TL;DR: She sucks and the developers have ignored all the feedback we gave them.

With the coming of the most recent changes to Sombra; it’s become increasingly more clear that the devs don’t know what to do with her at all. Sombra has had an identity crisis since she came out.

“Is she a Flanker?” Kinda but not really.

“Is she a Specialist?” Kinda but not really.

“Is she a Generalist?” Kinda but not really.

“Is she a DPS?” Kinda but not really.

“Is she a Support?” Kinda but not really.

“Is she useful?” Kinda but not really.

“Is she ever a good choice?” Kinda…but not really.

I’m pretty sure there are 2 reasons the devs have a lot of confusion when balancing her.

The power of Hack as an ability. The professional players whining about her.

Talking about Hack first; it is an especially powerful and oppressive ability when used correctly. It can be very unfun to play against, especially for Tanks and DPS that rely on their abilities to do well. It’s clear they don’t want this ability to be too strong because of how unfun it is. It has so much potential as an ability and is capable of single-handedly dismantling and countering so many set ups.

But the problem with this is that it’s extremely hypocritical to say Hack would be too “unfun” if it was strong when we have a character like Brigitte who can shut down half of the roster all by herself.

Then there’s the other reason they don’t know what to do with Hack. The Pros.

You cannot tell me the reason Sombra was nerfed back in February was simply because she was too strong. No she wasn’t in fact; if you look at the stats at the time, her winrate during the week she was “strong” did not increase very much AT ALL. The only thing that sky-rocketed was her pickrate.

The professional DPS players who at the time, were mostly Tracer one-tricks, whined about her being too oppressive to Tracer. God forbid Tracer actually has an efficient counter, right? This complaining pushed the devs to release a completely unwarranted and unnecessary nerf to hack that didn’t even get a PTR cycle. Not only was this extremely offensive to myself and many other Sombra players, but it brought a new swill of bugs into the game that HAVE YET TO BE FIXED.

So after months of complaining, giving hardcore feedback and criticism toward her design. The developers finally came up with a solution.

MAKE HER ENTIRE KIT INCONSISTENT AND NERF HER MOBILITY.

It has been said more than a billion times as to why the current Sombra changes don’t address her problems at all but I’ll say it again.

Sombra never had a problem being a scout or infiltrating the backline. She has problems providing help during a team fight because of her kit’s nature and she has problems dealing enough damage to contribute because of how lackluster her power is.

There were an infinite number of options they could’ve gone with that didn’t nerf her even further into the ground.

With these next changes she will be worse off than Bastion. At least he has a setup he’s somewhat viable in (E.g. Pirate ship).

Her entire kit is countered by getting hit once.

D.Va randomly shoots you from across the map? Can’t hack, sorry. 2 second cooldown for you.

You got hit once while in stealth because you’re slower now? Sorry, can’t keep stealth up now.

Wanted to escape mid-fight but a Winston randomly destroyed your Translocator without even trying? Sorry, you can’t get away now.

In a game full of Splash damage, AOE Damage, Poke Damage, and many others. Sombra is never going to be viable. The developers have done nothing to address this because I can only assume they’re just as scared to balance her as they are with Mercy.



So what do I propose to help her? I have a few ideas.

Hack should purge abilities after they are cast. If a Sombra hacks an enemy Zarya right as she uses her bubble; the bubble will stay. This shouldn’t be the case.

Hack should have a higher and higher damage threshold based on how many enemies are surrounding her. Similar to Hammond’s Adaptive Shield ability. The threshold radius should be 10 meters. If 1 person is around, Hack will be canceled by 1 point of damage. If 2 are around, 50 points. If 3 or more, 100 points of damage will cancel it. This not only makes her better in team fights but also doesn’t make her an unstoppable duelist.

She should move at a base speed of 6 M/s, just like Tracer and Genji.

Stealth should have a damage threshold of 30 points.

Translocator should be indestructible while in the air.

For the love of god add a giant sugar skull icon over a hacked enemie’s head so my teammates can see who’s hacked more easily.

With those changes she’s still the infiltrator the developers want her to be but also more useful overall in teamfights, while also being able to actually…y’know. Survive.

Obviously my ideas are flawed. But at the same time, in my opinion, they’re better than what the developers devised.

Do I believe the devs want her to stay F-Tier? No.

But is she getting treated unfairly? Yes she is.