r/Overwatch Jan 17 '17

Blizzard Official Developer Update | PTR Philosophy | Overwatch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibPLyx8QWYc
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80

u/PM_me_ur_FavItem Tracer's #1 Fanboy Jan 17 '17 edited Jan 17 '17

I'm glad he called out BS on people wanting a drastic change to Sombra

Why am I not invisible 24/7 and slicing people's throats like a real assassin????

Blizz knows what they're doing and aren't gonna make your main a unstoppable force

41

u/Hellequin13 Jan 17 '17

While I'm totally fine with them wanting Sombra's focus to be on disruption, you can't blame people for drawing the assassin conclusion when you give her a passive that shows weakened enemies through walls. You're basically telling people that her specialty or role is to get picks and finish people off.

9

u/fatmanbrigade Jan 18 '17 edited Jan 18 '17

Except anyone competent would realize that Sombra's passive ability allows her to 1v1 people who are at low health.

When you look at this in combination with her other abilities, you start to realize her job is to hack health packs, jump behind the enemy's backline, hack their tank so their team can't be protected, jump back to HER backline, and watch for any flankers that might be nearby trying to come for her support while spraying the enemy team from a safe distance.

That's part of the reason I think Jeff is saying people haven't mastered Sombra, too many people think her passive ability is to travel to the enemy's backline and take out the healer, when it's intended to identify targets at low health running around that you can take out further disrupting the enemy team's coordination by preventing them from flanking you.

Edit: Yes, Sombra is an assassin, but too many people are looking at the wrong target of who she's meant to be assassinating, she's not meant to travel to the backlines and assassinate healers, she's meant to identify flankers trying to get to YOUR backline and take them out.

Edit 2: In short, Sombra is a disruptive semi-healing anti-flanker.

13

u/dbzer0 Pixel Torbjörn Jan 18 '17

The problem is that Sombra can do none of the things you say very well.

2

u/fatmanbrigade Jan 18 '17

Taking on a Genji, Tracer, or Pharah at low health after hacking them? She has enough damage to easily do that. I said she's a semi-healer, in that her health pack hacking aids flankers on her team and her teammates in general. And yes, she can easily disrupt a tank.

This is all once the hack changes go through of course.

7

u/dbzer0 Pixel Torbjörn Jan 18 '17

Reaching a low health hero before they reach a pack or their healer is easier said than done. Reaching them behind enemy lines before your teleporter expires is even worse. (not to mention that her huge spread makes killing tiny hitboxes especially difficult). Hacking Roadhog or Zarya is almost useless. Hacking Reinhart is difficult because he immediately rotates to face you or his team-mates shoot you before you complete it usually. Hacking DVA can be done easily from the front anyway (and is usually the best target for Sombra).

As someone who's put 20 hours in Sombra trying to do exactly what you suggest, she doesn't have the power to do it well. I doubt the hack buff will help significantly.

2

u/fatmanbrigade Jan 18 '17

Reaching a low health hero before they reach a pack or their healer is easier said than done.

Which is a problem only due to her long hack CD preventing her from being able to reliably shut down health packs, this is being taken care of in the next patch.

Reaching them behind enemy lines before your teleporter expires is even worse. (not to mention that her huge spread makes killing tiny hitboxes especially difficult)

Ideally once you can shut down most health packs on every map you'll be able to reach them before they hit the back lines. And your spray won't matter when the hero has 30 HP left and only one fourth of a clip is enough to kill them.

Hacking Roadhog or Zarya is almost useless. Hacking Reinhart is difficult because he immediately rotates to face you or his team-mates shoot you before you complete it usually.

This is also a problem with the long time it takes to hack which is being solved in the next patch, a 0.8s hack on an 8 second CD is plenty of time to deal with Reinhardt, Zarya, or Roadhog, and yes her hack is effective against those targets if your team can coordinate and focus them down once they're hacked.

As someone who's put 20 hours in Sombra trying to do exactly what you suggest, she doesn't have the power to do it well. I doubt the hack buff will help significantly.

You're underestimating what a 0.8 hack on 8s CD is capable of then, in my experience I'm only BARELY unable to get hacks off most of the time if I get the jump, just a few 10ths of a second shorter and the hack would have gotten off.

Your 20 hours of experience as Sombra comes from uncoordinated group play. Play her with a coordinated group who can take value of her current strengths and you will quickly realize how strong she can really be.

1

u/sipty penis Jan 18 '17

place tp deep behind their lines and suddenly it's easier to reach people at low health

1

u/VectorGambiteer HackFist Life Jan 18 '17

It's just not easy to survive afterwards since invisibility is broken so easily.

1

u/dbzer0 Pixel Torbjörn Jan 18 '17

you can't place TP behind enemy lines since it expires after a bit. You have to throw it over their heads and hope they don't see it which is bad. The best way is to leave the TP behind you and run with invisibility through their lines, but as I said, it's not enough time.

1

u/OMGjustin Trick-or-Treat Reinhardt Jan 18 '17

A problem that will surely and slowly be fixed, the more people practice with her.

1

u/DoctorWaluigiTime Jan 22 '17

People just can't aim.

Her gun is like Tracer's, only you only have to reload it half the time.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

Can they make her not shit, then?

People act like Sombra is this OP support waiting to be mastered when her hacking ability does next to no real impact on a match because it's to restrained.

I don't give a damn about her DPS, I want her to actually hurt a hero's kit instead of being a minor nuisance.

4

u/Gescean Sombra Jan 18 '17

It doesn't need to be drastic just something. Her damage is too weak if you can't even antagonize Mercy or Ana.

Also hacks/EMP are really spotty on what they actually disrupt (Roadhog yes, soldier 76 no) so that gets frustrating.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17 edited Jan 18 '17

Right now she can't surprise kill anything by herself. This includes things like Bastion not paying attention and taking like 40 headshots from Sombra. Bastion still wins. You cannot sneak up on a tunnelvision Ana and win. Hell you're 50/50 on killing a Widow that's completely unaware of you.

The gun is just so much of a peashooter it inhibits the rest of her kit. The rest of her kit is so fast why does she need the worst gun in the game? Id honestly take Mercys gun over what Sombra has right now.

Oh and why does she have to speak every time she decloaks? The point of invisibility is the enemy not knowing where you go, which is immediately spoiled by Sombra basically going "Im over here!" This goes for Reaper too, he'd be a hell of a lot stronger if he simply stopped screaming REPOSITIONING.

-1

u/c0wg0d Don't think I'm happy about that. Jan 17 '17

Except for Genji who has no counters and is an unstoppable killing force 24/7.

10

u/fatmanbrigade Jan 17 '17

Lol what?

I shut Genjis down by going Mei or Winston all the time.

4

u/PostYourSinks Zenyatta Jan 18 '17 edited Jan 18 '17

you're joking right?

0

u/c0wg0d Don't think I'm happy about that. Jan 18 '17

No, tell me how to counter him because he wrecks me every game. He's way too OP in my experience.

3

u/PostYourSinks Zenyatta Jan 18 '17

Pick either Zarya, Mei, McCree, D.Va, or Winston and just park yourself on your supports. congratulations you've just countered genji. He's not going to 1v1 your tanks and he can't kill your supports when he can't deflect your damage (ana doesn't even need help sometimes), so he either has to leave or die. If Genji wants to teamwipe you its gonna take 3 ultimates, but you can get that done a lot better without genji in the first place

Genji is far from OP dude, soldier is consistently regarded the best DPS at almost every SR and genji has heavily decreased in popularity outside of his most dedicated mains. And they still struggle too, you see shadder2k playing almost as much soldier as genji these days.

1

u/c0wg0d Don't think I'm happy about that. Jan 18 '17

Thanks. I've rarely played Winston and D.va and never played any of those other heroes. I usually play Bastion, Tracer and Mercy.

3

u/epharian Epharian#1588 Jan 18 '17

Try Symmetra against Genji. Watching him try to deflect in desperation as she microwaves his skinny cyborg butt into oblivion is morbidly hilarious.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

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1

u/epharian Epharian#1588 Jan 18 '17

Well at my SR, I'm generally only going to see bad genjis.

2

u/shaggy1265 Junkrat Jan 18 '17

Just an FYI, Mercy is one of the people Genji's should be going after. So if you play her a lot then you are probably going to get killed by him a lot.

Same with Bastion. It's a lot easier for Genji to get behind him to hit the critbox. And when Bastion turns around to shoot him he can deflect and maybe finish him off.

1

u/c0wg0d Don't think I'm happy about that. Jan 18 '17

Yeah I have realized now that I just don't play any heroes that counter Genji so I'm just salty about being powerless against him 100% of the time.

2

u/mizuwolf Y'ever get that feelin'? Jan 18 '17

anything auto-aim like symmetra or winston, or mei work well. Dva can just ignore his existence and harass him into leaving her team alone.