The other follow up to that “Our team comp doesn’t need a Sombra”.
So much this.
If we look at win statistics we know that Sombra isn’t as likely to win at most levels.
Except.
First, a given player on a given day who mains Sombra is probably landing somewhere around 50% wins, regardless of what someone playing Sombra in general at that rank is likely to do. Else they wouldn’t be at that rank (unless you are in the bottom of bronze, in which case we could say the same for every character except Torb, Brigitte, and Sym). If they are climbing as Sombra then they are a net asset to your team—at any rank.
Meanwhile, I almost never see this level of scrutiny applied to, e.g., Winston, Tracer, or McCree who has almost the same win rate in many ranks (~2 points different in Gold—and almost that in Silver except s/Winston/Widowmaker and shuffle McCree a bit, < 1 point different in Platinum, and Sombra is both slightly higher than Winston and McCree and <1 point different from Tracer, Hanzo, and Ana in Diamond).
In Gold, only about half the roster has a > 50% win rate on Overbuff.
Yet, for some reason, “oh no we have sombra, gg everyone might as well quit” is reserved for Sombra, Sym, etc and not for… Tracer.
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looks at team composition and the DVa, Brigitte, Hanzo, Genji, Widow combination
looks at camera
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The number of decent Sombras at middle and lower ranks is tiny, though. I estimate 1 in 20 at best. And even then, she is situational.
The best strategy I’ve found for playing with a decent Sombra is to run Tracer - good for helping kill hacked targets and helps spread the chaos that Sombra needs to function.
Tbf many Sombras appear worse than they actually are because their teammates have no clue how to play with one.
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I think Sombra is somewhat situational too, at least at low or medium skill levels.
In particular, the one thing I absolutely hate is Sombra on control defense. Sombra seems decent-ish on KoTH and can work on attack, because EMP can help take the point, and once might be enough. But on defense you need to hold the point every time. So much of her power is concentrated in her ult, and when she doesn’t have it up, they’ll take the point.
Also, she tends to get herself killed meddling with the backline between pushes. The enemy team usually has so much control over the backline outside of a push that messing with it is dangerous at best, and getting killed off the point will usually result in an immediate 6v5 push from the other team.
The most effective way I found to play Sombra is to literally just shadow your team. When you’re team (tanks mostly) start finally getting aggressive… hack a close-by HP and immediately get good position: high ground usually or behind enemy lines. Then, during all the chaos/aggressive… hack your brains out and finish off people who are red.
Done. Easy win.
But, like everybody on in this thread is validly pointed out: sombra needs a GOOD team to be useful. period. Sombra cannot solo carry… she can only carry when her team is aggressive, and playing as a unit.
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Yeah, I’ve seen that strategy before. It’s probably the best way to play Sombra outside of a very coordinated team. Its especially good if you have to play Sombra to cancel out a very talented player on the other team who is playing a hero Sombra shuts down badly, like Doomfist or Hammond (or to some extent Genji and Tracer).
The issue with Sombra just like with Doomfist is that they are hard to balance properly because their kits are fun on paper, but not in reality. Developers go fantasy path when they design heroes, then after a while they realize that the hero’s kit doesn’t fit well into the game so they start nerfing-buffing-overnerfing-buffing and so on until it’s time to make another hero.
Getting hacks and EMPs means nothing if the team doesn’t follow and in this case Sombra is really not doing much. It all depends on map, enemy comp, how well enemies communicate and so on, if you get hacks and elims and at that time half of your team is dead your good Sombra play is not good for the team overall performance.
I sincerely believe this to be true, and tbh, it doesn’t help that most Sombra player are frightened apparently to do call outs… only feeding the misunderstanding of what they do.
I just love when I’m playing Sombra and I’m invis and the healers decide to heal or damage buff me, giving my position away. Boom, dead Sombra.
I noticed this in high gold low plat, but thats cuz the sombras there were usually bad, almost at diamond and im all about the sombras now, as long as theyre doing work. Youd think 500 sr wouldnt make a massive difference but for some heroes its the turn around point.
If you look at overbuff the OP gets a lot of work done on Sombra. Yet he has 9 win and 9 losses. On any other DPS you would be climbing with stats in the top percentiles like you have.
Now imagine the sombra’s your teammates see regularly. The ones with average stats. They will be doing a lot less work than you and it is almost a guarantee in gold/low plat the team will lose. You can see from overbuff’s win rate for sombras in gold/plat that she is the worst character to have on your team if you want to win. That’s why the team tilts before you even start especially as there seem to be a number of sombra’s who just won’t change when it’s not working.
Genji main here. Wanna point out that my reason (personally) wasn’t because I don’t want the character to be good. It was simply because when hack got the changes at first, she could hack so fast it would go through walls. I want Sombra to be in a good spot, but you have to admit the hacking through walls was a bit much.
They really don’t though. If they actually pandered to us specifically, Brigitte would’ve been deleted a LONG time ago. It’s just a majority of the community agreed she needed nerfed. Also probably a lot of things would be deleted, because you’d be surprised how many things can counter Genji.
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That… isn’t how probability works.
Sombra is not a crime!
It’s amazing that even after all this time Sombra players still get flack, me though at this point, I just dont give a hoot, I know how valuable I am to my team.
I’m the reason why that Hammond can’t roll away, I’m the reason why Genji won’t jump in and Tracer can’t backline, I stripped Mei of her abilities, stopped that Roadhog from healing, and snuck onto the high ground to kill the Widow our hitscans couldn’t compete with.
I’m the one who instantly deleted a 5000 HP barrier and changed the song when the beat dropped. I’ll switch if I’m not being effective as with any hero, but 14 season’s in I’m no longer concerned toxic teammates.
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Yeah, this is a major problem with Competitive OverWatch. The minute you pick Sombra, the immediate reaction from the team is negative. Either its the quick “gg”, or “please not Sombra”.
The sad thing is - a lot of players in bronze, silver, and even gold wouldn’t know a good Sombra if it slapped them in the face (and most of the time, this is the case), let alone understand the mechanics of her capabilities.
In my experience - I often come across the teammate who gloats over having gold damage as a non-DPS such as DVA or Zarya. And they completely neglect the fact that Sombra does less damage per clip that a good number of the heroes - including those mentioned above
Most players also fail to acknowledge the fact that high hack counts matter if you actually calculate how much down-time that is for the enemy team. I like to think I’m a decent Sombra when I average about 40-50 hacked enemies per game; often times I am the ONLY one at the end of the game with a card on my team for that very stat.
The sad thing is - when the entire team is failing, Sombra is the first to receive blame. And if you so much as argue against the toxic players who gang up and single out those who play Sombra, you get reported. And the report system is such a joke I’ve actually received warnings strictly because I receive enough reports for “gameplay sabotage as Sombra”.
Its absolutely ridiculous and just makes the game that less of an enjoyable experience.
Pretty much 
. Had a game earlier where for some reason my team kept backing off from the enemy team to the point where I’m (as Sombra) in position to engage in a flank but no one is moving forward or doing anything.
For instance Gibraltar, attack, second spawn no one is moving into the shuttle room. I’m waiting, waiting, waiting… No one is moving forward, they’re in front of spawn trying to wait for the Widow or Mccree to pop out. I move in, force them out, get lucky and get kills on both… And they’re still just sitting behind in cover waiting for them… Doesn’t matter that they’re dead, doesn’t matter I killed them, doesn’t matter that they can see me running around up where the enemy is trying to poke, doesn’t matter that no one is moving up to the payload when we have advantage… Apparently I (Sombra) need to switch because Sombra isn’t doing anything, meanwhile we have an Ashe that has a great vantage point of a wall.
They are right, you should have switched.
Sombra is good, but if your team cant or wont react on your hacks/emps, you better of playing another dps hero who can do more damage
I play sombra also when we have good tanks, and then the right hacks and EMP make winning team fights real easy. But as soon as i notice our tanks are bad or the enemy tanks are a also good i switch off the sombra.
Also it is most of the time better to play another type of dps then the other dps.
Your other dps was a soldier. Both soldier and sombra are both elim dps, and not damage dps. Both don’t do high spike damage.
Always try to have 1 high damage dps and 1 elim dps.
Or 1 attacking(focus their healers) and 1 defending dps(protect healers/tanks/stay behind shield/tanks most of the time).