She adds little to her own team, but she’s still annoying to play against. Even when you beat her, it’s 10 seconds before she’s back in your backline harassing you.
My group of friend’s has even started playing overwatch a lot less specifically because of Sombra. They’re casuals yeah, we’re all mid and low rank players but so is the vast vast majority of the playerbase.
She’s anti-fun. With every other hero, there’s counterplay that you can react to. With Sombra, there’s very little time to react and even if you do, she can tp away and she’s back in 5 seconds. Having to constantly watch your back for an invisible and silent hero is not fun. Having to turn away from the team fight to deal with something behind you is anti-fun. Getting spawn camped as a support is anti-fun.
The game was actually fun when she was niche or f-tier and Sombra is unfortunately a hero that needs to be niche and f-tier to keep the game fun.
The developers seem to have no better skill at stat reading than any average joker, who - instead of reading the whole situation, hero mechanics etc. - just looks at Elim/Death ratio and goes “Tank swap” or “Supp Diff”, or “DPS kill something”.
Last year there was a huge problem with Mercy, as she could keep her teams practically immortal. I was solo-tanking, sweating every game, DPS just couldn’t keep up with her mobility, and I was just looking at enemy Mercy and thinking to myself “She’s carrying their whole team”. Meanwhile devs wanted to push the narrative, she needs help.
Statistics are everything. Overwatch is not a kindergarten; it’s a competitive game, so only statistics matter. Statements like “she needs to be F-tier” are completely misplaced.
Many players, including Sombra mains, have long been calling for Sombra to become a niche hero again. The reason for this, and I speak for the Sombra players I know, is simply that Sombra functioned better as a support than as a DPS hero. It was annoying but not frustrating.
I can’t understand why Blizzard was so foolish as to exacerbate the exact problems Sombra causes or has. I used to enjoy playing Sombra because of the good old times, but with this patch, they completely messed it up!
The speed boost is just a quality of life improvement and should have been there a long time ago.
The damage buff exacerbates the low-elo problem. Sombra can now kill players in team-play-deficient teams even more effectively.
Less HP means Sombra dies even faster in higher elo. As a close-range hero, Sombra actually needs more health since she has nothing to help her in combat. She can appear and escape, but not even reliably in higher elo.
So, of the three changes, one can stay as it is, while the other two are useless and do not address any of her problems.
This is the first time I’ve posted in an angry Sombra thread where I’m in agreement. I’m just sick of her. The novelty has worn off, and having her in basically every single game has gotten old. Maybe her pick rate will go down after this tweak, and I’m willing to hold out hope. But, if she’s still in 90%+ of games by the time of the mid-season patch, the devs really need to rethink how to handle her.
It comes down to fun. And when I’m swatting at a Sombra all game, I’m not having fun.
Pickrate, winrate, how to beat her, none of it matters. She is an instant eye-roll when she’s on the field, with or against her. I’m not sure how to balance her into the game and it feels like the devs are scratching their heads too. Every tweak/nerf/buff is less and less fun.
I think I’m going to step out of comp this season and just play tbag Sombra with Moira in QP
I’m just playing mystery heroes at this point. Sure, she’s occasionally in MH but it’s way less egregious. I can barely play a QP match or even a team deathmatch in arcade without some sweaty Sombra ruining everyone’s fun.
The 3 games I played last night all had a sombra in them, I’m still slippery enough with Moira to take her out. We’ll see how that changes over the seas though
I doubt that Blizzard is falsifying their own statistics; one could only discuss whether the developers are able to interpret their statistics correctly.
