Experimental Overwatch buff makes McCree’s roll incredibly powerful

The latest Overwatch Experimental patch has buffed McCree’s Combat Roll and Flashbang, with the former, in particular, turning him into a spooky flanker who is much harder to kill.

Lately, Overwatch’s Experimental patches have been hitting the live game fairly consistently. That makes McCree’s latest buff a definite point of intrigue for players, as they have tested out his new Combat Roll and discovered increased survivability and a variety of surprising roll-outs. 

In September 18’s hero updates for the testing mode, McCree’s Combat Roll has had two substantial changes: it can now be activated midair and its distance has been increased by 20 percent. As revealed by immediate tests from the Overwatch community, this essentially turns the formerly slow-moving hero into a quasi-flanker, equipped with mid-air mobility akin to Hanzo’s Lunge dash.

 

As shown by content creators like ‘Hanbammer,’ McCree’s new midair roll enables him to take a variety of exotic and not-so-exotic flanks that would have previously been death sentences for the clock-obsessed cowboy. Now, he can jump across Watchpoint: Gibraltar’s high ground or around Volskaya Industries’ Point B to take surprising angles and introduce unsuspecting players to his favorite catchphrase: “It’s high noon.” 

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With an ultimate ability that is so dependent on catching people unaware and out-of-position, the ability to maneuver around is particularly deadly for the gunslinger. The High Noon ult takes a certain amount of time to load into an instant kill on enemies and can be thwarted in a multitude of ways.

But if McCree is able to take an angle that the other team doesn’t expect or can’t run away from, then there is a greater chance that the enemies won’t be able to defend themselves or kill him in time to prevent some casualties.

 

Speaking of killing the Wild West outlaw before he can kill you, that has also gotten even harder to do now that his roll acts as a horizontal double-jump. As shown in a clip by ‘Citriux’ on Reddit, McCree’s midair roll has enough of a vertical angle to it that he can successfully avoid environmental deaths and regain his position on the map.

In this example, he is hooked off of Dorado by a Roadhog, but quickly rolls back onto the surface beside the hog, subsequently stunning and killing his would-be assassinator.

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As all Experimental Mode patches go, it’s entirely possible that these McCree buffs do not hit the live servers. But, for now, it’s very interesting to see how the Overwatch community is taking advantage of the beloved cowboy’s new potential.