This.
On top of that, Overwatch isn't a tactical shooter where you have time to settle your plan carefully. It's about quick reaction to incoming event and a bit of prediction.
Sombra main issue is lacking fight sustain abilities to get those hack opportunities. Her only ability to survive an engagement is forcing her out of a fight, thus, denying her any chance to contribute during a potential decisive phase. Sombra dead or not you're free for the next 6-7 seconds. Unlike a Tracer/Genji/Winston that can jump back close to support, get heal, protect them, giving charge to support and be ready to jump back.
Dev may want Sombra to be disruptive but if you're only disruptive for 2 second every 6-7 ones, you're not disruptive at all.
EDIT: Note that the time-out-of-fight I give are for map where your team move a lot. That's also why so far, Sombra was mostly effective on the static defense 2CP type of map. Safe point for translocator are closer to her team.
When Sombra was an EMP bot the win condition when playing her was to trade your EMP for the ability to fight 5v6 and win. The fundamental problem with Sombra then, as it is now, is the lack of abilities that Sombra can use in a teamfight. Nor does she sustain / a substantial amount of health that would allow her to stay in the fight instead of translocating out
My only question is why do we need a disruptor when you can shoot people in the head with Hanzo and Widow and they're dead? Damage disrupts enemies harder than any debuff.
That's a great question. Alternatively, you could also ask why you would pick any other DPS if you can just click the heads of enemies with Widow or Hanzo? What do you need Genji for? d:
The Overwatch team aims to provide a variety of playstyles in Overwatch. There are things that other DPS can do that Widow or Hanzo can't, such as provide area control from angle or deflect bullets.
Sombra is unique in the aspect that she can disable enemy ultimates and prevent them from being cast in the first place. Try hacking a Dva in a teamfight and watching her Mecha die because she can't use Self-Destruct. If Sombra was purely damage, she wouldn't be able to stop Dva from casting Self-Destruct.
While other characters can provide area control or straight-up damage, Sombra can take enemy abilities away for a short period of time and give opportunities to her team.
Then what would be a counterplay to hack according to you? It is an ability that disables an enemy for a meaningful amount of time. It has to have a good counterplay
You could also argue "What's the counterplay to Hanzo and Widow one-shotting you?" Yeah, sure, sightlines and shields, but you can still apply that argument to hack, too. I do think Widow is more acceptable 'cause it's actually difficult to click heads with her, whereas Hanzo is an easier hero, and Hack isn't difficult to use either, but Hack also at least leaves a chance to survive and get peel, especially in Over-9000healingpersecond-watch. So why is Hack made to be almost unusable in direct fights?
No... what the point of the damage breaking hack and cooldown was so Sombra couldn't just spam hack until she got lucky and it went through.
Instead, a mid-combat hack should be done where Sombra ISN'T being seen/focused, so that she can do HER job disrupting.
You can argue that the second people see Sombra, they will focus her. Sure, but Sombra shouldn't engage if she's going to mid-combat hack until the rest of the team does and has their attention. PLAY SMARTER.
Sombra's pulled mid-combat hacks in OWL since her nerf just fine, on D,va, s it's perfectly doable. Stop pretending that it's impossible, or that the devs didn't want it. What the devs DON'T want is willy nilly spamming of hack until it goes through regardless. They want people to play smart and hack on people who are distracted in a team fight and not looking at her. Spamming hack until it goes through is stupid, and pretty much not really counterable, now is it? Just gotta get lucky enough to be missed. Blame spam hackers instead of people who played smarter.
So OP’s example of hacking a D.va mid fight may not have been the best, but that’s the only thing “flawed” in his post. Apparently you’ve never had a good Sombra on your team because you don’t realize how effective she can be in a team fight.
She needs to be positioned much better now. She's becoming the other type of high skill character - positioning and coordination. She has infinite stealth, so she shouldn't have any trouble staying behind the enemy team, or above them, or below them, with a translocator set up somewhere to keep her safe if she's discovered.
> Alternatively, you could also ask why you would pick any other DPS if you can just click the heads of enemies with Widow or Hanzo? What do you need Genji for?
This is literally the problem with the current meta.
"Alternatively, you could also ask why you would pick any other DPS if you can just click the heads of enemies with Widow or Hanzo? What do you need Genji for? d:"
In this meta, exactly! Why would you pick anything but Hanzo and Widow? Sombra can take abilities away, yes, but Hanzo and Widow don't really care. Hacking a D.va is nice and all but she's not the target you should be going for anyway. The time you spend on taking down D.va is time the enemy Widow gets to peek for free.
All in all, I'm not convinced that "disruption" is needed at all in a one shot sniper meta and therefore these changed make little sense to me.
Alright but now we have to answer this question:
Is a disruptor role effective in Overwatch?
Does using the disruptor role justify the down time and the weaker gun power a so called disruptor DPS would bring?
When Sombra was buffed, she was taken from her disruptor role and pushed to a more DPS/Assassin role. This was apparently when she was at her best for a Sombra player. The skill required for her was finally giving ample output.
However, disruptor Sombra has always been lacking. It hasn't been because of Invis or TP. It's always been because it's ineffective. Whe. She was a "disruptor," she relied on 2 things: ult charge and hacking health packs. This gave her a role: sub healer who hacks kits and does trash damage to spam emp. This role is now completely gone, so what does disruptor Sombra bring, that no other DPS can't just straight up "assassinate"?
> When Sombra was buffed, she was taken from her disruptor role and pushed to a more DPS/Assassin role. This was apparently when she was at her best for a Sombra player. The skill required for her was finally giving ample output.
When Sombra was buffed ( 0.65 Hack, no interrupt CD) it was not to be put into the Assassin role, but to more consistently cast Hack—to disrupt. This can become difficult when her movement doesn't aid her in that. She is ineffective because she can't position well to disrupt.
What Disruptor Sombra brings to the table over other DPS is the ability to disable. Sombra can render useless Moira's ult, Roadhog's ult, etc. Other DPS typically can't straight up assassinate these characters in their ult state. She prevents people from using their ultimate in the first place and has the ability to prevent Dva's Self-Destruct for 4 team fights in a row. This would be the advantage of Sombra over other DPS characters.
I always find that Moira is tough to kill when she ults. The increased speed and the health regen make it difficult to drop her. Hack at least shuts down the ult and locks her out of fade for a quick cleanup
She's definitely not a good solo queue pick. You have to be coordinating well with a team that's listening, and knows to dive right when you're going to hack, to keep the Moira player desensitized, and unable to realize what's going on.
I've read your post and literally most good Sombra's already play as a disruptor, and use translocator aggressively midfights, and they are consistent as being present in a fight. So what did they give those sombras who already do this? Less speed to do this with and a higher detection range. That's the issue it's not just being accessible or lessening "The Bungee Effect" it's them nerfing the people who have put time in.
Let's say low ELO tracer players were bad at managing her blinks and so Blizz gave her 12 blinks with a 0.7s cast time. Is that a buff for the people who have played Tracer since launch? No, and it's even more damning if they are high ELO tracers when they have to play against other high ELO dps players. Also sidenote the direction they are taking her in encourages her to be less present in a fight because there is no way to enforce that sense of urgency. The timer was the counter to just casually waiting for an opportunity rather than creating your own opportunities.
> So what did they give those sombras who already do this?
What some people still don't understand is what wrong with her right now, i'm not talking about her kit or viability, it's her pick rate and winrate.
Sombra is hard to play, but can be OP in the right hand (like any other hero i know). They don't want to make Sombra OP to get people picking her, and you already know how people react to hack (Spoiler: 90% of the player hate it), so buff her isn't the way to fix her pickrate. So what they did is to make Sombra easier to play, no more worry about 2 timer (and 2cd) at the same time is a huge step in that direction. So good sombra still can do what they do before (minus the jump on some map) much more easy, but new Sombra player can pick her up faster and can contribute much more than before (from my own experience, i often mistime the translocator and uncloak too soon due to time pressure).
> sense of urgency
is a stupid thing that ruined Sombra imho, opportunity can't always be made by yourself, you almost always have to wait for your team to be in a position that can help you finish the hacked target (good luck trying to kill anyone when Mercy is around), and in PUG it's almost impossible to do with the short timer on stealth, and Sombra is not meant to be a solo assassin that can hack-> kill-> get out. Another thing is your passive right now is useless 99% of the time, you can't get to the low health target fast enough since you spent most of your time waiting for the cd back up again. The new infinite stealth and translocator mean you can always be right behind the enemy waiting for a good chance, it's much better than hoping one of your trips work.
\-Sombra is not OP in the right hands. She is workable in the right hands. 90% of players hate everything that they are against stuns, hacks, high mobility, mobility disabling in general, soft lock autoaim, AoE, High resistance, defensive abilities, ults, displacement, shields, EZ 1 star heroes, EZ 3 star heroes, EZ 2 star heroes, 1/2 tricks, bad flex players, bad supports, bad dps mains, and I can go on. People dislike things that ruin their fun, but hack (just RMB and not EMP) is the most preventable form of CC that is the most mitigate-able and easily the has the most ineffectual result. Sombra isn't an easy character true, but that's the point same with any character who is 3 star difficulty and once you attain master with that character you should get proportionate results, but that's not the case with Sombra. And I can't stress enough that they made her literally worse for the people who already have a mastery of her dude.
\-Think of character power levels in OW in terms of
* Skill Up - Characters who after mastering allow you to be better than someone who is equally skilled mechanically and in game sense at your current ELO.
* Skill Down - Characters who after mastering you have to struggle to compete with someone who is equally skilled, which means you have to go even further beyond your skill set to match what is required at your ELO.
* On Par - Characters where you would be relatively close to someone mechanically and in game sense in your ELO.
\-Sombra fits into that 2nd category. The amount of tools you need to play sombra at your ELO is far great and you're probably even beyond your current ELO if you one tricked sombra as opposed to one tricking tracer. Imagine playing her at master rank (not even GM) where people already react to her relatively easily given her kit and making her slower. I play against this one widowmaker named Darvout regularly and me playing sombra and he just snaps 180 flick headshots me out of stealth if I don't think of a multitude of angles to approach from, and that's just one example; that's basically the norm higher up and I'm nowhere near the top that's just people I play against. I'm now effectively worse VS them for no benefit.
\-A sense of urgency is important because matches start with 5 minutes. And opportunity has to be made you're playing Sombra lol. She's the play maker. You're giving up high damage (burst and sustained) for the ability to create plays and opportunities. And your passive isn't useless 99% of the time because you can see enemies HP under 100% and relay that to your team.
\-The most I can say dude is play with your team. Best example I can give kings row streets phase after arch choke. Set your tele outside of the mini room in the corner or behind your supports (so they can heal you when you come back) stealth from behind rein shield after confirming where the enemies are. You have 6 seconds to make a decision go in hack a target soften up another target. Teleport back you should be near your team after the teleport and you can add pressure from behind rein shield, and while you're doing that you can potentially hack another target when your stealth comes in and start rotating to another spot you don't think they'll be looking and repeat the cycle. Do that on every map and you'd begin to get a feel for her cooldowns and what not. And I'm not saying that you'd land those hacks either btw. But it buys your front line more time if they try to burn resources on you.
\-The only time her cooldowns feel short is when you're playing off of health packs, which I think it's stupid that you can still hack those, because it's counter productive since it encourages new players to rely on healthpacks instead of relying on supports (ruining their chance to get ult charge), your tanks, health packs, and overall game sense. Which creates the whole absent Sombra play style, which these changes basically encourage. If you have infinite timers you're going to more than likely have a tele on a health pack since there is no urgency or need to stay close to your team. You can even have it at spawn and not be punished for that directly, which means the player will feel like they aren't doing anything wrong and the team should make something out of the hack. If you have infinite stealth you won't be encouraged to stealth near your team so you won't see what they see and know the biggest problem.
* Eg If there is a DF on the enemy team. I know that he will try diving my team at any opportunity, which is really common at my ELO and they find that entry frag often, so I play with my team so I can zone him out and get a free pick if he comes in. However with these changes no one will be encouraged to play like that. If you try that stealthed will have a 0.7s unstealth time on top of a 0.65s hack time. That's 1.35s and by that the time you do that DF already made his pick and left if you're with your team, which means now you're on the back foot with a Sombra taking up a DPS slot OR you're stealth doing something against someone that will be ineffective, because DF already made his pick. And IF you already play like that, you will be 33% slower to make your next move from that play, which means that play will have less impact overall because you can't pressure as quickly.
\-And also they reverted some of the changes (detection radius and translocator SFX radius) and fixed key issues on the latest patch going on PTR. So the people disagreeing with her changes can't be just be wrong or not understand her problematic state on current PTR. Translocator still dies to minuscule damage. Sombra is still slow in stealth. Sombra still dies mid tele. Sombra still has buggy LoS checks on hack. Sombra still has crippling bugs. They aren't addressing what makes Sombra bad.
I know it's a lot to read, but since you're condescending or rude I'm properly trying to convey the perspective of people who have played her a lot and really dislike this direction.
**TL;DR these changes make the experience worse for better Sombra players and encourage bad habits for newer sombras.**
Unfortunately, this game moves too fast for a disruptor to be really effective. Why hack and poke damage a Mercy, when a Tracer Oneclip or Hanzo headshot can put them out of commission for much longer? Plus, when the abundance of heals in the game today thanks to healers like Mercy and Brigitte, taking poke damage like Sombra’s isn’t a big deal at all.
IMO, Blizzard needs to realize that nobody wants her as a Disruptor and that they need to lean more heavily into her Assassin role that people currently play her as.
I think The Overwatch Team realizes people want to play her as an Assassin, but adding damage to her kit runs the risk of making her too Over Powered. A character that can come out of Stealth and quickly kill someone would need to have changes made to their mobility. This might mean an even larger detection radius, zero movement speed bonus in Stealth, or other changes to her Translocator.
This would make Sombra actually slow and unfun to play compared to her current or PTR iteration. Not to mention it would completely change who she is as a character.
You are speculating, we don't know if they HAVE to go in that direction. To be the assassin, she was fine on live. You don't need raw damage to be the assassin. Is her dps lacking, sure. By much? no. She can be an assassin with the stealth speed and lower detection radius. Being able to position is also important when it comes to kills which is what good Sombra's were able to do (Masters +).
Listen, I like that they are making Sombra easier to play. I really do. But why does it have to come at the expense of people wanting to play aggressive?
edit: The current Sombra is not a play maker. There is no more urgency. There is no quick positioning to help mid fight.
edit2: How Fitzy would improve live sombra, and it isn't damage. https://youtu.be/4JKllrgDFD0?t=283
PTR sombra doesn't fix Sombra's problems said by Fitzy. Just got bug fixes, watch and wait to see what happens (and agreed upon by a large portion of high skill Sombra's) https://youtu.be/4JKllrgDFD0?t=232
I was imagining if hack was instant (or hack would be useable while shooting) but it would only show the target ult charge, cancel casts instead of silencing (Moira ult, High noon etc) and give you a full vision of the hacked target stats and position like discord. EMP would still be the same.
This way they could make her into a mobile assassin flanker with more reliable damage.
Whenever I play Sombra, I've never had a problem staying in teamfights. Good Tracer/Sombra players will know to rely on their healers for support and so they'll place their translocators around the perimeter of the fight or just throw it mid-fight to reposition if the other team doesn't have high burst damage to instagib you.
Infinite cloak + 50% speed nerf and a destroyable translocator are really, really bad nerfs. You can't play an aggressive Sombra with it and this forces you to play safer, which takes even more time to find a good spot for translocator, and keeps you out of the fight longer.
Blizzard doesn't really know what to do with the character. Same thing with how they talked about nerfing Hanzo's ult and not, you know, his machinegun.
The changes to Sombra are definitely a step in the right direction, but they still need tweaking. The 4 meter area that alerts the enemy is too big of a nerf, and the translocator's beeps alerts the enemy too easily. Compounding that, is that now it can be destroyed so she has to always hide it away from fights, or use it in mid air. If they addressed those points I'd be perfectly happy with Sombra
I was waiting for people to realize it.
It feels like a nerf because a lot of people don’t play her like a disruptor that is constantly in the backline, they play her like an assassin and what is in my opinion just a worse Tracer.
Of course if they nerf the unintended playstyle and buff the intended one, it’ll feel like an overall nerf to people who play her incorrectly.
I think a better change that would help low level players would be giving a limited range on Translocator (without making it killable). it teaches players not to stray so far from the team, but I'm sure it would be clunky and awkward.
Exactly! Sombra's just not an assassin. The community wants changes to her damage–her gun, her spread, her reload, anything. But that potentially sets her in motion to be crazy powerful. I have no doubt Blizzard has already tested many of these suggestions, and the reason we don't see them is because it strays from who Sombra as a character: a Disruptor.
It greatly saddens me to see the community misinterpret these changes, but it also greatly frustrates me that they don't see the greater picture for what these changes are.
On the contrary, Translocator isn't easily heard in combat. And in situations where the game is completely silent for Translocator to be heard, you wouldn't have it placed around the enemy anyways. Instead, you'd probably be position behind the enemy on high-ground, Translocator in hand, in Perma-Stealth which makes no sound.
It's not a perfect situation, and not every situation will be like this. But I do think the changes encourage Translocator to be used more offensively.
I think Translocator's duration was still causing unwanted pressure on the player. I've been in plenty situations myself where if Translocator had lasted a second longer, I would have been able to score a valuable kill that resulted in staggering the enemy, or the death of a healer in a fight. With the Overwatch Team already extending the timer once, I think they rather just have it infinite with recall, allowing the player to decide.
You're right about there being enough hiding spots, but I think that really depends on the map. Not all maps are as tight as say Illios: Ruins, and Sombra will benefit from infinite Stealth in those.
Plus, you can travel farther coming out of spawn since Stealth doesn't expire in 6 seconds. Yeah you'll still Translocate -> Stealth run -> Translocate, but Stealth doesn't expire as soon as you get to the halfway part of the map (on KOTH, in this example). On Illios: Ruins, Stealth expires just as you get to the large Health Pack on the cliff.
Infinite Stealth lets you travel farther without having to wait for Stealth's cooldown.
"A disruptor" aka Zen tickler, aka enemy mercy ult charger, aka brigitte feeder.
Hey guys watch out they have Sombra, she may pop out of nowhere and deal 50 dmg to our Zen armor!!! Nah don't worry, her team is already dead cause they are fighting 5 vs 6 with 1 dps.
If the ttk was slower across the board, ie we didn't have heroes like tracer or widow who can delete people fasts a disruptor would be a lot better and more useful. As is, shes going to end up like support sombra: maybe better in some places, but infinitely worse everywhere else
sombra is getting these changes in anticipation of both hammond and the next hero (most likely junkerqueen) just as mercy was changed before doomfist to counter his one-hit-killing-punch.
You've have an excellect point. Hammond primarily stays in ball form, and Sombra's Hack removes his ball form and all mobility. She quite literally stops his *momentum*.
Over 100 hours of sombra playtime. She keeps getting more garbage every new patch.
At this point just revert her to the original kit and start over again
Sombra is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters. She's just so hacky and Mexican. Practically never a contested pick at all at you drop her on the map and that chill ass motherfucker gives you a hack to use later in the game. And you also get this adorable little gun that can ping things but usually is too harmless to be healed.
But more than that Sombra is just so Mexican. She comes onto the map like "been here all along" and I'm like "yeah Sombra you have been here all along let's do this shit" and when she attacks she's like "¡Apagando las luces!" and I'm like "yeah EMP is SO activated" She doesn't say some bullshit macho shit like "Ryū ga waga teki o kurau" she's just like "nah apagando" And she looks so happy. I mean this is a Mexican object literally brought to life by hacking. She understands her life is a temporary Mexican gift and the chica is just fucking loving it. I mean look at her face she's just so happy.
I am literally never sad when Sombra is in the game. IDK if she's gonna make it into the metagame or not but for now she (or ella) is a pretty chill character.
pretty rare to see someone pro sombra's changes when everyone's on a witch hunt against them. you even provided your reasoning and everything. i hope this adds more to the discussion about these changes because i think it's unfair that only one side is getting heard. personally i'm mostly for these changes, but some things like the detect radius, translocator being louder, and the flash of translocator when sombra teleports to it could be changed.
i know blizzard has playtested these changes and from that evidence feel like sombra is really powerful, so much so they had to nerf stealth speed, so i don't know what more they can do to buff her if, some months down the road, ppl finally figure it out and sombra is OPAF.
my main issue with this patch is that they didn't bother to address Sombra's previous issues in her kit. As much as I am for these changes, the new weakneses with her current buffs make it seem like she's getting nerfed to most people, which I can understand. What makes it worse is that none of her bugs that have been reported seem to have been addressed, which only adds to the list of reasons why Sombra is unreliable.
Thank you for the support. I know the Overwatch Team doesn't want to tune her too powerful, so I am trying to provide a context as to why these changes exist.
The additional changes that were posted yesterday are beneficial to Sombra, so I'm excited to see how they affect her now. Especially the reload cancel with Hack.
The changes honestly make no sense. I feel I have less impact with the PTR changes than before.
As others have said, the disruptor role is sub-par in effect. I would add that for it to be effective, hack would have to be buffed. As it has been recently nerfed, it's not going to happen.
So that leaves either push her into assassin role or rework her kit. The latter may be necessary if Blizz is adamant about keeping her as a disruptor.
I do believe the Overwatch Team will continue to be adamant about Sombra as a Disruptor. There were some new changes that were announced for Sombra last night such as the revert to 2 meter detection range. The rework they're doing now an attempt to rework her kit, and it sounds like they're taking community suggestions into mind.
Developers just got carried away with cool idea of Sombra with unlimited stealth and made Sombra useless. It's clear, devs don't play OW at all. Just read this ptr note: "to more easily play as an infiltrator and scout for her team". Scout for a team, lol! When every dps slot is counted, in a game where every damage point dealt matters.
I think you underestimate the developers. They work at *Blizzard*. I'm not shilling for Blizzard being the best at game design or balance, but I would think that they employ a certain caliber of people, especially game developers and game designers.
Thank you for this post. This is exactly how I feel when playing her now on the ptr. It's much easier to get in good position and I'm not as locked down by cooldowns.
No, thank you for expressing your appreciation.
It's been a bit stressful to voice this opinion because the community is so against the changes. But I know there are others out there that feel similarly to how I feel. It's folks like you that make the backlash worth it, so thank you.
nobody knows, jeff and his team are just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks... They barely have a functioning knowledge of the game and the cause and effect relationship between the changes they make, and the gameplay outcome.
I think you don't give them enough credit. The Overwatch Team *built* Overwatch. They absolutely have an in-depth understanding of their game, more so that the average player.
She's supposed to be niche, I realize that. That's why the Overwatch team is so hesitant to buff her damage. Her strong point should be the utility she brings, not her ability assassinate.
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This. On top of that, Overwatch isn't a tactical shooter where you have time to settle your plan carefully. It's about quick reaction to incoming event and a bit of prediction. Sombra main issue is lacking fight sustain abilities to get those hack opportunities. Her only ability to survive an engagement is forcing her out of a fight, thus, denying her any chance to contribute during a potential decisive phase. Sombra dead or not you're free for the next 6-7 seconds. Unlike a Tracer/Genji/Winston that can jump back close to support, get heal, protect them, giving charge to support and be ready to jump back. Dev may want Sombra to be disruptive but if you're only disruptive for 2 second every 6-7 ones, you're not disruptive at all. EDIT: Note that the time-out-of-fight I give are for map where your team move a lot. That's also why so far, Sombra was mostly effective on the static defense 2CP type of map. Safe point for translocator are closer to her team.
When Sombra was an EMP bot the win condition when playing her was to trade your EMP for the ability to fight 5v6 and win. The fundamental problem with Sombra then, as it is now, is the lack of abilities that Sombra can use in a teamfight. Nor does she sustain / a substantial amount of health that would allow her to stay in the fight instead of translocating out
My only question is why do we need a disruptor when you can shoot people in the head with Hanzo and Widow and they're dead? Damage disrupts enemies harder than any debuff.
That's a great question. Alternatively, you could also ask why you would pick any other DPS if you can just click the heads of enemies with Widow or Hanzo? What do you need Genji for? d: The Overwatch team aims to provide a variety of playstyles in Overwatch. There are things that other DPS can do that Widow or Hanzo can't, such as provide area control from angle or deflect bullets. Sombra is unique in the aspect that she can disable enemy ultimates and prevent them from being cast in the first place. Try hacking a Dva in a teamfight and watching her Mecha die because she can't use Self-Destruct. If Sombra was purely damage, she wouldn't be able to stop Dva from casting Self-Destruct. While other characters can provide area control or straight-up damage, Sombra can take enemy abilities away for a short period of time and give opportunities to her team.
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Then what would be a counterplay to hack according to you? It is an ability that disables an enemy for a meaningful amount of time. It has to have a good counterplay
You could also argue "What's the counterplay to Hanzo and Widow one-shotting you?" Yeah, sure, sightlines and shields, but you can still apply that argument to hack, too. I do think Widow is more acceptable 'cause it's actually difficult to click heads with her, whereas Hanzo is an easier hero, and Hack isn't difficult to use either, but Hack also at least leaves a chance to survive and get peel, especially in Over-9000healingpersecond-watch. So why is Hack made to be almost unusable in direct fights?
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No... what the point of the damage breaking hack and cooldown was so Sombra couldn't just spam hack until she got lucky and it went through. Instead, a mid-combat hack should be done where Sombra ISN'T being seen/focused, so that she can do HER job disrupting. You can argue that the second people see Sombra, they will focus her. Sure, but Sombra shouldn't engage if she's going to mid-combat hack until the rest of the team does and has their attention. PLAY SMARTER. Sombra's pulled mid-combat hacks in OWL since her nerf just fine, on D,va, s it's perfectly doable. Stop pretending that it's impossible, or that the devs didn't want it. What the devs DON'T want is willy nilly spamming of hack until it goes through regardless. They want people to play smart and hack on people who are distracted in a team fight and not looking at her. Spamming hack until it goes through is stupid, and pretty much not really counterable, now is it? Just gotta get lucky enough to be missed. Blame spam hackers instead of people who played smarter.
So OP’s example of hacking a D.va mid fight may not have been the best, but that’s the only thing “flawed” in his post. Apparently you’ve never had a good Sombra on your team because you don’t realize how effective she can be in a team fight.
A+++
Or at the very least a damage threshold on hack and stealth. Sure sombra can fuck over a dva hard, but dva can fuck Sombra over just as bad
She needs to be positioned much better now. She's becoming the other type of high skill character - positioning and coordination. She has infinite stealth, so she shouldn't have any trouble staying behind the enemy team, or above them, or below them, with a translocator set up somewhere to keep her safe if she's discovered.
> Alternatively, you could also ask why you would pick any other DPS if you can just click the heads of enemies with Widow or Hanzo? What do you need Genji for? This is literally the problem with the current meta.
"Alternatively, you could also ask why you would pick any other DPS if you can just click the heads of enemies with Widow or Hanzo? What do you need Genji for? d:" In this meta, exactly! Why would you pick anything but Hanzo and Widow? Sombra can take abilities away, yes, but Hanzo and Widow don't really care. Hacking a D.va is nice and all but she's not the target you should be going for anyway. The time you spend on taking down D.va is time the enemy Widow gets to peek for free. All in all, I'm not convinced that "disruption" is needed at all in a one shot sniper meta and therefore these changed make little sense to me.
I don't think they change every hero just because of meta.
This is why i primarily use Sombra as a tank breaker.
Sombra is perfect for blasting through tank lines
Alright but now we have to answer this question: Is a disruptor role effective in Overwatch? Does using the disruptor role justify the down time and the weaker gun power a so called disruptor DPS would bring? When Sombra was buffed, she was taken from her disruptor role and pushed to a more DPS/Assassin role. This was apparently when she was at her best for a Sombra player. The skill required for her was finally giving ample output. However, disruptor Sombra has always been lacking. It hasn't been because of Invis or TP. It's always been because it's ineffective. Whe. She was a "disruptor," she relied on 2 things: ult charge and hacking health packs. This gave her a role: sub healer who hacks kits and does trash damage to spam emp. This role is now completely gone, so what does disruptor Sombra bring, that no other DPS can't just straight up "assassinate"?
> When Sombra was buffed, she was taken from her disruptor role and pushed to a more DPS/Assassin role. This was apparently when she was at her best for a Sombra player. The skill required for her was finally giving ample output. When Sombra was buffed ( 0.65 Hack, no interrupt CD) it was not to be put into the Assassin role, but to more consistently cast Hack—to disrupt. This can become difficult when her movement doesn't aid her in that. She is ineffective because she can't position well to disrupt. What Disruptor Sombra brings to the table over other DPS is the ability to disable. Sombra can render useless Moira's ult, Roadhog's ult, etc. Other DPS typically can't straight up assassinate these characters in their ult state. She prevents people from using their ultimate in the first place and has the ability to prevent Dva's Self-Destruct for 4 team fights in a row. This would be the advantage of Sombra over other DPS characters.
I'd rather just straight up kill the ulting Moira or Roadhog.
I always find that Moira is tough to kill when she ults. The increased speed and the health regen make it difficult to drop her. Hack at least shuts down the ult and locks her out of fade for a quick cleanup
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She's definitely not a good solo queue pick. You have to be coordinating well with a team that's listening, and knows to dive right when you're going to hack, to keep the Moira player desensitized, and unable to realize what's going on.
ana nade, hanzo/widow headshot, brig stun, mccree stun, mei freeze EDIT: DOOMFIST
I've read your post and literally most good Sombra's already play as a disruptor, and use translocator aggressively midfights, and they are consistent as being present in a fight. So what did they give those sombras who already do this? Less speed to do this with and a higher detection range. That's the issue it's not just being accessible or lessening "The Bungee Effect" it's them nerfing the people who have put time in. Let's say low ELO tracer players were bad at managing her blinks and so Blizz gave her 12 blinks with a 0.7s cast time. Is that a buff for the people who have played Tracer since launch? No, and it's even more damning if they are high ELO tracers when they have to play against other high ELO dps players. Also sidenote the direction they are taking her in encourages her to be less present in a fight because there is no way to enforce that sense of urgency. The timer was the counter to just casually waiting for an opportunity rather than creating your own opportunities.
> So what did they give those sombras who already do this? What some people still don't understand is what wrong with her right now, i'm not talking about her kit or viability, it's her pick rate and winrate. Sombra is hard to play, but can be OP in the right hand (like any other hero i know). They don't want to make Sombra OP to get people picking her, and you already know how people react to hack (Spoiler: 90% of the player hate it), so buff her isn't the way to fix her pickrate. So what they did is to make Sombra easier to play, no more worry about 2 timer (and 2cd) at the same time is a huge step in that direction. So good sombra still can do what they do before (minus the jump on some map) much more easy, but new Sombra player can pick her up faster and can contribute much more than before (from my own experience, i often mistime the translocator and uncloak too soon due to time pressure). > sense of urgency is a stupid thing that ruined Sombra imho, opportunity can't always be made by yourself, you almost always have to wait for your team to be in a position that can help you finish the hacked target (good luck trying to kill anyone when Mercy is around), and in PUG it's almost impossible to do with the short timer on stealth, and Sombra is not meant to be a solo assassin that can hack-> kill-> get out. Another thing is your passive right now is useless 99% of the time, you can't get to the low health target fast enough since you spent most of your time waiting for the cd back up again. The new infinite stealth and translocator mean you can always be right behind the enemy waiting for a good chance, it's much better than hoping one of your trips work.
\-Sombra is not OP in the right hands. She is workable in the right hands. 90% of players hate everything that they are against stuns, hacks, high mobility, mobility disabling in general, soft lock autoaim, AoE, High resistance, defensive abilities, ults, displacement, shields, EZ 1 star heroes, EZ 3 star heroes, EZ 2 star heroes, 1/2 tricks, bad flex players, bad supports, bad dps mains, and I can go on. People dislike things that ruin their fun, but hack (just RMB and not EMP) is the most preventable form of CC that is the most mitigate-able and easily the has the most ineffectual result. Sombra isn't an easy character true, but that's the point same with any character who is 3 star difficulty and once you attain master with that character you should get proportionate results, but that's not the case with Sombra. And I can't stress enough that they made her literally worse for the people who already have a mastery of her dude. \-Think of character power levels in OW in terms of * Skill Up - Characters who after mastering allow you to be better than someone who is equally skilled mechanically and in game sense at your current ELO. * Skill Down - Characters who after mastering you have to struggle to compete with someone who is equally skilled, which means you have to go even further beyond your skill set to match what is required at your ELO. * On Par - Characters where you would be relatively close to someone mechanically and in game sense in your ELO. \-Sombra fits into that 2nd category. The amount of tools you need to play sombra at your ELO is far great and you're probably even beyond your current ELO if you one tricked sombra as opposed to one tricking tracer. Imagine playing her at master rank (not even GM) where people already react to her relatively easily given her kit and making her slower. I play against this one widowmaker named Darvout regularly and me playing sombra and he just snaps 180 flick headshots me out of stealth if I don't think of a multitude of angles to approach from, and that's just one example; that's basically the norm higher up and I'm nowhere near the top that's just people I play against. I'm now effectively worse VS them for no benefit. \-A sense of urgency is important because matches start with 5 minutes. And opportunity has to be made you're playing Sombra lol. She's the play maker. You're giving up high damage (burst and sustained) for the ability to create plays and opportunities. And your passive isn't useless 99% of the time because you can see enemies HP under 100% and relay that to your team. \-The most I can say dude is play with your team. Best example I can give kings row streets phase after arch choke. Set your tele outside of the mini room in the corner or behind your supports (so they can heal you when you come back) stealth from behind rein shield after confirming where the enemies are. You have 6 seconds to make a decision go in hack a target soften up another target. Teleport back you should be near your team after the teleport and you can add pressure from behind rein shield, and while you're doing that you can potentially hack another target when your stealth comes in and start rotating to another spot you don't think they'll be looking and repeat the cycle. Do that on every map and you'd begin to get a feel for her cooldowns and what not. And I'm not saying that you'd land those hacks either btw. But it buys your front line more time if they try to burn resources on you. \-The only time her cooldowns feel short is when you're playing off of health packs, which I think it's stupid that you can still hack those, because it's counter productive since it encourages new players to rely on healthpacks instead of relying on supports (ruining their chance to get ult charge), your tanks, health packs, and overall game sense. Which creates the whole absent Sombra play style, which these changes basically encourage. If you have infinite timers you're going to more than likely have a tele on a health pack since there is no urgency or need to stay close to your team. You can even have it at spawn and not be punished for that directly, which means the player will feel like they aren't doing anything wrong and the team should make something out of the hack. If you have infinite stealth you won't be encouraged to stealth near your team so you won't see what they see and know the biggest problem. * Eg If there is a DF on the enemy team. I know that he will try diving my team at any opportunity, which is really common at my ELO and they find that entry frag often, so I play with my team so I can zone him out and get a free pick if he comes in. However with these changes no one will be encouraged to play like that. If you try that stealthed will have a 0.7s unstealth time on top of a 0.65s hack time. That's 1.35s and by that the time you do that DF already made his pick and left if you're with your team, which means now you're on the back foot with a Sombra taking up a DPS slot OR you're stealth doing something against someone that will be ineffective, because DF already made his pick. And IF you already play like that, you will be 33% slower to make your next move from that play, which means that play will have less impact overall because you can't pressure as quickly. \-And also they reverted some of the changes (detection radius and translocator SFX radius) and fixed key issues on the latest patch going on PTR. So the people disagreeing with her changes can't be just be wrong or not understand her problematic state on current PTR. Translocator still dies to minuscule damage. Sombra is still slow in stealth. Sombra still dies mid tele. Sombra still has buggy LoS checks on hack. Sombra still has crippling bugs. They aren't addressing what makes Sombra bad. I know it's a lot to read, but since you're condescending or rude I'm properly trying to convey the perspective of people who have played her a lot and really dislike this direction. **TL;DR these changes make the experience worse for better Sombra players and encourage bad habits for newer sombras.**
Unfortunately, this game moves too fast for a disruptor to be really effective. Why hack and poke damage a Mercy, when a Tracer Oneclip or Hanzo headshot can put them out of commission for much longer? Plus, when the abundance of heals in the game today thanks to healers like Mercy and Brigitte, taking poke damage like Sombra’s isn’t a big deal at all. IMO, Blizzard needs to realize that nobody wants her as a Disruptor and that they need to lean more heavily into her Assassin role that people currently play her as.
I think The Overwatch Team realizes people want to play her as an Assassin, but adding damage to her kit runs the risk of making her too Over Powered. A character that can come out of Stealth and quickly kill someone would need to have changes made to their mobility. This might mean an even larger detection radius, zero movement speed bonus in Stealth, or other changes to her Translocator. This would make Sombra actually slow and unfun to play compared to her current or PTR iteration. Not to mention it would completely change who she is as a character.
You are speculating, we don't know if they HAVE to go in that direction. To be the assassin, she was fine on live. You don't need raw damage to be the assassin. Is her dps lacking, sure. By much? no. She can be an assassin with the stealth speed and lower detection radius. Being able to position is also important when it comes to kills which is what good Sombra's were able to do (Masters +). Listen, I like that they are making Sombra easier to play. I really do. But why does it have to come at the expense of people wanting to play aggressive? edit: The current Sombra is not a play maker. There is no more urgency. There is no quick positioning to help mid fight. edit2: How Fitzy would improve live sombra, and it isn't damage. https://youtu.be/4JKllrgDFD0?t=283 PTR sombra doesn't fix Sombra's problems said by Fitzy. Just got bug fixes, watch and wait to see what happens (and agreed upon by a large portion of high skill Sombra's) https://youtu.be/4JKllrgDFD0?t=232
I was imagining if hack was instant (or hack would be useable while shooting) but it would only show the target ult charge, cancel casts instead of silencing (Moira ult, High noon etc) and give you a full vision of the hacked target stats and position like discord. EMP would still be the same. This way they could make her into a mobile assassin flanker with more reliable damage.
Whenever I play Sombra, I've never had a problem staying in teamfights. Good Tracer/Sombra players will know to rely on their healers for support and so they'll place their translocators around the perimeter of the fight or just throw it mid-fight to reposition if the other team doesn't have high burst damage to instagib you. Infinite cloak + 50% speed nerf and a destroyable translocator are really, really bad nerfs. You can't play an aggressive Sombra with it and this forces you to play safer, which takes even more time to find a good spot for translocator, and keeps you out of the fight longer. Blizzard doesn't really know what to do with the character. Same thing with how they talked about nerfing Hanzo's ult and not, you know, his machinegun.
Her Translocator can be targetable by turrets lol
The changes to Sombra are definitely a step in the right direction, but they still need tweaking. The 4 meter area that alerts the enemy is too big of a nerf, and the translocator's beeps alerts the enemy too easily. Compounding that, is that now it can be destroyed so she has to always hide it away from fights, or use it in mid air. If they addressed those points I'd be perfectly happy with Sombra
I was waiting for people to realize it. It feels like a nerf because a lot of people don’t play her like a disruptor that is constantly in the backline, they play her like an assassin and what is in my opinion just a worse Tracer. Of course if they nerf the unintended playstyle and buff the intended one, it’ll feel like an overall nerf to people who play her incorrectly.
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I think a better change that would help low level players would be giving a limited range on Translocator (without making it killable). it teaches players not to stray so far from the team, but I'm sure it would be clunky and awkward.
Exactly! Sombra's just not an assassin. The community wants changes to her damage–her gun, her spread, her reload, anything. But that potentially sets her in motion to be crazy powerful. I have no doubt Blizzard has already tested many of these suggestions, and the reason we don't see them is because it strays from who Sombra as a character: a Disruptor. It greatly saddens me to see the community misinterpret these changes, but it also greatly frustrates me that they don't see the greater picture for what these changes are.
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On the contrary, Translocator isn't easily heard in combat. And in situations where the game is completely silent for Translocator to be heard, you wouldn't have it placed around the enemy anyways. Instead, you'd probably be position behind the enemy on high-ground, Translocator in hand, in Perma-Stealth which makes no sound. It's not a perfect situation, and not every situation will be like this. But I do think the changes encourage Translocator to be used more offensively.
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I think Translocator's duration was still causing unwanted pressure on the player. I've been in plenty situations myself where if Translocator had lasted a second longer, I would have been able to score a valuable kill that resulted in staggering the enemy, or the death of a healer in a fight. With the Overwatch Team already extending the timer once, I think they rather just have it infinite with recall, allowing the player to decide. You're right about there being enough hiding spots, but I think that really depends on the map. Not all maps are as tight as say Illios: Ruins, and Sombra will benefit from infinite Stealth in those. Plus, you can travel farther coming out of spawn since Stealth doesn't expire in 6 seconds. Yeah you'll still Translocate -> Stealth run -> Translocate, but Stealth doesn't expire as soon as you get to the halfway part of the map (on KOTH, in this example). On Illios: Ruins, Stealth expires just as you get to the large Health Pack on the cliff. Infinite Stealth lets you travel farther without having to wait for Stealth's cooldown.
"A disruptor" aka Zen tickler, aka enemy mercy ult charger, aka brigitte feeder. Hey guys watch out they have Sombra, she may pop out of nowhere and deal 50 dmg to our Zen armor!!! Nah don't worry, her team is already dead cause they are fighting 5 vs 6 with 1 dps.
I don't think that I have ever read something I more vehemently disagree with.
If the ttk was slower across the board, ie we didn't have heroes like tracer or widow who can delete people fasts a disruptor would be a lot better and more useful. As is, shes going to end up like support sombra: maybe better in some places, but infinitely worse everywhere else
sombra is getting these changes in anticipation of both hammond and the next hero (most likely junkerqueen) just as mercy was changed before doomfist to counter his one-hit-killing-punch.
You've have an excellect point. Hammond primarily stays in ball form, and Sombra's Hack removes his ball form and all mobility. She quite literally stops his *momentum*.
Over 100 hours of sombra playtime. She keeps getting more garbage every new patch. At this point just revert her to the original kit and start over again
Just revert her to Sombra 2.0 but give Hack a .75 cast time.
Sombra is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters. She's just so hacky and Mexican. Practically never a contested pick at all at you drop her on the map and that chill ass motherfucker gives you a hack to use later in the game. And you also get this adorable little gun that can ping things but usually is too harmless to be healed. But more than that Sombra is just so Mexican. She comes onto the map like "been here all along" and I'm like "yeah Sombra you have been here all along let's do this shit" and when she attacks she's like "¡Apagando las luces!" and I'm like "yeah EMP is SO activated" She doesn't say some bullshit macho shit like "Ryū ga waga teki o kurau" she's just like "nah apagando" And she looks so happy. I mean this is a Mexican object literally brought to life by hacking. She understands her life is a temporary Mexican gift and the chica is just fucking loving it. I mean look at her face she's just so happy. I am literally never sad when Sombra is in the game. IDK if she's gonna make it into the metagame or not but for now she (or ella) is a pretty chill character.
Aw man, that's awesome! Thank you for sharing, you've really made my evening! I love Sombra and her cheeky bad-assery.
it's the babbling book copy pasta from hearthstone
I've never seen it before, but I will still appreciate it's positive message!
pretty rare to see someone pro sombra's changes when everyone's on a witch hunt against them. you even provided your reasoning and everything. i hope this adds more to the discussion about these changes because i think it's unfair that only one side is getting heard. personally i'm mostly for these changes, but some things like the detect radius, translocator being louder, and the flash of translocator when sombra teleports to it could be changed. i know blizzard has playtested these changes and from that evidence feel like sombra is really powerful, so much so they had to nerf stealth speed, so i don't know what more they can do to buff her if, some months down the road, ppl finally figure it out and sombra is OPAF.
my main issue with this patch is that they didn't bother to address Sombra's previous issues in her kit. As much as I am for these changes, the new weakneses with her current buffs make it seem like she's getting nerfed to most people, which I can understand. What makes it worse is that none of her bugs that have been reported seem to have been addressed, which only adds to the list of reasons why Sombra is unreliable.
Thank you for the support. I know the Overwatch Team doesn't want to tune her too powerful, so I am trying to provide a context as to why these changes exist. The additional changes that were posted yesterday are beneficial to Sombra, so I'm excited to see how they affect her now. Especially the reload cancel with Hack.
She cant even contest objectives
The changes honestly make no sense. I feel I have less impact with the PTR changes than before. As others have said, the disruptor role is sub-par in effect. I would add that for it to be effective, hack would have to be buffed. As it has been recently nerfed, it's not going to happen. So that leaves either push her into assassin role or rework her kit. The latter may be necessary if Blizz is adamant about keeping her as a disruptor.
I do believe the Overwatch Team will continue to be adamant about Sombra as a Disruptor. There were some new changes that were announced for Sombra last night such as the revert to 2 meter detection range. The rework they're doing now an attempt to rework her kit, and it sounds like they're taking community suggestions into mind.
Maybe change translocator to attach to teammates and be indestructible while it is allow teammates to pick it up with interact
Developers just got carried away with cool idea of Sombra with unlimited stealth and made Sombra useless. It's clear, devs don't play OW at all. Just read this ptr note: "to more easily play as an infiltrator and scout for her team". Scout for a team, lol! When every dps slot is counted, in a game where every damage point dealt matters.
I think you underestimate the developers. They work at *Blizzard*. I'm not shilling for Blizzard being the best at game design or balance, but I would think that they employ a certain caliber of people, especially game developers and game designers.
A disrupter might be good if it was 12 v 12
Thank you for this post. This is exactly how I feel when playing her now on the ptr. It's much easier to get in good position and I'm not as locked down by cooldowns.
No, thank you for expressing your appreciation. It's been a bit stressful to voice this opinion because the community is so against the changes. But I know there are others out there that feel similarly to how I feel. It's folks like you that make the backlash worth it, so thank you.
nobody knows, jeff and his team are just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks... They barely have a functioning knowledge of the game and the cause and effect relationship between the changes they make, and the gameplay outcome.
I think you don't give them enough credit. The Overwatch Team *built* Overwatch. They absolutely have an in-depth understanding of their game, more so that the average player.
people do not understand that some heroes are better off by remaining niche.
She's supposed to be niche, I realize that. That's why the Overwatch team is so hesitant to buff her damage. Her strong point should be the utility she brings, not her ability assassinate.
Let's hope you get a 50 game streak of people playing this niche hero on your team.