Overwatch devs nerf McCree, Widowmaker; they felt like a 'must-pick, 'unstoppable'

Two characters in Overwatch's Windows PC version were substantially weakened in a patch that hit this week. The alternate fire for both McCree and Widowmaker were nerfed because it made McCree feel like a must-pick and Widowmaker unstoppable.

The same changes will be rolled into a larger patch for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at a "later date." The PC patch also fixed a number of bugs.

McCree's change decreased the bullet damage from his alternate fire from 70 down to 45 and the time before he starts reloading in 0.3 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds.

"McCree was performing too well against all targets, making him feel like a must-pick in many situations," according to the published developer comments. "By reducing the damage of his alternate fire, McCree is now significantly weaker against tanks like Roadhog and Reinhardt, but still maintains his lethality against smaller targets like Tracer and Genji."

Damage for Widowmaker's Widow's Kiss alternate fire scoped shot was decreased from 15 to 12, although the scoped shot damage multiplier remains unchanged. Also, Widowmaker's headshot damage multiplier was increased from two times to 2.5 times and players now have to wait for the unscoping animation to end before scoping again. Finally, the cost for her ultimate ability was increased by 10 percent.

"In the right hands, Widowmaker can often feel unstoppable — even when just landing body shots instead of critical headshots," according to the developer comments. "The changes to her alternate fire weaken body shot damage while leaving her headshot damage unchanged. Additionally, we felt her Ultimate ability, Infra-Sight, was coming up a little too frequently, especially considering its impact on the game."

The patch also improved stability of the high bandwidth option in custom games, fixed a bug that allowed Mercy to gain Ultimate charge whenever damage boosting an ally who was attacking a barrier or Ice Wall and fixed a bug that allowed Reaper to Shadow Step to unintended locations on certain maps.

Finally, the patch fixed an issue with collision on certain areas of the Dorado map not blocking line of sight.