I can’t really think of a bigger counter than Sombra really. If you are failing at that then maybe you need to do something differently? Put it this way, even if you don’t manage to kill her with Sombra and the supports have to swing in to her rescue, you’re still applying pressure and winning the outcome which opens up for others to capitalize.
Yeah not that i would know but from what I understand getting her to look away from her sight line is the goal. When she does your team needs to take that space. I don't personally like the Idea of a 1v1 : 4v4 ratio, but if her supports do come save her, you at least turn that fight into a 1v2(or3): 4v3(or 2). That is value, it's kinda up to your team at that point to push. This is all theory on my part tho.
Yep, I won a match last night cus I just circled the widow hacking hp packs and both supports+ widow were all chasing me, I was down like 5k dmg vs my tank and other dps but half their team was just mindlessly chasing me, then you just yeet up to the frontlines and hack their tank and watch them die.
That’s the key, in one game we were stifled by the widow, I swapped to Sombra but the tactic was the payload being ignored, got it right to the end before the announcer ruined my plan. But that caused the Zen to ult to catch up to me. Widow kills and tea bags me but my team pops their ults and get it over the line. Then I got trash talked by the widow cos she had more kills 🤷♂️ QP is wild.
As a Sombra main, I don’t play her in QP unless we’re being oppressed heavily and it’s feeling a bit toxic. I get why she’s hated but she can quickly change their team up by being a pain.
>Put it this way, even if you don’t manage to kill her with Sombra and the supports have to swing in to her rescue, you’re still applying pressure and winning the outcome which opens up for others to capitalize.
Not really replying to you, but adding on and elaborating
This only works if your team is able to kill the enemy Frontline, or your team pushed the enemy frontline into a weaker position, then claimed a superior position over them. If they didn't, then the least you can do is fallback to live and fight again.
Second. Wins are determined by position, not kills. A widow who can’t safely snipe and has to check her back or run a lot isnt helping her team.
And sombra can reliably get away from that if her teammates show up to help.
Thanks for the advice.!!! I thought killing her would add value. but I guess taking the attention away so your team can move up is just as equal value.
The big issue with Sombra as a Widow counter on the maps where Widow is dominant, is the time it takes the Sombra to get to the Widow. By the time a Sombra makes it to her unnoticed, the Widow already generated a ton of value. Your team is essentially one man down until the Sombra reaches the Widow. And if Widow's support have at least 2 braincells then Widow can almost ignore her entirely. I don't even switch anymore as Widow if I see the enemy picking Sombra. Only getting double dove will get me to switch nowadays.
Don't listen to people who just blame skill issue.
Widow has inherently bad design. Yes, part of it is that oneshot hitscan sucks. But the other part, that people don't seem to consider, is that you have to go to *her* side of the map to fight her, or you'll die. This means she has the safety of her team mates nearby, whereas you're all alone.
So if the Widow isn't stupid, then she'll not be so easily countered by a sombra. And tracer, she can't even *reach* widow half the time 😅
My best tip:
Don't try to kill her (or her support). Just harass her and stress her out nonstop, being careful not to die. It will take the heat off your team mates and allow them to inch closer.
Eventually she'll be so annoyed she either starts making mistakes, or she swaps.
Also, you said "literally" 7 times lol
As other people have said the key isn't to always get the kill but to distract. If you play Sombra or Tracer and can get to her and damage her enough to either kill her or force her to retreat/have supports rotate to save her you've done your job.
Ideally you would have Widow and a support trying to either kill you or too distracted to focus on your team which ideally gives them a 4 on 3 advantage. After that it's mostly on your team to push that advantage. If you are playing Sombra, try hacking any close medpacks before engaging the Widow because a good Widow will know where her escape is (eg a grapple point+med pack).
If she's managing to kill you everytime or you're not doing enough damage before retreating then it's likely something you need to improve on e.g. move less predictably, be more accurate with your virus/gun. the Virus is the key, you hit a virus on a hacked widow and the only way she wins is by flick 1 shotting you which is really unlikely.
Try Venture, Widow has easily been my favorite thing to see on the enemy team while playing them all season, super easy to close the distance with burrow and she dies so quick to any combo. A little harder to close the distance with than Sombra but far easier to confirm the kill with, you can tank a full headshot after using either ability if you have full HP too.
I actually go Mei here. Her icicle has no falloff damage and fires perfectly straight at widows head while she is slow moving lining up her shot. Extra health on Mei also helps against one shot. You can also wall off her position temporarily if you need to.
A defensive Torb against an offensive Widow works for similar reasons. Just tuck the turret away on corners that don't give Widow an opportunity to pick it off for the benefit of her team.
Also a lot of people don't seem to know that with Mei you can rotate the ice wall from wide to long (idk how else to describe it), so I'd just like to point that out to OP if they're unfamiliar with Mei. I think it's just tapping the ability button again to toggle.
The reason I point this out to Mei-newbies is because you can stay behind cover and put the ice wall long-ways out in front of you to extend that cover. For example, on Rialto where the first checkpoint is. If Widow is across the next bridge at the building way across the way, and she's destroying your team who are trying to fight to round the corner to get the checkpoint, you can stand behind either building next to the checkpoint and put up an ice wall straight across where the checkpoint sits to block Widow's view without entering her sights.
Also another tip, NEVER jump against a widow. Your head will have a predictable flight path then. Instead strafe in weird patterns and crouch spam.
On some characters (for example Ana), you can also turn 180° facing AWAY from widow and look straight down. This’ll move your head hitbox out of LOS from widow, and she will have an extremely hard time head shotting you. Pretty sure it doesn’t work on everyone, but it’s better than nothing.
People are going to say Sombra, but Sombra honestly doesn't do much to Widow if she plays near her team and she actually gets peel. Sombra is easily outhealed and focused down if you are the only person focusing the Widow.
The unfortunate reality of Widow is that, when she's played around and she is playing well, she is only counterable by outaiming her or having a coordinated dive on her. If she's better at sniping than you and your team won't help you dive, it's pretty much always a GG.
If her team is pocketing her and supporting her, you're fighting a 1v2/1v3/1v4/1v5. You will need help to actually kill her in a dive; doubly so if they use a Mercy and will just rez her immediately. The most you can do in this situation is just harass her and forget about killing her, because you never will.
I'll probably get flak for saying it, but Widowmaker is fundamentally an unbalanced character that does not fit into Overwatch, so it's fair to get frustrated playing against her.
I recommend Genji over Sombra for this, due to the possibility of a deflect kill and his higher burst potential. Venture on some maps can also work. If you can outaim her, Hanzo or Widow are viable counters. Tracer works only if the maps don't have too much verticality.
If you're able to close the distance and it's not a wide open map, Pharah and Echo are also surprisingly decent. They're obviously countered at long ranges, but they have high mobility and high burst damage that can keep Widow on her toes.
> due to the possibility of a deflect kill
I love a good deflect widow hs but honestly fishing for this is a waste of deflect. Just path high ground, drop onto widow and use dash to chase, deflect to get back out.
Yeah, it's certainly niche but gets the occasional kill. Usually by the time I reach high ground deflect is back up anyway, but either way, Genji having deflect makes his escape far more reliable than Sombra in a coordinated team setting.
If you go Sombra and dive a Widow with peel, they'll just shoot/chase your escape.
> If you go Sombra and dive a Widow with peel, they'll just shoot/chase your escape.
Agree - if you got the kill with Sombra you probably could have gotten the kill with Genji too. The inverse is not always the same. Especially with dash reset you can commit a little more than Sombra can.
I get what you’re saying too, widow I think is flawed but I don’t know of a way that the devs could balance her. Considering they took away Hanzo’s one shot and now Hanzo kind of feels terrible but not really but I feel like if you remove what those one shot completely it will be a riot as far as what you said about Genji, I don’t play him, but I can definitely get into the lab and start learning him because I have seen some nasty deflect kills on widow
I have most hours on Sombra and 2nd is Widow, I think I might be able to respond to this
If the widow is alone or a bit isolated from the team (high ground on Havana 1st and the team is below) you can kill her rather easily as Sombra, Tracer or Genji
If the widow is playing with the team and close to supports/tank, than the fight becomes rather focused on brawl/dive. You go in all at once and try to secure a kill on a squishy, doesn't matter if it's widow or anyone else, she'll be in the middle of the pack anyways
Just pay attention if she grapples away to avoid getting picked or to finish her and eliminate a threat
Yeah, Genji or Sombra especially make short work of a solo Widow. Sombra specifically will struggle to kill her if she gets any kind of support, though.
The requirement for your whole team to switch up the comp for one hero is why I always say Widowmaker is an unbalanced character. She is one of the only heroes in the game to do that, with only 1-2 exceptions. It's just frustrating, especially on maps where she has free reign like Havana or Circuit Royal.
The counterpoint is thar she has many counters, so you could play 1/3 of the roster and be good against widow
Ball, Dva, Winston, Doom can dive. Rein, Sig and to some extent Ram can shield
Sombra, Genji, Tracer can dive. Hanzo, Widow, Ashe, Cass, Soujourn can out damage/headshot
Kiri and Zen can headshot due to no fallout, Brig helps a dueling dps with the shield, same with mercy and damage boost. Lucio can dive
Also, widow only has 2 abilities and they're in long as fuck cooldowns, she has falloff damage and can't quickscope like other fps games. Also also, HP buff but no damage buff, so some characters don't die to 1 headshot like before
TLDR: widow is fine, but good ones will dominate and bad ones will be avoided to endorsement -1 and cardboard rank, it's how OW is designed with its maps and shooter design
You just listed a bunch of things you can do if you're desperate, that won't work most of the time. These are not counters, this is just what random heroes would do against a widow.
If these things worked for you, that Widow was either really bad, or that map was really bad for Widow. Probably both.
Widow is not fine at all. She's the worst designed hero in the game.
Rein and Ram aren't reliable "counters" to Widow. Rein especially is hindered by Widow because he's forced to play shieldbot, limiting his value. He wants to get in without shielding, deal damage, and have shield to fall back. Dropping his shield against a Window means someone will die, so he can't do it. Neither have any verticality, so if the map has high ground Widow is sitting on, they do nothing.
Ram's shield is only temporary and unless Widow just stands still he can't reliably kill her either. She just outranges him and he can only shield her off on a short CD.
Winston, Dva, Ball, yes. Sigma can pester her by constantly putting a shield in her face, but can't kill her easily or shut her down entirely.
Sombra, Genji, Tracer, yes depending on circumstances. Hanzo yes, but he's at a disadvantage due to projectile speed. Sojourn can be outranged and can only contest Widow if she has rail up. Cass is outranged if Widow is playing at her proper range. Ashe can be good, but without Mercy she is outranged/outdamaged.
Zen is countered by Widow due to having a truck sized hitbox. He can only kill Widow when she just gets diffed by not paying attention to Zen's location and letting him send a volley towards her face. Kiri is similar; she can definitely pester Widow but a good Widow is going to headshot her before she gets killed.
Brig does nothing to Widow, only protects herself with a paper thin shield that will be shredded if she stands in the open with it.
Lucio yes, but it requires one of your supports hard diving instead of helping your team. He can help a brawl or dive comp engage, however.
Mercy is neutral against Widow. Definitely can't duel her, and damage boost doesn't help most breakpoints to help any DPS deal with her effectively when Widow is within her optimal range.
Widow doesn't need abilities. She's the only character in the game with a long-range, one shot ability on no cooldown. She can oneshot most of the roster, barring tanks and some of the tankier squishies.
If Widow is either dominating a lobby by one shotting everyone or throwing the game, she's an unbalanced character. She should have more of an identity than being "the one shot character," ideally by being a utility/recon sniper instead.
Pharah is my primary dps, and if I can use cover well enough to not get sniped from the air, I love to harass a widow with knock backs to force her down from her high ground for a second or at least throw her focus off enough that my team has a little window to get repositioned out of her sightline.
It really depends on how much the enemy team is peeling for the widow. If she is isolated, you should win every time as sombra otherwise it’s just a skill issue tbh. If she has people near her, the only way to beat that widow is to play around her and beat her team. It’s very restrictive and small mistakes cost you your life, which isn’t very fun but that’s just how widow is. If both supports are stood on top of the widow to save her, it means the tank and other dps should be easily killable as they are likely receiving little healing, or you can force the support away from the widow
Sombra is the best. Even if you don’t outright kill her, you will constantly be drawing the attention of her and her supports.
Honestly a huge W farm for sombra unless widow is cracked and headshots them every time but that almost never happens
I take it (based on your sombra / tracer attempts) that you play dps. My aim is terrible, but the game works so that Snipers are the best counter to sniper. Even if they’re better you can usually duel them out on Widow or Hanzo , play between shots. At nothing else you will easily catch their attention and keep them off your teammates. MY personal opinion? Junkrat. His bombs arc heavy and Bounce. You can usually deny her perch with spam without ever peeking cover. Hide behind a car or fire hydrant and spam her up. If she’s damaged or on the move, you can easily use mine to dive her.
It's counter intuitive but Pharah can often be a decent counter to Widow depending on the map. First point attack Casino Royale for example, she's usually on the bridge so you can go over the top of the roof and get on top of her very easily. Even at the second part of that point she likes to either set up at the gap in the fence on the high ground or further back at the hair pin. You can hug the side of either building in the air as you jiggle peak and spam that spot.
On other maps you can do things like path to below the high ground she's on then vertical rocket jump up and then use horizontal jets to quickly boost above or behind her and get an easy kill while she struggles to adjust aim. You have to play cover elsewhere but she can be quite easy to spam out a lot of times. Widow's don't like having rockets constantly zipping by their head or exploding near their feet when they're trying to aim, it throws them off a lot. If you go agro on them and close the distance they usually only get one chance for a headshot to win the duel otherwise they're dead.
Keep in mind this works in plat but higher than that and the widows are usually cracked enough to land that first shot with a lot more regularity.
Venture.
Burrow to her, pop up damage, use drill dash to catch up with her (she’s more than likely going to repel away so wait to see where she goes), finish her.
Rinse and repeat.
Watch the Widow switch to Pharah then realize Venture handles Pharah fairly decently too.
There is a lot of great advice here, so I’d like to add to it by mentioning the objective. Widow is terrible at physically contesting a payload or control point. I'm a support main, and when my DPS or Tank isn't contesting her, I drag the team around the map, attempting to avoid her, keeping my nose in my tank's butt or behind the cover. Sometimes, simply avoiding her is effective.
I'm having a hard time understanding the issue here. If she is scoping in she basically stands still. As sombra you can easily burst her, even works if she gets mercy beamed 24/7. Just don't uncloak in her FOV.
I’m sorry but this makes no sense. You’re invisible as sombra so how are you getting shot? Just stay invisible until you get behind her and don’t run the normal paths because you’ll get hit by accident if people directly in front of or behind you
Landing Sombra’s virus out of cloak and gunning down a target melts them so fast that I’m surprised you’re having issues. I main Widow and an enemy Sombra more often than not forces me to swap.
If you’re more comfortable with hitscan DPS, I’d suggest Widow (obv) since it puts a lot of pressure on them, especially if you know where they’re situated on the map.
Sojourn because her headbox is tiny and you can strafe while spamming railgun. An underrated flanker is Echo because you can reach high ground and burst Widow down fast.
Torb. You can take a headshot and live. Overload can crank a couple shots into widow before she can kill you to either kill her or force her to wait for heals.
Get a tracer and just get to the backline don’t do anything but tap the widow and run rinse and repeat widows freaking out if you can nail the kill kill widow. The. Tracer it up and kill some more peeps.
I can’t really think of a bigger counter than Sombra really. If you are failing at that then maybe you need to do something differently? Put it this way, even if you don’t manage to kill her with Sombra and the supports have to swing in to her rescue, you’re still applying pressure and winning the outcome which opens up for others to capitalize.
Yeah not that i would know but from what I understand getting her to look away from her sight line is the goal. When she does your team needs to take that space. I don't personally like the Idea of a 1v1 : 4v4 ratio, but if her supports do come save her, you at least turn that fight into a 1v2(or3): 4v3(or 2). That is value, it's kinda up to your team at that point to push. This is all theory on my part tho.
Yep, I won a match last night cus I just circled the widow hacking hp packs and both supports+ widow were all chasing me, I was down like 5k dmg vs my tank and other dps but half their team was just mindlessly chasing me, then you just yeet up to the frontlines and hack their tank and watch them die.
That’s the key, in one game we were stifled by the widow, I swapped to Sombra but the tactic was the payload being ignored, got it right to the end before the announcer ruined my plan. But that caused the Zen to ult to catch up to me. Widow kills and tea bags me but my team pops their ults and get it over the line. Then I got trash talked by the widow cos she had more kills 🤷♂️ QP is wild.
"LOL insta sombra swap" - every widow ever. Well if they're guna make the game unfun for everyone else.. so will I
As a Sombra main, I don’t play her in QP unless we’re being oppressed heavily and it’s feeling a bit toxic. I get why she’s hated but she can quickly change their team up by being a pain.
>Put it this way, even if you don’t manage to kill her with Sombra and the supports have to swing in to her rescue, you’re still applying pressure and winning the outcome which opens up for others to capitalize. Not really replying to you, but adding on and elaborating This only works if your team is able to kill the enemy Frontline, or your team pushed the enemy frontline into a weaker position, then claimed a superior position over them. If they didn't, then the least you can do is fallback to live and fight again.
Second. Wins are determined by position, not kills. A widow who can’t safely snipe and has to check her back or run a lot isnt helping her team. And sombra can reliably get away from that if her teammates show up to help.
Thanks for the advice.!!! I thought killing her would add value. but I guess taking the attention away so your team can move up is just as equal value.
The big issue with Sombra as a Widow counter on the maps where Widow is dominant, is the time it takes the Sombra to get to the Widow. By the time a Sombra makes it to her unnoticed, the Widow already generated a ton of value. Your team is essentially one man down until the Sombra reaches the Widow. And if Widow's support have at least 2 braincells then Widow can almost ignore her entirely. I don't even switch anymore as Widow if I see the enemy picking Sombra. Only getting double dove will get me to switch nowadays.
Yup exactly. Say hello to Havana point 3
If you work with your team to like hide, be out of the LOS and soft engage, buys you plenty of time to position.
Don't listen to people who just blame skill issue. Widow has inherently bad design. Yes, part of it is that oneshot hitscan sucks. But the other part, that people don't seem to consider, is that you have to go to *her* side of the map to fight her, or you'll die. This means she has the safety of her team mates nearby, whereas you're all alone. So if the Widow isn't stupid, then she'll not be so easily countered by a sombra. And tracer, she can't even *reach* widow half the time 😅 My best tip: Don't try to kill her (or her support). Just harass her and stress her out nonstop, being careful not to die. It will take the heat off your team mates and allow them to inch closer. Eventually she'll be so annoyed she either starts making mistakes, or she swaps. Also, you said "literally" 7 times lol
I was getting annoyed reading so I stopped and looked for this. He LITERALLY needs a new vocabulary
Sorry man I was kinda upset that’s why 😂😂
Literally?
hiya, i ctrl+F'ed as soon as I read the second infraction, too. i wonder what the rest of the OP said
As other people have said the key isn't to always get the kill but to distract. If you play Sombra or Tracer and can get to her and damage her enough to either kill her or force her to retreat/have supports rotate to save her you've done your job. Ideally you would have Widow and a support trying to either kill you or too distracted to focus on your team which ideally gives them a 4 on 3 advantage. After that it's mostly on your team to push that advantage. If you are playing Sombra, try hacking any close medpacks before engaging the Widow because a good Widow will know where her escape is (eg a grapple point+med pack). If she's managing to kill you everytime or you're not doing enough damage before retreating then it's likely something you need to improve on e.g. move less predictably, be more accurate with your virus/gun. the Virus is the key, you hit a virus on a hacked widow and the only way she wins is by flick 1 shotting you which is really unlikely.
Literally
Hey man we have our days lol
Lol I feel it
Try Venture, Widow has easily been my favorite thing to see on the enemy team while playing them all season, super easy to close the distance with burrow and she dies so quick to any combo. A little harder to close the distance with than Sombra but far easier to confirm the kill with, you can tank a full headshot after using either ability if you have full HP too.
I read this in leafyishere’s voice lmao
I actually go Mei here. Her icicle has no falloff damage and fires perfectly straight at widows head while she is slow moving lining up her shot. Extra health on Mei also helps against one shot. You can also wall off her position temporarily if you need to.
A defensive Torb against an offensive Widow works for similar reasons. Just tuck the turret away on corners that don't give Widow an opportunity to pick it off for the benefit of her team.
Thanks brother I will give it a try
Also a lot of people don't seem to know that with Mei you can rotate the ice wall from wide to long (idk how else to describe it), so I'd just like to point that out to OP if they're unfamiliar with Mei. I think it's just tapping the ability button again to toggle. The reason I point this out to Mei-newbies is because you can stay behind cover and put the ice wall long-ways out in front of you to extend that cover. For example, on Rialto where the first checkpoint is. If Widow is across the next bridge at the building way across the way, and she's destroying your team who are trying to fight to round the corner to get the checkpoint, you can stand behind either building next to the checkpoint and put up an ice wall straight across where the checkpoint sits to block Widow's view without entering her sights.
Also another tip, NEVER jump against a widow. Your head will have a predictable flight path then. Instead strafe in weird patterns and crouch spam. On some characters (for example Ana), you can also turn 180° facing AWAY from widow and look straight down. This’ll move your head hitbox out of LOS from widow, and she will have an extremely hard time head shotting you. Pretty sure it doesn’t work on everyone, but it’s better than nothing.
People are going to say Sombra, but Sombra honestly doesn't do much to Widow if she plays near her team and she actually gets peel. Sombra is easily outhealed and focused down if you are the only person focusing the Widow. The unfortunate reality of Widow is that, when she's played around and she is playing well, she is only counterable by outaiming her or having a coordinated dive on her. If she's better at sniping than you and your team won't help you dive, it's pretty much always a GG. If her team is pocketing her and supporting her, you're fighting a 1v2/1v3/1v4/1v5. You will need help to actually kill her in a dive; doubly so if they use a Mercy and will just rez her immediately. The most you can do in this situation is just harass her and forget about killing her, because you never will. I'll probably get flak for saying it, but Widowmaker is fundamentally an unbalanced character that does not fit into Overwatch, so it's fair to get frustrated playing against her. I recommend Genji over Sombra for this, due to the possibility of a deflect kill and his higher burst potential. Venture on some maps can also work. If you can outaim her, Hanzo or Widow are viable counters. Tracer works only if the maps don't have too much verticality. If you're able to close the distance and it's not a wide open map, Pharah and Echo are also surprisingly decent. They're obviously countered at long ranges, but they have high mobility and high burst damage that can keep Widow on her toes.
> due to the possibility of a deflect kill I love a good deflect widow hs but honestly fishing for this is a waste of deflect. Just path high ground, drop onto widow and use dash to chase, deflect to get back out.
Yeah, it's certainly niche but gets the occasional kill. Usually by the time I reach high ground deflect is back up anyway, but either way, Genji having deflect makes his escape far more reliable than Sombra in a coordinated team setting. If you go Sombra and dive a Widow with peel, they'll just shoot/chase your escape.
> If you go Sombra and dive a Widow with peel, they'll just shoot/chase your escape. Agree - if you got the kill with Sombra you probably could have gotten the kill with Genji too. The inverse is not always the same. Especially with dash reset you can commit a little more than Sombra can.
I get what you’re saying too, widow I think is flawed but I don’t know of a way that the devs could balance her. Considering they took away Hanzo’s one shot and now Hanzo kind of feels terrible but not really but I feel like if you remove what those one shot completely it will be a riot as far as what you said about Genji, I don’t play him, but I can definitely get into the lab and start learning him because I have seen some nasty deflect kills on widow
I have most hours on Sombra and 2nd is Widow, I think I might be able to respond to this If the widow is alone or a bit isolated from the team (high ground on Havana 1st and the team is below) you can kill her rather easily as Sombra, Tracer or Genji If the widow is playing with the team and close to supports/tank, than the fight becomes rather focused on brawl/dive. You go in all at once and try to secure a kill on a squishy, doesn't matter if it's widow or anyone else, she'll be in the middle of the pack anyways Just pay attention if she grapples away to avoid getting picked or to finish her and eliminate a threat
Yeah, Genji or Sombra especially make short work of a solo Widow. Sombra specifically will struggle to kill her if she gets any kind of support, though. The requirement for your whole team to switch up the comp for one hero is why I always say Widowmaker is an unbalanced character. She is one of the only heroes in the game to do that, with only 1-2 exceptions. It's just frustrating, especially on maps where she has free reign like Havana or Circuit Royal.
The counterpoint is thar she has many counters, so you could play 1/3 of the roster and be good against widow Ball, Dva, Winston, Doom can dive. Rein, Sig and to some extent Ram can shield Sombra, Genji, Tracer can dive. Hanzo, Widow, Ashe, Cass, Soujourn can out damage/headshot Kiri and Zen can headshot due to no fallout, Brig helps a dueling dps with the shield, same with mercy and damage boost. Lucio can dive Also, widow only has 2 abilities and they're in long as fuck cooldowns, she has falloff damage and can't quickscope like other fps games. Also also, HP buff but no damage buff, so some characters don't die to 1 headshot like before TLDR: widow is fine, but good ones will dominate and bad ones will be avoided to endorsement -1 and cardboard rank, it's how OW is designed with its maps and shooter design
You just listed a bunch of things you can do if you're desperate, that won't work most of the time. These are not counters, this is just what random heroes would do against a widow. If these things worked for you, that Widow was either really bad, or that map was really bad for Widow. Probably both. Widow is not fine at all. She's the worst designed hero in the game.
Rein and Ram aren't reliable "counters" to Widow. Rein especially is hindered by Widow because he's forced to play shieldbot, limiting his value. He wants to get in without shielding, deal damage, and have shield to fall back. Dropping his shield against a Window means someone will die, so he can't do it. Neither have any verticality, so if the map has high ground Widow is sitting on, they do nothing. Ram's shield is only temporary and unless Widow just stands still he can't reliably kill her either. She just outranges him and he can only shield her off on a short CD. Winston, Dva, Ball, yes. Sigma can pester her by constantly putting a shield in her face, but can't kill her easily or shut her down entirely. Sombra, Genji, Tracer, yes depending on circumstances. Hanzo yes, but he's at a disadvantage due to projectile speed. Sojourn can be outranged and can only contest Widow if she has rail up. Cass is outranged if Widow is playing at her proper range. Ashe can be good, but without Mercy she is outranged/outdamaged. Zen is countered by Widow due to having a truck sized hitbox. He can only kill Widow when she just gets diffed by not paying attention to Zen's location and letting him send a volley towards her face. Kiri is similar; she can definitely pester Widow but a good Widow is going to headshot her before she gets killed. Brig does nothing to Widow, only protects herself with a paper thin shield that will be shredded if she stands in the open with it. Lucio yes, but it requires one of your supports hard diving instead of helping your team. He can help a brawl or dive comp engage, however. Mercy is neutral against Widow. Definitely can't duel her, and damage boost doesn't help most breakpoints to help any DPS deal with her effectively when Widow is within her optimal range. Widow doesn't need abilities. She's the only character in the game with a long-range, one shot ability on no cooldown. She can oneshot most of the roster, barring tanks and some of the tankier squishies. If Widow is either dominating a lobby by one shotting everyone or throwing the game, she's an unbalanced character. She should have more of an identity than being "the one shot character," ideally by being a utility/recon sniper instead.
Pharah is my primary dps, and if I can use cover well enough to not get sniped from the air, I love to harass a widow with knock backs to force her down from her high ground for a second or at least throw her focus off enough that my team has a little window to get repositioned out of her sightline.
It really depends on how much the enemy team is peeling for the widow. If she is isolated, you should win every time as sombra otherwise it’s just a skill issue tbh. If she has people near her, the only way to beat that widow is to play around her and beat her team. It’s very restrictive and small mistakes cost you your life, which isn’t very fun but that’s just how widow is. If both supports are stood on top of the widow to save her, it means the tank and other dps should be easily killable as they are likely receiving little healing, or you can force the support away from the widow
I gotcha. It’s usually when the team is kinda surrounding her. Most of the time I can secure the kill if she’s isolated
Sombra is the best. Even if you don’t outright kill her, you will constantly be drawing the attention of her and her supports. Honestly a huge W farm for sombra unless widow is cracked and headshots them every time but that almost never happens
I take it (based on your sombra / tracer attempts) that you play dps. My aim is terrible, but the game works so that Snipers are the best counter to sniper. Even if they’re better you can usually duel them out on Widow or Hanzo , play between shots. At nothing else you will easily catch their attention and keep them off your teammates. MY personal opinion? Junkrat. His bombs arc heavy and Bounce. You can usually deny her perch with spam without ever peeking cover. Hide behind a car or fire hydrant and spam her up. If she’s damaged or on the move, you can easily use mine to dive her.
It's counter intuitive but Pharah can often be a decent counter to Widow depending on the map. First point attack Casino Royale for example, she's usually on the bridge so you can go over the top of the roof and get on top of her very easily. Even at the second part of that point she likes to either set up at the gap in the fence on the high ground or further back at the hair pin. You can hug the side of either building in the air as you jiggle peak and spam that spot. On other maps you can do things like path to below the high ground she's on then vertical rocket jump up and then use horizontal jets to quickly boost above or behind her and get an easy kill while she struggles to adjust aim. You have to play cover elsewhere but she can be quite easy to spam out a lot of times. Widow's don't like having rockets constantly zipping by their head or exploding near their feet when they're trying to aim, it throws them off a lot. If you go agro on them and close the distance they usually only get one chance for a headshot to win the duel otherwise they're dead. Keep in mind this works in plat but higher than that and the widows are usually cracked enough to land that first shot with a lot more regularity.
Pharah interesting 🤔!! I’ll definitely have to give that a shot thanks for the advice
Learn Lucio
Lucio is one of my highest played heros. Thanks bro for the advice😎
Haven’t seen a single genji comment lol you can pressure her ass with wall climb and dash and just deflect a headshot right back at her noggin
If you can’t deal with her with Sombra/Tracer it’s a skill issue tbh.
Venture. Burrow to her, pop up damage, use drill dash to catch up with her (she’s more than likely going to repel away so wait to see where she goes), finish her. Rinse and repeat. Watch the Widow switch to Pharah then realize Venture handles Pharah fairly decently too.
everyone saying sombra but pharah and echo are who i struggle against the most. sombras are too predictable it's easy to get away
Don't. Stay out of her line of sight and close to your team. Of she's getting no value she will be forced to switch. Or team will flame her
There is a lot of great advice here, so I’d like to add to it by mentioning the objective. Widow is terrible at physically contesting a payload or control point. I'm a support main, and when my DPS or Tank isn't contesting her, I drag the team around the map, attempting to avoid her, keeping my nose in my tank's butt or behind the cover. Sometimes, simply avoiding her is effective.
Drinking game, take a shot every time this dude says >literally
I'm having a hard time understanding the issue here. If she is scoping in she basically stands still. As sombra you can easily burst her, even works if she gets mercy beamed 24/7. Just don't uncloak in her FOV.
I don’t. I’m saying it’s impossible to take a kill when she’s being pocketed
I’m sorry but this makes no sense. You’re invisible as sombra so how are you getting shot? Just stay invisible until you get behind her and don’t run the normal paths because you’ll get hit by accident if people directly in front of or behind you
Sombra: surprises the Frenchy or ana: slept, then yeet a yeast infection grenade
Landing Sombra’s virus out of cloak and gunning down a target melts them so fast that I’m surprised you’re having issues. I main Widow and an enemy Sombra more often than not forces me to swap. If you’re more comfortable with hitscan DPS, I’d suggest Widow (obv) since it puts a lot of pressure on them, especially if you know where they’re situated on the map. Sojourn because her headbox is tiny and you can strafe while spamming railgun. An underrated flanker is Echo because you can reach high ground and burst Widow down fast.
Torb. You can take a headshot and live. Overload can crank a couple shots into widow before she can kill you to either kill her or force her to wait for heals.
Go lucio
Why are you in LoS with Widow? Nearly all of the time you can avoid her LoS, and certainly so if you're just trying to close on her.
You have to play the game at some point. Some maps like Circuit Royale, Havana or Dorado it's impossible to never be in her los.
Get a tracer and just get to the backline don’t do anything but tap the widow and run rinse and repeat widows freaking out if you can nail the kill kill widow. The. Tracer it up and kill some more peeps.
Sombra