow has got some strong legs, knocking the wind out of anyone she kicks. If the enemy you kicked ends up getting sent into a wall, they will be stunned for 1.2 seconds, even showing the crack animation for when they hit the wall. The damage of the kick itself will be 35 damage, and hitting a wall does an extra 15, meaning 50 damage total. This can be helpful against flankers, whether to try and get a kill or to try and escape. I also believe that this ability should be none hackable, meaning it can be used well against sombra too, since its just a kick. Widow is using her legs, not some tech, so this would make the most sense. The cooldown for the ability will be 6 seconds too, it cannot be spammed.
These changes I believe will make widow better, however, I also thought of 2 problems with these changes…
- Widow may end up being OP. Widows flaws are built around the fact she cannot handle herself well up close, and that her abilities are essentially useless. Her one shot is the only thing keeping her going, and allowing her to still be a pick. However, with these rework changes, her weaknesses end up becoming strengths, meaning she is not as vulnerable as before. Adding these changes along with her one shot kill, she may end up being too strong.
- Soldier…you know how Sombra can hack soldier out of his sprint ability? Like bruh, did soldier just forget how to use his legs after getting hacked? In any case, soldier getting hacked out of an ability that is literally just him using his legs, made me think about widows kick too. Because the idea behind widows kick is that it cannot be hacked, which is an ability that uses her legs. So that makes me think, that would be pretty unfair, soldier being hacked out of his sprint but widow having a none hackable kick. The only solution I can think of here, is to just make soldiers sprint none hackable.
Overall, this is my rework idea, what do ya think people?