I’m sure that a lot of you have seen posts on the forums about the current state of Sombra in the meta and the game as a whole. I understand the perspective of those who do not wish for Sombra to become overpowered and define a meta, as Mercy has in the past, however, looking at her statistics across the seven competitive ranks, it is evident that she is in dire need of a change.

According to Overbuff, averaged over the past month, which includes 3 weeks pre-nerf, and 1 week post-nerf, Sombra had the lowest winrate in Bronze, Silver, and Gold, and was in 5th-last place in Platinum. She faced fewer issues in Diamond and above, however, this includes only 14% of the playerbase, meaning that for 86% of players, Sombra was not in a good state before she was nerfed.

After the nerf, in the past week, her winrate has fallen in every skill rating except Grandmaster, however this can be accounted for by the fact that her pickrate dropped from 2.15% to 1.26%, indicating that her winrate has only stayed stable due to the fact that the only people still playing her at that tier are those that are already incredibly good with the hero (likely those who climbed to that rating before she was ever buffed).

I think, however, that the most crucial detail is the fact that she is among the top in terms of time spent on fire, but despite this, is near the bottom in terms of winrate below Diamond. This would indicate that the Sombra players in these ranks are playing quite well for their rank, but are struggling to actually win. This was the case before the nerf, and has only become more so the case since it. This indicates that Sombra is in dire need of a buff.

There are a few key issues with Sombra in her current state:

First of all: hack, despite its buffs to speed and ability to shut down passives, is weaker than it was before the rework in this patch. In the past, Tracer needed to be wary of Sombra, but now, can easily shut down her hack and force her to retreat due to the new 2 second cooldown. This is not to mention the fact that the new Line of Sight checks are plagued with bugs, causing hack to break when it shouldn’t.

Secondly: Hack, while annoying, is not powerful on its own. For it to do anything other than feed enemy support ult charge, it needs to be followed up on, requiring good aim from the Sombra player, and/or for the team to follow up on these hacks - which often doesn’t happen despite the Sombra player announcing the hack in team chat.

This means that Sombra players with a lot of experience are playing as well as they can, and to a decent standard for their rank, but are unable to win due to the hero’s lack of solo-impact. This has always been the issue with Sombra, except among those who are exceptional with the hero.

This all goes without mentioning the fact that these statistics are from competitive play, which Brigitte has not been released to yet. Brigitte causes massive problems for Sombra. Her shield bash makes Sombra extremely vulnerable, in many cases leaving her dead before the stun has even ended. This compounds with the fact that Brigitte’s shield makes her difficult to hack compared with other heroes. Sombra having a new counter isn’t a bad thing, but the fact that she’s in a weak state and receiving a new counter doesn’t make sense.

I have a few suggestions:

The cast time for hack could be reverted to 0.8s (and the old LOS system reintroduced, since it wasn’t a problem with that duration, and the new one has many issues), and the duration of the decloak animation reduced in a reciprocal manner (reduced from 0.7s to 0.55s). With this, the time for Sombra to exit stealth and complete a hack would be the same (1.35s), but the hack would not be as powerful in the middle of a fight (a case where many have said that it feels overpowered) Along with the first change, a reversion of the 2 second cooldown due to interruption. While this seemed like a minor change, it actually makes Sombra significantly weaker The addition of a small damage threshold for the interruption of Stealth and Hack, since these can both be interrupted by a single D.Va pellet so drastically affected by falloff that it gets rounded down to 0 damage. I think a threshold of 20 would be acceptable, as most projectile weapons deal this much damage or more in a single shot (and those that don’t are rapid-fire), and most hitscan weapons operate in a similar manner (maybe a threshold of 19 so that a Soldier: 76 bullet can interrupt it).

I don’t know if the development team will ever read this, but I think they should reconsider the Sombra nerfs, but also not buff her too much as to make her too powerful in the Overwatch League – which was the concern of Pro Players that likely caused these nerfs in the first place. I think it is possible to put Sombra into a place where she is playable at lower ranks (I’m fine with her not being at the top of winrates, but I don’t think her current state is good) without being overpowered at higher ranks.

TL;DR: Sombra players win less despite being on fire more, and the hero was nerfed in spite of this. She needs help