Real name: Amélie Lacroix
Age: 33
Profession: murderer
Base of Operations: Annecy, France
Affiliation: Talon
Lifespan: 200
Skills and key points
Today we talk about Widowmaker, the only "pure" sniper present in Overwatch. This character is perfect for lone wolves since you can safely play a great game even staying away from everything and everyone, but please do not snub the possibilities offered by a joyful cooperation with your allies. Warning: this hero has recently been blackened with the changes below.
- Widow's Kiss
- Alternate fire (aimed shot)
- Basic damage decreased from 15 to 12.
- Warning: the damage multiplier of the targeted hits remains unchanged.
- The damage multiplier of head shots has increased from 2x to 2.5x.
- Players now have to wait until the end of the zoom close animation before they can aim again.
- Thermal Visor
- Ultra's charging cost has increased by 10%.
Later we'll talk of these impairments too, but let's go in order and start, as always, with skill:
- Rampino: a very useful and fun to use skill that allows our sniper to move quickly around the map. Thanks to your trusty grappling hook you can reach positions inaccessible to (almost) all the other heroes, thus placing you in excellent shooting spots. The skill reload time is pretty heavy so try not to overdo it and only use it when it is really needed.
Don't forget that the grappling hook can also be used while you are in the air (a very Spider-Man thing) and that it can also be used to get out of tricky situations without too many problems. While you are moving with this tool you are not invulnerable, but you are very fast and therefore difficult for everyone to hit.
- Poison mine: Widowmaker's best friend is a beautiful mine that can poison anyone who steps on it, reducing the enemy's field of vision while inflicting a good amount of damage. It's not an explosive weapon and you can't spam them around the map like Symmetra's turrets, so try to be careful. No enemy will die instantly by stepping on your mine, but by placing it behind you you you will be warned of imminent danger and you can end up with an already damaged enemy.
- Thermal Visor (super): the perfect skill for any sniper. By activating it you have the ability to see your enemies through structures and surfaces, detecting them with absolute precision through heat. This makes it even easier to score perfect shots, just place yourself and wait for the enemy to turn the corner. The viewer remains active for a more than satisfactory time and allows you to make a good number of kills against opponents perhaps not too cautious.
Satisfied? You haven't heard the best part yet! The visor is not only active for you, the bodies of your enemies are visible to all your allies as well. This super allows you to be a very useful member of the team and can make life a lot easier for the whole team.
Armament and conclusions
Widowmaker uses a large rifle known as "Widow's Kiss". This weapon has two fire modes, one with sight and one without: with the first you can play as classic snipers, aiming distant enemies and firing one shot at a time, while with the second you can use the Widow's Kiss as an automatic rifle.
A couple of clarifications: the zoom offered by the viewfinder is quite poor and hitting targets at really important distances is very difficult, the damage of the bullet depends on the time you take to load the shot (to get to 100% takes about a second), if you want you can also shoot more rapid shots in sequence but you will do very little damage. The damage inflicted by your weapon as an automatic rifle is quite low, Widowmaker is designed to be dangerous on the distance and in close combat can get away with it but still often has the worst. The magazine of your weapon is absolutely satisfactory and you should not have any problems in this respect.
This character is perfect for hitting big, static heroes like Roadhog or Bastion, but suffers against particularly mobile characters like Tracer or Genji. The perfect support for you is probably Zenyatta, but Mercy can also be a great solution.
Speaking of the nerf we must emphasize a couple of points: the damage decreased is to the body so it will be more difficult to make kills targeting the big target, but on the other hand the headshot kills should be a bit 'easier. Thanks to this change Widowmaker has undoubtedly become a more complex character to use, now you need a good familiarity with the sniper rifle and you need quick reflexes.
