Fixing Sombra the right way

Hey, this is a Sombra advocate here that has been in pain waiting for her to viable for years now. Offsetting nerfs for buffs as well as clunkyness that has always been a part of her kit are killing her. Her pros (basically just EMP, maybe the new cheesy perma invis hacks at really high levels of play) do not outweigh all of her cons which I could list forever. Sombra needs some help to be less clunky, more aggressive rather than passive, and overall more of an appealing pick. Let me know what you think she needs!

The new Sombra isn’t so much being used more because she is better than before, but because the meta is better for her than before. She is a great counter to Hammond, who is a pretty strong hero currently. Mercy’s healing got nerfed, making it easier for her to finish off kills. Widow and Hanzo got nerfed, making them less viable DPS options and giving Sombra more of a chance at taking them out, although Hanzo is still an unfavorable matchup and both are still common.

Overall, the infinite stealth has proven to be cheesy and makes it even easier to set up the perfect EMP. Sombra is still little more than an EMP bot, and infinite stealth only enables this more, particularly at high levels of play where there is strong coordination and a team is ready to pounce as soon as Sombra uses EMP. The last round of changes don’t fix the clunky problems with her kit, and make her more annoying for both sides. These are my ideas on how to fix her cheesy perma-stealth EMP feel while simultaneously giving her the buffs she needs. Sombra needs to be less passive and more active- and she needs to be less clunky.

-Removed infinite stealth (duration back to normal)
-Brought back 75% move speed and ability to contest point during stealth
-Increase base movement speed to 6 m/s (from 5.5 m/s)
-Automatic reload on translocation
-Reduced cooldown on hack breaks from 2 seconds to 1 second
-Increase translocator velocity by 15%
-Fix ALL bugs

Analysis: These changes should hopefully make Sombra much less passive and much more active, making her more engaging and much less clunky. Being a flanker, Sombra deserves to have the same movement speed as tracer and genji and this will make her a little more agile with and without stealth. The hack break cooldown is unfair and Sombra is already damaged enough from taking 1 damage, but this change should make it easier to deal with without “removing the counterplay entirely”.

The translocator changes make it more of an engage and disengage/escape tool rather than something you plop down and teleport back to (although that is still an option). The increased speed and reload change makes it easier to Sombra to finish off kills on escaping targets and gives her an option to bypass her long reload. Sombra will still have the weakness of no burst damage and low damage overall, and the translocator animation still counts as a sort of reload time, but now Sombra can make use of that time by being safe and covering ground. Translocator can still be destroyed by 5 damage so there is counterplay, and if Sombra does use it to finish off a kill or continuously bypass her reload it puts her in great danger because she won’t be able to teleport away to a safe spot instantly and she likely wont be making use of hack or stealth.

Overall these changes make her a little more fluid and flexible to play rather than the clunky and passive mess she can be now. Hopefully this makes it a little harder to set up that perfect EMP while giving her the speed and damage versatility she has needed for so long.

What do you guys think? I only want what is best for the hero and I would love to hear what other Sombra mains think. I’m looking to start a discussion here, not an argument. What changes would you guys like to see? Or would you rather she stay how she is now?

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None of these are what she needs. She needs two buffs

  • Spread Decreased By 10%
  • +10% damage dealt to hacked targets

Sincerely,
A Sombra main since Season 5 who is in Diamond

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No.
People don’t want to play a worse tracer.

No.
People don’t want to play against an invisible hero on the point, and the movement she has now makes her faster.

Making her even faster, something she doesn’t need at all.

This is good, but wouldn’t fix her, could even make her op If you throw the translocator onto an enemy.
Translocate instead of reload.

This is fine.

This is really all that is needed.

I’m going to save you a bit of trouble.

Don’t bother responding to sral, he’s made it pretty obvious for a while now that he’s a pretty bad troll.

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Two things are needed from his list:

This would help her so much in team fights outside of EMP and would help her making use out of the new infinite Tl and Stealth

I don’t think I need to clarify this: Even more Sombra Bugs in 1.26/1.27/1.28 [With Video's]

She really does not need dmg buffs her Weapon is fine.
She has other problems dps is not one of them

I really don’t care about arguments like these but if you do:
A Sombra main since she launched who does not do a lot of ranked (mostly just the first 10) but stayed mid to high platin ever since.

Well, it does not change much if she has it or not.

Contesting objective is not needed but I do think the other heroes with abilities to contest (reaper/mei etc) should also not be able to.

She does need this because it the best way to make her better in team fights without buffing DPS or Hack directly

I never really felt like I need it but it would definitely not make her OP in any way.

I think just making a hack so it does not break on really small amounts of DMG (far away close range weapons) would justify the 2s cooldown and it would make her feel less clunky.

Yes, she needs this but its probably not all.

He may be pretty negative about others opinion and I thought of him as a troll once too but he does always stay to his opinion and does not directly troll.
He may not be the best discussion partner but I have respect for him now.

There are people that are really just here to sh*t on others Sral is not on of them… he’s just really stubborn in a good way and I kinda like that xD.

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I would also like to see those changes but then she would remain the passive and clunky mess she is now. I’d rather see them reward a more active playstyle by bringing back the time management of stealth and a better way to finish off targets with the translocator change. She’s too slow and clunky for a flanker, and rather than simply buffing her damage I’d rather see her get new engagement options and less punishing delays for when she does try to engage/disengage. People already complain about hack (for some reason) and taking 10% more damage from Sombra would make that worse to hear about.

But these are just my opinions and I wouldn’t be opposed to your changes either. She just has so many problems with her kit that there are a lot of different avenues you can take to buff her, and at this point I’ll take anything. I’d even be fine with an EMP nerf if they gave her a ton of other buffs to round out her kit and make her less one dimensional.

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