It’s been hinted at for a couple weeks, but now it’s finally here: Overwatch’s first big post-launch balance update. Blizzard has looked in the general direction of McCree and Widowmaker and uttered those fateful words: “It’s hiiiiiiiigh noon.”




For now the patch is only out on PC. These changes will be included in a larger console patch at a later date. Here are the biggies:

McCree Peacekeeper Alternate Fire -Recovery time (i.e. the amount of time before McCree starts reloading) decreased from 0.75 seconds to 0.3 seconds -Bullet damage decreased from 70 to 45 Developer Comments: McCree was performing too well against all targets, making him feel like a must-pick in many situations. 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. Widowmaker

Widow’s Kiss -Alternate Fire (Scoped Shot)Base damage decreased from 15 to 12Note: Scoped shot damage multiplier remains unchanged -Headshot damage multiplier increased from 2x to 2.5x -Players must now wait for the unscoping animation to completely finish before scoping Infra-Sight -Ultimate cost increased by 10% Developer Comments: In the right hands, Widowmaker can often feel unstoppable—even when just landing body shots instead of critical heads shots. 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.


So basically, McCree doesn’t hit quite as hard anymore (especially against characters he wasn’t supposed to be so viable against), and Widowmaker players need to start aiming for the head, not the body.

Looks like this patch was aimed at injecting a bit more skill into the proceedings all around. I haven’t gotten to try it out yet, but I’m planning to play some matches as soon as I’ve got a spare second. Part of me is gonna miss being—shall we say—unrealistically effective as Widowmaker, but I realize that this is all for the best.

But you guys I had the best game this weekend where I one-shotted the other team’s Widowmaker at every turn until I’m certain they were ready to snipe the wall with their entire keyboard and it was terrific.

Oh well, guess I’ll just have to git gud. Until then, I’ll always have my memories.