I don’t think it’s any secret to anyone who’s been looking over the forums since the PTR went up that I think the changes to Sombra are a travesty and should be thrown in a dumpster and set on fire. But after having some time to stew and think about the changes and Blizzard’s response being “we’re looking at it, which is just code for we’re not reverting her changes, we’re right and you’re wrong,” I’m not feeling like I want to re-learn how to play Sombra. I’m not even feeling like playing ANY character.
I’ve said before that Sombra is my favorite character, both to play and in story. Now immediately you’d think, “oh you’re just being protective of your favorite character, you’re biased.” Well, yeah, I am. I was biased toward the Pyro, Medic and Engineer when I was playing more Team Fortress 2, I was biased toward the Paladin when I was playing World of Warcraft, I was biased toward playing Light characters when I played DC Universe Online, and I’m biased toward playing Sombra in Overwatch. If you play a class in a class-based game, of course you’re going to grow attached to and be biased toward that class, it’s the class YOU play. I’m the same way with Zenyatta, Winston, Reinhardt and Soldier: 76 to an extent. But I digress. I got into playing Sombra because I found her kit stupid fun, her backstory suitably tragic, her design slick (especially the purple primary color) and the character’s sassy, in-control personality cool.
Ever since the PTR changes to Sombra went up, there’s been a riot in the forums rallying against the character on the ground she didn’t need a rework, she didn’t need infinite Stealth and Translocator, she needed bug fixes. The second round of PTR changes addressed a couple of concerns, like her obscenely loud Translocator that could be heard 20 meters away through walls, the doubled detection radius and Sombra’s inability to cancel her reload animation by using Hack, but I’m of the opinion that the PTR changes are still going to make her overall weaker. With the exception of her ultimate, her entire kit can be cancelled by a single point of damage. Her gun is wildly inaccurate and its damage is awful, which wouldn’t be so bad if her reload animation didn’t feel longer than all of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies uncut put together. She has no mid-fight utility or burst damage capability. Blizzard have said they have no interest in turning Sombra into an assassin, when that’s exactly what her kit seems to push her toward, being someone who infiltrates the backline and cripples the enemy team by taking out a support or a sniper. They’ve said they want to turn Sombra into a scout character, who infiltrates the backline and tips off her team. One, we already had Hanzo’s Sonic Arrow, WIdowmaker’s ultimate and our own game sense for that. Two, how does that help Sombra when a team fight happens? Three, does she gain ultimate charge for calling out enemies? Face it, Blizzard, this idea of making Sombra a scout is a dud. Further, the changes actually make Sombra a worse infiltrator. Her Translocator being destroyable by enemies means she can’t throw it somewhere the enemies aren’t looking, stealth up and teleport behind them or throw it into the middle of a team fight to fire off an EMP. The reduced Stealth movement speed means she can’t get to certain ledges she can now or quickly get out of sight.
So yeah, I hate the Sombra rework, and Blizzard’s bullheaded endeavoring to push this terrible change through and turn my favorite character into little more than a troll pick really hurts me. How often does a Sombra player get picked and the chat lights up with abuse aimed right at them, with constant calls to switch off the character and threats to report the player simply for playing Sombra? It feels like they’re making her a worse character to make the already-overly-prevalent ones more appealing, like they’re trying to push Sombra players toward playing Tracer and Genji, two characters I absolutely cannot stand. I don’t want to quit playing Overwatch, I like the game just fine, gripes with projectile spam, annoying characters and choke point-heavy maps notwithstanding. I will probably play considerably LESS of the game, though, because I don’t want to see my favorite character’s kit maimed and it being called a buff. Not only does this “rework” feel wrong, it feels like Blizzard [JARATE]ing on my face and telling me it’s raining.