The Overwatch 2 devs have announced plans for the upcoming mid-season patch and Hero balance updates, covering several topics in their most recent news piece. Among these changes, the most significant by far are the changes regarding the long-range sniper characters, Widowmaker and Hanzo.
For quite a while now, there have been several complaints in the community from players across a large variety of Competitive Ranks that these heroes have felt far too powerful due to their ability to one-shot squishy enemy players will full HP from across the map. Snipers have been extremely strong since Overwatch 2 was released, bringing the shift of 5v5 team compositions.
This has allowed the likes of Hanzo and Widowmaker to benefit exclusively from a number of old and new maps and become some of the best meta picks available in the game. To help remedy the state of these Heroes, the following changes will be taking place:
Widowmaker
- Damage falloff is changing from 70-100 meters to 40-60 meters.
- Damage falloff scalar increasing 30%-50%
- Will still be capable of one-shotting 200 HP heroes at a range of 50 meters or less, but anything further will not result in a killing blow.
Hanzo
- Will receive a slight nerf to his damage, making him incapable of one-shotting 250 HP Heroes.
- The use of Sonic Arrow will be more recognizable to the enemy team.
Here’s an announcement of these upcoming changes made by popular Overwatch 2 leaks and news channel OWCavalry. Feel free to take a look for yourself below:
These nerfs are important to the game, as they will not only affect just Hanzo and Widow, but all other Heroes in the game. For example, Ashe is another DPS sniper, and while she doesn’t quite play in the exact same way Widowmaker and Hanzo do (and usually makes up for her weakened damage with the utility of her dyamite), it’s always been a bit odd that the former two heroes have the ability to headshot 250 HP enemies across the other side of the map to secure an instant kill, while Ashe is incapable of securing a oneshot kill on similar targets at close range, even with the assistance of a Mercy pocket.
Considering Ashe, Hanzo, and Widowmaker are all DPS sniper Heroes, these changes are likely to help round out the weaknesses and strengths of these three Heroes and make DPS snipers more balanced overall. There’s still plenty of strengths to these Heroes as picks, and a lot of potential to be a viable pick for most team comps.
While it will undoubtedly be frustrating for players who main these Heroes to see them take a nerf, most players will be able to agree that it’s a positive thing that will help how matches play out in the future, as these nerfs aren’t super harsh on the playstyle or hero kits of either sniper.