I’m going to try to be as neutral about this as I can. I have a bias, and I cannot rid myself entirely of when I write this, so please keep that in mind.
The buffs:
- Infinite stealth duration
- Infinite translocator duration
- Can now manually destroy translocator from anywhere on the map
The drawbacks:
- Stealth now moves 25% slower than on live (+50% speed now)
- Stealth radius to be detected is now twice what it is on live (2m increased to 4m)
- Cannot contest objectives when in stealth
- Translocator has 5 HP
- Undocumented: Translocator is audibly louder
- Undocumented: Translocator is visually brighter when you use it
- Undocumented: Translocator can be heard from a farther range (20m now)
- Undocumented: Translocating animation is visually brighter and more noticable and has 2 animations tied to do it
I understand what the devs were trying to do with this iteration of Sombra. I can understand the reasoning behind wanting to change Sombra to give her infinite stealth and translocator duration. And I cannot deny that it makes that aspect of her job - to scout, to get in the backlines and stay there - a little easier.
Sombra on live servers requires a few things that are key:
- Cooldown management of Stealth and Translocator
- Being able to find your way into the backlines and seize an opportunity to harass the backlines within the durations of your abilities
- Finding your way across the map and objective while leaving as little a trace as possible
These can be difficult to maneuver, especially for people who are not as familiar or experience with Sombra. Cooldown management is difficult, and with her abilities being interrupted by 1 damage, it may not feel accessible to be able to get into the backlines.
I think the PTR changes address this:
- Infinite stealth makes it so you don’t need to necessarily rush to get into the backlines before your stealth duration runs out
- Having infinite translocator uptime means that you do not have to rush to find an opportunity - you can take your time, wait, and start harassing the back lines at the right time
I will not deny that this makes Sombra more accessible for more people. They can now find their ways into the backlines and start disrupting the enemy team. They can scout and relay information without the pressure of their escapes running out.
However, Sombra being accessible doesn’t make her better, especially for those of us who were already able to do these things
On live servers, plenty of us can do the following:
- Find our ways into the backlines without being detected using stealth
- Wait for an opportunity to disrupt the backlines
- Scout and relay information about the enemy team (i.e. noticing positioning indicators of a Zarya, Hanzo, or a Reinhardt who are about to use their ultimate)
- Have a translocator up, disrupt the backline, and translocate out before you die to allow your team to start a push
So, for us, these changes do not add much. We can already scout, we can already disrupt backlines, we can already sneak behind enemy backlines and position ourselves to get ready for a push. Sure, these PTR changes relieve the pressure of durations away.
For those of us who can already do these things, these changes take away things
That’s why it seems like a nerf to a lot of Sombra players. Because we can already do the things that these “buffs” enable, we don’t benefit from them.
We do not gain much from them; instead, we are affected by the new drawbacks:
- We can no longer contest points while we’re stealthed
- We move slower
- We are detected easier
- Our translocator can be destroyed
- Our translocator can be more easily located
- Using translocator is much more obvious with the new visuals
So, we did not really gain anything from the changes. Instead, we are affected with more restrictions and drawbacks. While the changes make Sombra more accessible to do her role, I have not found that they make her do it better - I am having the opposite experience. I am slower, I am not able to make key jumps on Hanamura with the stealth speed, and I feel less sneaky. This sort of playstyle doesn’t encourage her more active role that she has on live. It encourages more of a, “wait in the back until people forget about you” role.
These changes don’t address Sombra’s key issues
I think most of Sombra players can agree that these changes do not address the reasons why Sombra was the worst hero with the worst pickrate, the worst winrate, and the worst bugs.
The issues:
- Hack and stealth are interrupted by 1> damage (you could get hit by 0 damage from across the map and it would interrupt both of these skills)
- Cloak has delays, even decloak (you get shot, but you can’t even fire back immediately)
- Sombra has a lot of bugs that make her inconsistent
- Sombra doesn’t add enough in the middle of a fight, which makes it hard to justify picking her over an actual DPS hero (the best thing you can do in an FPS game is kill your enemy)
These changes do not touch on these. Most Sombra mains, like myself, were asking for bug fixes first, so we can have some consistency. Then we could evaluate if she needed something else.
She’s only received one bug fix on live servers, while she still has:
- Translocator bug zooming in and out and forcing you to face a different direction
- Translocator changing your camera angle
- Hack breaking even when enemies are in range and not breaking LoS
- Hack breaking on enemies passing in front of LoS while you’re hacking their teammate
- Hack breaking on heroes with certain abilities (i.e. Doomfist uppercut, Tracer blink, Genji swift strike)
A lot of people see this as a nerf because:
- We do not benefit from the buffs
- We are affected by the new, many drawbacks
- They didn’t fix her bugs and inconsistency, which is the main problem
I think I touched all the bases. I don’t know if I am capable of explaining it any further. The value given from the infinite stealth and translocator are severely offset by the many new drawbacks. Generally, I believe that if a hero has the worst pickrate and winrate, you buff them - you do not add compensatory nerfs because the goal is to give them more power, not shift it. They have lowered her skill floor a bit, but reduced her skill ceiling as well. She is lower-risk lower-reward with these changes.
I don’t know what to propose that hasn’t already been proposed. My goal isn’t to say, "These changes are wrong, here are the right ones". My goal is to explain why these changes are not good at giving her more value or making her a better hero.
TL;DR these changes make Sombra easier to do her job, but a lot of Sombra mains could already do that job. Sombra mains are not affected by the buffs, but are affected far more by the new drawbacks. These changes do not address Sombra’s core issues, and they still have not addressed/acknowledged her numerous bugs.
![:slight_smile:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=5" ":slight_smile:")