When do I hack?

General Discussion
1

Seriously starting to think sombra mains are holding themselves back by not playing any other flanker. Shes so enticing to me and yet I may as well be throwing everytime I lock her. So I got some questions for our sombra mains and high rank players that might see this.

  • Who do I prioritize my hacks on?
  • when do I hack? To initiate the team fight or during? Should I pre throw my tele or save it for the hail Mary I always see on youtube?
  • should i spend the time keeping all the healthpacks hacked or just the ones i intend to return to?
  • why does an ability with a cast time of almost half a second feel like it takes to long?
    Seriously underrated hero in terms of difficulty to master props to anyone with the patience.
2

When she announced it loudly saying

“Been her all along”

The enemy will be caught offguard with the voiceline thus making every hack 100% successful

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3

Depends on team comps. If your tanks aren’t peeling or if you want to hard shut down the enemy flanker you could chill with your DPS and hack the doom/genji/tracer for free kills when they dive your supports. Otherwise Rein is always a free hack if you’re just learning to play Sombra.

Keep your locator somewhere hidden. Depending on your SR, you might not want to put it directly on a health pack. Lower SRs don’t care but higher SRs will spot it and wait for you to come back so they can kill you. Depending on the map you can just run into the team for EMP or use your translocator to dive in and EMP in mid-air. IIRC her EMP goes off faster if you use it just as you exit stealth.

2 Likes
4

This is about the only thing I can do regularly. Even then sometimes they still turn on me and drop me (mainly tracer or reaper) I think that’s an accuracy issue which shouldnt be a problem i can get it around my tracer accuracy I think.

Olay this is what mainly made me make the thread it seems like a really good ability but theres so many possibilities for it I’ve been playing around with what to use it for more than sticking to 1 truck for it.

The funnest part of playing her so far.

5

This is my short version (until you get the idea):

-Play her like Tracer with limited mobility
-Only use hack if your team is there
-Hack Rein
-Hack divers when they dive your team
-Hack Doomfist and Genji (kind of goes with divers)
-Hack Lucio
-DON’T hack anything else (save it; also really not worth the time spent not shooting in most cases).
-Keep in mind you can cancel translocate in exchange for 1/2 the cooldown.
-Throw it where you want to end up after a dive.
-Throw it into the enemy when you want to chase (and need the speed).
-When you’re shooting with your team keep translocate in mind to rapidly move to another spot.
-DON’T throw your translocate in to do an EMP (generally gets you killed unless you’re comfortable with being point blank with the enemy after painting a target on your head).
-Be comfortable with fighting along side your team, you don’t have to dive all the time.
-Unlike Tracer, you don’t have to be point blank to get value from your shots; 15-18 meters is still ok (just outside of hack range).

Just a short list of things. Many will disagree, but it’ll help get a handle on what to concentrate on until you know better. You’ll eventually learn some things will contradict what you’re supposed to do, but at that time you should be able to handle it.

EDIT: ALSO, don’t underestimate hacking health packs. Not only with they help you (obviously) the it prevents enemy usage.

If an enemy is low on health and go to grab a hacked pack, it’s basically a free kill and enemy time wasted rather than a fresh enemy coming back into the fight. Hack packs that will be used by the enemy.

3 Likes
6

Basucally how I’ve been doing it. But you can burst down squishys as fast I’m not used to being so open to counterplay I guess.

This is something nice I’ve noticed.

Aaaaand there gos my fav iat of the hero lol

Yeah I try to keep the nearest 2 hacked if I can

1 Like
7

You can still do it, I just recommend not to. Even I do it tbh, it’s just when I need to immediately counter the enemy (like a sound barrier). Just know it can quickly turn into your death even if you’re careful >.< .

8

First off, decide on your position. Do you setup at the enemy backline? Do you mix in with your teams front line (i.e. stand behind Reins shield and hack from there)? Or do you play defensively and stay close to your supports?

You can decide to switch between those positions any time but be aware that you cannot do more than one at once. You setup for very specific situations, and trying to cover a large area will cause you to spread yourself thin very quickly. Just choosing one general area has you bouncing all over the map already.

-If you decided to play defensively, watch out for Doomfist, Genji, Hammond, Tracer.
-If you decided to support the front line, that would be Zarya, Reinhardt, Mercy… uh… i don’t really prioritize Moira, since she’s not worth it (She fades if you try to hack her), but yeah, i guess her too if you get the chance.
-If it’s the backline, kill Zenyatta first… actually, even if you’re supporting the front line, go to the enemy backline and kill Zenyatta first before going after Mercy… Ana, Zenyatta, Widowmaker, Zenyatta, Torbjorn, and Zenyatta. Zens heal orb is a pita for Sombra.

Prioritize the ones that are about to attack your team, or have escape abilities. In a teamfight, go for Reaper and Mei first. Do not let them use their escape/stall abilities (Wraith and Iceblock) hacking them ensures that the enemy team will have less people in the fight very very soon. Zarya is also good as she will bubble anyone your team is focusing on. Honestly, Rein is pretty low on my priority list since more often than not, NOBODY uses his shield anyway :smile: :smile: :smile:

If you have the area setup, you don’t initiate the fight, you disrupt the formation before the fight starts. Harass the backline and make Zarya bubble the supports, make Ana use her grenade, make Reinhardt use his earth shatter, then teleport before you take significant damage and your team now comes into the fight with the enemy abilities on cooldown. You only hacked one enemy, but the rest are on cooldown anyway. Almost as good as an EMP.

Speaking of which, during the fight, focus on Ana. Even if she doesn’t die, you just have to keep her from healing her team. More often than not, it’s Ana that carries the team, keep her occupied while your team picks off her team one by one. You only need to keep her occupied for three or four seconds, long enough for a Tank to die.

Depends on how often your team uses the healthpack. If they don’t use it, then there’s no need for you to hack any at all.

The logic for the healthpacks is that you only hack if you come back to them faster than they respawn. So you DO NOT hack the mega healthpack the moment the game starts, it’s already there, why do you need it to come back faster?

So you can either spend two hacks on two healthpacks, which translates to 16 seconds of hack downtime, or just alternate between the two and save the two hacks for the enemy.

Remember that every hack is 8 seconds of downtime. That’s 7 hacks a minute at most, not counting the time spent running all over the map. If you maintain the four healthpacks usually available in each area, you’ll be down to 3 per minute. Not practical. Especially considering that you’re not actually hacking every 8 seconds.

Don’t rely on it too much, just use it when convenient, don’t bend over backwards trying to hack someone just because you think it’s her job.

When coming up to an enemy, you have two choices. Hack, or shoot. If you Hack, and you succeed, the enemy will have his abilities shut down by the time he’s aware of you but you will be fighting with him at full health, and you with a weak gun. If you shoot, the enemy will have a chunk of their health gone by the time they turn around, but their abilities will be intact.

Widowmaker, do not hack, just shoot, if she grapples away, follow her with translocator. Only hack if a teammate is about to engage her and you want them to stay together.

Ana, hack her grenade, Zenyatta do not hack, McCree hack his flashbang, Reaper do not hack if he just came out of wraith, Reinhardt do not hack if you’re behind him since he’ll be shot by your team if he turns towards you anyway (Works a lot more often than you think), Orisa do not hack you counter her by being able to run around her shield, Zarya hack her bubble, etc.

9

I see. her job isnt as straight forward as other heros. Your playstyle changes with what the enemy is doing. The healthpack thing I’m extremely guilty of that alone is gonna help me. And rein is an easy hack usually but I’ve been basically playing her like I would tracer and going straight for the backline or out of position people/steagglers.

10

You should prioritize hacking the supports and the main tanks.

If you want to combo your ult with CC ults (grav, shatter) you need to EMP a moment before your Rein/Zarya does. If you want to combo with your D.Va, then you should wait for her to ult first and follow up with EMP just before the mech explodes. You can do the opposite but it will get only the zoning value and it kinda wastes EMP. You can combo EMP with other ults, but I see those situations as more common than others.

That’s not too bad actually, that way you can farm your ult and punish unaware enemies at the same time.

11

Hacking is wrong op, you should be ashamed.
Cheaters never prosper.

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12

Just watch me. Gonna hack my way out gold and all the way to OWL where the pros make that sweet, sweet, middle class wage.

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13

Have fun working a second job while you try to make it out of contenders.

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14

The best rule of thumb that covers pretty much everything imo:
Hack when your teammates are already shooting someone.

This can mean a variety of situations. Often it means you sneak all the way to the back to be there as your team attacks. Other times it means you just hang out with your Orisa or Rein and hack Dvas and Doomfists from behind shields as they come to you. But the point, you shouldn’t be alone too much. Zen is wide and easy to kill on your own, tanks are good for farming ult, otherwise it’s more effective to use your team.

Dive heroes and tanks are best to hack (Dva, Doomfist, Tracer, Genji etc). Heroes with powerful primary guns and/or long cooldowns aren’t very useful to hack.

Don’t spend too much time on medkits. They’re OK on 2cp, and that’s kind of it.

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15

I’ll just go the streamer rout. Skip all the hard work and jump straight to the gravy. Lmao

Seems like it’s the only time I can get one off anyways. As fast as hack is I rarely can pull it off without someone turning on me and hitting me.

16

Former Sombra main here.

Your priority should tanks/healers and then the overextenders if they keep killing your team. Why in this order? Because tanks can’t live without healers but the healers can’t live without the tanks. Hacking the tanks exposes the healers and vice versa.
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When do you hack? When your team is around you to help you out. Don’t be that lone person behind the enemy group for God’s sake. You are nothing without help or your team.
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Hack the health packs near the enemy or behind the enemy point so they can’t use them. Then they’ll be stranded there with low health if their healers aren’t doing their jobs.

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It’s best to do combo ults with EMP. Make sure you communicate with your team so it won’t be wasted. My fav is Zarya x Sombra or Zarya x Sombra x Hanzo or Zarya x Sombra x D.Va.

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17

I play a different kind of Sombra. I kind of stick with team and play her as a Normal DPS. Every now and then I will venture off and kill that widow.

I save my hacks for the main targets that become very limited when hacked. Any of the tanks that get hacked become pretty useless. My next choice would be healers like Brig, Moria, and Mercy because they can escape. My dps choices would be Mei, Soldier, Sombra, Genji, Tracer, DF, and Phara if I can reach her.

I would say the most important people to hack would be Winston, Wreckingball, Zarya, Brig, Moria, Mei, Genji, Tracer, and DF. If any of those heros are shut down the game becomes pretty easy.

18

The only time I have a reasonable chance to survive translocating into an EMP is when I do it exactly as the rest of my team is engaging. Then there are so many targets that I may not only survive but may also get an elim or two.

But what I’ve found is that if I use my translocator as an escape mechanism, then my elims are lower and so are my deaths. If I instead use it as an engagement mechanism then both my elims and deaths go up. Which is better depends on the situation.

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19

I call that “tracer” syndrome. When I first picked up rein I had 100 hours on tracer and less than 10 on everything else and kept catching myself flanking and sneaking around as the big guy. And yeah I’ve been doing it on sombra too. Working on it lol.

Them d.va combos are brutal it’s what made me want to pick her up.

20

It’s because when we hear “been here all along”, we think “how much did you see?”

1 Like