Widowmaker and McCree nerfed in Overwatch patch 1.0.4

Overwatch patch 1.0.4 has been released on PC and heroes Widowmaker and McCree have been nerfed. Blizzard has also announced that Overwatch has now passed the 10 million players milestone.

McCree's Fan the Hammer alternate fire ability has been reduced in damage (down from 70 to 45) but his recovery time - time to reload - has been lowered too.

"McCree was performing too well against all targets," the patch notes read, "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."

Widomaker's scoped shot alternate fire has also been reduced in damage (from 15 to 12) but the headshot multiplier has been increased (from 2.0x to 2.5x). According to one Overwatch subreddit commenter this means Widowmaker's headshot damage now is exactly the same as it was (300 damage). You must now also wait for the unscoping animation to finish before scoping again.

Widowmaker's Infra-Sight Ultimate costs 10 per cent more now as well.

"In the right hands, Widowmaker can often feel unstoppable - even when just landing body shots instead of critical head 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."

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

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 2.0x to 2.5x
• Players must now wait for the unscoping animation to completely finish before scoping

Infra-Sight

• Ultimate cost increased by 10 per cent

Bug fixes

Improved stability of 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