So I was watching the Overwatch Sombra gameplay video above and a few others from Blizzcon because that’s apparently how I spend my time now, and I learned a few things about Sombra. You’ve probably seen the ability list, but that doesn’t have a lot of specifics to it. I wanted to know things like cooldown rates and such, which is where these videos came in handy. Here’s a list, in no particular order, of what I observed and what Blizzard straight up said about Sombra’s specific stats, abilities, uses, and situational rules during gameplay:
- Sombra can go invisible, which also increases her movement speed. Invisibility last around five or six seconds and ends after that time expires, she takes damage, or if she takes an action such as shooting, hacking, using an ultimate.
- It’s full invisibility, unless you’re right on top of someone, in which case they can kind of see some sort of movement. Allies can see a shimmer kind of like the stealth cammo in Metal Gear, but enemies can’t see anything.
- Using teleporter (throwing or jumping through) does not cancel Sombra’s invisibility.
- Once thrown, Sombra has only 15 seconds to use her teleporter before it disappears. After that time expires or she uses it, the cooldown period kicks in.
- Teleporter can be deflected by Genji. Blizzard guy not sure what that does, but is sure it can be deflected. (I guess at the very least, it could disrupt Sombra’s plan of where to go next?)
- -Sombra can “hack” something every 12 seconds. Hack as many health packs as you want; there’s o limit, but the hack lasts one minute on a specific health pack, which starts from the time it is hit, so it won’t be possible to completely disable all HPs for the whole match or anything crazy.
- Hacking is not instant, but takes two or three seconds to perform. If Sombra takes damage during the hack, then the hack is interrupted and doesn’t affect the target.
- Hacked health packs are unavailable to enemies for a full minute after being hacked. Meanwhile, they regenerated “three times as fast” for the friendly team.
- Hacking cannot be done during defensive setup phase (meaning Sombra on defense can’t go outside the spawn and disable a bunch of health packs right away).
- Hacked character abilities are locked for six seconds, but Sombra can see that hacked characters Ultimate availability for much longer, “like 20 or 30 seconds.”
- Sombra can see if a hacked character has an Ultimate available or not, but can’t see a progress percentage.
- Hacked players can still move and use their regular shot, but can’t use abilities. “You can still shoot and you can still move, but you can’t do abilities you couldn’t do if you were stunned by McCree.”
- You can only hack if you’re not taking damage and in range of the thing you’re hacking (about 9, maybe 10 meters).
- Hacking turrets stuns them for about 10 seconds. (Not sure if one hit brings them back like Ana’s sleep dart, or if they’re seriously inactive for 10 seconds. The latter makes it sound like they’re immediately going to be destroyed without a doubt.)
- Sombra can contest/claim objectives while invisible.
- If someone is below half health, Sombra can see where they are, even through walls. This is a passive ability that kind of makes her sounds nerve-wracking as fuck to play against and fun as hell to play as.
- D.Va’s barrier eats Sombra’s teleporter, because it eats projectiles and Sombra’s hand-thrown teleporter is considered a projectile.
- Sombra can hack Reinhardt’s shield (because it disables special abilities), but can’t hack *through* the shield. If you try, you’ll just sit there and be denied and possibly make a fool of yourself.
- Mercy’s healing staff doesn’t reveal Sombra’s location. It’s being modified in some custom way for use on invisible Sombra. “We do some special stuff to hide that.”
- Her ultimate destroys all shields and all barriers, apparently just as if they were hacked. Might require a specific range but doesn’t appear to need aiming or line of sight. It does not undo enemy ultimates that have already been triggered (so Bastion will not kick out of tank form, D.Va’s exploding mech will not just decide to sit there and not explode, and Reaper will not simply be doing gothic ballet).
- If an enemy Sombra has already hacked a health pack, a friendly Sombra cannot counter-hack it.
- She has 200 HP, the most common number among Overwatch characters.
- “You guys aren’t emotionally prepared for the skins for Sombra,” says Blizzard. It should be noted that Overwatch is rated T (or PEGI-12), so he doesn’t mean anything Dead or Alive style.
Keep in mind that while Sombra is being played by Blizzcon attendees, the numbers and rules decided above are not final, as Sombra has not even entered Overwatch‘s public testing (where almost all changes are given a run before going into the main game) yet. These could change.
I for one can’t wait to pick up easy kills from full teams of people using Sombra for the first time, in the (sort of) near future! See her origin story here and share you ambitions in the comments below.
