[Sombra] Make her an offensive support

General Discussion
1

Hello.

I think the new Sombra is better than the old one. She is funnier to play, and her gameplay is less repetitive.
But she is definitely not viable enough…

The problem is that Sombra can not be a good DPS…
Every real DPS has a damage main mecanic
Bastion has his turret mode , Doomfist has his punch , Genji has his sword/shuriken , Hanzo has his arrows , Junkrat has his bombs , Pharah has her rockets , Widow has her gun , Torbjorn has his turret … and so on.
But Sombra… her main mecanic, the hack, is a support ability. She can’t kill/damage someone with it. She can only make her target weaker.
In fact, the only damage ability Sombra has is her gun… and her gun’s DPS is quite weak.
So her abilities make her a offensive support/off-DPS… and she is already used like that : why do you pick Sombra ? For her disrupting ability, with her hack and her stealth. She is only useful for bothering the ennemies and make them easier to kill by her team mates.
But she isn’t good either at that role… why ? Because the Devs are trying to make her a DPS. They restrict her support side to improve her dps side.
The Sombra 1.0 was quite good because she was used as an EMP-machine and as an off-heal with her health packs, and so as a support. And now she is trash-tier because the devs decided that she shouldn’t be used like that…

I think we should rework her again, and move her into the Support class, by exploiting the support side of her gameplay.
Here’s how :

  • Keep her current weapon : as a Support, she will not need more damages ;
  • Allow her to charge her ultimate with her health packs, but less than before ;
  • When she hacks an health pack, it becomes usable only by teammates but doesn’t respawns faster. Then she ‘transports’ a copy of the pack with her hack-hand, like in her animated short : http://4wearegamers.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Sombra-wallpaper-1068x601.png that she can place where she wants, by reusing the right-clic. The copied health pack is a purple skull, and it becomes a small healing zone like Soldier’s, which heals as much as a boosted Lucio ;
  • Add a heal gauge like Moira’s, which recharges when Sombra deals damages and hacks ennemies. The gauge empties when the hacked heath packs heal team mates. When it is empty, the health packs stay hacked and their copies stay in place, but their healing zone are disabled ;
  • Make the hacked enemies a lot more visibles, why not make them visible through walls. Add a voice line for each hacked hero. Something like “Doctor hacked” when she hacks Mercy, “Turret offline” when she hacks Bastion or Torbjorn’s turret, or “The bird crashed” when she hacks Pharah.
  • Why not increase the healing of her copied health packs when she use her ultimate, so her ultimate would be more support-like. Anyway, her EMP, by hacking several enemies at once, already recharges her healing gauge ;
  • Keep her infinite invisibility, but increase her moving speed (from +50% to +60%) , and allow her to hack and place health packs when she is invisible.
  • Keep her infinite-destroyable teleporter, it is fine. But increase its health from 5 HP to 25, so it can’t be destroyed by a lost bullet. Why not make her translocator bounce better against walls, like Junkrat’s grenades do.

So we now have an offensive-support/off heal Sombra, who can heal teammates effectively with her health packs by dealing damages to enemies.
She could replace a Brigitte or a Zenyatta as a second/off healer.
To achieve this, Sombra can use her abilities to get behind the enemy team and deal damages. Like she currently does.
Like the current Sombra, she will not really be able to kill enemies without her team, but now it is not a problem because she only needs to deal damages to be efficient, even if theses damages are healed. Because her damages are converted into heal for the team mates.
Her hack stays unchanged, but it’s more visible, so it’s more often useful for the team.
Her ultimate charges a little faster, and is also useful to recharge her heal-gauge by hacking several enemies at once.
Her quite good DPS still allow her to help in team fight, by dealing some extra damages.

I think this Sombra would be much more viable than the current one, because her support potential would be totally exploited, and not inhibited by trying to make her a DPS…
And above all, her main problem, her inability to kill an enemy when she is alone, is totally fixed.

2

No there is enough supports. She’s DPS.

3

There’s enough supports ? :joy:
There’s 6 supports, for 15 DPS, and 7 tanks !

So no, there’s not enough support. There’s too much DPS. One less DPS for one more Support would be good.

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4

I like the voice lines for when she hacks everybody so everyone knows without it having to be called out. As for the support role, that’s interesting… the main problem I see is that you want your supports to be in good positions to heal people, and her support stations would be stuck out-of-the-way where health packs are.

Also, Zen got better when he was able to actually kill the things he discorded instead of telling his team to do it. Something like a 10% damage buff for just Sombra against hacked targets would make her better because she could take care of hacked targets herself-killing stuff, like DPS are supposed to do anyway.

5

You’re right, the health packs are not well-placed.
So why not allow her to move the hacked health packs ?
She hacks an health pack, it become only usable by allies, and then she can place a copy of it where she wants, by re-using her hack ability.
The copied health pack is a healing zone, and it could looks like a purple hologram skull.

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