'Overwatch' News: New Update Sees McCree, Widowmaker Changed; Mercy Accidentally Nerfed
The First of Many Changes on 'Overwatch' Have Come
Blizzard has moved out their first updates for their massively popular first-person shooter "Overwatch," and much of the updates revolved around two characters, McCree and Widowmaker, while a third character, Mercy, got an unintentional update as well.
As per Blizzard, the nerfs made to McCree and Widowmaker make the characters less must-pick characters without hindering players who main them. This update effects the PC and Xbox One versions of "Overwatch" with PS4 soon to follow.
McCree
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It seems that McCree got the biggest nerfs of the three characters. This is not very surprising as McCree players have often enjoyed large amount of kills during competitive matches.
The biggest nerf McCree got was in how much damage each bullet would do when hitting an opposing character. Pre-nerf, each bullet would be doing 70 damage, making it possible to kill smaller characters with less health in three to four bullets. Post-nerf, the bullets will only be doing 45 damage.
To help with the damage reducing, McCree's reloading time has been changed from .75 seconds to .3 seconds.
Widowmaker
Widowmaker also saw a reduce in damage from 15 to 12 per bullet, her ultimate charge cost also went up by 10 percent. Blizzard stated that the reasoning behind the increase of charge cost was that they felt the move was coming up too frequently in matches, considering how powerful the effect was in the game.
Widowmaker players will also now have to go through the entire exit sniper mode animation before going back into Sniper mode. This allows players extra time to fight against Widowmaker players who have been found.
To help with these changes, Widowmaker's headshot damage multiplier has gone up from 2 to 2.5.
Mercy
Unfortunately, Mercy received an unintentional nerf. "Overwatch" test players found out that Mercy's staff no longer holds the same target when switching from healing to amping damage. Before, regardless of line of sight when players would switch between beams, they did not need to reacquire targets. Players now have to turn around and look for their targets beforehand.
Pro gamers says that the changes makes Mercy's character very clumsy to use with her streamline features no longer available. Many even pointed out that no changes to Mercy were included in the patch notes.
Blizzard has since addressed the issue and stated that they are working on fixing Mercy as soon as possible.
Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan has stated there are other balance changes due for "Overwatch" in the coming weeks. However, the "Overwatch" team would like to see how the changes to Widowmaker and McCree pan out before making any other changes.
