Hey! I’m one of those Sombra mains who disapproves her current changes on PTR. Since there are not that many Sombra mains around and it could be hard to understand to someone who doesn’t play Sombra as to what our issue is with the changes made to her on the PTR, I thought I will try to explain then as clearly as possible so our opinions can be understood better.
So the current changes done on PTR are as follows:
Stealth
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Sombra’s stealth is now infinite
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Sombra can’t contest cap points anymore
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Detection range increased from 2 to 4 meters
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Stealth movement speed bonus reduced to 50% from 75%
Translocator
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Translocator is now infinite
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It is destructible by Sombra
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It has 5 hp
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UNDOCUMENTED: It has a 20m wide high pitched loud beeping noise
For someone who doesn’t play that much Sombra, it could come off as a buff, however there are some fundamental problems with these changes. Let me explain.
The stealth by itself wouldn’t be bad, but the downsides of it cripples it greatly.
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The 75% movement speed bonus allowed Sombra to jump over gaps and made her able to reach locations, only a handful of other heroes are able to reach. On top of that, the slower running speed makes is harder for Sombra to catch up to enemies, get away from conflict and get into position to initiate.
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As you can see, it is similar to what Soldiers have with their Helix jumps, while it is not a core gameplay feature, it is something that helps Sombra show up from unpredictable locations.*
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The increased detect range is quite big on the PTR. As a reference, Winston’s bubble is 5m in radius whereas the new Sombra detect is 4m. This makes it harder for Sombra to get around the enemy without alerting them, or forces her to use her Translocator, which is noticeable considering the added sound and visual effects when Translocator is used.
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The removal of contesting, while understandable with the infinite aspect of the PTR stealth, is something that was a great selling point for Sombra on live. She was able to stall the objective for 5+ seconds just like Mei can hold out for quite a long time by walling herself off or using Cryostasis on the point. I will get back to this later.
The Translocator has similar issues when it comes to gameplay mechanics.
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The destructibility of the Translocator by Sombra was meant to be a buff to it, unfortunately the execution of this is not well thought out. To cancel your Translocator, you need to turn towards your Translocator, aim at it and press F. The issue is, if Sombra wants to use her Translocator aggressively, or to catch up to someone, maybe to jump through gaps, she needs to cancel it, but doing so will break the flow of the character. During a team fights, where every seconds counts, executing such a maneuver can cost the elimination of the particular key target. More on this later.
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The fact that the enemy can destroy the Translocator by itself wouldn’t be that big of an issue, however coupled with the 20m wide beeping sound, it is hard or nearly impossible, to place it behind the enemy lines, if Sombra set up a nest due to how easy it is to locate, or to use it aggressively in fights, because as soon as the translocator lands on the ground, 5 damage destroys it and considering how much splash damage, bullets, rockets and everything can be flying around at the same time, it can be very easy to take out the translocator.
The changes, however allow Sombra to pick and chose between targets more freely while staying in stealth as well as allowing her to translocator back behind her teammates if necessary.
However the issue is, Sombra players have been playing with timers ever since her release 1.5 years ago. Cooldown management is a core element of Sombra’s gameplay and most of us already got accustomed to it.
- Another issue is what the real weakness Sombra has on live, and that the PTR changes does not help her in those areas, what’s more, the encourage a playstyle that makes these issues worse.
Sombra’s issue on live is her lack of uptime and viability during team fights. Due to her last nerf (Hack goes on a 2 sec cooldown upon being interrupted) makes the use of her Hack very risky and hard to execute when chip damage and splash damage is all over the place.
Her PTR Translocator encourages Sombra players to place her Translocator in secure, abandoned places, which are most often far, far away from the actual fight, further lowering her uptime in combat.
Sombra’s play stlye and role are generally agreed upon being backline harassment, however during team fights, her role transforms into finisher, in other words, getting close to a wounded enemies who took shelter or fleeing and finishing them off. Sombra could more easily do this on Live, as the Stealth speed boost allowed her to close a set distance in a very short time, or use her Translocator to close the gap if needed.
On the PTR, if Sombra decides to participate in the team fights, it’s much harder for her to catch up to enemies. She can, however use her translocator to catch up to them more often due to the ability to cancel it, but it comes with the extra steps she needs to take, which again, breaks the flow of the game. It is also easy to forget that Sombra has set up a translocator, as there are no other indicators about it, than her Translocator icon is Orange instead of White on the bottom right side of the screen. So in the heat of the moment, if Sombra decides to use her Translocator, she either has to completely lose visual on the enemy to cancel it, or if she forgot that she had one set up, she disengages from the combat by accident. Similarly, when the Translocator is destroyed by the enemy, there are no indicators to it on the PTR other than a surprisingly silent “Damnit” by Sombra.
Because of this, Sombra on the PTR has to decide whether engage in the team fight, or let her team fight a 5v6 battle but make sure that she will be able to catch up to the enemy if necessary. For a hero that lacks uptime in team fights, this makes matters worse.
The PTR Stealth changes also encourage a more passive playstyle by the fact that Sombra is forced to stay further away from the enemy. We could argue that she doesn’t need to always be in stealth, which is true, however, regardless of that she can’t engage in a combat from a distance that makes an ambush ideal either way. 4+ meters means that her gun won’t be able to deal as much damage as necessary due to the spread, as it would from 2 meters, if that enemy is a Widowmaker or any Supports, she won’t have the same ambush factor as she previously had, because the extra distance means less damage for her. She could hack her target, however that only does so much after a certain rank where people are starting to group up and communicate. As the ranks get higher, the more prominent it is to dispatch the enemy as fast as possible before reinforcements come.
The changes on PTR allowed Sombra to be picked up by others as well however. It is marginally easier to play Sombra for people who never played her before. While this would not be a problem, the level of accessibility came with a quite big skill celling nerf to her and a quite big flow of gameplay break.
Lastly, something which can’t be really compared only experienced… Sombra feels boring on PTR. Her entire style and flow feels sluggish, he was one of the most intensely played heroes on Live and on the PTR she feels like she is in slow mo, the pace of her gameplay is apathetic. Keep in mind though, that this is a personal opinion, however I’ve seen people saying the same thing, to which I agree.
I really hope this helped to some to see why Sombra players are so desperate and displeased about these changes. Thanks for reading!
TL:DR: Sombra’s changes on the PTR makes her more passive while simultaneously lowering the skill cap to make her more accessible to non-Sombra players