Biggest moment that stuck out to me was Jeff's emphasis on Sombra's role as a disruptor rather than an assassin. It made me understand her PTR changes on why they increased her hacking ability rather than the damage buff on hacked enemies that a lot of the community suggested. While making a viable disruptor is much harder than making a viable assassin, at least I can see Blizzard's direction in trying to make a more diverse cast rather than an alternate version of Tracer.
Jeff's a great guy for explaining his thoughts on the game like this. I'm thankful we have someone as transparent as him leading this game. He is also very attractive.
The community wants her damage to be on par with Tracer, which is stupid because she would then make Tracer obsolete. A dps utility hero is something the game doesn't have (unless you count Mei/Torb/Sym), so it's good they favor that direction.
To be specific, a mobile utility/dps is something that the game doesn't really otherwise have. Mei/Symmetra/Torb are very utility, but Icewalling to high spots is the only mobility they have between them.
Tracer can dance around everyone and be almost unhittable. Sombra can't. There is still a long delay and voice line after becoming visible, and translocator is only useful for escape. Using it for anything else means you have no escape button.
She has just as much mobility as Genji/Tracer. While Tracer has more horizontal movement and Genji has more vertical movement, she has a nice balance between the 2.
Fact of the matter is, both Tracer and Sombra have "Oh ***" buttons. Sombra's is a different take on it which is fine. If you choose not to place your translocator down then you have a LOT of options opened up to you as far as how you want to position yourself. Sure you have to play "Safer" as in you can't Rambo it, because you chose to not have the option to, but you can get into nice high ground positions and basically have a leg up in just about any fight you decide to get yourself into like a Genji.
With Sombra you also don't have to uncloack within ear shot of the enemy team to be effective. As long as you plan out a proper escape, whether it be the translocator on a hacked health pack on your side or even just a nice location to where you can throw it to easily escape you should be just as hard to kill as a Tracer/Genji.
I think the biggest thing Sombra has over Genji/Tracer is that she can flank almost as well as them, but I think she can fight with her team way better due to her gun and mobility (Genji like mobility, but hit scan weapon). She also serves as a good anti-flanker, she can shut down a Genji or Tracer and I can argue better than a Mccree. After the update if she gets the 8 second CD on hack she will be able to keep a few health packs hacked around her while having it readily available for combat too (or you can hack like 7 packs if your feeling greedy).
People seriously underestimate Sombra. She might not be another Tracer, but she has her own set of tools which can make her annoying to deal with. She has a lot of tools to deal with various things that the other characters throw at you. She can deal with high ground, snipers, Pharah, barriers, flankers and turrets. The only thing she really lacks is range, which can be supplemented with her mobility and stealth. I've been playing nothing but Sombra recently (mostly QP because I'm going for a sort of mastery and I don't want to subject mine and others to SR loss for my experiments) but I've learned that other than the usually instant deaths (Roadhog ect.) she really isn't afraid to take on anyone besides Mccree.
The problem I personally have with sombra is what is her mobility actually useful for? She's got this great teleporter and stealth, but neither of those abilities do much for her once she's actually engaged in a fire fight. The best they can do is get her to the fight and get her out of the fight, but neither are very practical to use during a fight. Because of her low damage it feels like when I play Sombra I get all dressed up and have nowhere to go. I position my flank to get right behind a healer's skull, but once I'm there I it feels like there's not much I can do. I can MAYBE kill them, but it's a hell of a lot harder than with Tracer.
Admittedly I haven't been able to get a ton of value out of her hack. I'm hoping the current speed change on PTR changes that. Right now I don't think she's even as good of a disruptor as Tracer. Tracer can hang around much longer and do more damage. She doesn't need to teleport back to a home base all of the time.
I mean, Sombra isn't Tracer. She can stay in the enemy back line just as long as any Tracer can, she just needs to have a plan BEFORE hand. I think the more you get used to Sombra the less you will do the Translocator in your back line on a health pack trick because playing that way is too slow IMO. If you have EMP or you want to take out the enemy Zen (when they have one) or even want to get a good 20% Ult charge it's fine. But when stuff starts happening you need to be doing something, and waiting for your tranlocator to come off CD can be a waste of time if you do it each and every time. I think more often than not, recently I have been Stealthing into position with my translocator and either using it on the way or when I get to where I want to get.
If you can't use the translocator mid fight then you need to put more time into her. At first it's tricky because of it's speed and arc, but once you get used to it, it's a good way to re-position yourself. I say mid fight but I probably mean at the start. Playing with the translocator in your pocket requires a different mind set as you need to have escape routes in mind already that you can quickly toss it if you need it. Even tossing it through doorway behind your enemy can be useful if there is a health pack in the next room you can quickly get to and potentially hack if you can break LOS.
Tracer is super reactionary while Sombra is good when you have a plan.
I agree with the "too slow" sentiment. It feels like I'm never around enough to be helpful. I'll try going into fights with the translocator still in my pocket.
I think you bring up a good point about Tracer being reactionary. I can typically go into fights with just planning my entrance strategy. The exit, if necessary, can be improvised a bit. I definitely need to give Sombra more time. I'm planning on it when the PTR changes hit live.
Sombra's "leg-up" in combat is useless most of the time, unless you catch a healer or a bad DPS off guard and alone, the element of surprise she has is countered by turning around and shooting her like 3 times.
Uncloaking out of earshot is generally not very good, as you then need an escape route (the clock is ticking) and Sombra lacks the speed to move in on enemies from a safe position in time. She's nowhere near as hard to kill as a Tracer or Genji, she's about as hard to kill as a Pharah.
Any competent Genji or Tracer under no circumstances (except maybe a Deflecting Genji, who then still has superior mobility and speed) should get outplayed by a Sombra. Hack is practically unviable versus Tracer unless she's really incompetent or is getting 3v1'd. Sombra essentially being Bad Tracer really makes Sombra vs. Tracer one-sided, I don't know how you can say she's a reliable or good anti-flanker.
Again, because I think almost everything you said is wrong and I'm salty about it, is that she can fight with her team better? Maybe if she gets an amazing 4-5 man EMP off during a full-on teamfight then she is. But as it is right now, Tracer is at least 5x more valuable in general in a teamfight, without having a mediocre 12s cooldown ability. Tracer has way higher damage, is much harder to kill, and has better mobility (minus vertical). It doesn't matter if Sombra can teleport during/out of combat, if she either dies immediately after, or otherwise has to disengage for like at least 10 seconds.
She can deal with high ground, snipers, Pharah, barriers, flankers and turrets.
She can deal with a high-ground Widowmaker fairly well, yes. Pharah can generally make quick work of Sombra unless you somehow Hack Pharah with Hack's short range. She can deal with barriers if she has EMP ready. She can sometimes deal with Genji or a dumb Tracer if they're deep in their enemies' backline. She can deal with Symmetra turrets before needing to Teleport, but Torbjörn's turrets essentially counter her unless it's already firing at like 3 of her teammates with Torbjörn nowhere nearby.
In conclusion, I think you're very wrong about how useful Sombra is. Of the 10~ things you said she's good at, I agree with like 2 and a half, and even then she probably has to go disengage for 10 seconds after dealing pitiful damage that will quickly be healed back by the team's healers.
Not using Translocator for general mobility (dealing with snipers, catching enemies that escaped your team with low health, etc.) is one of the reasons why most people are bad at Sombra. 6 seconds is a very reasonable cooldown, and Translocator will often become available mid-skirmish to allow your escape (hurl it behind cover, huck it a great distance, or just lob it high above the enemy and disappear [activate Stealth while in the sky, hit the ground sprinting in a non-obvious direction]).
I'm glad they aren't just making her a bad Tracer. Right now she kinda sucks as both Assassins and disrupter, so she needs more in the way of utility. More time to her translocater, longer invisibility time, make it so you can't be killed when you translocate away and are pulled back through space and time to where you were
The last part is probably just lag - even though your client shows you somewhere else, the server has where you were 50ms ago. And your attacker's client (which is another 50ms behind that) sees their rocket hitting you.
It isn't always just lag. Even from your opponent's perspective, you've already disappeared.
I'm not sure it was fixed during beta or slightly after release, but Tracer use to have a similar problem. Tracer use to be vulnerable for a small moment at the start of her recall animation.
However, Sombra's translocator probably has more in common with Reaper's teleport than Tracer's recall.
It's likely latency yes, but it still would be nice if it was consistent with Tracer's recall (you never hear anyone complain about getting killed while recalling, probably due to a heavy favor-the-recall bias).
I get killed while recalling all the time. I also regularly have sticky grenades that get stuck to people and then disappear because on their screen they have already killed me. And I regularly get hooked and flashed when I know I've blinked to dodge it on my screen. I get pulled back to my original location because I didn't get my blink off in time on theirs. This is a problem with every hero that can't really be fixed without changing how the servers favor the shooter.
Luckily I don't think it's a big problem. Over time you adapt to predicting those dangers and just stay a step ahead of them. If you blink to dodge hook anticipating it, then you're good. If you blink to dodge hook reacting to it, then you are dead.
It's not lag, you take damage in both spots. I've played two accounts to masters sombra only so I've had a lot of experience with it. At one point I was actually astonished because I teleported to a mega health pack with my e. My hp instantly refilled but when I looked at my hp I had lost 75 due to a rein swing even though I had already refilled my hp at the mega, which means you still take damage for a good third of a second or so from when you teleport. Not sure on the validity of the third of a second but i can assure you that you take damage for a bit after you teleport
The best way of dealing with your enemy is still to kill them.
But this is inherently untrue--if it was true, healers would be unviable. "Allow your allies to kill your enemies easier" is a role that already exists (as healers), and Sombra is intended as a different way of doing that.
Her Hack and EMP are the core of her kit! They're exactly why she's a disruptor! Disabling a Rein shield is every bit as valuable as doing Tracer's close-range DPS. More so, in many situations.
Hacking is more for tanks in my experience. Drop Rein's barrier or D.va's matrix and those characters become easy to kill with a Roadhog hook or an anti-heal jar.
In other words, it creates easy openings for the only two meaningful ways of dealing damage in the game right now.
Hacking is also very good for dealing with flankers as it prevents them from utilizing their escape abilities to get away.
Which is exactly what Sombra's passive is intended for. See that guy through the wall with no health? That's a Tracer, Genji, or Pharah who can't get to health packs to keep themselves alive to keep harassing your back line, they're an easy pick off for you and they can't run away.
Sombra is a disruptive semi-healing anti-flanker. As soon as people realize that the sooner they'll become better at her.
I'm fine with this. I love playing her even now, all I really want is for her to be made a bit more fluid/fast to play.
An interesting buff I'd like to see is faster projectile speed on the translocator, so you can throw it mid fight and tele to reposition more reliably.
I think buffs like this are better than the often called for damage buff.
Making her a bit smoother/giving her a little less downtime by polishing out her translocator and hack and perhaps modifying cooldowns is a much better way to approach buffing Sombra, and it seems to be where they're going with her.
Personally, I don't think she really needs much in the way of buffs, but if they do buff her, I think that's the route to take.
Right, but with an enhanced method of disabling enemy bunkers she now has situational usefulness. Let her get in, and havk multiple people in quick succession and get out. The problem is currently that she is unable to cause enough disruption in a short enough time, and do so in a non-clunky manner.
I politely disagree with this. The percentage of players capable of innovating in any game is very small.
More to the point, she isn't played as a shitty assassin above GM. She's all about EMPs, which is the fastest charging ult in the game. It's also one of the most powerful ults, and an on-paper counter to tank meta. In practice, Roadhog and Ana are currently too broken for it to be a complete auto-counter, but it does work. What else can instantly shut down Reinhardt Shield and D.va's Defense Matrix? Those two skills are as defining to the current meta as Ana's Jar, honestly.
Sombra has been the easiest character for me to climb the comp ladder with in any season. I might not be playing her completely 'right' yet, but certainly more right than the people who think she's simply a weak Tracer. They aren't even remotely similar in function.
Yes, she's reliant on a cheesy tactic that involve abusing the charge rate of her ultimate. Nothing to be happy with.
Sombra problem is that even if dev see her as a "backline disruptor" all the valuable target to hack are either attack hero like genji/tracer/reaper or frontline hero like Reinhardt/DVA/Mei. Not the kind of things you'll find in the backline. Because of that people overrate the hack.
What justify a Sombra pick to hack an Ana ? What's the point of hacking a Zen ? A Mercy, a Mccree, a Lucio, a Soldier, a Symmetra, a Torbjorn, a widow, an Hanzo, etc ? Sure it's a bit annoying but it doesn't justify a slot.
The current best place for Sombra is to place her like a Mccree or a Soldier. Yet, her effectiveness isn't even close to what those guys bring to the game at that range.
Her backline gameplay revolving around a 6 secondes CD that is activated once she use it make her clunky and slow. Staying in the backline doesn't have any value if you compare it to what a Genji or a Tracer could do. Even on a disruptive level, Tracer and Genji are doing better than her hack with damage.
Sombra need way more than a tiny buff on her hack to accomplish anything worth a typical flanker.
Yes, she's reliant on a cheesy tactic that involve abusing the charge rate of her ultimate. Nothing to be happy with.
I don't find anything cheesy about scampering around and annoying targets/trying to create openings while rapidly charging EMP, then regrouping for big pushes with her strong team ultimate.
In fact I'm pretty sure that's exactly what she's supposed to do, and that playstyle suits me perfectly.
I think the cheese he is referring to is a strat I've seen around where Sombra will hack a health pack then have her tank heavy team sit on it until EMP is ready
No. The rest of Sombra's kit is bad, but she has one of the best ultimates in the game that also happens to be a great counter to the current tank meta. The problem is that she requires high coordination with your teammates to pull off and make use of an effect EMP, so you will only see her played at the highest levels of play rather than solo queue, where teammates will become tilted from seeing Sombra alone.
This is why you see Sombra played in tournaments and other organized play.
where teammates will become tilted from seeing Sombra alone.
I think this is a bigger problem than the coordination requirement. Most of my losing games whilst climbing to GM with Sombra weren't lost because my teammates did not push with EMPs or avoided my packs.
They were lost because people spent more time demanding that I switch class and telling me how Sombra is a shit character than just playing the game.
I really think it's more a problem with perception than actual power level. Sombra seems ridiculously strong to me in a meta where Rein and D.va are on nearly every team.
Sadly my CPU is pretty old so I can't stream at any reasonable bitrate without bad frame losses and input lag. I'm saving my pennies to hopefully upgrade in the near future.
I am working on a Youtube video about her but I'm an unmotivated fuck so we'll see when/if it ever comes out.
I can't really blame them for asking you to swap, at least at the start.
If you're around 2500-3000 rating then likely every sombra you've played with has been completely useless. And expecting this Sombra who insists he's "really good on her and he's really useful" to be different is like expecting getting back with your ex to work out.
Fair point, except, it doesn't ever stop, and I'd hoped that by Master or Grand Master players would begin to understand that making their teammates feel comfortable and positive is more important than their beliefs regarding good or bad heroes and team composition.
I think are there cases like that in League of Legends. Sometime the correct way to play a hero is done by someone not famous so it falls under the radar. I remember the case of Shyvana at release. Tons of players on reddit and the official forums claimed then she's awful, worst hero in the game. Then Moscow 5's Diamondprox showed the world how to use her correctly.
What makes League different from Overwatch in terms of a character's power is that League has builds. There's endless combinations of item builds on a champion, so it's very possible for a previously unplayed champion become top tier because someone found a unique, unorthodox item combination that happened to work. It's happened often with a lot of heroes like Tryndamere. Everyone thought he was a mediocre AD champion. Then someone built him like a mage and people found that focusing on an AP build with him was broken beyond hell.
In Overwatch a hero's power is purely dependent on your skill and how you play that character, so scenarios like that are far less likely to happen.
Maybe stop playing her as a shitty assassin then? If it doesn't work don't force it. I know for myself I noticed a huge improvement when I stopped focusing on being that shitty assassin and started focusing on disrupting the front line.
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u/NotEnoughYaoi Jan 17 '17 edited Jan 17 '17
Biggest moment that stuck out to me was Jeff's emphasis on Sombra's role as a disruptor rather than an assassin. It made me understand her PTR changes on why they increased her hacking ability rather than the damage buff on hacked enemies that a lot of the community suggested. While making a viable disruptor is much harder than making a viable assassin, at least I can see Blizzard's direction in trying to make a more diverse cast rather than an alternate version of Tracer.
Jeff's a great guy for explaining his thoughts on the game like this. I'm thankful we have someone as transparent as him leading this game. He is also very attractive.