Overwatch 2 dev breaks down massive, upcoming Sombra rework

The hack-and-harass DPS hero Sombra is set to receive another significant rework next week and the hero design team for Overwatch 2 has gone into extensive detail about the ways in which it should be less “frustrating” to counterplay her starting on Oct. 10.

In a post from hero design team member Andre Abrahamian today, the developer outlined some of the major sources of frustration that can occur when playing against Sombra. These include her using her Translocator transportation ability as a “get out of jail free” card and the overpowered nature of both her stealth and hack abilities.

The devs explicitly said their goal was not to outright nerf Sombra but rather to create more opportunities to counterplay her and to force her to be more active and engaged rather than always lurking in the shadows. That decision led to a number of critical balancing changes.

For starters, Sombra’s hacking ability still deals the same effects to an opposing player, but using Hack now forces Sombra to exit stealth when applied to an enemy. Abrahamian says this should make her “more committed to engaging the enemy” while giving “the opposing team a consistent opportunity to respond to her.”

Translocator is now no longer manually activated and “will now automatically teleport Sombra after 0.25 seconds from being thrown or when impacting the environment.” The projectile speed of Translocator has been increased and the cooldown has been reduced, allowing it to be used more quickly and frequently, but Sombra can no longer activate it whenever she pleases.

In a similar vein, Stealth is now a passive ability instead of an active one. Instead of manually activating Stealth, Sombra will become invisible after 3.5 seconds of being in non-combat. Her previous passive ability, Opportunist, which dealt more damage to hacked enemies and revealed critically injured enemies through walls, has been completely removed.

Sombra will receive a new ability called Virus, a fired projectile that damages an enemy over time. This ability keeps Opportunist alive in some way as it deals damage faster to hacked enemies. Her ultimate EMP has been slightly nerfed as well, with an increase in charge cost and a decrease in damage dealt.

If matches against Sombra have been what’s driven you away from playing Overwatch 2, then these changes might make you consider returning on Oct. 10.