Listen, I love to play as Mccree. Whenever I’m just doing quick play matches, I usually main as him because I personally think he’s one of the most enjoyable players to use. However, when it comes to ranked matches, it’s a different story entirely.
After the last update for the Anniversary event, Genji, Hanzo, and Reaper received buffs while Solider:76 and Reinhardt received nerfs. With the way the current meta is shaped, range and mobility are arguably the two most valuable traits to have, two things McCree has none of. While it’s true that Overwatch strives for balance, making sure each player is well suited for their particular niche while simultaneously preventing any player from being too overpowered, one could argue that McCree isn’t even that viable for his own niche.
McCree vs. Everyone
Before McCree was nerfed, he was hands down one of the best players in the game. The immense amount of damage he could dish out combined with his ridiculous range quickly made him a favorite among the Overwatch community. However, after his nerf, he has arguably become one of the worst players in the game.
When it comes to the top DPS characters, virtually every character has either far better mobility, secondary abilities, or just flat out do more damage than McCree. He is usually seen as an anti-flanker with exceptional midrange damage, but the problem with that is that he’s really only viable when it comes to duels. Whenever he’s faced with more than one opponent, McCree is fairly easy to kill.
He’s supposed to specialize in taking out characters like Genji, Tracer, Reaper, and Pharah. When it comes to Genji and Tracer, unless you’re able to land his flashbang on them, they’re both very difficult characters to hit using just his peacekeeper. Reaper is pretty easy for even a half-competent McCree player to take out, although if you were to compare their evasive abilities, Reaper’s wraith form is far better compared to McCree’s combat roll.
As for Pharah, considering the amount of distance she can create between her and pretty much every other character in the game, unless she’s within McCree’s range, there’s not much he can do against her.
McCree’s biggest issue is that unless you’re just an incredibly skilled gamer, there’s really no reason to pick him over Soldier: 76.
He’s just simply far easier to use and is incredibly versatile, even after being nerfed in the last patch, there really hasn’t been any noticeable drop off with him. Meanwhile with McCree, it’s incredibly hard to get any sort of consistency out of him.
How to Fix Him
Obviously nothing should be done with McCree’s range or damage considering how overpowered he was before that was nerfed. However, nearly everything else about him could be improved without breaking the meta.
For starters, the cool down for both McCree’s combat roll and flashbang could be significantly reduced considering the fact that those are his only means of escaping deadly situations. While other characters like Genji, Hanzo, Tracer, and Soldier: 76 are capable of evading danger with no significant cool down whatsoever to slow them down, it seems only fair that McCree should have something similar.
Another possibility to help him out would be to increase his overall combat effectiveness. Perhaps instead of decreasing the cooldown for this flashbangs, give McCree two or maybe even three flashbangs before initiating his current cooldown. An even more subtle change could be to just decrease his reload time which would be especially useful considering the fact that McCree only has six shots before he needs to reload.
I’m not saying that McCree needs a massive makeover to make him viable again, but with the way he currently is, there’s just simply no reason to pick him over far more effective DPS characters. With the next patch for Overwatch coming soon, one could only hope that Blizzard will try to finally fix McCree.
