3 PTR builds later and she’s now even worse than ever.
4 Likes
It is. You might as well be Hacked yourself, you lost your combat ability, you’re not getting it back as long as you’re taking damage, so you might as well just leave and take a semi-death from Translocate rather than stick around for an actual one.
6 Likes
I still remember those people who demand nerfs on her.
Of course they all silence now. They have succeed to banish a new hero and never use it again. Keeping OW forever a game where they play only the original heroes.
I wonder why we bother with new heroes ?
12 Likes
She’s not impossible to balance, Blizzard just has to commit to her design direction.
For a years time Jeff flat out said they would never buff the gun because “Sombra is a disruptor, not a flanker”
Now it seems like they regret the entire ‘disruptor’ roll since it’s “not fun for the other players” but at the same time they won’t give her the damage to work outside that roll…
5 Likes
Sombra got “buffed” into being the worst pick in the game. I never thought anyone could be lower than Mei and DF.
8 Likes
Yea but since there are rampant armor stacks everywhere her already low damage is nerfed…
4 Likes
the 2sec is bad. it forces sombra to use her gun on the backline and not even trying to hack bcs if it gets cancelled you lost a lot of time and 80% of the time it will bcs of the “LOOKING FOR ME?” and decloak time.
4 Likes
I remember some Sombra mains saying that the nerfs/fixes wouldn’t be so bad for Sombra. Where are they now? Probably not even playing Sombra anymore.
8 Likes
Must pick not but she’s really strongly game changing
Sombra was buffed because she wasn’t a strong enough pick and usually filled a supportive role, and then she was nerfed because she could half-decently fill a DPS role…
Personally, I would like to see these changes:
- Hack cast time increased to 0.7 seconds
- 0.1 Grace period reintroduced/Make hack smoother and not cancel on the wind
- Hack CD upon being interrupted reduced to 1 second
- Hack duration reduced to 4.5-5 seconds (It’s 6 right now, and this is very oppressive to play against, which is partially why she was nerfed. This makes hack less unfun to play against whilst still making it powerful. EMP would remain at 6 seconds.)
- Make Lucio unable to switch his songs while hacked but have the songs still play
- Small DPS buff/Spread decrease (She’s a DPS, so let her act like one.)
- Various hack bug fixes
Hopefully, these would move her from a hack/EMP bot to more of a traditional DPS. She would keep her core identity, but she would be able to do damage as a Tracer or Soldier would rather than being used almost exclusively for her utilities.
1 Like
Sorry but this is not what Sombra needs, at all, except for the last one.
This would be reverting Sombra’s hack, this is exactly what she had before the buffs and it wasn’t enough, and the 0.1s Grace Period would be way too much considering how fast her hack is and people wouldn’t be able to react.
I’d rather just remove it completely.
Sorry but this isn’t why Sombra felt oppressive at all, and with the other Hack changes you suggested this would be a huge nerf.
Sombras hack already did this before the changes which is why she is now able to turn off the songs completely because Hacking Lucio before (the way you’re suggesting) did nothing.
This is a big no, Sombra’s Gun already got a 10% spread decrease, thats plenty, her power needs to rely more in her Hack since that already puts the enemies at a disadvantage, she shouldn’t be mowing people down without even needing to hack them.
This I agree with.
You are nerfing her hack and you want to “move her from a hack/EMP bot to more of a traditional DPS”. Then why won’t I just use Soldier already ?
On the other hand, if Sombra’s damage is buffed to be comparable to Soldier etc, then why don’t I always play Sombra because she provides much more utility ?
That’s why I think damage buff / nerf doesn’t work.
1 Like
I think we at least deserves a blue post regarding the state of Sombra.
After all they promised to “keep a close eye on her and make sure she lands in a good spot”.
I would like to hear if the F-tire spot was what they had in mind…
8 Likes
I want action, not more of the same meaningless words to kick the can down the road.
2 Likes
True. That’s a fair point. Her DPS isn’t even that bad, it’s just her spread is a big hassle, but I suppose this is one of her big weaknesses. I was only referring to a small buff, though. Her original buff moved her spread angle from 3 degrees to 2.7, and I was thinking maybe decrease it to like 2.6. By no means a game-changer, but just a small help. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the other proposals, though.
Okay, I don’t want to quote the whole thing, so I’m just gonna go piece by piece.
- It wouldn’t be reverted it to exactly what it was. Her ORIGINAL time was 0.8 seconds with a 0.1 second grace period included in that. The buff reduced that to 0.65 seconds. Then, her nerf increased it to an effective 0.75 seconds by removing the grace period. I would want the grace period back OR decrease the hack time just a litttttttle bit and make it more graceful, as right now hack is buggy and just breaks because the target, like, breathed.
- I would want it removed completely too, but then Sombras would just hold up right click until it went through, and then they would shoot you. 1 second makes it like Defense Matrix; you can’t spam it WHENEVER you want, but it’s not any BIG hindrance.
- Well… yeah, it was. What else would it be? Her DPS isn’t anything to get mad about and stealth is weak. Personally, I heard complaints about her hack being too fast and the combo of being hacked/EMP’d/hacked, leaving you useless for ~18 seconds. This makes her less oppressive, especially to tanks like Reinhardt or Roadhog, while keeping it powerful. I only suggesting reducing it by 1-1.5 seconds (And leaving EMP the same), not halving it or anything.
- Hacking Lucio before DID do nothing, really, but now she DESTROYS him, and Lucio feels terrible against her. Before he lost his ult to hers, which was fair, and his boop. Now he loses his big guns: His wallride (Only way to escape) and his heals/speed (His utility and sustain). He doesn’t have the hitscan damage to fight her, so she wrecks him. I just want him to be not COMPLETELY defenseless against him.
- I’m not campaigning for 25% off her spread or 4 extra damage per bullet. I would want like 0.1 degrees more off her spread angle or maybe 0.5 damage more per bullet. Nothing dramatic. I just want her to not feel so underwhelming as a DPS. Yes, utility is important, but she literally only outdamages, out of all DPS, Mei.
- Glad to hear it
For the other points, I generally agree / don’t have strong opinion on them.
But maybe we can add something more :
reduce the radius of the voice line when she shouts “looking for me” and decloak ;
reduce the time entering and leaving camouflage ;
add 1 second for camouflage - sometimes you just need more time to observe the best position to decloak ;
add a minimum burst threadhold to reveal her completely during cloak - small damage would still temporarily make her visible just like when she gets too close.
2 Likes
Her hack is painfully inconsistent now. It breaks for a ton of things that shouldn’t be affecting it and she was given the same issue as Sym’s current turrets. Just takes 1 bit of unintended dmg to make her have to wait to use a big part of her kit and naturally that brings her value for team fights down a lot. Heck im noticing now just enemies moving over each other now or having literally anything cover part of them breaks hack. Really been a struggle to make the most of her since her changes.
2 Likes
Actually that is an amazing suggestion. The last thing: nah. One sugesstion of myself: taking 20 damage reveals her/ interupts hack. Perhaps it could be tied to a shield. When it´s gone hack gets interrupted, so it would be easier to get the first hack of but it would prevent an abuse during a real teamfight. That would help to save her from spray damage getting behind enemy lines.
Hack shouldn’t be interrupted. Shooting her shouldn’t leave her basically Hacked instead.
4 Likes
The 0.1s Grace Period is pretty much the carpet that Blizzard shoves all the LoS bugs under. With it, people say it’s too easy to use; without it, it’s hell for Sombra.
I made a thread suggesting how to fix the line of sight issue but it got only 10 views and then got buried. 
I’ll just quote the whole post down here for those who are interested.
A few steps to sidestep the LOS issues of Sombra’s Hack.
Remove soft lock on from Hack.
Hacking is relatively easy to use. Removing the soft lock on will remove the excuse that “Hack is a skilless ability so it doesn’t need a buff or fix” argument.
Hack is now a hit scan beam.
Hack will now behave like Zarya’s beam. Anything that doesn’t block Zarya’s beam will not block Hack.
This will sidestep issues such as a chair breaking Hack even though you can see 80% of the character model.
As currently there isn’t any issue (that I am aware of) with bullets or beams not hitting something that you are aiming, Hack shouldn’t randomly break now.
Hack progress do not reset until the Time when LOS is broken = Hack Progress.
Losing the soft lock on and generous hit box of hack will cause Hack to always break just by having bad aim.
To compensate, Hack progress DO NOT reset upon breaking. The target must remain out of sight for as long as they had been hacked.
Example 1
Reinhardt realises he is being hacked and at 0.5 seconds after the Hack started, he blocks LOS with his shield. Normally, he can just spin it, ruin Sombra’s hack and turn back to the front lines.
Now he has to keep blocking LOS for 0.5 seconds before turning back. Otherwise, if he had blocked for only 0.1 seconds, Sombra can resume her hack in 0.25s (0.5s previous hack progress - 0.1s decay due to LOS break + 0.25s subsequent hack after LOS restored = 0.65s Required Hack Time) to complete her interrupted Hack.
Example 2
A random player walks in front of Sombra’s target and blocked her LOS for 0.2 seconds while she was 0.3 seconds into her hack. The random walks off and Sombra resumes hacking her target and after 0.55 seconds (0.3s previous Hack progress - 0.2 seconds decay + 0.55s Hack after LOS restored = 0.65s Required Hack Time) , the target is hacked.
Hack no longer interrupted by damage.
Now that Hack requires actual aiming to use, breaks easily once you’ve lost track of your target, it is natural that Hack will no longer require the extra handicap of being interrupted by damage as well as any cooldown from a damage interrupt.
How will you counter a Hack?
Same as how you already counter any hit scan weapon. Take cover, break LOS and use your mobility skills to evade it.
Optional buffers
Depending on how consistent or inconsistent Hack becomes, Blizzard may choose to increase or decrease the size of the Hack beam or implement a buffer time before Hack progress starts to decay (Hack breaks but the progress do not decay until after 0.1 seconds or more/less had passed).
A resource meter could also be slapped onto Hack so that Sombra cannot just constantly hack away due to damage not interrupting Hack anymore.
The above is my take on how to avoid fixing the LOS issues and just sidestep it entirely by using a mechanic (hit scan) that is working perfectly fine and which already exists in the game.
The only thing they need to fiddle with would be how the game tracks Hack’s progress. They could make a hidden constantly regenerating Hacking Health Bar for every character and Hack just does damage to that health bar and at “death”, they get Hacked.