Overwatch's McCree, Widowmaker Update Is Now Live on PC

The promised Overwatch update that nerfs McCree and Widowmaker's effectiveness has been released on PC.

Both characters take a hit, albeit in different ways. McCree's alt-fire, which rapidly fires all of the bullets in his gun, now does less damage but has a shorter delay before he's able to reload. Widowmaker, meanwhile, does less damage with her assault rifle, but deals more when landing a headshot. Additionally, her Ultimate now takes slightly longer to build up.

There are a few other areas of the game touched by this update, though none are nearly as significant. The stability of high-bandwidth custom games has been improved, and Mercy is no longer able to build up her Ultimate by damage boosting someone attacking a barrier or ice wall.

The update is out now on PC, but not Xbox One or PS4. Instead, these changes will be included in a larger patch "at a later date."

You can see the full patch notes below.

We know more character adjustments on the way, including one for D.Va.

Overwatch June 14 PC Update:

Hero Balance Changes

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 12
    • Note: 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.

Bug Fixes

General

• Improved stability of the High Bandwidth option in Custom Games

Heroes

• Fixed a bug that allowed Mercy to gain Ultimate charge whenever damage boosting an ally who was attacking a barrier or Ice Wall
• Fixed a bug that allowed Reaper to Shadow Step to unintended locations on certain maps

Maps

• Fixed an issue with collision on certain areas of Dorado not blocking line of sight