I feel you man.
I’m still unsure about the changes and it is very much possible that the vocal Sombra mains are right. The way it is voiced on these forums though is completely appaling.
Superlatives, hyperboles and opinions presented as facts don’t inspire trust. This is amplified by those threads basing themselves on mostly theory and little testing.
And with this, you nullify any point you may have been trying to make.
No disrespect to Jeff, but I wouldn’t listen to him over top-tier players who have managed to master a character and play them effectively despite her own designers not having a clear direction for her. I think if that’s what Blizzard thinks, they need to reevaluate their character design and balancing, because it’s clearly they who don’t know how to play their own flawed characters.
Sombra has never been a strong character. She’s always been a very niche pick. Why design a character in the DPS slot that’s ineffective at DPS? If you’re going to go that route they should’ve left her as a pseudo-support/ult bot. Nobody is comparing Sombra to Soldier, they’re comparing her to other flankers like Tracer and Genji, who are also low damage and have high skill ceilings but have considerably higher impact than her on average.
What I suspect and so do a lot of other people is that Blizzard’s creativity allows them to design characters and implement changes that sound great on paper, but are difficult to balance in an actual gameplay setting. But that’s their fault, not the players who have managed to make a weak character work far better than you’d expect given their limitations.
I definitely agree that she’s considered weak, and that Blizz still have stuff to do to change how people perceive her. 
I’m hoping Blizz will still keep an eye on Sombra now and don’t just call it a day, and bring on changes that will strengthen her more if this doesn’t pan out.
Personally, I think she is pretty strong and fun to play already, she just needs some good PR. 
She can destroy tracer and rein, two very beloved characters, through hack, but can’t really do much against Brig, a very oppressive character with seemingly no counters. (Well she can hack her too, but I’ve had more success with mei whenever my team is having trouble with an enemy Brig).
A lot of people in the community went completely nuts when Sombra got the Hack time reduced, so the 2 second delay and LoS restriction were added. I don’t want something like that to happen again, especially since she is already seen as a weak hero.
But isn’t that what’s already happening, preemptively? They want to give her some cool buffs (like infinite translocator duration and canceling), but they’re so afraid of making her good that they have to package it with compensating nerfs that restrict her gameplay (like making the translocator die instantly to enemy weapon spray).
We are on the same page. I enjoy the changes too and feel the same way.
I am not forced to attack at a less-than-opportune time or retreat. She has much more freedom now. I legit cant stand these “pro streamer Fitzyhere Sombra-main nerfs are bad blah blah” people. I am the same as you man, over 130 hours between two accounts, been playing her since she dropped on PTR and I have NEVER complained once about what happens with her. I adapt, adjust and move on and I still manage to kick butt. How come our opinions dont matter? Because we dont broadcast ourselves playing?
If your trans is getting destroyed by random enemy weapon spray you are definitely leaving it in the wrong spot.
That’s kind of the point… we could use Translocator that way before for mobility/positioning in or near combat. Now we can’t. It wasn’t the “wrong spot” before (i.e. in the current live version), it was just one of the many options available for how to use Sombra’s abilities, which they’re now removing.
Its okay to like her buffs if you are new to Sombra, because it does make her easier. What is not okay is defending her nerfs and completely disregarding all counter arguments brought up which explain why its an overall nerf.
Sombra mains simply have more experience on the hero and have a better founded opinion.
Yeah, they might have tried to dodge a similar outcry by bringing in both some buffs and some nerfs in one big rework package.
I could definitely see them revert the destructible TL and the reduced stealth speed. I haven’t quite pinpointed why those changes were needed. But no longer being able to contest while in infinite stealth was to me understandable and needed.
Yeah, I’m totally fine with the non-contesting thing. If that were the only nerf she was getting, I’d actually be pretty happy with the changes.
pretty much the answer all of the sombra complainers are giving “no its not what I want” it is an answer, its just not what you want to hear.
I have posted this many other places, but i will post it here too because you dont seem to grasp the full amount of changes and seem only to focus on the two buffs and not all the nerfs. These nerfs might not mean much to you but they are the reasons why many of us dislike these changes.
Buffs:
Nerfs:
Tell me how this change stops you from using it for positioning or mobilty? You can still toss it up on a ledge and get somewhere…The only thing different is it doesnt reset after 20 seconds. If its too far away, reset it and toss again.
Again…if the enemy is finding it, its not the new buffs fault, its your fault for leaving it somewhere it can be found. No different than how it is now. The enemy can still find it and camp waiting for you to come back. Chose your poison.
Guys…this is a buff. Making up a bunch of theories and what-if scenarios that try to paint is a nerf is grasping for straws.
Getting translocator camped is a good thing for Sombra because it keeps the enemy out of the fight and makes it 5v6. At least on live. On PTR they just destroy it and move on.
I get how this line of thought makes sense if you think the only thing Sombra can do is hide a translocator somewhere, stealth her way in and then teleport back out to where she started. The reality is that Sombra (in the live version) is more versatile than that.
These changes are designed to remove that versatility in return for extra time to execute that standard loop. Since she moves more slowly, she needs that extra time just to accomplish the same things she could before.
These aren’t “what-if scenarios” being affected; these are the normal events of a Sombra match.
She’s mad boring now, but at this point I’m just gonna drop her cause she’s gonna hit live regardless of the more than average outcry from the changes. R I P Somby.
It’s not that we don’t want to hear it.
You want to call it an answer?
Fine.
It’s the wrong answer.
At what point in this game have you ever needed a scout? And I don’t just mean someone making quick calls, because yes, that could be considered a scout. I mean a SCOUT, which is what this answer is. Someone that is in the backlines, literally doing nothing but relaying information which could be otherwise obtained in the same time and manner as current Sombra and with arguably less risk.
Because that’s what scout implies in the current PTR iteration of Sombra.
It’s an answer, all right.
A bad one.
I agree with the last part
oh yeah sure its not that you don’t want to hear it, its just if its not what you want its wrong. aka: