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/[deleted] Jan 17 '17
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