Finally after months of guesswork, rumours and insanely complex ARG puzzles Sombra has finally been released on to the Overwatch PTR as their 23rd character. The mysteriously intriguing hacker known as Sombra brings a whole load of new skills, strategies and play styles to the game. So we’ll take a quick look at her skills and strategies and find out just what we can expect playing her and against her.
Story
Way before she took the name Sombra she was orphaned by the Omniac Crisis, with her entire country (Mexico) in a very bad place they only way she could stay alive was by hacking and using computers. This got her noticed by the Los Muertos gang, who believed that the poor had lost out when Mexico was rebuilt.
Life was going fairly well until she stumbled upon a major global conspiracy, and had to delete every part of her identity to avoid being killed.
Redesigning herself as Sombra she realised she had to discover more about this conspiracy, and went hack crazy and become infamous. Talon, now took notice of her and once recruited was responsible for several massive cyberattacks against governmental corporations. This sparked a revolution in Mexico against LumériCo, breaching the security of the manufacturing arm of Russia’s anti-omnic defense, Volskaya Industries
Sombra Skills
Sombra’s skills are all based around her ability to hack and use computers to her advantage.
Opportunist
“Sombra detects critically injured enemies through walls.”
A passive skill where Sombra can detect enemies below 50% health rough walls. Unlike Widowmaker’s Infra-Sight this ability is for Sombra only.
Machine Pistol
“Sombra’s fully-automatic machine pistol fires in a short-range spread.”
A clip of 60 bullets And a short to mid firing range means she’s not completely reliant on her hacking skills.
Hack
“Sombra hacks enemies to temporarily stop them from using their abilities, or hacks first aid kits to make them useless to her opponents.”
When Sombra hacks a first aid kit her icon appears over it and the colour changes (purple for allies, red for enemies). It also ticks down to indicate the length of time left on the hack. Hacking a health pack also decreases the amount of time it takes to spawn by three times.
Hacking an enemy stops that enemy from using any skills including channeled skills, although passive skills remain. Allies are also able to see the health and ultimate status of any hacked enemy.
Thermoptic Camo
“Sombra becomes invisible for a short period of time, during which her speed is boosted considerably. Attacking, using offensive abilities, or taking damage disables her camouflage.”
With this skill Sombra goes completely invisible for 6 seconds and she gets an increase in speed for its duration.If she is hit during this time the Thermoptic Camo will end.
Translocator
“Sombra tosses out a translocator beacon. She can instantly return to the beacon’s location while it is active (including when it’s in mid-flight).”
Sombra can return to this translocator from any part of the map, so don’t be afraid to use it, to get to a high ledge or return to a health pack.
EMP (Ultimate Ability)
“Sombra discharges electromagnetic energy in a wide radius, destroying enemy barriers and shields and hacking all opponents caught in the blast.”
Not much to say about this except it’s a multi-character hack that can rip apart any defence.
Strategies are already being built up and are vastly coming out of the woodwork, but here area couple of things as food for thought to whet your appetite.
If you see an enemy running for a health pack, hack it before they get there.
Sombra’s Thermoptic Camo and Translocator are a quick way to stay out of site and to move quickly across the map. Don’t let your enemies corner you.
Oh, and one final thing. Sombra can actually hack the Player of the Game. Ok she doesn’t but one of the intros to her PotG starts to show it going to someone else before she hacks it and takes it for herself. Very nice, Blizzard. Very nice.
So, how will Sombra change the face of Overwatch? Well, at this point we don’t know but it’s fairly safe to say that the game won’t quite be the same now she’s here.
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Jim Franklin
Jim Franklin is a freelance writer, living in Derby UK with his wife and his player 3. When time allows he likes nothing more than losing himself in a multi-hour gaming session. He likes most games and will play anything but prefers MMO's, and sandbox RPG's.
