Overwatch players stunned by major McCree PTR buff

The latest update to the Overwatch PTR came with a significant buff to McCree designed to make the hero more competitive again.

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Overwatch players have been stunned by how big a difference the latest Public Test Realm (PTR) update makes to McCree’s effective rate of fire.

McCree has been through several iterations in terms of power and relevance. In the earliest days of the game, his Fan the Hammer alternate-fire ability was so powerful that McCree was used as if he had a shotgun rather than a precision revolver, although that was set right fairly quickly by Blizzard.

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While McCree has had periods of success since then – particularly on certain maps or, at the professional level, in the hands of certain players like Kim ‘Pine’ Do-hyeon – but lately he has been somewhat overshadowed.

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In order to improve McCree’s viability without making him excessively powerful, the latest PTR patch features a reduction in his recovery time between each shot, meaning players can now fire faster while remaining accurate.

This change is designed to improve McCree’s effective output while still requiring players to hit the same number of shots, and not otherwise adjusting his kit.

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McCree

Peacekeeper

• Primary fire recovery reduced from 0.5 seconds to 0.4 seconds.

Developer Comments: On average, McCree’s damage output wasn’t quite making up for the relatively low mobility or utility in his kit. Reducing his weapon’s recovery time improves the potential damage output without affecting the number of successful shots to kill an enemy.

While a 0.1-second reduction in recovery time might not sound a lot, in practice the result is very noticeable.

via Gfycat

Even Pine himself, perhaps the most iconic McCree player after his break-out performances with the hero in Overwatch League Season One earned him the nickname “Big Boss Pine”, was amazed by the change.

While the change is undoubtedly a buff to McCree, some players have complained that the manner of the buff isn’t ideal for long-time McCree players, as it means relearning the shot timings that they had previously honed.

Nevertheless, while it’s possible that Blizzard could make further changes to McCree before sending them to the live servers, if this change does go live it seems very likely that McCree will see a significant boost in his play rate.