Overwatch has some inherent elements in its core design that are more prominent than others. One such element: mobility. In an objective-based game with high ground, long sight lines, flanking routes, and ultimate/cooldown management, forcing the opposing team into situations where all or most of these resources are cut off usually leads to wins. This is where I want to mention Sombra and how her new kit has changed the way teams utilize her.

First, some background. Blizzard’s most recent patch to the OWL servers mainly revolved around Sombra and her drastic rework. Prior to these changes, her ultimate charged very quickly and was ran in a one-dimensional style: Hack a health pack or two, go invisible and harass the enemy backline (while your tanks are eating poke damage and force-feeding the EMP), and initiate a fight with a dive + EMP.

Here is what changed:

Developer comments: “The goal of these changes for Sombra is to remove the necessity for her teammates to take damage and heal themselves with her hacked heath packs to try to get her ultimate charged up quickly. Her ultimate will now come up less often, but there are more abilities that are disabled by Hack so it is more effective when used. Previously, Opportunist would only activate when an enemy’s health bar dipped below 50% but now the passive will reveal all damaged enemies which should help Sombra identify targets in her line of sight to pick off.”

When the changes went live, we saw many OWL pros voice their opinions about how overpowered she would be and that she would see a significant increase in play. About a month ago, NYXL coach Pavane, reported that plenty of players were worried that Sombra would destroy the meta:

Pavane: “Umm not really good. There is a discord where OWL players/coaches can exclusively provide feedback to Blizzard privately, and literally everyone is complaining about Sombra. Its like one of the largest complaints I’ve ever seen up to now. I think she will be nerfed soon. From the perspective of our players, they are certain she is ridiculous. She needs to change before Stage 3 or else I’m going to be worried. Ark told me today after playing competitive that ‘Lucio can’t do a single damn thing against Sombra’ and that his Amp ‘gets shut down all the time’.”