Sombra has been a tough nut to crack since she was introduced in the first Overwatch, and now she’s getting another major rework for Overwatch 2.
Many heroes from the original Overwatch got a rework when Overwatch 2 launched, but the game isn’t done making any tweaks to heroes as long as they keep expanding the roster.
One hero who’s been a particularly hard nut to crack is Sombra, who has been getting multiple reworks ever since she was introduced back in the first OW. With the upcoming Season 7, Blizzard has announced that they will majorly change Sombra’s kit to make her more engaged in the fight without removing her entire brand of being a hacker extraordinaire.
Sombra Lore in Overwatch 2
Olivia Colomar, a.k.a. Sombra (meaning ‘shade’ or ‘shadow in Spanish), hails from Mexico and is an expert hacker who has found herself recruited by Talon—the organization run by Doomfist that goes against everything Overwatch stands for.
Sombra was one of the many children orphaned by the Omnic Crisis, and before Talon recruited her, she was a member of the Los Muertos gang, where she did all kinds of illegal hacking activity.
Though she is a member of Talon, unlike Widowmaker and Reaper, Sombra seems to have her interests in mind. It seems like Talon is the group that would be more lenient with her side hustles.
Sombra’s Original Kit in Overwatch 2
Being the game’s resident technomancer, Sombra is encouraged to be sneaky around the battlefield, taking every opportunity to get the upper hand on her opponents.
Regarding her original kit, the devs have changed many of her elements, but her core abilities remain. This includes Stealth, which turns Sombra invisible. Translocator allows Sombra to place a teleporter in a specific place and teleport there later. Hack allows her to disable enemy abilities and make health packs spawn faster and unusable by opponents.
Sombra also has the Opportunist passive ability, which lets her detect critically injured enemies through walls, and her ultimate EMP, which deals 40% of the enemy’s health in damage and hacking them—and destroying all barriers in the EMP’s radius.
The Problem with Sombra’s Original Abilities
The way that Sombra is usually played, she likes to flit around in the back, hacking enemies and health packs while at the same time remaining out of sight. Many pro Sombras also keep their translocator next to a hacked health pack so they can immediately just teleport out there and start healing when their health goes critical.
Though some could consider Sombra a semi-healer with her health pack hacking skills, the character is usually played as a solo fighter, with her abilities to hide and escape to safety quickly—making her a real pain for her enemies. Since Overwatch 2 is a team-based game, the devs have resorted to a rework to ensure that Sombra doesn’t become so frustrating to go up against when you find her in the opposing team.
How Sombra’s new kit being designed, she is now encouraged to be more active in the fight, engaging enemies rather than constantly running away. In a recent dev update from the Hero Design Team’s Andre Abrahamian, they explained that they wanted to ensure that they hit these goals with the reworked kit:
– Make Sombra commit to fighting more when engaging.
– Increase the active feel in her ability kit.
– Uphold the current Hacker identity and playstyle.
Abrahamian also noted that they wanted more variety in countering an enemy Sombra. This new kit will likely give her better longevity in the game.
Sombra’s New Ability Set
Regarding Sombra’s rework, many of her abilities are still the same but have been either buffed or nerfed. She has also been given a new ability called Virus. The official kit is as follows:
Weapon & Ultimate
Machine Pistol – Short-range automatic weapon
EMP – Deal damage to all nearby enemies equal to a percentage of their current health, hacking them and destroying barriers around you.
Passive
Stealth – When out of combat, become invisible and move faster.
Abilities
Hack – Hold to hack. Hacked enemies cannot use abilities and can be seen through walls. Hacked health packs spawn faster and can’t be used by enemies. Taking damage interrupts the hack attempt.
Virus – Infect enemies with a projectile that deals damage over time. Virus damages hacked enemies at a faster rate.
Translocator – Throw a beacon and teleport to it. Stealth cooldown is reduced after teleporting.
The devs have removed the Opportunist ability. Sombra can no longer detect the enemies on the map with the least health.
Related: Overwatch 2: How to Play Kiriko
Since Stealth is also deactivated when Sombra gets 2 meters within range of an enemy, the game now puts a visible ring around Sombra so that players can exactly gauge how near they have to get to the enemy before they become revealed.
Buffs and Nerfs
With Sombra expected to play completely differently moving forward, many of her abilities have also been given buffs and nerfs to balance how she plays.
Nerfs
– You can no longer manually activate the translocator, and Sombra is teleported automatically, not unlike Tracer’s Blink ability.
– EMP ultimate charge cost has been increased by 15%
– EMP’s damage decreased from taking away 40% of overall health to 30%.
– Stealth is now canceled when hacking an enemy hero
– Stealth movement has been reduced from 60% to 45%
Buffs
– Sombra’s primary weapon damage increased from 7.5 to 8.
– Minimum Spread of Sombra’s gun reduced from 0.5 to 0.
– Number of shots until max spread increased to 6 shots from 3 shots.
– Reload time has been reduced from 1.4 seconds to 1.2.
– Hack can now be cast faster at 0.65 seconds than the previous 0.75 seconds.
– Hack gets reduced cooldown if a Hack is interrupted.
– Stealth’s Fade In and Fade Out speed reduced.
– Translocator projectile speed increased.
– Cooldown for Translocator reduced from 6 seconds to 5 seconds.
– Translocator reduces Stealth cooldown.
Granted, there will likely be more changes to Sombra once the character goes live and more people get access to her, but for now, it does seem that they solved the problem of having Sombra work best away from the fight and make her a more engaging fighter flitting around the enemy team.
