Nothing huge, just convert 20 (or 25, because health bars only come in increments of 25) HP into a rechargeable shield. Make it so that hack is only interrupted if you break the shield.
20 HP because it’s interruptible by all intentional attacks, but not interruptible by a random unintended bullet from across the map affected by falloff.
(optional) Make her stealth operate on the same mechanic. That way she doesn’t stop running based on the spray and pray of an enemy, which you have no control over.
This makes the 2 second cooldown fair, it requires intentional attacks to stop your hack instead of pure unadulterated luck.
Plus, you have a small buffer of health that recharges while you’re outside of battle, it just makes sense considering how often Sombra disengages.
Woah didn’t you know? We aren’t allowed to discuss logical buffs for a character that is in desperate need. This forum is better spent crying about Brig and Hanzo!
Sometimes it’s better not to run. They’ll never expect that.
I’m not sure how I feel about this. When they removed the LoS forgiveness from Hack, it became a lot less oppressive and less reliable if you’re blindly trying to hack.
Honestly, if you get hit out of your hack, you either:
Have the wrong angle. Try hacking from above the enemy, or while they’re looking at something else.
Aren’t standing behind a shield like a smart person.
Are blindly engaging with a Hack instead of shooting first and waiting for an opportunity to hack (e.g. the enemy reloads, or D.Va uses DM for the mandatory minimum of .25s)
You are stupidly trying to repeatedly hack your target instead of just shooting it dead.
If you are put on 2second cooldwn, you should be thinking “oh, I have failed my hack. What happened that interrupted my hack, and how can I avoid being shot by this opponent while trying to hack my target in the future?”
You should NOT be thinking “Sombra needs a buff/improvement/ ‘QoL change.’”
Just accept that some hacks fail, sometimes people suck at trying to hack, and get better or play Total Mayhem until you become more adept at Hacking.
The issue with a damage threshold is that heroes like D.va would have a VERY hard time interrupting hack even if they saw you coming. Try doing 20 damage with her in 0.65 seconds from hacks range on Sombra’s small frame, you won’t. On the other hand, most of the cast wouldn’t even be affected by this as they can do 20+ damage quickly enough at hack range.
Sombra can already reliably hit headshots with half her clip at her effective range which is double that of Tracer’s. Sombra does not need any more buffs for now.
Still, getting into position and getting tripped up and revealed because an enemy Tracer’s bullet accidentally hit you, is a needless frustration point.
Just let her flicker pink, like she does when you bump into someone, from a stray bullet.
If the shield breaks, then she gets fully revealed.
That feeling only exists because we’ve been conditioned to expect that. The ability is overtuned to the extreme, because they’re so cautious of invisibility and hack.
You shouldn’t think about where you made a mistake when 1 damage is too easy in a game with infinite ammo.
D.Va’s wide spread and bottomless magazine makes her absurdly powerful when 1 damage interrupts hack.
It should be a proper duel. If D.Va sees it coming, she can just rocket boost and boop Sombra, and then win because she has a higher DPS with Micro Missiles/good tracking. If Sombra manages to kite her properly, then Sombra wins because D.Va has no DM or Micro Missiles.
D.Va already has more than enough safety by simple nature of having two life bars. This one matchup, shouldn’t and doesn’t change how much of an improvement this would be to Sombra’s kit – to not have to be forced to retreat because someone who wasn’t intentionally aiming at her, got lucky.
Unfortunate, but that’s the drawback of having Invisibility. Approach from different angles or listen for Tracer to stop shooting before you reposition. If you’re using stealth right, you shouldn’t be noticed frequently. You should expect to get revealed from time to time and ALWAYS have a plan for if your stealth gets broken too soon.
Expect what? The thought I have when I fail my hack is due to analyzing my gameplay 'cause I’ve played Sombra for over 50 hours and have a tight grip on her kit. Most of my failed hacks are due to LoS breaks or not orienting my camera correctly after throwing the Translocator for a sky hack. When I do get a hack break from damage, I don’t usually have it happen again since I’ve usually done it from a stupid spot like right in the middle of the crossfire.
You should always think about your mistakes on a 3-star difficulty hero. They have THE LARGEST margin of error, and the common denominator is you.
Yeah, 1 damage IS pretty easy to do if you know what you’re trying to shoot Luckily almost every character has some downtime where they need to reload. Only Reaper reloads faster than you can Hack. All other reloads are 1s-2.66s. The targets who do not need to reload must be approached differently, and their effective range (Moira excluded) is shorter than your Hack range.
And yet another thread where we toss out an idea for Sombra to be met with only people screaming “NO!” but not adding any ideas on how to improve the character.
And yes, a hero with the lowest pickrate and win rate in the game considered a troll pick needs improvement. The question is now what. And every thread where people spit ball ideas you get people who scream no at every single idea only because they dont want to have to deal with her.
Sorry for coming off aggressive, but its getting incredibly frustrating. Every Sombra thread turns into this. Just go back and look. Its like asking people who hate soda to come give opinions at the quarterly Pepsi Co meeting. We get nowhere.
No it isn’t. In fact, multiple games that also have stealth employ a half-visible flicker if they get hit, requiring multiple hits to nullify invisibility completely.
They did this because getting hit by a stray bullet and losing all benefits of stealth, is dumb. It always playtests negatively in literally every game it’s featured in.
Halo 1-5, Team Fortress 2, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Red Faction: Guerilla, Destiny 1 and 2, Crysis, Quake, Mass Effect, just off the top of my head.
Blizzard erred too much on the side of caution with this.
You’re leaving out the part where 20 damage is nothing to most of the cast, and we have the weird exceptions like D.Va. It’s a gimmicky buff, I think she needs more than just an easier match up against D.Va.
How is this a benchmark for measuring anything lol. First off, what IS her effective range in question and who is she shooting, because hitboxes certainly vary from hero to hero. And are we going to leave out the fact that Tracer’s weapons fire much faster, leading to her higher overall DPS, while she can also crit and stay in her effective range more easily because of blink? This is an absolutely bonkers argument for viability, not even taking kits into account.
This isn’t for stopping hack entirely. This is only for stopping unintended interruptions of hack, whilst still keeping intentional interruptions of hack.
This requires someone to actually physically focus you down, instead of just spraying wildly like this and getting lucky;
(just with hack instead of stealth… or, like I said in the OP maybe both hack & stealth).
I understand. I’m just pointing out that most things in this game bar shotgun pellets like D.Va’s do more than 20 damage anyway, so the problem isn’t solved across the board, just for a few specific heroes who will then have an overall harder time stopping her hack when intended.
I’m only arguing against a threshold for hack, not invisibility.
One bullet from a Soldier maxxes out at 19 damage (bodyshot). And that’s before damage falloff kicks in.
This threshold is meant to stop ranged stray bullets from interrupting hack. It’s not meant to allow her to survive a 1v1 in every and all situations.
It’s meant to give her enough breathing room to succeed in a hack that she was already in an optimal position for without fear of being blindsided by 1 damage across the map.