The idea of buffing Sombra was good, but perhaps she got too many buffs

General Discussion
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First of all, I want to say that I completely agree that Sombra needed a buff, we couldn’t even say that she was a DPS.

That being said, let me remind you every of her buffs
She now hacks faster
She now has 5 more seconds on her translocator
She now has less spread on her gun
Hacking now disable all passive abilities, like Pharah’s jetpack

Sombra now basically does everything she did, but better. It’s crazy! She didn’t need so many buffs, she only needed like 2 of them. We can see in the overwatch league , that has the old patch, that Sombra was viable . Remember when Shadowburn used Sombra on route 66!

Before her buffs, we were able to counter her hacks by damaging her if she wasn’t well positioned, now, it’s nearly impossible to counter her hacks, even if she has a terrible positioning… The whole point of Overwatch is switching hero to counter enemy team, but if Sombra hacks that fast, it totally removes McCree and Roadhog from her counters, and they were almost her only 2 ones…

I would say that her other buffs her fine individually, but when you stack them, she becomes that monster who is impossible to kill. Remember Bastion who was over-buffed last year, Tracer, who was supposed to be her counter, was totally destroyed by him. To get back to my point, Bastion’s buffs were:

-Ironclad (gives 35% resistance in turret and tank mode)
-Can heal while moving and taking damage
-Spread has been reduced
-Has more bullets in both modes
-Transforming takes less time

These buffs were individually fine (except ironclad), but when you stack them, Bastion becomes that monster who does everything he did, but better, and that’s where Sombra is going right now. Her buffs are too numerous and that’s why they need to be reconsidered.

"Edit"
To everyone who answers “Yes but she got nerfed on her ultimate” I would give you that point, yes her ult takes more time to charge, but we can see in the overwatch league that it was totally crazy how fast she could charge it Shadowburn ,on route 66, engaged a fight with EMP and his ult was already back at the end of the fight… Now tho, it can charge pretty fast as well, don’t get me wrong, but it’s less instant. Furthermore, her ult has been indirectly buffed with her other buffs. When you buff the hack, you buff EMP as well. It now removes every passive in the game so I could say EMP is more an ultimate right now than it was.

10 Likes
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You forgot they nerfed her pretty massively to compensate.

3 Likes
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it doesn’t even come close to compensating. She’s just overpowered.

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That’s why she is in the top ten picked at every tier.

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Then why does she still have one of the lowest pick rate and win rates even a week after the buffs?

The healthpack nerf was pretty massive. The buffs she got compensated and tilted it in the favor of an overall buff rather than nerf.

Can’t tell if this is sarcasm or not, but I’m pretty sure she’s only top 10 in GM currently.(From Jeff’s list)

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Forgot to put a /s. sorry

2 Likes
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When Junkrat got buffed last autumn a lot of people thought he was op. The same thing is happening to sombra. The community needs time to adjust to sombra’s changes. When niche heroes suddenly rise out of irrelevance, it can feel like a rude awakening.

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She isnt even on the list in gm I don’t think.

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If I recall correctly, she was number 7 or 8? She wasn’t too high on the list though.

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Overbuff says 11th
Jeff says

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I agree it’s too much but as a player I like it when things get buffed too much over not gettting buffed at all or even worse everything else gets nerfed coughbungiecoughdestinycough to be brought down to her level.

I’m fine with her right now. I think there needs to be an adjustment period to learn how to play around her first. Then if she’s still op she should be nerfed sligthly.

1 Like
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Before the buff she could barely get people hacked, she usually ended up dead or her enemies had enough time to escape or defend themselves. The speed of the hack is necessary for her to be in a good place.

Most people are focusing too much on who she is strong against, and forgetting that she is vulnerable to others, personally i have no problem with Sombra due to the heroes i play.

Bastion counter to Tracer? uhm… what??

The only thing in my opinion that might be a bit much is the duration of the hack it is a bit long indeed. The translocator one is just a quality of life one, the spread is needed because her role as an offensive character was laughable before, and the speed in which she hacks is also needed for that ability to be actually useful.

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And still get stopped by 1 damage

Finally

Finally a dps that can damage someone

Now hacking a dps is as viable as hacking a tank

That’s called buffing a bad hero

So the game should be balanced around half a dozen people who don’t even use her that much?

4 Likes
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Ahh, must’ve misread it. Thanks for correcting me!

1 Like
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Shoving massive amounts of changes on one character just makes it harder to balance, both good or bad. No reason not to do more frequent but smaller buffs. They are basing most of their balancing off internal play testing which is just as bad as PTR, there just isn’t enough data to make an accurate adjustment.

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Revert hack speed, everything else is fine.

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Having her ult charge at a normal rate isn’t a huge nerf, it’s a necessary nerf. Sombra can get still get her ult faster than a lot of characters, if you focus tanks you can build your ult very fast because they are just big defenseless ult batteries when they are hacked.

The reason sombra hasn’t jumped a bunch in play time is because people are still learning to play her after seeing how viable she just became. She’s not gonna instantly rise in play time because she is pretty hard to play but she is going to slowly rise until she’ll be in almost every game from mid plat to gm.

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Right now I’m in a wait and see kind of mode for Sombra. It’s not I don’t think she needs nerfing, it’s that I want to see what Brigitte offers against her. Who knows, Brigitte might be her counter.

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She needed these changes. I’m fine with all but the complete crippling of Lucio. Most Sombra mains I’ve talked with think it was a bit much.

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Blockquote[quote=“Vendamar-1771, post:12, topic:22785”]
Before the buff she could barely get people hacked, she usually ended up dead or her enemies had enough time to escape or defend themselves. The speed of the hack is necessary for her to be in a good place.

Urozarr:
[/quote]

No, before her buff, the hack time was ok, perharps a liiiitle to high, I would accord it, but it was closer to be balanced than right now. If you end up being dead after trying to hack someone, perharps it’s not the character who is broken but your positionning, I’ve watched some Sombra mains in GM and they were able to hack people.

[quote=“Vendamar-1771, post:12, topic:22785”]
Most people are focusing too much on who she is strong against, and forgetting that she is vulnerable to others, personally i have no problem with Sombra due to the heroes i play.

That’s what I said, her 2 main counters are not even counters to her right now, kill a sombra is really hard since she can translocate right before dying, that’s why the hook and flashbang were her 2 main counters. But I would be very interested to know how lucio and soldier are counters to her right now

Yeah, he was, and he was countering genji as well because he was unkillable

I am not overreacting to her buffs, I think I have a pretty neutral view of the situation since I play the game to have fun with my friends, I said that I agreed to her being buffed, and the majority of her buffs, but right now, she has been over-tuned and we can feel it.

1 Like