it is EXTREMELY funny to me how overwatch's balance has completely hinged around widowmaker since the day the game launched. the three main metagames everyone hated - goats, dive, and double-shield - were created solely because of widow's ability to snipe enemy healers and stop an attempt on the objective before it even starts, backed with the fact there's no way at all to actually contest an enemy widowmaker short of "a better widowmaker".
goats - 3 tanks, 3 healers. your 3 tanks can survive shots from widow, your healers get protected by the shields of the tanks. you cannot meaningfully play widow against this.
dive - run heroes with extremely high mobility to pounce on an enemy healer/dps who's out of position, then push the advantage to win a 6v5 fight. this commits your entire team to the same role widow plays, namely "picking off vulnerable targets"! but you can't run widow against it either, or she'll be the obvious target to dive on.
double shield - you run two shield tanks, creeping your defensive line forward, staying behind the shield the whole time. widow's burst damage is huge, but her damage into shields is fuck-all, so she can't meaningfully contribute to breaking the shields, and her targets just stay hidden the whole time.
all three of these, each of which was the dominant strategy for over a year straight before it finally got nerfed and the next one rose to prominance, only existed like it did because healing is incredibly powerful. widow's ability to one-shot people completely bypasses healing, and she can do this from so far away she's never threatened herself. if you didn't run these team comps, your opponents just swap to widow and they win, because your healers are just nullified. even if you do run them, if you just execute it wrong, your opponents still swap to widow and just win.
hell, just running goats then swapping to widowmaker when the enemy doesn't expect you to ended up making one of the greatest plays in the history of the overwatch league.
now, despite her being this fucking strong, she's not overpowered. no, you can pretty easily build your team so she's completely useless against you. but if left unchecked, she'll carry the game. her mere existence in the roster forces everyone to play around her, whether she's in the match or not.
ALL THIS EXPLANATION JUST TO SAY:
they are finally nerfing her burst damage potential. finally. 7 years after the game first launched, the lynchpin in the entire game's balance is being adjusted so they don't need to balance everything ever around her existence.
they're doing this by making it so she can't one-shot you from over 50 meters anymore. under 50 meters is fine, but over that, damage falloff kicks in.
there are... maybe two relevant sight lines anywhere on any map that are over 50 meters long.
lmao.
thanks blizzard.
