Overwatch player demonstrates how to tell if Ashe’s hip-fire will be accurate
Blizzard EntertainmentAn Overwatch player noticed a cool detail about how Ashe’s character animation relates to her hip-fire accuracy.
Ashe is the most recent addition to the Overwatch hero roster, having been released to the live servers on November 13.
As players get more hands-on time with the new hero, they’re discovering more and more details about her and how to get the most out of her kit. One such detail relates to how the hip-fire recoil resets on her Viper rifle.
Ashe’s hipfire has a perfectly accurate first shot – therefore making it perfect for hitting her dynamite for an early detonation – but after that it will go immediately into a less precise pattern, with each shot instead landing within a certain radius if fired in quick succession.
Ashe and her companion/ultimate ability B.O.B. have proven very popular.There’s a short cool-down before the hip-fire will shoot straight again, but as u/Bullgrit noticed, there’s a visual cue that lets players no exactly when this happens.
When Ashe fires rapidly from the hip, she keeps her hand to the side of the rifle as she pulls the trigger in quick succession. When the recoil resets, however, she moves her hand back to gripping the stock.
By keeping an eye on the animation, it’s therefore possible to know exactly when a hip-fire shot will once again fire with perfect precision.
Awareness of this little detail might have limited use in-game, as the faster fire-rate is the primary benefit of the hip-fire over the more precise, higher-damage aim-down-sights shots.
However, it’s an interesting little detail to note in itself that Blizzard had the attention-to-detail to line up the precision reset of the weapon with the animation of Ashe taking full control of the rifle by gripping the stock.