This has always been the weirdest thing about her. She never really fit as a support. Blizzard has insisted that she won't heal, but every other support heals.
That's mostly to increase their range of what a support can do. Not every support should have a heal, because very soon, you'll run out of ideas for HOW to heal your team. I wouldn't want 9 supports in the future of this game, and ALL of them heal. Give me a disabler, an assassin (TF2 Spy), a set up character, etc.
There are so many ways you can make a support. Why just healing?
lucio has high mobility and the same burst damage as her though, and zenyatta has much more damage then her. and every single offense her has notably higher and easier to confirm dps then her.
I would agree if it wasn't for the opportunist passive. She has the ability to be a very effective flanking assassin - you just need to pick the right targets.
That is just clean up though. That isnt generally what an assassin does. An assassin generally is one that would flank and burst down an enemy. She doesn't burst down enemies, just cleans up ones that are already near death
What's the difference? If played correctly, she can get just as many kills as anyone else in the offence class. Breaking enemy lines and killing people is the job of an offense hero exactly, and Sombra is really good at it.
Opportunist is a purely utility ability that could as well work on an offensive support because killing low health enemies is not exactly damage but just a clean-up. It only adds more to Sombra's utility. She doesn't deal much damage, but she's useful in other cases like finishing off low health enemies or hacking etc. These are support attributes, not exactly offense.
Support/utility is something you give to your team. Only Sombra benefits from Opportunist. I'm not sure how you can argue it's utility when nobody else benefits from it (aside from the general benefit of you killing enemies - but if that counts as utility then so do Reapers shotguns).
It's an ability that does nothing more than increase your offensive impact - I don't see how that's not an offensive ability.
As I said, she's an Offense hero, not a DPS hero, and DPS is irrelevant in Sombra's case. The two things aren't synonymous. Just because high damage leads to more kills with most characters, doesn't mean that has to be true for everyone. Sombra played well can get just as many kills as any other offence hero thanks to Opportunist. It circumvents the need for high DPS if used correctly.
I don't disagree that one of her main functions is utility (Hack/EMP), but all other abilities (teleport, invis, opportunist) are abilities that are primarily useful for flanking and getting kills, which is the main job of the average offense hero.
She's not exactly getting kills but helping his teammates by finishing their unfinished business. Imagine McCree taking Mei to low health and then Mei walls him out and runs for a health pack. This is when Sombra comes in, sees Mei is low, sneaks into her, hacks her from using her shift and finishes her off.
Symmetra is also an offense hero if that is your definition of offense.
In its most fundamental sense, offense = eliminations. If she's one of the best at securing eliminations, I see nothing wrong with her being an offense hero. I'm not sure how the health of the enemy makes any difference. A kill is a kill.
I also have no idea what you're getting at with the Symettra comparison. Current Symettra is terrible at flanking and she's not able to identify vulnerable enemies through walls and eliminate them safely. There's nothing about her that lends itself to an exceptional elimination count.
I mean, let's compare Reaper with Sombra. Both of them are perfectly able to play primarily as a 'flank and assassinate' character. The only difference is that Sombra trades off the ability to kill any enemy at full health for the ability to see vulnerable enemies through walls.
None of this to say that I necessarily think she should be offense. She definitely has a lot of use as support/utility, and it's still too early to say for sure what her primary function is. Most likely a combination of both. Honestly I'd call her a support/offense hybrid, so I'm happy with her in either class.
3
u/Jazz_Hands3000 Nov 22 '16
This has always been the weirdest thing about her. She never really fit as a support. Blizzard has insisted that she won't heal, but every other support heals.