What does hitscan mean in Overwatch?
The roster of characters in Overwatch is highlighted by a plethora of unique weapons and abilities that make every match a new experience. One of the primary ways that players differentiate heroes from one another in the game is by the way that their weapons shoot. There are two main types of weapon fire: hitscan and projectile. Projectile weapons work similar to the way that they sound. When fired, the ammunition of a projectile weapon travels at a set speed and trajectory in a specific direction. If youre trying to shoot a target thats moving and youre using a projectile weapon, youll need to lead your shot or predict your opponents movement to hit them. Characters that follow this weapon type include Hanzo, Junkrat, Roadhog, and Mei. On the other hand, ammunition from hitscan weapons is instant. Theres no delay between you clicking your mouse button and the bullet hitting whatever was in your crosshairs. If youre playing Widowmaker and line up your crosshair onto a players head, youll instantly deal headshot damage to the character once you click the button. This leads to a set of skills that differs from players who use projectiles. Instead of leading or predicting your shots, you must get good at what is called tracking your shots. Tracking a shot means that you can keep your crosshair locked onto your opponent while they move around. These characters use hitscan as their primary weapons: Ana, Ashe, Bastion, D.va, McCree, Reaper, Soldier:76, Sombra, Tracer, Widowmaker, and Zarya. While hitscan weapons are extremely powerful because of the accuracy that it allows players to have over projectile weapons, Blizzard balances those weapons by adding things like spread and damage falloff to them. Spread  Screengrab via Blizzard Entertainment  A good example of spread is with characters like Tracer and Reaper. While both characters have hitscan weapons, their ammunition isnt all fired in one direction. Tracers pistols will do stronger damage when youre close to an opponent. But the further away they get, the ammo will fly in various directions. Since Reaper is wielding shotguns, his ammunition will spray as well. To a lesser extent, this is true with Soldier: 76 as well. But his spread comes from holding down your fire for too long. If you quickly tap your mouse button repeatedly to fire Soldiers rifle, youll consistently hit whatever is in between your crosshairs. If you hold the button down, however, the shots will be significantly less accurate. Damage falloff  Image via Blizzard Entertainment  Though some hitscan characters can be lethal from range, like Widowmaker, many rely on being at a certain range to be effective. This is because of the damage falloff that exists on many hitscan weapons. To prevent some hitscan heroes from being too powerful, their ammunition will do less damage the further away a target is. While McCrees normal fire doesnt have any spread to it, his pistol is significantly less impactful from far distances than it is from medium and close range. For some characters like Tracer and Sombra, theres a combination of both spread and damage falloff that balances the power of their weapons.