First of all: This is not a rant about how the Sombra buffs are going to destroy Overwatch or something like that, I simply want to make an argument how these changes might actually hurt her. This is also not a super rare opinion, as several other people have already made the point that thes changes might actually nerf her more than buff her. Normally I’m not a fan of jumping to conclusions, especially when it comes to balance changes in OW. I mean let’s just take the last Sombra nerf as an example which was basically just a knee jerk reaction to people crying about how she’s way to oppressive a day after her buff was released. But due to Blizzards track record of pushing changes from PTR to live and their unwillingness to revert changes that in retrospect really hurt a character’s playstyle (Bastion comes to mind, after his minor rework he’s been pretty much dead in the water for a year now) I think it’s important to start a conversation about the changes BEFORE they even hit PTR. I’m also pretty sure that a playtest won’t really change my mind because the issues I see with the changes aren’t about one ability being over- or underpowered, it’s more about Blizzard attempting to change her playstyle into something she’s not suited for.

When you read Geoff Goodman’s forum post it becomes pretty evident what they’re trying to with her. By giving her infinite translocator and stealth duration they want to make it easier for her to strategically operate in the enemy backline, turning her playstyle more into that of an infiltrator assassin. They’ve been pushing this kind of playstyle for a while now, I mean even Jeff Kaplan describes her as more of an offensive support infiltrator in the BlizzCon Recap video from 2016. The problem is though that she never really played that way and I don’t think these buffs will change that either. Why, well there are 3 fundamental reasons why I think this kind of playstyle just doesn’t work right now.

Reason number 1: She has the tools to properly position herself but not the tools to make use of that

Like I said, the new changes make it easier for Sombra to position herself in the enemy backline and use this position to punish any kind of mistake the enemy team does when they engage etc. For example when the enemy team pushes in with a dive composition but leave their Zenyatta behind Sombra could take advantage of that and kill the Zen. The only problem is that Sombra doesn’t have a reliable kit to get the job done as effectively as other characters. If your engagement doesn’t go 100% as planned you usually have to retreat, rendering the entire process of getting behind the enemy team pointless and a waste of time. Technically speaking it’s already very possible to play her like an infiltrator on the current patch, the impact you have while doing so is just so insignificant that no one does it, and that’s not due lack of mobility. Now do I want an exaggerated damage buff so she can walk around in the background, killing whatever squishy walks into her sightlines? No that would be terrible and a nightmare to play against, which is why I’m not a fan of this silently walking around in the backline idea anyway. It either way to oppressive or has too little impact.

Reason number 2: In a fast paced game like Overwatch…

… slowly moving behind the enemy team and attempting to kill something or disrupting the backline seems like a more inconsistent and longer method of whatever a Genji or Tracer can do. Why would I waste my time setting up in the enemy backline when I can just achieve the same with a higher success rate by playing Tracer or Genji? Everything in this game happens incredibly quickly, so I can’t see how a slower, more strategic playstyle could help Sombra right now.

Reason number 3: EMP is still too important

While she’s not an EMP bot anymore Sombra still heavily relies on EMP to be effective. To make a difference you need to charge it as quickly as possible, which is now achieved by being very aggressive and doing as much damage as possible after the health pack charge got removed. The thing is, when you’re trying to play her like an infiltrator that’s simply not going to happen. You can’t hide in stealth and do tons of damage at the same time, which is why she would be a lot less effective in team fights if you stay in the backline for too long.

So now that I made clear that I don’t think these changes could help Sombra be more effective as an infiltrator I want to make clear why these changes could actually put Sombra in an even worse spot in the long run because they hurt her much more effective playstyle of an aggressive disruptor (If you want to have a specific example, watch how Danteh plays Sombra on Numbani against GLA in Stage 3 of OWL. Danteh in general is a good example of an aggressive Sombra, no matter if in pro or competitive play). He primarily uses Stealth as a mobility ability and doesn’t really spend a lot of time in the backline, he plays her with a very in-your-face disruptive style, which works as Sombra has the best kit to engage and disengage really quickly. Because of that the buffs wouldn’t really improve this kind of playstyle because you neither spend a lot of time in stealth nor do you ever need more than 20 seconds on your translocator. What does impact this playstyle though are the nerfs. The speed nerf slows down the entire flow of her gameplay and while it’s probably not going to have a terrible impact I still think less speed for infinite duration you don’t need is a bad trade off. Additionally the increased speed made it possible to do some really cool jumps on certain maps (The one very close jump on Hanamura A comes to mind). What really hurts is the inability to stall in stealth, as this was actually one of the main applications of the ability. Right now, you can hinder the enemy team from pushing the payload while your team regroups, something that Fitzy for example even describes as one of Sombra’s main duties in his Sombra Guide on YouTube. Removing this certainly hurts her quite a lot. The only buff this playstyle benefits from is the cancellable translocator, even though I would prefer other tweaks and changes over that as it removes any risk from throwing your translocator into certain spots.

To summarize, I simply don’t see how these buffs could really help Sombra’s viability. I thought the dev team were finally going into the right direction with the changes back in march, as they gave her a unique and challenging playstyle which didn’t consist of hogging health packs. I really hoped they would improve said playstyle by buffing some of the aspects of her kit that are lacking (like speed or slight damage buffs). These new changes now throw this specific playstyle under the bus, which I personally don’t understand, especially because she was never so close to being balanced.

So yeah, this is all I have to say about the proposed changes. I hope the dev team rethinks how they want Sombra to play because I feel like there wasn’t much thought put into the buffs. I’m not opposed to changing her again but I’d rather have her be an aggressive flanker that constantly has to do something to be effective than sitting in the backline while being invisible.