I’m going to be honest, I’m doing this because I’m on the train and bored, and I just started asking myself what would a support version of Sombra look like? So before you Sombra mains tear me apart, I understand you don’t want to change your hero and you should not take this thread too seriously.
This is my idea for her hack - what could you do with the rest of her kit? I’m envisioning her as a disruptor support that operates as a guard against flanks.
Hack
Hack on enemies reduced from 4 to 3 seconds. However, Sombra can now also hack her teammates to remove negative status effects like anti heal and it will make teammate self heal 20 hps for 5 seconds. Hacked health packs functions like current version.
I don’t play her so I would never presume, but she’s definitely the dps with the most “supporty” kit. And given how she’s never really worked out as a viable dps… maybe it isn’t such a strange idea?
It isn’t a strange idea, but the odds of Blizzard doing this is very very low. They’ve only done something like this once and it was with Symmetra. And it was the other way around. It would basically be them admitting they don’t know how to balance or what to do with sombra.
It is currently 5sec but I don’t know if it’s a good idea and I’ll explain why
This is true but let’s go back in time a bit
When sombra was released she was considered a support and people tried playing her as one by healing in heathpacks which wasn’t very effective since all of those are way too far from any objective with exceptions like Hollywood’s mini next to the point but it wasn’t very good since it was 75hp every 2sec. That was incredibly low so people who tried playing sombra as a DPS had more success if they were good
She was also considered a support because healing with healthpacks gave her ult (oh boy I missed those times) and she could get ult as fast as mercy’s big Rez back in the days (around 45sec average)
Fun facts were some buffs/nerfs to sombra back in the days. One mayor patch was a significant reduced spread on the gun (yeah she had even more spread) a 20sec translocator instead of 15sec (yeah it was limited) and a faster hack (I think from 1sec cast time to 0.65… not sure) with the nerf of “sombra doesn’t get ult charge from hacked healthpacks”. Everyone was like “this looks like a… Nerf?” And every sombra player who played her as a DPS was like “this is a buff”
Anyways out of the fun facts
If this happens I think hack CD should get significantly lower since it’ll be a very low heal hero. I think Lucio would be better healer and it makes sombra just for utility.
Also they would need to buff some things like the cast time for getting out of invis or even making her hacked while invis. My ideas are making her back invis or have her a 6 sec invis with 75% speed boost (just like in the old days) with faster declock (invis duration can variate)
After this I must say EMP may be the best support ult ever with this changes. One of the best defensive ults but not as good as Zen’s. Imagine hacking all 11 players (excluding you but I would like if emp would hack sombra too so she also gets those buffs), your team is constantly healing with no debuffs and the enemy is unable to do anything for very little time (i think if enemies get EMP’d the hack duration should be a bit longer). That would be epic
Sorry about the hack duration, guess my mind derped on that. My guess is her EMP would probably get a higher cast time to compensate the added strength.
I just thought it could be fun envisioning her in a different role where her kit might be more accepted.
I wasn’t talking about the CD there, just the duration of the hack. But if you have an ability that can work both to disrupt the enemies and cleanse/heal your team you can’t expect it to be amazing at both.
Just move her to the support category as she is, why? Cause she’s a terrible DPS and Hack can be considered a support move anyways like discord but instead of adding damage your removing it from enemies.
You’d have to rework complelely (new abilities and such) like brig which no Sombra player really want since she is fun but she’s had so many pointless nerfs she ineffective.
You want to make her better?
Remove that stupid 2 sec cooldown while being shot trying to hack. It was a stupid untested hotfix for a bug thats been long since fixed.
Increase her speed back up, since tracking a sombra who just went invis is easy.
Make Healthpacks heal for more if they are hacked: 75 = 100, 200 =250.
You could make hacked health pack hurt enemies 75 = 25 damage, 200 = 75. Meaning taking fights by HP packs not only helps you heal but can hurt enemies trying to heal with them that touch them.
Decrease spread, increase damage, improve falloff range. Any would tremendously help
The fact is she CAN be a good hero with her kit, but she’s been nerfed so much wihtout ever being top tier except by less then handful of gamers that she’s just in a terrible state.
I have mulled about a similar idea a while ago but it was a more straight forward version of a support sombra
Hack
Can target allies (duration is the same as on enemies)
On allies grants increased movement speed
On allies grants health regen (50 hps)
Casting time remains the same
Cooldown for ally cast and enemy cast are separate
Hacking a health pack counts as an ally cast
EMP
Affects allies caught in the sphere as well
charge requirement increased by 30%
Hacked health packs give ult charge as well as hacked allies
EMP affects Sombra as well
And that would be it really, everything else should remain the same since this would be basically a buff to Sombra by adding more value on top of her current kit
So your suggestion is a 3s Hack on enemies, or cleanse and 20hps/5s on teammates, with a .65s cast time, can be interrupted by 1 damage and put on a 2s CD, and has a 8s CD on completed hacks.
Antinade says hello, Coalescence is pretty solid as well. Regardless, your suggestion would be a trash ability on both accounts.
Much more reasonable, but dare I say, might almost be too good.
Anti nade also has no lock-on and a longer CD on a character with zero mobility/escape. But again, this was just made for fun and isn’t to meant to be taken too serously.
