So the question I have to ask is... do you all think there is still room for Widowmaker as a Hero unit?
ok, so, i just really dont think that she is that similar to nova, in fact i think she would be an anti nova!
passive: infra sight, widowmaker can see heat signatures of enemy heroes through walls, in bushes and while stealthed
E, grappline hook
W, venom mine
Q, toggle autofire
Just made a kit from her basic abilities that are nothing like nova
As for nova having a windowmaker skin, doesnt necessarily mean we will never see widowmaker, but the game doesnt exactly need her at the moment.
Besides, if this confirms no widowmaker, then we can also confirm no amazon, and i suppose we can begin calling nova the potential upcoming champion slayer.
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yeah pretty much, should have called the skin overwatch nova.... or novawatch!
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Yeah? why not? their kits arent even similar
Well, obviously they aren't exactly identical. The point is that they're both heavily focused on being a sniper, and they have the exact same silhouette as well. If they wanted there is enough difference to make them two different heroes, but why invest so much resources in trying to make two nearly identical characters different when there's a ton of other characters that still need to be implemented?
The core of their fantasy is being a sniper that kills targets in a burst from long range. Sure Nova has cloaking armor and psionic abilities and Widowmaker has some gadgets at her disposal, but that's far too little difference to warrant a high priority on making Widowmaker a HotS hero and they have tons of other Blizzard characters that would be far more interesting.
That being said, with this skin being implemented it's pretty much confirmed that Widowmaker will never be a HotS hero. You wouldn't be able to tell them apart ingame until they start using spells, and that's not good design when you take new players into consideration.
Meh, I like the skin, agree that she would definitely be thematically(not mechanically) too similar to Nova, as both are long ranged, female snipers, with virtually the same build, and a power/equipment that gives them and edge over others (Psionic abilities vs. Widowmaker's Recon Visor).
Also, unlike Tracer, her mechanics don't really port over to a MOBA very well:
1)Switching firing modes is cool, no doubt, and is even seen in other MOBA's, like Jinx from League of Legends. However, short of loading the game full of Overwatch charaters who can swap firing modes, I think it would be better used on someone who's alt. fire has more impact than range +(possibly) damage vs. attack speed, say maybe Zarya, Mei or Lucio (although given the CD, I guess Lucio's would more likely be a standard ability.)
2)Snipe would likely be the exact same as Nova's mechanically.
3)Grappling Hook, while extremely cool in Overwatch, would basically just be Sonya's Mystic Spear Talent in HotS, maybe with a "Must target a wall" component.
4)Spider Mines are just Abathur traps, perhaps without the slow and with more damage.
5)Recon Visor is a pretty terrible ult for a MOBA, since it's basically just Twisted Fate's ult from League of Legend without the Teleport follow-up.
Finally, as partially mentioned above, the final nail in her coffin is simply her appearance. In a MOBA, it's important to be able to identify a hero at a glance, meaning distinctive silhouettes and animation skeletons are important, Nova and Widowmaker simply look and move too similarly to have both in-game.
That said, I do really hope they make it a legendary and completely change her voice!
so Warlords of Draenor is /'woɹː.loɹːdz ʌv 'ɖɹæːn.oɹː/.I've always loved how in an attempt to make pronunciation through text easier to understand people have created a seemingly alien cypher for which few people without a degree related to language would ever been able to understand.
skin could complicate things, but there are ways they could push a bigger difference between them at launch, im sure players wouldnt object too much to widowmaker skin getting changed to look less like the real deal, but there are a thousand champs between now and then that could be released before we get widowmaker
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visor would be her passive, an anti stealth passive thats the opposite of novas
similarities dont necessarily mean they are copies, besides i could take any 3 abilities from random champs and the new champ could feel completely new and different, not everything needs to be completely different.
Besides, having 2 sniper champs could be really cool, they fulfill similar roles but play differently, i think suggesting there can only be 1 would be like saying they shouldnt add in any more demons because thats diablos thing, or they shouldnt add in any more spell casters because we have jaina...
Point is, it could work, and blizz is creative enough to come up with something. But in saying that, we are miles away from needing another sniper in the game when there are more interesting characters to make
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Not saying they should make her, just saying that they still can. i can agree that they would need something to make them more distinct, they could pull some gimmick out for that though.
I like having similar characters with some big difference, like creating a paradigm. If we had 1 tank and blizz decided to add another, you could imagine players getting pissed that its not fair because being a tank is hero 1s identity, but after adding in more tanks players are happier because they dont need to play the same tank if they want to fill that role.
differences are good too, but inevitably, we will see some roles overlap with more heroes added, this happened in LoL, and now they are doing class wide updates to distinguish them
I don't think so.
It would hurt the gameplay experience if you had a Widowmaker-Nova and a normal Widowmaker in the same game, because it would be hard to tell them apart - unless they made Widowmaker look completely different, which in conjunction with an altered kit would really make her seem like NOT Widowmaker at all.
There are ways they could get around that, it is a problem that widowmaker looks nearly identical to nova, but raynor and tychus look nearly identical and i dont think that that has really been an issue for most of us.
ideally they would look nothing alike, but they do look similar, well their shape does anyway. They could do some gimick with something like a spider looking aura below her feet to indicate widowmaker and something similar to indicate nova, some gimmick like that, or they could do a minor redesign for both, just minor tweaks, like nova gets the pony tail, widow maker gets... something
Alternatively, you could distinguish them entirely by body language, it doesnt matter that their bodies are identical when they walk, talk and stand entirely different
It does sound different from Nova, but that wasn't my point, my point was that it wasn't different ENOUGH from Nova to warrant a seperate hero, and, as it turns out it, evidently wasn't different enough, seeing as Nova got a Widowmaker skin, and Widowmaker wasn't turned into a hero.
How about that.
Last edited by mmocb78b2e29a3; 2016-05-08 at 04:05 PM.
It's a skin for Nova, of course it looks like Nova dressed as Widowmaker.
That's because it is.
When they have basically totally different kits, how is that not "different enough". By your logic, Tychus and Raynor shouldn't both be in game either, cause they're just as different as Nova and Widowmaker are. Why are both Artanis and Zeratul in game? They're no more different from each other than Nova and Widowmaker, so shouldn't we not have one of them, too?
People seem to forget it is not only about abilities, but also talents. Now give me at least 3 talent examples for each of her abilities, including heroic. This is a place where I can see Blizzard abandoning the idea of Widowmaker as a Hero.
Artanis and Zeratul example was stupid by the way, they are very different types of warriors. However Raynor and Tychus is a good one.
US - Eitrigg - <Bank Space is Magic>
Delupi, Amoora, Jisu, Beahru, Rusa, Yeun, Neralyis, Usii, Razzil, Zaramja, Oshaz, Shawnie, Iziss, Gearsi(A)
I wouldn't rule out Bastion, he has different silhouette than Sgt. Hammer.
They also use different weapons while in stationary positions, Bastion could easily be an Assassin. Bastion is a stationary Machine-Gun used mostly against infantry while Sgt. Hammer is a tank used for sieging or supporting infantry.
Okay, her abilitesSniper Shot(high damage skill shot after a 1.5 second channel), Grapple(skillshot that quickly moves Widowmaker in the direction aimed), Poison Mine(places a mine that releases a damaging gas cloud when an enemy gets near it), Heroic:Infra Sight ult(reveals all heroes in a large area), Trait:Switching from High Damage Sniper mode to lower damage but fast attacking SMG mode(cannot use Sniper Shot when in SMG mode)
Sniper Shot talents:
Master Marksman(reduces channel time by .75 seconds), Precision Shot(increases channel time by .5 seconds for increased damage), Kill Shot(when Sniper Shot hits a Hero, it additionally deals damage equal to 10% of that hero's max health).
Grapple talents:
Escape Artist(Grapple allows movement through terrain), Enhanced Grapple(grapple range increase and/or CD reduction), Speedy Getaway(20% movement speed boost for 2 seconds after using grapple).
Poison Mine talents:
Prototype Dispersal System(Poison Mine aoe radius and/or duration increased), Hidden Mine(Poison Mine stealths), Backup Charge(Poison Mine has multiple charges), Smoke Mine(Poison Mine's toxic cloud blocks vision like regular battlefield Fog/Smoke)
Heroics don't get 3 talents but for the lvl 20 talent:
Thermal Sat Uplink(Infra Sight is global)
Trait talents:
Burst Fire(Basic attacks in SMG mode deal 50% damage to nearby targets), Reposition(When in SMG mode, gain 10% increased movement speed), Covered Position(entering Sniper Mode grants a charge of Block, max 3 charges at one time)