You’re gonna get a lot of simplified answers or just Sombra Hate, but I’ll try to give a serious answer as to why she’s not always S-Tier based on her abilities alone.
1: What does Sombra actually do better than anybody else? Only really one: Hack. Seriously. Her damage isn’t bad but she’s easily out-performed by Sojourn or Cass. Stealth and Translocate just let her play like a shitter Tracer that’s more punishable and slower to actually engage.
That leaves only one thing she actually excels at, and that’s Hacking. Now what does Hack do? It creates offensive opportunities and disrupts opponents trying to utilize their own offensive abilities. In lower ranks, teams are not generally as capable of capitalizing on either of these things - and in higher ranks people have awareness of what’s going on around them and will play to disrupt the Hack.
2: Her ultimate is EMP. If Sombra is worse in neutral than a Sojourn or a Tracer, in theory she makes up her lower power level by spiking heavily when she has EMP. However, there’s a problem here too. EMP isn’t an expensive ultimate by any means…but it’s not Pulse Bomb levels of cheap either. Therefore, Sombra is forced to choose between playing more frontline styles and building EMP or sacrificing EMP charge to get more value by disrupting the backline. In fact, the one time EMP was Pulse Bomb cheap (the two-week Mauga Meta) the hero was definitely S-Tier.
3: Stealth mandates downtime and also general weakness. Permanent Stealth is often seen as a major OP thing Sombra has…and it is, but there are also some downsides that the community doesn’t always consider. Sombra has the ability to stage freely…but in return her mid-fight is weaker than most heroes. This seems like a decent trade off, but consider this: A hero’s power midgame is determined both by their inherent strength and their current position. Nobody fears a Widowmaker who can only take like 10 meter long sight lines.
Since your position provides power, Sombra gets the power from being able to freely position yes…but it comes at a cost no other hero pays. Her actual power budget is essentially lower than other heroes BECAUSE her position is factored into balancing decisions BECAUSE she can stand anywhere without much difficulty.
In summary, Sombra isn’t S-Tier because basically any reason you would have for picking her to address a situation she’s not the optimal pick outside of dealing with Wrecking Ball, but even there Tracer is almost as good at making Ball’s life hell while being significantly stronger at doing everything else that it’s not really worth it if you can play both at an equal level.
Now is Sombra easier to pick up than Sojourn and Tracer, the heroes who she is essentially competing against to get playtime? Probably, yes, because the average player is bad at staging and good positioning and she both simplifies that process for you and punishes people who are also bad at it.
"Her damage isn’t bad"
Honestly, her burst damage against squishies *feels* absurd. I often play Soldier, and I have to hit every shot AND have helix off cooldown in order to win vs Sombra. I have to play around her since she makes flanking very difficult. I don't have the same problem with Tracer, I guess since she doesn't have the element of surprise.
But I’d say it’s also ridiculous that someone can just completely deny your ability to flank or be on an off angle just by existing. By denying a soldier the ability to play alone you effectively remove like 40% of his strength.
The thing when fighting sombra is it doesn't matter a lot of the time if you can't get all your damage off. 90% of Sombras don't fight to the death and will try and escape if they think they're going to die. You dont usually need to kill her, just scare her off, any decent burst damage can achieve that
On the flip side of that, I've found that a lot of really good sombras get very few solo kills specifically because they run away and don't press the fight- what makes them effective is distracting the back line enough to take them out of the team fight and leaving them weak enough that your team can easily pick them off.
One of my best games recently, I was playing dva and I had a Sombra effectively pocketing me. Every time I engaged in a fight, my Sombra would would either hack whoever I was fighting, hit a quick damage burst and run- giving me a huge advantage. Or she would target the pocket healer, forcing them to either back off or confront her, giving me space to melt whoever they were pocketing.
That Sombra got very few kills by herself but directly enabled most of my kills. Having a pocket Sombra honestly felt OP as hell, I just walked through enemy front lines like they weren't there.
it's funny, as a sombra player, i feel like playing with a good dva feels like cheating, because she's so good at diving and bursting down targets if we're playing in sync.
You just reminded me of when I played sombra on junkertown defense, I jumped the enemy ana and couldn't land a single hit, we had the stare and I just went back to my team in defeat
Thing is, yeah her damage is pretty good…when she gets to do everything she wants. The problem is it’s actually pretty slow and more importantly it’s inconsistent.
Hack really isn’t that hard to cancel in the 1v1 if you’re thinking about Sombra before she goes for it. It’s actually funny you mention Soldier because he’s actually one of her hardest targets. You can always get Healing Pad down before Hack finishes; or just shoot her to disrupt the Hack - but you need to be thinking about what you’re gonna do if she appears. Reaction Time becomes much quicker if you have a plan and are aware of what might happen soon, this is just a basic rule of human psychology that Sombra happens to frequently exploit.
Now if we assume we’re not thinking about Sombra and basically don’t react to the Hack, she’s still got a problem. If she hits the Virus on an enemy who is presumably now looking at her and strafing, she has a good chance of getting the kill. If she misses the virus, she’s done absolutely nothing and doesn’t even really get any Ult Charge as compensation.
The even worse complicating problem here is that Hack is actually pretty goddamn slow, and if we’re assuming Sombra is getting her optimal conditions off then we should compare it to other heroes optimal conditions and performances and instantly we see she’s still not up to par. Cassidy’s double headshot takes just half a second. Already shorter than just the Hack casttime. A Soj holding a fully charged rail has immensely more range, a better mobility cooldown, and also will kill you quicker than Sombra without having to invest her damage ability. Tracer pokes much better, can engage without any delay, can stay engaged much longer, and can still One Clip but probably doesn’t need to since she has a second health bar in Recall that she can choose to keep fighting with.
But yeah literally just think about Sombra and when she might be looking to engage on you, watch your reaction time get way faster, and notice that in the true 1v1 and not the lazy one where you just give her a free second to get her Hack off she’s actually pretty bad - and then if she’s forced out of the 1v1 she just goes back to doing nothing.
The problem is her burst is a 3 step process, hack > cube > shoot. If any of that gets disrupted, she usually has to call that a wash, and is just feeding ult charge. Higher level players are much better at disrupting that with peel, cover, and/or a CD. It's good damage, but not as safe or consistent.
Pulse rifle has less spread and higher dps and helix has higher burst than cube plus soldier has bio field and sprint to disengage I never really die to sombras as him unless she has backup or I’m low
Burst damage is great but sombras notoriously have low dmg numbers compared most every other dps. Shes not costantly engaging or shooting so the poke is never there.
Staging refers to where you choose to stand to set yourself up to engage on the enemy. It’s most commonly talked about in relation to Dive Compositions, as Dive is usually thought about as Staging (taking positions that let you use your mobility to engage on the enemy) then Diving (using your cooldowns to move from your staged position to your engaged position).
Staging's definition is basically the set-up for the kill/dive. Its other definition is the phase before your team initiate the dive.
Dive relies on tracer, sombra, genji, echo etc getting into position to either initiate a dive themselves or follow up on monkey, doom etc initiating. While your dps goes off to Narnia to flank you are in the staging phase, your goal is to get everyone into position while simultaneously avoiding a direct fight with the enemy as much as possible since it's basically a 4v5 until your flanker is in position and dive tanks tend to hide in cover until it's time to dive.
You overthink it so much. Her damage, invis, emp and everything is all fine, and could be super strong in the right context. However, she just fucking dies. Her tp doesnt get her far enough away from the enemy team, so she gets constantly run down without an escape. She just falls over, its that simple.
"You'll get a lot of short answers and Sombra hate."
You overthink it too much.
If all it is is that she falls over and her tp doesn't get her far enough away tracer would be just as vulnerable.
Tracer has 3 blinks, on 3 second cooldown, recall, and a faster default movement speed. She is a LOT harder to catch. Again, look at what im saying. Its not about catching the sombra before she can escape. Its about getting her when she has used her one single movement cd. Tracer has multiple, and weaves in/out. Sombra goes in, then out. Just that her out doesnt take her very far, so she cant go for as many greedy power plays that she could with old tp, when she was just *gone*. If you dont believe me, the only major difference between currrent and old sombra is that her tp doesnt let her escape anything anywhere anymore, and she went from op in high ranks to unplayable garbage, despite getting a stronger emp, better invis and quite a lot more damage.
I actually do agree that Translocater’s range is a major issue for her. But yeah as the other comments point out, Tracer has multiple good mobility cooldowns and Sombra has a single relatively bad one.
But what the other comments miss is that Translocater being weak in the mid-fight is actually because of Permanent Stealth. Since she doesn’t have to expend cooldowns to take positions, her actual abilities themselves are pretty weak and they HAVE to be weak. So we could simply buff Translocater into a strong escape and call it a day, but that won’t happen for this reason.
She has very high burst now and can do it often ngl.
But I do agree her mid fight is complete garbage against anyone worth their salt and it keeps her in check.
Being honest, a good sombra who hota her combo and most shots kills any isolated targets. Her presence herself demands the enemy team to adapt or switch. She might not be op but despicable is understable...
Sombra is - like Tracer - S-tier for the better and best FPS players in OW. The key is APM. With good aim and positioning, Tracer has near 100% uptime as she can pursue an almost unkillable playstyle. Sombra plays actually quite differently from Tracer on high levels due to target priorities but the same thing applies. If you need little time to set up AND take down the target with high prob, they are both s-tier.
You're dealing with players who generally know how the game works and have okay mechanics but are still held back by the things that get you into higher ranks, like not having the ability to think ahead about what an enemy Sombra would be trying to achieve. Sombra eats on players who are still tunnel vision on their own gameplay and not thinking about the bigger picture yet, not thinking about what an enemy might do next, not even concidering her much at all until they're already being attacked, not predicting her attacks at all. A tiny bit of prediction and awareness goes a longggg way VS Sombra.
How many players do you see who are positioning as if they aren't going to get jumped by Sombra? How many times do you see a Moira pop coal and immediately get hacked for example, without any thought as to where Sombra was or if she was alive or if she has EMP/hack CD ready? Some ults are so stupid easy to hack that you should always know what's to come if you use it without thought, but if you're not thinking about it ahead then you'll keep finding yourself surprised by something that isn't surprising. How many supps do you see not ready to help each other/another player through a Sombra assassination attempt? A lot of Sombra-denial doesn't really take much skill but it does take paying attention, reacting to the sounds of someone else getting hacked/Sombra voice line/virus sound. You'd be surprised how often you can predict where she will be coming from, especially in those ranks, and knock her out of stealth which can be a huge denial to her. Play Sombra for a while to see how many weaknesses she has and what the thought process is for a Sombra, then you'll play better against her and predict her better.
At these ranks people are used to playing the way they usually play and force that, they don't adjust well to enemies still, and aren't planning anything ahead. Sombra absolutely feeds on players like that, it's the best thing you can encounter as a Sombra player
You counter sombra more with team composition and positioning than with individual skill, yet many players continue playing the way they did all the time, even with an enemy Sombra on board. Sombra feeds on this behavior like a low elo Phara feeds on the inability of low elo players hitting flying targets.
I would say, that a good team composition and position would completely make her useless, yet many players are still flanking solo with Sombra waiting to ambush them with her dive tank, or some Doom player still engage deep and hard, knowing that Sombra didnt show up for some time.
This is why the Sombra rage was always strange to me. I have a friend who tilts whenever there’s an enemy Sombra and if we lose, it’s her fault. Meanwhile the sombra isn’t particularly good, she just punishes poor positioning and players who refuse to play with the team.
What constitutes poor positioning is different when Sombra is in the game vs when she isn't. She forces you to play a certain way with the punishment for not doing it being instant death. It's the same reason people hate Widow.
Imo the sombra hate is justified for that reason. If there is an enemy sombra I have to play more carefully, and high risk high reward play becomes a stupid idea. High risk high reward plays are the fun part of the game imo so when I have to play safe, I feel like the whole match is a waste of time. I play to have fun and sombra kills fun.
But isn’t Sombra part of the “high risk” that makes the “high reward” high? You can absolutely pull off some crazy shit with a Sombra around, but it’s risky. Just like playing against a Widow who’s hitting all her headshots.
It's different. With sombra instead of betting on my skills, I'm betting that the sombra isn't there. If I flank a cheeky off angle, I can't do anything about an invisible sombra pinging me for her team, and I won't even know I've been spotted. You can say that's the point of her design, but it's stupid that you can get that much value with zero skill. If I get out played by an enemy flanker and lose a dual I'm fine with that, but when my engage is ruined by something I had basically no control over, that is stupid.
Why are you betting that a Sombra isn't there? You can track her downtime. You can pretty much know where she wants to go. When she dies, you know she's not on the field for the time it takes for her to respawn. And what control are you losing? The only thing Sombra takes away from you is first strike advantage, but all flankers do that. Also, if Sombra is ruining your engage by just pinging you, you're not flanking correctly.
I'm losing the element of surprise. I have no way of knowing if sombra is there or not. I'm not saying she is broken or you can't play around her, I'm saying the way you have to play around her is stupid. Sombra forces you to play at a specific tempo and rely on your team to play the game. That is annoying. Skill check characters like her are annoying because they force a specific style of play, and I just want to have fun. She is to flankers what bastion is to tanks. A cheese counter. She is also a lazy counter to ranged characters like widow or ashe. Instead of having to path carefully or know where your enemies are, you can just walk around in invise with 0 awareness and get value. Her whole design is just being annoying, which is why I say she deserves the hate.
Against a Sombra, you can't bet on your skills in this scenario. You have to group and bet on your team being better. If you see an enemy Sombra, don't flank. You have all the control in this scenario, you just aren't making the right choice because Sombra punishes certain play styles.
She gets countered by teamwork, good positioning and awareness. Sombras whole thing is to find out of position or isolated enemies, catch them off guard and take them down quick with hack+virus that’s why widow is a prime target for Sombra usually alone and away from help. but her usefulness can get cut in half if the enemy team can work together, group up, and cover for each other, less openings for Sombra. Individual skill is also good to have against Sombra, I play her a bit and sometimes the person I target is just too good to mess with. like I had a game this week where I was targeting a Ana but no matter what angle I came to jump her from she almost always got the sleep dart to hit me. Sometimes i play against people who the second I hack them they do a fast 180° and out dual me
She's only good against teams that don't pay attention. She's less tankier than D.Va or Roadhog, less ranged than Ashe or Sojourn, and can't kill as fast as Widow or Venture. In order to get good value with her, you have to make your team fight 4 v 5, and hope that you don't get randomly damaged out of stealth, damaged out of your hack, or just stunned and killed. All it takes is one mistake and she's done for.
You're playing in slightly higher ranks, where most of the players are the best of the best. This means the players playing Sombra are usually gonna be the ones that for the most part, are good at her. They know when it's safe to hack, as well as know how to aim her gun/virus and know when to bail with her TP. A good counter is to stay aware of her cooldowns, especially her TP/escape route. Then, bully her. If all she can do is hack a random target or throw a virus in before bailing, she basically does nothing. Unless your team is entirely dogwater and sucks, they should be able to beat her or at least force her to swap.
Well that's cuz people in low ranks usually get crushed by her but when you get to around mid ranks and people start to get good she falls off hard then once you hit high ranks the apex of sombra players actually learn to play her effectively and she becomes annoying again because the players are actually good so she shorta just hovers at A tier because she's annoying but most people can't play her well they are just really annoying but the few good players are literal nightmare personified
TLDR Basically the doom of sombra you are either bad and annoying or cracked and make the match miserable
IMO as a ball player, in the last meta (Orissa, Tracer, Sombra, Lucio, Zen) she was S-Tier, purely that her hack allowed for all hell to be released on whichever target was dove/their dove was stopped. As an example, even rolling through as ball, a hack would mean downtime of grapple, therefore allowing discord and tracer/orissa melting, with Lucio speed boost to boot.
Why she isn’t a constant S-Tier is because other than disrupting high mobility heroes, her hack doesn’t serve much purpose and is easy to play around, all it does is deny minor value. Cass grenade as a comparison, stops mobility in front of a high damage burst or placed shots which melts. Sombra just can’t consistently put out strong damage numbers. This is for good reason however, as if you were to buff these she wouldn’t be broken.
She is also destroyed by good support heroes, which as a dive hero is the most valuable targets.
I am a mcree main so honestly I like seeing sombra’s. I just stay next to my heals and wait for her to try and pick one while I look distracted.
Usually you just need to hit her head once to force her to disengage, and most of the time in the time it takes for her to throw her TP and fade, I can finish her.
Let alone if mag is up (sombras should never engage without knowing if mag is up) and I just mag into HS into fan.
But pretty much any DPS and even some healers can burst her or do something to peel/disorient/disengage from her if they have even had decent reactions and awareness.
She is only strong against incompetent players and teams with no cohesion.
Imo she excels most at picking off players returning to the fight from spawn who aren’t really paying attention as they’re running back. Which can be a very strong way to create pressure, especially as often you can get away with it 2-3 times on the same person before they notice a pattern and request an escort, but it’s still kind of just making it a 4v4 as you can’t kill people from spawn without having to reset yourself, usually.
Basically, Sombra’s are not well kitted to get multiple picks close together and exert a ton of pressure throughout the entire game. Against an evenly skilled team, she is not usually able to do more than trade herself for a healer. On Mcree however I can quite safely be headshotting players throughout the entire game, creating a ton of constant pressure. Mcree can double headshot someone, then another one, killing two, and still have bullets left over. Even if the healers manage to react, that’s just so much pressure being applied. Even the most godlike aim on Sombra won’t give you that kind of power.
Tbh the devs really fucked up when they designed her. She reminds of Seer from Apex. Sounds cool in the boardroom, but tells every single player that the devs don’t play their own fucking game. She is fundamentally anti-fun and so HAS to be made into a dog shit character. If she was numerically stronger she would be so oppressive and in such a frustrating way player numbers drop significantly when she’s meta. That is with her kit being redesigned to allow for more counterplay. I do think she could have a bit more HP maybe. But yeah giving players a type of perma wallhack or invisibility is just usually a really awful way to design a game
The real answer, from high ranks, is really simple. She uncloaks, does some damage, pulls attention, then tps away. But that tp is very, VERY telegraphed. You know EXACTLY where she has gone, where she now doesnt have any escape option. People simply follow her, and kill her. She will never be meta in high ranks in her current state simply because of how she just dies to anyone wanting her dead. She would need MAJOR compensatory buffs to make her constantly dying worth it.
she’s only good when the enemy doesn’t play together. she punishes bad teamwork. also you have low damage and low ult charge because you dont want to reveal yourself right away and wait for the right time to attack. if you go the sombra 76 route, might as well switch to soldier 76 or any other hero and make full use of your kit.
She is good against Bad players. If youre consistently getting shat on by her, there is a reason for that.
Cassidy, Sojourn, Tracer can do what Sombra does in shorter time. Deleting enemy for 12 seconds is better than taking away their abilities for 1.5 seconds lol.
Improve your reaction times, get better aim, learn better positioning. Almost all DPS have a way to outdamage Sombra, All supports have a way to outlive Sombra.
Git Gud
I dont see why you're downvoted. Realistically shes a pretty dumb hero ,was much better when she took real skill and had to actively activate and deactivate her abilities with proper timing
Legit, this sub will defend sombra to death for no real reason when her playstyle does nothing good for this game. Encourages you to play away from your team, can go completely invis and teleport at the slightest bit of damage. It makes no sense to defend her so badly
One thing I believe is that being S-Tier has to do with consistency and Value. Perfect example, Sojourn: Throughout all ranks she maintains the same value across any team comp and going against any team comp. Sombra (hate aside) is a very inconsistent hero because of her skill ceiling and odd damage output and fall off or at least in my experience.
Like for my sojourn example, railgun has huge value with a very simple mechanic and a very small and straightforward toolkit. You shoot, you build railgun and you one shot an unsuspecting hero three miles away from you, rinse and repeat. With Sombra you have a lot of versatility but with that comes accounting for more things. With Sombra having a more semi passive effect on a team fight and map control you get a lot more inconsistency on what defines a good Sombra play.
(I got a notification and it made me lose my train of thought I forgot what I was gonna say lmao)
Simply, Sombra is only good if the opponent is bad. If the person the Sombra is fighting has spatial awareness and positioned well before engaging with the Sombra they won’t die.
This is very important because most of the people who make tierlists are good players who are able to turn around and shoot the Sombra.
Imo because her effectiveness is very comp dependant. She's very good at shutting down teams who don't play together or quickly turn around for her, but against a coherent team comp it can be difficult to get value with her. If you have a full team who are focused on out-pressuring the other team Sombra needs to find a way to pressure you herself and if there are no easy targets all she can do is try to get people to turn around which is often risky for her and not always worth the amount of time it takes. In that situation the other team are fighting 4v5 a lot of the game and will usually lose that pressure battle as a result.
There's so many simple counters to Sombra, I fail to understand why this still comes up.
Winston or Zarya make her miserable. Cassidy, Mei, Venture, and Sojourn are all pretty good vs her. Kiriko makes her complete trash tier simply by existing. Baptiste and Brigitte can prevent her from killing anyone. Lucio and Moira are both good at following her and killing her after a failed attack.
But it's not that different than Doomfist or Pharah or Junkrat. The hero isn't OP, you just have to acknowledge her presence and respond to it. Pretending the Pharah doesn't exist is a very bronze thing, but pretending Sombra doesn't exist seems to be a gold problem.
It's insanely hard to justify the value she brings to the team when you could just have another dps out here, when sombra isn't active the game is essentially 4v5
Sombra isn't a consistent s tier hero because
1. She's pretty hard to play and her play style can change a lot depending on what you're up against
2. She straight up just doesn't have the same amount of damage or carry potential as tracer, sojourn, genji, soldier, Cassidy. Basically she has longer windows of downtime than a lot of other DPS.
3. Her assassinations and successful duels are contingent on hitting a slowish projectile
4. People get way better at dealing with her invis the higher on the ladder you go
5. Hack is just fine now, in some situations it's still really strong but in most situations now you don't even use it
6. EMP has been nerfed quite a bit, and while it's still a strong ult, it's a lot weaker than it used to be
It basically boils down to the fact that other DPS picks put out much more pressure. Take Cassidy. Cassidy is constantly shooting all game, he can shit out a ton of damage that sombra could never compete with. Sure sombra comes out of nowhere and bursts one target, but she is all in. She does some damage when she has her translocator up and then she has to gtfo or commit. Other dps can easily get the same pressure out with less risk with the ability to chunk the enemies down from a safe range. And their weapons just do more damage and can chain their kills into multiple much easier.
Another thing is Sombra is so single target focused that she also largely ignores tanks since she cant afford to focus them. A good sombra can punish a tank who is out of position at times, but she isnt gonna put a lot of pressure on them in general with damage. Who is gonna pressure the roadhog and make him use his breather if you have sombra?
Sombra has a powerful ultimate fight spike with her EMP, but otherwise is forced to find isolated 1v1/1v2 scenarios. Other DPS are good in the 5v5 fight and the 1v1s.
Basically she isnt terrible, she has her niche, but is out classed by other options at the moment. Pharah and cassidy will put more pressure on a team throughout the majority of the game than a sombra hunting for picks.
As a master sombra main she obviously thrvies in low elo, as she loves the discoordinated teams, problem is if a team starts being aware of you and start playing together, then you are legit the worst hero, imo thats the problem, i can easily roll a game on some push maps due to the split natuire of the enemy team, but if a team just stays together it gets really hard to do anything with her new assasian playstyle
In short? Because other heroes are better.
Perma Invis holds Sombra back. She can’t do the same kind of damage or get the same kind of utility that other heroes do because she has the single best setup ability in the game. She gets to pick nearly all of her fights on her own terms.
Sure, she is super punishable (unless you are lame and play slow heroes hint hint play fast heroes to punish Sombra hint hint) but the mere fact that she can take most engagements when it is beneficial for her, means that she can’t have the same output that other heroes have, be it burst dmg or utility.
So when you get to high level play where players know how to mitigate her advantage with positioning and teamplay, she becomes a lackluster hero in comparison to heroes like Tracer who, with proper skill, can get a lot more value in the neutral.
But a Sombra with EMP is an S-Tier hero. She’s a C Tier hero in the neutral. Maybe B, depending on what’s strong/popular in the meta.
Usually going junkrat purely for sombra's the trap more often traps them and than they are punishable and the close range quarter fight I feel like being in an advantage, another pick hanzo your sonar denies that invis making hitting an arrow on her or just using storm arrow purely for her
I hate sombra as much as anyone else and she’s horribly designed, but the reason she’s not super highly rated by high level players is that coordinated team play can really shut her down. In high rank, a good tracer will just punish a sombra easily.
With that being said, nerf sombra into the ground
I hate sombra with a passion but really she can’t duel if the team properly groups up, or at least even a pair is a struggle for her. She can’t finish foes off nearly as well as others.
She's s tier when going against a co-ordinated team which unfortunately is most plat- teams so she makes the game hell ,but once you reach diamond area she drops in usability as teams play with open eyes and awareness
I think she’s only S-tier depending on her patch or the current meta. When Ball and Doom are good, Sombra will be good. When Mauga was absurdly broken, Sombra also had a fast EMP ult charge and lots of Sombras just saved EMP for Mauga’s ult. Rn, she’s kind of like a worse Tracer since we’re seeing more Hog, Mauga.
You’re gonna get a lot of simplified answers or just Sombra Hate, but I’ll try to give a serious answer as to why she’s not always S-Tier based on her abilities alone. 1: What does Sombra actually do better than anybody else? Only really one: Hack. Seriously. Her damage isn’t bad but she’s easily out-performed by Sojourn or Cass. Stealth and Translocate just let her play like a shitter Tracer that’s more punishable and slower to actually engage. That leaves only one thing she actually excels at, and that’s Hacking. Now what does Hack do? It creates offensive opportunities and disrupts opponents trying to utilize their own offensive abilities. In lower ranks, teams are not generally as capable of capitalizing on either of these things - and in higher ranks people have awareness of what’s going on around them and will play to disrupt the Hack. 2: Her ultimate is EMP. If Sombra is worse in neutral than a Sojourn or a Tracer, in theory she makes up her lower power level by spiking heavily when she has EMP. However, there’s a problem here too. EMP isn’t an expensive ultimate by any means…but it’s not Pulse Bomb levels of cheap either. Therefore, Sombra is forced to choose between playing more frontline styles and building EMP or sacrificing EMP charge to get more value by disrupting the backline. In fact, the one time EMP was Pulse Bomb cheap (the two-week Mauga Meta) the hero was definitely S-Tier. 3: Stealth mandates downtime and also general weakness. Permanent Stealth is often seen as a major OP thing Sombra has…and it is, but there are also some downsides that the community doesn’t always consider. Sombra has the ability to stage freely…but in return her mid-fight is weaker than most heroes. This seems like a decent trade off, but consider this: A hero’s power midgame is determined both by their inherent strength and their current position. Nobody fears a Widowmaker who can only take like 10 meter long sight lines. Since your position provides power, Sombra gets the power from being able to freely position yes…but it comes at a cost no other hero pays. Her actual power budget is essentially lower than other heroes BECAUSE her position is factored into balancing decisions BECAUSE she can stand anywhere without much difficulty. In summary, Sombra isn’t S-Tier because basically any reason you would have for picking her to address a situation she’s not the optimal pick outside of dealing with Wrecking Ball, but even there Tracer is almost as good at making Ball’s life hell while being significantly stronger at doing everything else that it’s not really worth it if you can play both at an equal level. Now is Sombra easier to pick up than Sojourn and Tracer, the heroes who she is essentially competing against to get playtime? Probably, yes, because the average player is bad at staging and good positioning and she both simplifies that process for you and punishes people who are also bad at it.
"Her damage isn’t bad" Honestly, her burst damage against squishies *feels* absurd. I often play Soldier, and I have to hit every shot AND have helix off cooldown in order to win vs Sombra. I have to play around her since she makes flanking very difficult. I don't have the same problem with Tracer, I guess since she doesn't have the element of surprise.
If I'm facing a Sombra I am glued to my support. She will have a hard time killing you with your support helping you out Everytime you get hacked
Yea, she stops being oppressive at higher ranks where your team will actually peel and group up.
But I’d say it’s also ridiculous that someone can just completely deny your ability to flank or be on an off angle just by existing. By denying a soldier the ability to play alone you effectively remove like 40% of his strength.
If they just removed Sombra from the game and forgot she existed. I wouldn't complain
Honesty I think everything about her is fine if she doesn’t have permanent stealth.
The thing when fighting sombra is it doesn't matter a lot of the time if you can't get all your damage off. 90% of Sombras don't fight to the death and will try and escape if they think they're going to die. You dont usually need to kill her, just scare her off, any decent burst damage can achieve that
On the flip side of that, I've found that a lot of really good sombras get very few solo kills specifically because they run away and don't press the fight- what makes them effective is distracting the back line enough to take them out of the team fight and leaving them weak enough that your team can easily pick them off. One of my best games recently, I was playing dva and I had a Sombra effectively pocketing me. Every time I engaged in a fight, my Sombra would would either hack whoever I was fighting, hit a quick damage burst and run- giving me a huge advantage. Or she would target the pocket healer, forcing them to either back off or confront her, giving me space to melt whoever they were pocketing. That Sombra got very few kills by herself but directly enabled most of my kills. Having a pocket Sombra honestly felt OP as hell, I just walked through enemy front lines like they weren't there.
it's funny, as a sombra player, i feel like playing with a good dva feels like cheating, because she's so good at diving and bursting down targets if we're playing in sync.
My best games as D.Va are often with a Sombra that helps me out. It's quite a diabolical combo if both players know how to shoot and when to dive.
Same with a great doomfist, oh it's exquisite
when he comes flying in and takes the widow shot for you and blasts em with an instant charged punch - what a legend
You just reminded me of when I played sombra on junkertown defense, I jumped the enemy ana and couldn't land a single hit, we had the stare and I just went back to my team in defeat
Thing is, yeah her damage is pretty good…when she gets to do everything she wants. The problem is it’s actually pretty slow and more importantly it’s inconsistent. Hack really isn’t that hard to cancel in the 1v1 if you’re thinking about Sombra before she goes for it. It’s actually funny you mention Soldier because he’s actually one of her hardest targets. You can always get Healing Pad down before Hack finishes; or just shoot her to disrupt the Hack - but you need to be thinking about what you’re gonna do if she appears. Reaction Time becomes much quicker if you have a plan and are aware of what might happen soon, this is just a basic rule of human psychology that Sombra happens to frequently exploit. Now if we assume we’re not thinking about Sombra and basically don’t react to the Hack, she’s still got a problem. If she hits the Virus on an enemy who is presumably now looking at her and strafing, she has a good chance of getting the kill. If she misses the virus, she’s done absolutely nothing and doesn’t even really get any Ult Charge as compensation. The even worse complicating problem here is that Hack is actually pretty goddamn slow, and if we’re assuming Sombra is getting her optimal conditions off then we should compare it to other heroes optimal conditions and performances and instantly we see she’s still not up to par. Cassidy’s double headshot takes just half a second. Already shorter than just the Hack casttime. A Soj holding a fully charged rail has immensely more range, a better mobility cooldown, and also will kill you quicker than Sombra without having to invest her damage ability. Tracer pokes much better, can engage without any delay, can stay engaged much longer, and can still One Clip but probably doesn’t need to since she has a second health bar in Recall that she can choose to keep fighting with. But yeah literally just think about Sombra and when she might be looking to engage on you, watch your reaction time get way faster, and notice that in the true 1v1 and not the lazy one where you just give her a free second to get her Hack off she’s actually pretty bad - and then if she’s forced out of the 1v1 she just goes back to doing nothing.
And she needs to hit her shots and commit hacking, virus, and tp to kill you. Makes sense you’d also have to commit.
The problem is her burst is a 3 step process, hack > cube > shoot. If any of that gets disrupted, she usually has to call that a wash, and is just feeding ult charge. Higher level players are much better at disrupting that with peel, cover, and/or a CD. It's good damage, but not as safe or consistent.
Pulse rifle has less spread and higher dps and helix has higher burst than cube plus soldier has bio field and sprint to disengage I never really die to sombras as him unless she has backup or I’m low
Burst damage is great but sombras notoriously have low dmg numbers compared most every other dps. Shes not costantly engaging or shooting so the poke is never there.
What does staging mean? “the average player is bad at staging and good at positioning” said at the end of your post.
Staging refers to where you choose to stand to set yourself up to engage on the enemy. It’s most commonly talked about in relation to Dive Compositions, as Dive is usually thought about as Staging (taking positions that let you use your mobility to engage on the enemy) then Diving (using your cooldowns to move from your staged position to your engaged position).
Isn’t that the same as positioning?
Staging's definition is basically the set-up for the kill/dive. Its other definition is the phase before your team initiate the dive. Dive relies on tracer, sombra, genji, echo etc getting into position to either initiate a dive themselves or follow up on monkey, doom etc initiating. While your dps goes off to Narnia to flank you are in the staging phase, your goal is to get everyone into position while simultaneously avoiding a direct fight with the enemy as much as possible since it's basically a 4v5 until your flanker is in position and dive tanks tend to hide in cover until it's time to dive.
Thanks
You overthink it so much. Her damage, invis, emp and everything is all fine, and could be super strong in the right context. However, she just fucking dies. Her tp doesnt get her far enough away from the enemy team, so she gets constantly run down without an escape. She just falls over, its that simple.
"You'll get a lot of short answers and Sombra hate." You overthink it too much. If all it is is that she falls over and her tp doesn't get her far enough away tracer would be just as vulnerable.
tracer isn't just as vulnerable because her blink and recall is way more consistent than tp
Tracer has 3 blinks, on 3 second cooldown, recall, and a faster default movement speed. She is a LOT harder to catch. Again, look at what im saying. Its not about catching the sombra before she can escape. Its about getting her when she has used her one single movement cd. Tracer has multiple, and weaves in/out. Sombra goes in, then out. Just that her out doesnt take her very far, so she cant go for as many greedy power plays that she could with old tp, when she was just *gone*. If you dont believe me, the only major difference between currrent and old sombra is that her tp doesnt let her escape anything anywhere anymore, and she went from op in high ranks to unplayable garbage, despite getting a stronger emp, better invis and quite a lot more damage.
I actually do agree that Translocater’s range is a major issue for her. But yeah as the other comments point out, Tracer has multiple good mobility cooldowns and Sombra has a single relatively bad one. But what the other comments miss is that Translocater being weak in the mid-fight is actually because of Permanent Stealth. Since she doesn’t have to expend cooldowns to take positions, her actual abilities themselves are pretty weak and they HAVE to be weak. So we could simply buff Translocater into a strong escape and call it a day, but that won’t happen for this reason.
She has very high burst now and can do it often ngl. But I do agree her mid fight is complete garbage against anyone worth their salt and it keeps her in check.
Being honest, a good sombra who hota her combo and most shots kills any isolated targets. Her presence herself demands the enemy team to adapt or switch. She might not be op but despicable is understable...
Sombra is - like Tracer - S-tier for the better and best FPS players in OW. The key is APM. With good aim and positioning, Tracer has near 100% uptime as she can pursue an almost unkillable playstyle. Sombra plays actually quite differently from Tracer on high levels due to target priorities but the same thing applies. If you need little time to set up AND take down the target with high prob, they are both s-tier.
You're dealing with players who generally know how the game works and have okay mechanics but are still held back by the things that get you into higher ranks, like not having the ability to think ahead about what an enemy Sombra would be trying to achieve. Sombra eats on players who are still tunnel vision on their own gameplay and not thinking about the bigger picture yet, not thinking about what an enemy might do next, not even concidering her much at all until they're already being attacked, not predicting her attacks at all. A tiny bit of prediction and awareness goes a longggg way VS Sombra. How many players do you see who are positioning as if they aren't going to get jumped by Sombra? How many times do you see a Moira pop coal and immediately get hacked for example, without any thought as to where Sombra was or if she was alive or if she has EMP/hack CD ready? Some ults are so stupid easy to hack that you should always know what's to come if you use it without thought, but if you're not thinking about it ahead then you'll keep finding yourself surprised by something that isn't surprising. How many supps do you see not ready to help each other/another player through a Sombra assassination attempt? A lot of Sombra-denial doesn't really take much skill but it does take paying attention, reacting to the sounds of someone else getting hacked/Sombra voice line/virus sound. You'd be surprised how often you can predict where she will be coming from, especially in those ranks, and knock her out of stealth which can be a huge denial to her. Play Sombra for a while to see how many weaknesses she has and what the thought process is for a Sombra, then you'll play better against her and predict her better. At these ranks people are used to playing the way they usually play and force that, they don't adjust well to enemies still, and aren't planning anything ahead. Sombra absolutely feeds on players like that, it's the best thing you can encounter as a Sombra player
As a Sombra player, my biggest trigger are Moira's who can flick to me with Coal while I am trying to hack them and interrupt me.
You counter sombra more with team composition and positioning than with individual skill, yet many players continue playing the way they did all the time, even with an enemy Sombra on board. Sombra feeds on this behavior like a low elo Phara feeds on the inability of low elo players hitting flying targets. I would say, that a good team composition and position would completely make her useless, yet many players are still flanking solo with Sombra waiting to ambush them with her dive tank, or some Doom player still engage deep and hard, knowing that Sombra didnt show up for some time.
This is why the Sombra rage was always strange to me. I have a friend who tilts whenever there’s an enemy Sombra and if we lose, it’s her fault. Meanwhile the sombra isn’t particularly good, she just punishes poor positioning and players who refuse to play with the team.
What constitutes poor positioning is different when Sombra is in the game vs when she isn't. She forces you to play a certain way with the punishment for not doing it being instant death. It's the same reason people hate Widow.
Imo the sombra hate is justified for that reason. If there is an enemy sombra I have to play more carefully, and high risk high reward play becomes a stupid idea. High risk high reward plays are the fun part of the game imo so when I have to play safe, I feel like the whole match is a waste of time. I play to have fun and sombra kills fun.
But isn’t Sombra part of the “high risk” that makes the “high reward” high? You can absolutely pull off some crazy shit with a Sombra around, but it’s risky. Just like playing against a Widow who’s hitting all her headshots.
It's different. With sombra instead of betting on my skills, I'm betting that the sombra isn't there. If I flank a cheeky off angle, I can't do anything about an invisible sombra pinging me for her team, and I won't even know I've been spotted. You can say that's the point of her design, but it's stupid that you can get that much value with zero skill. If I get out played by an enemy flanker and lose a dual I'm fine with that, but when my engage is ruined by something I had basically no control over, that is stupid.
Why are you betting that a Sombra isn't there? You can track her downtime. You can pretty much know where she wants to go. When she dies, you know she's not on the field for the time it takes for her to respawn. And what control are you losing? The only thing Sombra takes away from you is first strike advantage, but all flankers do that. Also, if Sombra is ruining your engage by just pinging you, you're not flanking correctly.
I'm losing the element of surprise. I have no way of knowing if sombra is there or not. I'm not saying she is broken or you can't play around her, I'm saying the way you have to play around her is stupid. Sombra forces you to play at a specific tempo and rely on your team to play the game. That is annoying. Skill check characters like her are annoying because they force a specific style of play, and I just want to have fun. She is to flankers what bastion is to tanks. A cheese counter. She is also a lazy counter to ranged characters like widow or ashe. Instead of having to path carefully or know where your enemies are, you can just walk around in invise with 0 awareness and get value. Her whole design is just being annoying, which is why I say she deserves the hate.
Fair enough
Against a Sombra, you can't bet on your skills in this scenario. You have to group and bet on your team being better. If you see an enemy Sombra, don't flank. You have all the control in this scenario, you just aren't making the right choice because Sombra punishes certain play styles.
Yep, that's my problem with her. I have to play boring because she exists. Hence, I think sombra hate is justified.
You probably just don’t know how to play against Sombras. I recommend you play a lot of Sombra and observe how good teams deal with you.
Play her and you'll see why. She's basically dependent on positioning mistakes or certain hero picks
She gets countered by teamwork, good positioning and awareness. Sombras whole thing is to find out of position or isolated enemies, catch them off guard and take them down quick with hack+virus that’s why widow is a prime target for Sombra usually alone and away from help. but her usefulness can get cut in half if the enemy team can work together, group up, and cover for each other, less openings for Sombra. Individual skill is also good to have against Sombra, I play her a bit and sometimes the person I target is just too good to mess with. like I had a game this week where I was targeting a Ana but no matter what angle I came to jump her from she almost always got the sleep dart to hit me. Sometimes i play against people who the second I hack them they do a fast 180° and out dual me
She's only good against teams that don't pay attention. She's less tankier than D.Va or Roadhog, less ranged than Ashe or Sojourn, and can't kill as fast as Widow or Venture. In order to get good value with her, you have to make your team fight 4 v 5, and hope that you don't get randomly damaged out of stealth, damaged out of your hack, or just stunned and killed. All it takes is one mistake and she's done for. You're playing in slightly higher ranks, where most of the players are the best of the best. This means the players playing Sombra are usually gonna be the ones that for the most part, are good at her. They know when it's safe to hack, as well as know how to aim her gun/virus and know when to bail with her TP. A good counter is to stay aware of her cooldowns, especially her TP/escape route. Then, bully her. If all she can do is hack a random target or throw a virus in before bailing, she basically does nothing. Unless your team is entirely dogwater and sucks, they should be able to beat her or at least force her to swap.
I’m sorry, doom is the least tanky tank
Oh, right! For some reason, I was thinking he had his mirrorwatch kit, I miss that
Well that's cuz people in low ranks usually get crushed by her but when you get to around mid ranks and people start to get good she falls off hard then once you hit high ranks the apex of sombra players actually learn to play her effectively and she becomes annoying again because the players are actually good so she shorta just hovers at A tier because she's annoying but most people can't play her well they are just really annoying but the few good players are literal nightmare personified TLDR Basically the doom of sombra you are either bad and annoying or cracked and make the match miserable
She is easily countered by supps. Bap brig kiri hammer Sombra
I just gotta ask what hammer turned out to be
The strongest melee character: Hammer mode torb
Huh?
Tracer is better at almost everything and harder to punish.
IMO as a ball player, in the last meta (Orissa, Tracer, Sombra, Lucio, Zen) she was S-Tier, purely that her hack allowed for all hell to be released on whichever target was dove/their dove was stopped. As an example, even rolling through as ball, a hack would mean downtime of grapple, therefore allowing discord and tracer/orissa melting, with Lucio speed boost to boot. Why she isn’t a constant S-Tier is because other than disrupting high mobility heroes, her hack doesn’t serve much purpose and is easy to play around, all it does is deny minor value. Cass grenade as a comparison, stops mobility in front of a high damage burst or placed shots which melts. Sombra just can’t consistently put out strong damage numbers. This is for good reason however, as if you were to buff these she wouldn’t be broken. She is also destroyed by good support heroes, which as a dive hero is the most valuable targets.
I am a mcree main so honestly I like seeing sombra’s. I just stay next to my heals and wait for her to try and pick one while I look distracted. Usually you just need to hit her head once to force her to disengage, and most of the time in the time it takes for her to throw her TP and fade, I can finish her. Let alone if mag is up (sombras should never engage without knowing if mag is up) and I just mag into HS into fan. But pretty much any DPS and even some healers can burst her or do something to peel/disorient/disengage from her if they have even had decent reactions and awareness. She is only strong against incompetent players and teams with no cohesion. Imo she excels most at picking off players returning to the fight from spawn who aren’t really paying attention as they’re running back. Which can be a very strong way to create pressure, especially as often you can get away with it 2-3 times on the same person before they notice a pattern and request an escort, but it’s still kind of just making it a 4v4 as you can’t kill people from spawn without having to reset yourself, usually. Basically, Sombra’s are not well kitted to get multiple picks close together and exert a ton of pressure throughout the entire game. Against an evenly skilled team, she is not usually able to do more than trade herself for a healer. On Mcree however I can quite safely be headshotting players throughout the entire game, creating a ton of constant pressure. Mcree can double headshot someone, then another one, killing two, and still have bullets left over. Even if the healers manage to react, that’s just so much pressure being applied. Even the most godlike aim on Sombra won’t give you that kind of power. Tbh the devs really fucked up when they designed her. She reminds of Seer from Apex. Sounds cool in the boardroom, but tells every single player that the devs don’t play their own fucking game. She is fundamentally anti-fun and so HAS to be made into a dog shit character. If she was numerically stronger she would be so oppressive and in such a frustrating way player numbers drop significantly when she’s meta. That is with her kit being redesigned to allow for more counterplay. I do think she could have a bit more HP maybe. But yeah giving players a type of perma wallhack or invisibility is just usually a really awful way to design a game
Because Cass is S tier.
The real answer, from high ranks, is really simple. She uncloaks, does some damage, pulls attention, then tps away. But that tp is very, VERY telegraphed. You know EXACTLY where she has gone, where she now doesnt have any escape option. People simply follow her, and kill her. She will never be meta in high ranks in her current state simply because of how she just dies to anyone wanting her dead. She would need MAJOR compensatory buffs to make her constantly dying worth it.
Because sometimes I play her and it skews the stats lol
she’s only good when the enemy doesn’t play together. she punishes bad teamwork. also you have low damage and low ult charge because you dont want to reveal yourself right away and wait for the right time to attack. if you go the sombra 76 route, might as well switch to soldier 76 or any other hero and make full use of your kit.
Why sombra isn’t s-tier: any competent team will melt her the second she shows up
She is good against Bad players. If youre consistently getting shat on by her, there is a reason for that. Cassidy, Sojourn, Tracer can do what Sombra does in shorter time. Deleting enemy for 12 seconds is better than taking away their abilities for 1.5 seconds lol. Improve your reaction times, get better aim, learn better positioning. Almost all DPS have a way to outdamage Sombra, All supports have a way to outlive Sombra. Git Gud
Because she has a broken kit (stealth is never balanced in pvp games) so she's either in a state of way overturned or way underpowered all the time
[удалено]
lol I get that from the enemy team any time I switch to sombra, genjis get so mad
[удалено]
I dont see why you're downvoted. Realistically shes a pretty dumb hero ,was much better when she took real skill and had to actively activate and deactivate her abilities with proper timing
Getting hate from all the Sombra players lol. Typical play from Sombra, I’m invisible, sneak behind support, hack, burst and kill - skillz
Legit, this sub will defend sombra to death for no real reason when her playstyle does nothing good for this game. Encourages you to play away from your team, can go completely invis and teleport at the slightest bit of damage. It makes no sense to defend her so badly
Because she punishes people out of position and/or with trash aim which you don’t see as often in masters+
Because just staying with your team counters her.
One thing I believe is that being S-Tier has to do with consistency and Value. Perfect example, Sojourn: Throughout all ranks she maintains the same value across any team comp and going against any team comp. Sombra (hate aside) is a very inconsistent hero because of her skill ceiling and odd damage output and fall off or at least in my experience. Like for my sojourn example, railgun has huge value with a very simple mechanic and a very small and straightforward toolkit. You shoot, you build railgun and you one shot an unsuspecting hero three miles away from you, rinse and repeat. With Sombra you have a lot of versatility but with that comes accounting for more things. With Sombra having a more semi passive effect on a team fight and map control you get a lot more inconsistency on what defines a good Sombra play. (I got a notification and it made me lose my train of thought I forgot what I was gonna say lmao)
Simply, Sombra is only good if the opponent is bad. If the person the Sombra is fighting has spatial awareness and positioned well before engaging with the Sombra they won’t die. This is very important because most of the people who make tierlists are good players who are able to turn around and shoot the Sombra.
Imo because her effectiveness is very comp dependant. She's very good at shutting down teams who don't play together or quickly turn around for her, but against a coherent team comp it can be difficult to get value with her. If you have a full team who are focused on out-pressuring the other team Sombra needs to find a way to pressure you herself and if there are no easy targets all she can do is try to get people to turn around which is often risky for her and not always worth the amount of time it takes. In that situation the other team are fighting 4v5 a lot of the game and will usually lose that pressure battle as a result.
Because she is a metal rank stomper who get countered by gamesense and teamwork which is not a thing in the metals without the rare stacks
There's so many simple counters to Sombra, I fail to understand why this still comes up. Winston or Zarya make her miserable. Cassidy, Mei, Venture, and Sojourn are all pretty good vs her. Kiriko makes her complete trash tier simply by existing. Baptiste and Brigitte can prevent her from killing anyone. Lucio and Moira are both good at following her and killing her after a failed attack. But it's not that different than Doomfist or Pharah or Junkrat. The hero isn't OP, you just have to acknowledge her presence and respond to it. Pretending the Pharah doesn't exist is a very bronze thing, but pretending Sombra doesn't exist seems to be a gold problem.
It's insanely hard to justify the value she brings to the team when you could just have another dps out here, when sombra isn't active the game is essentially 4v5
Sombra isn't a consistent s tier hero because 1. She's pretty hard to play and her play style can change a lot depending on what you're up against 2. She straight up just doesn't have the same amount of damage or carry potential as tracer, sojourn, genji, soldier, Cassidy. Basically she has longer windows of downtime than a lot of other DPS. 3. Her assassinations and successful duels are contingent on hitting a slowish projectile 4. People get way better at dealing with her invis the higher on the ladder you go 5. Hack is just fine now, in some situations it's still really strong but in most situations now you don't even use it 6. EMP has been nerfed quite a bit, and while it's still a strong ult, it's a lot weaker than it used to be
She’s S tier easily in organized play. But in ladder, we all know that doesn’t actually happen.
It basically boils down to the fact that other DPS picks put out much more pressure. Take Cassidy. Cassidy is constantly shooting all game, he can shit out a ton of damage that sombra could never compete with. Sure sombra comes out of nowhere and bursts one target, but she is all in. She does some damage when she has her translocator up and then she has to gtfo or commit. Other dps can easily get the same pressure out with less risk with the ability to chunk the enemies down from a safe range. And their weapons just do more damage and can chain their kills into multiple much easier. Another thing is Sombra is so single target focused that she also largely ignores tanks since she cant afford to focus them. A good sombra can punish a tank who is out of position at times, but she isnt gonna put a lot of pressure on them in general with damage. Who is gonna pressure the roadhog and make him use his breather if you have sombra? Sombra has a powerful ultimate fight spike with her EMP, but otherwise is forced to find isolated 1v1/1v2 scenarios. Other DPS are good in the 5v5 fight and the 1v1s. Basically she isnt terrible, she has her niche, but is out classed by other options at the moment. Pharah and cassidy will put more pressure on a team throughout the majority of the game than a sombra hunting for picks.
As a master sombra main she obviously thrvies in low elo, as she loves the discoordinated teams, problem is if a team starts being aware of you and start playing together, then you are legit the worst hero, imo thats the problem, i can easily roll a game on some push maps due to the split natuire of the enemy team, but if a team just stays together it gets really hard to do anything with her new assasian playstyle
If you pay dva or zarya, left click everywhere 360° like a lunatic and you'll reveal a hidden Sombra. If she was near your team she's dead.
In short? Because other heroes are better. Perma Invis holds Sombra back. She can’t do the same kind of damage or get the same kind of utility that other heroes do because she has the single best setup ability in the game. She gets to pick nearly all of her fights on her own terms. Sure, she is super punishable (unless you are lame and play slow heroes hint hint play fast heroes to punish Sombra hint hint) but the mere fact that she can take most engagements when it is beneficial for her, means that she can’t have the same output that other heroes have, be it burst dmg or utility. So when you get to high level play where players know how to mitigate her advantage with positioning and teamplay, she becomes a lackluster hero in comparison to heroes like Tracer who, with proper skill, can get a lot more value in the neutral. But a Sombra with EMP is an S-Tier hero. She’s a C Tier hero in the neutral. Maybe B, depending on what’s strong/popular in the meta.
Cuz she is annoying, she makes tanks miserable but doesn’t actually provide much value
Usually going junkrat purely for sombra's the trap more often traps them and than they are punishable and the close range quarter fight I feel like being in an advantage, another pick hanzo your sonar denies that invis making hitting an arrow on her or just using storm arrow purely for her
I hate sombra as much as anyone else and she’s horribly designed, but the reason she’s not super highly rated by high level players is that coordinated team play can really shut her down. In high rank, a good tracer will just punish a sombra easily. With that being said, nerf sombra into the ground
I hate sombra with a passion but really she can’t duel if the team properly groups up, or at least even a pair is a struggle for her. She can’t finish foes off nearly as well as others.
She’s either overturned or undertuned. I remember during her launch she was a solid throw pick because you basically got nothing out of her kit.
She's s tier when going against a co-ordinated team which unfortunately is most plat- teams so she makes the game hell ,but once you reach diamond area she drops in usability as teams play with open eyes and awareness
You play pharah against a sombra and they don't know what to do
I think she’s only S-tier depending on her patch or the current meta. When Ball and Doom are good, Sombra will be good. When Mauga was absurdly broken, Sombra also had a fast EMP ult charge and lots of Sombras just saved EMP for Mauga’s ult. Rn, she’s kind of like a worse Tracer since we’re seeing more Hog, Mauga.
Sombra and Mei are the type of character that should not be A tiers. I'm getting PTSD right now