Idk about these types of comments, Ive watched Fitzy for a few games like a week ago and his hack rarely gets interrupted. Id assume thats pretty dang high rank as well. so 
The real issue with Sombra’s hack is the absurdly-obvious-to-the-point-of-flat-out-idiocy point that, in the lore, things in game like D.Va’s mech used to be drones until the Omnics started hacking into them and using them against the humans. That’s why D.Va pilots her mech in the first place. So how does Sombra hack people remotely the way she does? Does everybody just walk around with digital, wireless devices knowing full-well it can be used against them at any moment? That would be like knowing the enemy’s lighting up the battle field with flares, but deciding to wear night-vision goggles anyways.
Sombra’s hack ability should to be two-part: The first being a projectile that latches on to her target and allows her to establish a remote connection to whatever gear they have. Of course the “infected” person is notified they are infected. The second part, maybe require a 3 second casting time, or something, and it can be done from, say, 15 meters away, and requires no LoS. Now they lose all of their abilities, but it’s not a random, abrupt end to their ability to function, and it only lasts 4 seconds. As a compensation buff, she can “infect” two or three people at a time, however they cannot be hacked simultaneously. The three second casting time on her hack means that she doesn’t hack the second person until the first one is just about finished being disabled, and so on.
Also replace her EMP. There is exactly zero logic behind a computer hacker, made up of cybernetic parts, using something that utterly destroys electronics as a weapon. That’s like hitting the suicide button every time she uses it. Instead, have her set up something in an AoE field that adds +30-50% to enemy cooldowns, and does 30% damage to shields with an additional 200/second shield DoT effect.
I mean, I’m talking more in general, assuming the enemy team is woke. Plus, even Fitzy said Sombra is weak right now. 
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You don’t balance a competitive PvP game around the lore…
Which part of what I said sounded like they should “balance” the game around the lore? Because what I actually said was that the character design should be compatible with the world they live in.
Hmmmm…
Okay, you’ve pointed out the part where I said they should fit the character’s design into the game’s lore so the two are compatible, like I just said. When did I say they should balance around it?
You literally talk about changing sombra’s hack to make it make more sense from a lore perspective… Not sure what else there is to it.
Right, to make Sombra’s hack compatible with the game’s lore. I didn’t say the game’s lore should dictate character balance. That would be like saying Orisa should get a sword that 1-shots Reinhardt on a whim, or that shooting Tracer’s chrono-thing is an instant kill.
Except, you’re literally questioning Sombra’s balance because one of her abilities don’t align with the game’s lore. 
Atleast, that’s how I see it.
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I didn’t say the ability can’t be balanced because of the game’s lore, I said it doesn’t make sense in accordance to the game’s lore. I don’t see what’s difficult to understand about this.
Given how short it is, a 0.4 second duration is very acceptable. But I’d rather Hack just get a serious rework to be less annoying but giving Sombra something to work with. It ties up so much of Sombra’s kit, yet does so little. Niche characters get the worst of it when it comes to balance, so that shouldn’t be too surprising… :^(
imo for hack:
- 0.3 cast time purely for the taptapzap graphics to look natural-ish; if interrupted by any damage she can’t try again for 2 seconds.
- lasts 2 seconds and still acts as a pure disable; mobility passives, turrets, and Ults are disabled for 5 seconds.
- if an ability was on cooldown before being hacked, the timer freezes until the 2 seconds are up.
- an enemy’s barrier can’t begin the repair-timer until the 2 seconds are up as well.
- melee damage is 40 vs hacked targets, since she discovers their “weak spot” by hacking them. Her melee reach is also 3m longer than usual, but that extra 3m only hits hacked targets. Keep in mind the hack technically lasts 5 seconds total, even if it only disables most active things for 2 seconds.
- hacked structures are also hit by the extended hitbox, except they take 80 damage. Sorry Bob/Torb turrets? I guess? EEEeee?
- hacked enemies get hit with full damage from her bullets regardless of their range from Sombra (no fall-off). Of course, she still has to actually land her shots so… EEEeee?
side note: melee animation is upgraded to include a few sparks of hacky-electricity. She now slaps/claws with her hacking hand.
For EMP:
- EMP is just a groupwide hack with 4 second active duration/8 second other parts.
- Added effect of destroying remote defensive abilities of a hacked target. So if Tracer is 20m away and has a Zarya bubble on her, but her ally Zarya is hacked, Tracer loses the bubble. If Winston/Orisa/Symmetra are EMP’d but was lucky with lag/shield timing, the shields won’t pop up.
- No longer destroys natural shields in an enemy’s max HP. Will now remove all additional max HP, whether it be barriers or armor. Disallows the stacking of additional max HP/barriers or armor for 8 seconds.
- has a 0.1 second stun and total momentum cancelling effect, to disallow any shifty mobile characters to fling themselves 15m-20m away from Sombra’s EMP. Doesn’t work on Fortify’d Orisa ofc, not that it’d do much to her anyway… lol.
- Doesn’t stack with Vanilla hack, simply overrides it. Using hack on an EMP’d targets can refresh the duration of everything if EMP has stuck on them long enough… Otherwise it’s a wasted action.
- Cast time is 0.5 seconds and the animation-lock/delay is 0.25 seconds.
- If she is in Stealth and hits the Ult button to EMP, it will still take 0.5 seconds for EMP to go off from the time she pushes the button (quicker de-Stealthing+EMPing). However, she will be in an animation lock for 0.85 seconds instead of 0.25 seconds. So now she relies on her allies to keep her alive for doing the surprise DuNkInG.
*She gets the melee damage boost benefit and the melee is AOEy if it’s vs EMP’d enemies. Her bullets don’t have to worry about fall-off, either.
My brain is breaking.
Okay, weapon power, or in this case “balance”, is how strong something is. EMP is a very strong ability, for example. If you decreased its AoE, it would be less powerful. This doesn’t do anything to change how it is activated or how difficult it is to execute, merely its area of effect. It changes how much it can effect, making it less powerful, but it does not change the means by which it is delivered.
Design, however, is how something is implemented into the game. For example, if you were to change EMP into a projectile that would break into a huge AoE explosion. That’s the weapon design.
I’m not asking to change how powerful hack is (I sort of am, but that’s not where I feel the misunderstanding is), I’m asking to change the way it’s delivered. To make sense with the game’s lore.
.8s with the old LoS was the sweet spot for Hack and felt pretty fair for both sides imo. The counter-play was there and less much frustrating/unfair feeling for the enemy but Sombra had her own tricks to get around it and earn her hacks.
I believe she would in a much better and healthier state now if they had simply reverted the unnecessary cast time buff when it become clear Hack was legit broken. The LoS change did little to help those most helpless against .65s Hack yet made it incredibly frustrating for Sombra and made Hack much weaker against mobility.
This literally changes the balance. It’s like claiming that Hanzo’s rework didn’t change his in-game balance.
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In other words, you’re suggesting a rework of that ability so it’s more line with the game’s lore.
Your suggested rework:
This quite literally is balancing based on the game’s lore.
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Of course it’s going to affect balance, that’s the point. I’m not saying the lore should determine how strong the ability is, just the way it’s delivered. It would affect the way we play with or against Sombra, but you’re not balancing the game to fit the lore, you’re changing the character’s design to do that.
I feel like it would be easier to balance this way, anyways. Get infected? Go to cover before the hack is activated. Add a “cleanse” ability to Brig to make her armor pack worth a damn (Also works on stuns!). Too many people infected at a time, ability’s OP? Lower the number by one or two. Too UP? Let people stack tags on the same target for up to 6 seconds of hack. Much easier to balance, and it fits the game’s lore better.
Are you insinuating that the people in the ranks that Fitzy plays in are sleeping in their games?
True, and fairly obvious, Sombra is weak now. However he doesnt seem to struggle with his hacks getting interrupted and especially not with people doing 180s and shooting at him and interrupting the hack. So
I’m saying that what you’re describing is a bit cherry-picked and only relevant in one streamer’s experience in GM. Meanwhile, I’m focused on the general aspect of it. In higher ranks, it is considerably hard to have enemies during and before fights. Either they immediately notice the sound and start shooting you or they’ll get behind cover/shield etc. What’s that?
just position yourself well enough so that a hack is available This in itself is pretty vague and whilst we’re on the topic of Fitzy, his positioning to hack is, in my opinion, god awful. To elaborate, whenever the enemy team has a hero that jumps into your team to secure kills or output considerable damage (Mainly Doomfist by the way but I’ve seen him do this with other heroes too), he literally just stands behind his team, holding down hack and waiting for someone to come into range.
Just no…
(Keep in mind that I’m not saying he’s bad. I’m just questioning how he utilises his hack)
Also, woke just means anyone who is aware of something. I’m not saying that they were sleeping 
I mean, she’s been like this for quite a while so saying “now” is pretty misleading.
Apparently he does if he has to wait behind his team for a Doomfist to punch in just so he can hack him… And again, he’s done this for other heroes too. All in all, it supports the notion that hack is extremely difficult to pull of during a fight and should be buffed so a certain amount of damage is needed for the ability to get cancelled.
That’s prolly cuz he never attempts to hack behind or in front of the enemy. He just waits behind his team.