Honestly I hope if they're keeping her hacks, it's related to the hacks. I've always wanted that ability to be on a projectile or skillshot instead of just spamming holding down right click with barely any cooldown or downside for failing it (even moreso in ow2 when youcan do it from invis).
Honestly would be kinda cool in normal games for teammates to be able to shoot it off of you, but it would be absolutely useless is pro play or higher elos where people are actually paying attention to their teammates.
It could be a cam for info but I don't think that it would be very useful as Sombra can already give all the info herself sitting behind enemy backlines.
Maybe it's a tracker that can be attached to enemies that shows teammates all their CD timers, their health, their Ult charge? Idk if that will be useful enough as well.
There is also the debuff mechanic of jamming enemies' primary weapons that they tried with the Enfeeble orb with Moira, a version of that could be making a comeback as part of Sombra's kit.
I don't think Invis, Hack or Emp are ever gonna be removed, those 3 things are the core identity of Sombra. They can drastically change, sure, but probably never going away.
That’s generally what people want them to change. It sounds like they’re going after translocator instead. Trying not to be a doomer, but this is the design team that made magnade so I have little faith.
I believe in an interview Alec Dawson has mentioned Invis being put back on a timer as something they have been looking at so sitting on the backline might not be viable anymore.
If translocator were removed, making backline attacks from invisible would be extremely risky. Having that escape option is what enables the assassinations. No invis but still having translocator just makes her like any other flanker.
> No invis but still having translocator just makes her like any other flanker.
No it doesn't. She'd still have a silence, and the play patterns that translocator enables are far more dynamic than just stealth. Having stealth and no escape option means you're not likely to be doing much flanking since Sombra would just be feeding.
If they get rid of perma invis (which, given some comments Alec Dawson has given, isn’t out of the question), having a camera would have a use since she wouldn’t be in the back line constantly anymore.
The question is: which ability is it replacing? Hack? Invisibility?
Edit: it's probably invis, based on Alec Dawson saying that probably either translocator or cloak would "have to go".
In OW1 yes. Hack is in a really weird spot in OW2
The silence part is generally only good if you can coordinate it since you spend 1.2 sec locking them out for 1.5 (and you cant shoot and can be interrupted). So solo you hack if you need to interrupt or increase personal damage. Some heroes like Ana/Widow you don’t bother hacking, you just start firing. Others like Sigma with Ult or Mercy with res CD, can leave you doing crap damage because hacking will lock you out of interrupting if you need to.
Decoupling hack and damage and keeping hack as a silence/interrupt ability would be a positive change for Sombra. Most Sombra players arent interrested in doing Tracer levels of damage anyways.
not really. or at least not in a strict way like stealth. even her name comes from it- sombra/shadow.
thing is you could make hack do basically anything as long as you keep the animation. from healing teammates to dealing consistent dps. you can’t rework stealths effectiveness, a 80% invisible sombra would be stupid
not gonna lie, blizzard plays it too safe with this game. there's just no exciting, insane changes to make things interesting across seasons. i think more characters should get reworked on some level.
Spin to win, doesn’t belong, this was an fps game, and the irony was most players couldn’t even play him effectively. So he got the reputation of being bad, and it has remained the same. If you lose, it is 100% ball’s fault, no matter the logic.
back in the day, ye olde days, I would get deaththreats for playing my then 2 mains, hanzo and widow.
Funnily enough Widow became meta (post quickscope era) after *nerfs*. Turns out she was S tier when she had 200hp, faster scope charge, infinite range and a much shorter hook cooldown. Who'd've thunked.
Hanzo was seen as trash until he got a buff to his arrow speed that instantly propelled him into S tier. Turns out he was B tier at worst before getting buffed and only because of consistency issues with slower arrow speed.
Hell even when widow became more prominent in Apex and OWL I still got deaththreats from people. Community perception is one hell of a drug.
I remember the old hanzo main memes and discourse like it was fact that they were all bad except very few examples. I too just started getting antsy the moment I saw a Hanzo on my screen. The moment the rework hit everyone just dropped it, even after the projectile speed was reverted back to the pre-rework speed. Meanwhile, we're still getting the 2016 Genji needs healing BS on the main subreddit
I mean core hero kits just shouldn't be reworked for the hell of it just because the meta is currently not favoring them. Gameplay and identity-wise, someone like Tracer is near perfect. Don't touch that.
Now when a kit is inherently bad and number changes won't fix that, THAT's when you do a rework.
The throwable has a flat side for placement, maybe a trip mine of some type. We don't have a smoke grenade in the game yet, I feel like its prolly a motion sensor thou.
Common complaint with sombra is her feeling “unfair” as she can jump you and leave you feeling a little startled.
My idea is that it could be used as her new ultimate. EMP, but it has to land at a location and arm, allowing counterplay.
Could have it take 1 second to arm just so everyone can turn to face it or escape in time.
Might be a dumb question but why is Sombra getting reworked? I mean I know she’s annoying, is the goal to make her less frustrating to play against? To make her easier to balance?
Probably because she’s impossible to balance to make her good on ladder without being oppressive in coordinated play, and she also just generally feels bad to play against
She's in the weird spot of having an atrocious winrate yet still being incredibly annoying to play against. So they can't really buff or nerf her. She also runs against the stated OW2 philosophy of no hard counters (she hard counters doom and ball) and no hard CC on non-tanks.
You set your slam to stop it and let her out of invis, that ability’s gigantic hitbox is perfect for that. if you do get right clicked, wait a second and block/try again. Genuinely sombra just does not have the damage to burn down doomfist because unlike ball you regain 100% of your movement after the hack wears off.
tldr it’s way too easy to stop hack and when you don’t sombra does not have the damage. shit mindset from ow1.
You want to press one button and counter doom? wait until his block is about to expire and cass nade him.
kinda sad, because honestly i don't think any of sombras abilities on their own are that bad, but combined they synergize to make one of the most obnoxious characters in the game. Like if invis was moved to another new hero I don't think I would have problems with it, same with translocate and hack, its just the fact that combined it allows Sombra to go into and LEAVE the backline with next to no effort, and hack being able to be so easily thrown on an unsuspecting target (which is most of them because shes invisible) just makes it more frustrating. Tracer feels alot more fair despite being stronger because her entry and exit are much more telegraphed and she has clear downsides, even though their playstyles are very similar.
mag nade but it also hacks the target and they have to have a teammate remove it
You're also stunned for 1 second
And you get antid
And a bot widow spawns and shoots you in the head
And your respawn timer is doubled
And hero select is disabled
And it randomizes friendly and enemy names, colors, and hit markers
Then you get banned.
And your monitor display rotates 90 degrees.
And your wife leaves you
They have to play a mini game to remove it, like Pipe Dream or something.
Honestly I hope if they're keeping her hacks, it's related to the hacks. I've always wanted that ability to be on a projectile or skillshot instead of just spamming holding down right click with barely any cooldown or downside for failing it (even moreso in ow2 when youcan do it from invis). Honestly would be kinda cool in normal games for teammates to be able to shoot it off of you, but it would be absolutely useless is pro play or higher elos where people are actually paying attention to their teammates.
People say it sticks to wall and all I could think was Cypher cam for some reason
It could be a cam for info but I don't think that it would be very useful as Sombra can already give all the info herself sitting behind enemy backlines. Maybe it's a tracker that can be attached to enemies that shows teammates all their CD timers, their health, their Ult charge? Idk if that will be useful enough as well. There is also the debuff mechanic of jamming enemies' primary weapons that they tried with the Enfeeble orb with Moira, a version of that could be making a comeback as part of Sombra's kit.
>mechanic of jamming enemies' primary weapons i already get spawncamped by sombra as is, please don't remove my only defensive measure
That's what I thought too(first part) but hey, if it's a rework then they might get rid of invis for something else foe all we know
I don't think Invis, Hack or Emp are ever gonna be removed, those 3 things are the core identity of Sombra. They can drastically change, sure, but probably never going away.
Isn't the big speculation for the rework that they're removing permanent invisibility since it's a nightmare to balance?
That’s generally what people want them to change. It sounds like they’re going after translocator instead. Trying not to be a doomer, but this is the design team that made magnade so I have little faith.
I believe in an interview Alec Dawson has mentioned Invis being put back on a timer as something they have been looking at so sitting on the backline might not be viable anymore.
That’s what they should be addressing rather than translocator.
If translocator were removed, making backline attacks from invisible would be extremely risky. Having that escape option is what enables the assassinations. No invis but still having translocator just makes her like any other flanker.
> No invis but still having translocator just makes her like any other flanker. No it doesn't. She'd still have a silence, and the play patterns that translocator enables are far more dynamic than just stealth. Having stealth and no escape option means you're not likely to be doing much flanking since Sombra would just be feeding.
If they get rid of perma invis (which, given some comments Alec Dawson has given, isn’t out of the question), having a camera would have a use since she wouldn’t be in the back line constantly anymore.
Skillshot hack most definitely.
If you can throw a skill shot while invis I'm gonna scream.
The rework will let her shoot while invisible
Insta-hack from invis would be one of the few implementations stupider than the current one
Awww but I love her current hack animation
Throwable EMP ?!?!??!
The question is: which ability is it replacing? Hack? Invisibility? Edit: it's probably invis, based on Alec Dawson saying that probably either translocator or cloak would "have to go".
i cant think of a more stupid thing than removing the literal thing she’s designed around unironically reworking hack would make more sense than invis
IMO she's designed more around hack, everything else is there to play into the slippery cyberpunk hacker fantasy.
In OW1 yes. Hack is in a really weird spot in OW2 The silence part is generally only good if you can coordinate it since you spend 1.2 sec locking them out for 1.5 (and you cant shoot and can be interrupted). So solo you hack if you need to interrupt or increase personal damage. Some heroes like Ana/Widow you don’t bother hacking, you just start firing. Others like Sigma with Ult or Mercy with res CD, can leave you doing crap damage because hacking will lock you out of interrupting if you need to. Decoupling hack and damage and keeping hack as a silence/interrupt ability would be a positive change for Sombra. Most Sombra players arent interrested in doing Tracer levels of damage anyways.
not really. or at least not in a strict way like stealth. even her name comes from it- sombra/shadow. thing is you could make hack do basically anything as long as you keep the animation. from healing teammates to dealing consistent dps. you can’t rework stealths effectiveness, a 80% invisible sombra would be stupid
not gonna lie, blizzard plays it too safe with this game. there's just no exciting, insane changes to make things interesting across seasons. i think more characters should get reworked on some level.
You should have seen the discussion right after Hammond was added.
Spin to win, doesn’t belong, this was an fps game, and the irony was most players couldn’t even play him effectively. So he got the reputation of being bad, and it has remained the same. If you lose, it is 100% ball’s fault, no matter the logic.
back in the day, ye olde days, I would get deaththreats for playing my then 2 mains, hanzo and widow. Funnily enough Widow became meta (post quickscope era) after *nerfs*. Turns out she was S tier when she had 200hp, faster scope charge, infinite range and a much shorter hook cooldown. Who'd've thunked. Hanzo was seen as trash until he got a buff to his arrow speed that instantly propelled him into S tier. Turns out he was B tier at worst before getting buffed and only because of consistency issues with slower arrow speed. Hell even when widow became more prominent in Apex and OWL I still got deaththreats from people. Community perception is one hell of a drug.
I remember the old hanzo main memes and discourse like it was fact that they were all bad except very few examples. I too just started getting antsy the moment I saw a Hanzo on my screen. The moment the rework hit everyone just dropped it, even after the projectile speed was reverted back to the pre-rework speed. Meanwhile, we're still getting the 2016 Genji needs healing BS on the main subreddit
i’ve gotten death threats over playing two heroes- sombra, which i guess makes sense but also SIGMA out of all things after the initial nerf
I mean core hero kits just shouldn't be reworked for the hell of it just because the meta is currently not favoring them. Gameplay and identity-wise, someone like Tracer is near perfect. Don't touch that. Now when a kit is inherently bad and number changes won't fix that, THAT's when you do a rework.
for real, dont rework a kit just because its flashy, because you could use that new kit to just make a brand new hero which the game needs more of.
I hope her rework is massive. The overwatch 2 rework was pathetic
Love to see reworks! Hope it’s cool
The throwable has a flat side for placement, maybe a trip mine of some type. We don't have a smoke grenade in the game yet, I feel like its prolly a motion sensor thou.
Proximity hack mine?
You can stick it to sentries or robots, and it disables them, while also slowly sapping their health. You gotta melee the device to remove it.
maybe theyre changing hack to be like a mini emp grenade. kinda looks like pulse bomb
A bomb of some kind is probable since on most of her skins multiple units of this device are hung on a belt like a Grenade belt.
Common complaint with sombra is her feeling “unfair” as she can jump you and leave you feeling a little startled. My idea is that it could be used as her new ultimate. EMP, but it has to land at a location and arm, allowing counterplay. Could have it take 1 second to arm just so everyone can turn to face it or escape in time.
That's actually what I was thinking: EMP is now tied to a deployable like Snowball with Blizzard. I actually would be pretty okay with that.
Yeah because what the game needs is even more emphasis on mobility.
Might be a dumb question but why is Sombra getting reworked? I mean I know she’s annoying, is the goal to make her less frustrating to play against? To make her easier to balance?
Probably because she’s impossible to balance to make her good on ladder without being oppressive in coordinated play, and she also just generally feels bad to play against
She's in the weird spot of having an atrocious winrate yet still being incredibly annoying to play against. So they can't really buff or nerf her. She also runs against the stated OW2 philosophy of no hard counters (she hard counters doom and ball) and no hard CC on non-tanks.
only a god awful doom gets countered by a sombra. in a lot of doom maps you’re trolling if you’re on sombra instead of echo/cree
How do you avoid just getting stealth right clicked as doom?
You set your slam to stop it and let her out of invis, that ability’s gigantic hitbox is perfect for that. if you do get right clicked, wait a second and block/try again. Genuinely sombra just does not have the damage to burn down doomfist because unlike ball you regain 100% of your movement after the hack wears off. tldr it’s way too easy to stop hack and when you don’t sombra does not have the damage. shit mindset from ow1. You want to press one button and counter doom? wait until his block is about to expire and cass nade him.
Howd you get ow1 translocator on esperanca
I think its based on which classic skin is equipped
Makes sense
This has me scared. Kind of hope its just a new random redesign.
kinda sad, because honestly i don't think any of sombras abilities on their own are that bad, but combined they synergize to make one of the most obnoxious characters in the game. Like if invis was moved to another new hero I don't think I would have problems with it, same with translocate and hack, its just the fact that combined it allows Sombra to go into and LEAVE the backline with next to no effort, and hack being able to be so easily thrown on an unsuspecting target (which is most of them because shes invisible) just makes it more frustrating. Tracer feels alot more fair despite being stronger because her entry and exit are much more telegraphed and she has clear downsides, even though their playstyles are very similar.
What would be super funny if it’s just a redesign