Blizzard Entertainment has been a little iffy with hero balance changes in Overwatch as of late. After buffing Mercy and spending the last few months bringing her back down to non-meta levels, Blizzard would buff Sombra’s Hack, thus prohibiting all movement abilities from heroes. Her Translocator having a longer duration and Hack having a shorter cast time became tough to battle against, even if Ultimate charge is no longer gained from hacked health packs.
Thankfully, the developer has recognized these issues and will be changing Sombra’s Hack in the next patch. The main changes include the ability going on a 2 second cooldown if any damage is done and removing the 0.1 second window that prevented it from being broken by line of sight changes. Various checks are in place for line of sight that small objects don’t block it however.
“In addition to this, we’re speeding up the update rate of her hacking so that it is more responsive in checking for these fail conditions. The combination of these things means it should be much more reasonable to respond to a hack targeting you,” said lead designer Geoff Goodman on the official forums.
The overall strength of Sombra’s ability will still be present but these changes should ensure some modicum of counter-play. Stay tuned for more information on when it goes live.
