Sombra is in need of multiple fixes

Hey, this is a thread about how broken Sombra is.
Apologies for any Sombra players who are still “abusing” people who don’t know about what’s really going on. (If some players will read this thread, they will be able to counter you now more easily).

Since the rework, Sombra now has some major bugs, some of which were outlined before by others on this forum and / or YouTube videos, but some might seem new to you.

Here is the list (in no particular order):

  • Translocator
    • You absolutely can translocate into the other team shield (this is so far happening against enemy Sigma and Reinhardt)
    • You absolutely can be killed while using the translocator, even while you are already flying (despite the fact that translocator should displace you from the previous location, until Sombra actually exits the animation, you can just nuke her by shooting at her “starting” point)
    • You can escape the sleep by using translocator (it is more of the effect of the previous point, but hey, it works)
    • Hog can hook you out of the translocator - most people already saw this as an issue on many YouTube videos, just adding it to the list. (Issue is, even if you are already mid flight, you will return to the point in-front of Hog when animation ends, look at the 2nd point of Translocator section)
    • Rein has the same issue with translocating Sombra as Hog, even though you think you’ve escaped the pin and flying away happily, you will die as soon as animation ends.
  • Invisibility
    • Sombra is only invisible to other people upon landing onto something (almost instantly) or couple of seconds after translocator animation ended (mid flight)
    • Issue with the first point is, for Sombra player, as soon as you use Translocator - the game shows you the invisibility related color pallet, which is not true
    • Escorting a payload / capping a point will cause elongated cooldown for the invisibility for no reason upon stepping away
    • The “Revealed” / “Detected” messages do not align with the reality, you are visible for a longer period of time than this messages are displayed to you
  • Virus
    • It is not a skill shot, it is a luck shot. But let me explain why i say it is a luck shot, hook - skill shot with slight aim assist, magnetic nade - skill shot, with huge aim assist, pulse bomb - skill shot, with little aim assist, sleep dart - skill shot with slight aim assist. One of the mentioned skills is a Ultimate, rest - normal abilities, they help the player to some degree to land on the target. Problem is, they all do damage (sleep dart does damage, srsly), they are all somewhat guided by the game, yet virus requires direct hit.
    • Albite the low cooldown on this ability, it is at most useful while spawn camping people, in a general flow of the fight (the way i like it) it is borderline unusable due to how easily it is negated.
    • Given the all of the hacker ideology, magnetic nade has more brains to stick to the target than a virus.
  • EMP
    • Dead ultimate which is by itself is useless
    • It will not hack Bob while used when he is still running, it wont cancel him either
    • As a suggestion, make people unable to use abilities for longer than a normal “hack”, maybe 3 seconds instead of 1.5 as by the time you are out of the EMP animation, people are already able to use their cooldowns, so i have no idea on why it even exists

These are the things which are really frustrating about the new Sombra. She is fun, engaging and generally now in a more interesting place than before. But given that most of her playstyle revolves around the Translocator (i mean we can ignore other issues, fix to the translocator would be huge by itself), for people who are aware of those issues there is literally no threat from her.

Her damage can be described as - meh, good enough.
Her mobility can be described as - meh, sometimes triggering, but yet again, due to the bugs.
Her playstyle can be described as - good enough, no oneshots, not crazy trickshots that lead to the opponent run away from you, but good enough.

Will all the latest changes to the game, to tanks and supports, and existing state of most DPS, she is in a middle of the pack, but as a hero by herself alone, she is somewhat lacking.

The only good times i have while playing her, is only when my team knows what to do, no matter how good you are, there is no way you can solo carry, which is quite not true about Cass/76/Gengu/you name it.

Don’t get me wrong, i am not asking to buff her, just to fix the existing bugs introduced with her rework.

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yes she she can be improved but low or normal damage is not one of them. When the virus hits equal to the normal you use and you are not being hard healed you die instantly.

The virus maybe a luck shot however the damage is real.

And considering she only preys on the weak its fair to say that people only play her for the easy kills.

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Well I’ve seen a Sombra in every game lately, so she can’t be that bad…

Yet again, i am not asking anyone to buff her, but to fix the existing bugs which were introduced with the rework.

And with regards to the Virus - well, there are plenty more characters who can kill you was faster than then 100 damage from the Virus. Someone like 76, Junk, Cass with the “you going nowhere” nade which on top does hefty damage, Soj with the railgun, Hanzo who can tap you on the other end of the map. And while last 2 mentioned require you to actually be somewhat good at aiming, Junk instakills you with the LMB + Bomb combo (instantly), 76 just has to hit you maybe two or three times with LMB and the Helix you to death.

The point you making about Virus being so scary, is not actually a valid point as to the fact that:

  1. Sombra has to hack you first for Virus to deal 100 damage in 2 seconds
  2. Sombra can Virus you first, but it will deal 100 damage in 4 seconds
  3. There is an interaction which allows you to remove Virus while fighting Sombra, without a healer or a cleanse near you (and it is not a bug, or a glitch, works as intended)

And when we are talking about preying on the weak, so does Genji, so does Echo, so does Tracer, and most of the time, 76, as there is no way you are running away from him.

i cannot relate to any of this at all.

sombra might be the most busted for a quick easy backline kill. hit the virus from stealth, 5-10 bullets which is just about the time it takes for the other person to see it, and they’re dead from the tick no matter what unless healed in the 1 seconds it takes.

it genuinely makes me feel disgusting when i play her and it has nothing to do about skill. anyone running back to the frontline alone are close to guaranteed kills too.

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I’ve only gotten killed by a spawn camping sombra less than 5 times. You just have to manage to sidestep the virus and she can’t kill you before your abilities are usable again.

She can’t hit the virus from stealth, she becomes visible before the virus is activated, just like hack. Keep your eyes and ears open and you can’t get killed by her at all. (Unless she has help, at which point it’s not on sombra alone anymore)

And i’m a support main with super bad aim. If i’d play Illari i’ll probably miss closer to ten or twenty shots before she dies and none of the hits will be headshots either XD

And mercy has no self heals either, and i usually play her in qp. So it’s an honorable duel with no self heals XD

Seems like all who joined to “discuss” this thread only used Ctrl + F to check if there is something about the Virus and started dropping their two cents completely ignoring the rest.

And “it makes me feel disgusting”, yeah, sure, so you don’t play the character who makes you feel disgusting? In a competitive game? Tell me more about it.

Following your logic, people instantly switch to Orisa or Pharah + Mercy / 76 + Mercy whenever they start to loose don’t want to play them, it makes them feel dirty. Yet again, why do they switch though? Perspective is the key.

And it really doesn’t matter whether you have a “support mentality” as people like to call whoever is trying to defend Illari or Ana, everyone has a role mentality when they play this and only this role.

The only quality comment is coming from the @Wolfebear, even when there is nothing they said about the actual bugs, at least they are not trying to bash one, and only one ability like others do.

I guess time to stop even trying to post here as noone from blizz will read it anyways, and only thing you get is that people will try to complain about whatever you posting about without actually going into the discussion.

Correction, Hieiko actually posted relevant post, some people do want to discuss issues.

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You are pretty correct about the translocator interaction issues. Not to mention the visual representation about your own visibility.
But i’m sure those will be worked on after enough feedback.

Other than that she feels surprisingly balanced for sombra, as the main complaint always was that she escapes too easily.

People just need to learn to do “sombra checking” again and she will stop feeling broken when she actually is pretty counterable.