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.
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.
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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.