Playing the PTR the past few days has given me flashbacks to the few days that Sombra was “meta” between her buff and her nerf, and I didn’t like it. Hack is an awful ability. I understand many people won’t agree. It depends on which heroes you play how much you are affected, some barely notice, some are basically walking dead. You could argue that other characters can cripple you as well like Mei, but Mei has to be closer, it takes longer to take effect, it can be more easily countered, it doesn’t last as long, and you can see her coming. No other character can render players powerless as fast, as often, as long, and as reliably as Sombra.
The devs purposely try to make characters feel powerful because that’s part of the fun of the game. Sombra renders you powerless and it’s extremely difficult to stop since you only have 0.65s including reaction time, aiming, projectile time, and lag. And the uptime on Hack is 6 out of 8 seconds so that it’s possible to keep someone in this crippled state nearly 75% of the time.
I’m torn between wanting all characters to be balanced and between not really wanting to ever see a Sombra. I think that’s the biggest problem with her. With her hack in its current configuration, either she’s junk or the game is.
That’d be fine, if they replaced Hack with something else. It’s probably too engrained into her identity though. I’m okay with EMP because that only happens occasionally. Hack is what bugs me.
Sombra counters abilities. While it certainly isn’t fun to be Hacked, there is counterplay and ways around Hack. Picking a hero that doesn’t rely on abilities is a huge detriment to Sombra, because Hacking that hero doesn’t do anything. If McCree can aim, Hack isn’t gonna give Sombra an advantage.
Hack doesn’t make anyone powerless, she brings them down to her level; primary vs primary, an actual skill matchup. No abilities, no cooldown management, a simple duel. If you can’t win that, that’s on you, not Sombra.
Honestly if they removed hacking enemies altogether (only allowing her to hack health packs), I’d be ok with that… as long as they give her a BIG damage boost to compensate for it.
But if they did, people would still complain that she is OP or “unfun to play against”. “Why does she get to go invisible and teleport when she does so much damage?” They would cry. Sombra just can’t win.
Hack isn’t the problem, the problem is people just hate sombra. Oh, it’s “unfun” to get hacked? Well most dps can straight up kill you in the same amount of time it takes for sombra to hack, is that somehow more fun?
The freeze is very fast and everyone who is not a tank is basicly a guaranteed kill.
Sombras hack is more oppressing to some than to others. A Soldier or Mccree is still ~70% functional after hack and Sombra relies on her team to follow up.
Mei’s freeze takes 1.5 seconds, lasts 1 second, and at a max range of 10 meters. Sombra’s hack takes 0.65 seconds, lasts 6 seconds, and at a max range of 15 meters. Also, you can actually see Mei coming which is a big help.
Most of Sombra is fine, it’s just that standard hack is impossible to keep balanced and bug free as the meta swings around; incidentally we happen to be in one of the worst possible metas for her. Anyway I’m totally for making standard hack a midrange skill shot and transferring power into her primary fire.
All they had to do was fix her hack. She’s been my favorite hero thru all the toxic complaints when it was hard to even use her in quick play because everyone thought she sucked. That’s Fave status is about to come to an end I fear.
If hack did damage to you while firing your weapon during the duration, it would be a thousand times better than it is now, and would still have significant meaning for Sombra.
Another “wah…I cant deal with Sombra wah” thread. Her gun sucks (like you all say) and she has 200 hp. She should be one of the easiest targets to kill but yet we have constant crying.