Overwatch’s Huge New Sombra Rework Is 10x Better Than Expected

Devious hacker turns helpful Geek Squad support agent

It's extremely rude of Blizzard to prove me wrong. I, like many others, was all set to scoff at Overwatch's latest Sombra rework. Moving the pesky, perpetually banned hacker from damage to support? What a horrible concession to people who don't want to learn how to play the game! Well, maybe it is a concession to the segment of people who don't like paying attention to their surroundings. But it turns out it's an awfully good concession either way.

Sombra's last version, as a damage hero, looked like this:

• Primary fire with a deadly little rat-a-tat-tat gun
• Secondary fire hacked enemies and inhibited their abilities, and could render healthpacks unusable for the opposing team
• Mobility skill turned Sombra invisible and transported her a short distance away
• Other ability shot a virus at enemies that slowly reduced their health for a few seconds

New Sombra has her primary fire and translocator the same as before, but her hacking ability now has two charges and heals an ally for a decent amount over time. It's a bit like Zenyatta's orb, only placeable on two allies and not permanent. In place of the virus is Cyberspace, a fantastically versatile skill that heals allies and damages enemies. It also weakens enemies, a new status effect for Overwatch that reduces damage and healing output. It has so many uses. Dive tank get too far away? Cyberspace saves the day. Juno or Lifeweaver pop their ultimates and heal everyone? Not in Cyberspace, they don't (well, not as effectively anyway). Reinhardt about to wipe the team with Earthshatter? Cyberspace. Freja's Bola Shot pulling everyone in for an explosive finish? Cyberspace. You get the idea.

Much as I'm extolling the virtues of Cyberspace, Sombra's new health hacking has more going for it than I expected. Yeah, okay so it kinda demolishes the hero fantasy of the evil hacker. She's not messing with folks anymore. She's taking their help requests and pushing patches to get them back online. But those patches sure are good. Sombra might be in the "technician" subrole instead of the "medic" role, like Mercy and Moira, but I'm averaging about 8,000 healing in a match and roughly 4,000 damage. I've already seen more skilled Sombra players push 10,000 healing and 6,000+ damage, too.

Admittedly, even the best tech support agent can't do their job if the client is mashing keys and ignoring instructions. The Overwatch version of that is treating "support" as damage, not healing allies, and running off and being generally unhelpful. Sombra's new playstyle is in keeping with Blizzard's bigger emphasis this year on playing as a team, but when that teamwork just doesn't happen, her translocator does at least mitigate some of those challenges by letting you quickly move to an ally's side, a bit like Mercy's Guardian Angel ability.

The only thing that's annoying me so far — even when it benefits me — is how easy it is to anticipate an enemy's ultimate and throw a metaphorical fork in their garbage disposal. Sombra's passive lets her see when an opponent's ultimate meter is fully charged. With Cyberspace's cooldown being comparatively short, it's an easy way to reduce the effectiveness of a game-changing move without requiring much planning. Her EMP ultimate cancels ults as well, but it has its own charge time. In her former life as a damage hero, hacking could also cancel some ults, though it often required very precise timing. I'm torn between appreciating how this Cyberspace combo keeps things like Reaper's Death Blossom from being easy kill switches and thinking it should require more effort. It's major perk material, not automatic passive material.

But this is Sombra, so I'm sure she has even more reworks on the horizon. For now, I'm just enjoying her snappy new playstyle. Sorry, Doctrine. You're great, but Sombra's the one getting a regular spot on my support rotation now.