Overwatch 2 Reworked Sombra Again, And I Hate It

My patience with Overwatch 2 is wearing thin, and it’s only getting thinner as the hero shooter enters its 13th season today, October 15. The Halloween-centric season is full of recolors of old skins and a lot of the cosmetic favoritism that has plagued the game in the past year. But it also has a new patch, one that reworks the stealthy, hack-based hero Sombra just a year after Blizzard’s dev team last overhauled the DPS character. And y’all, I think my patience is reaching its limit for how this game keeps shaving down what makes its heroes special and worth playing.

Sombra is my secondary Damage hero behind Soldier: 76, so I have dozens of hours logged as her over the years. I wasn’t thrilled when Blizzard took away her hit-and-run playstyle in favor of a more committed one last year, but I adapted. A lot of the fundamentals like her cloaking ability that let her sneak into the backline of enemy team formations were still there, so I made it work. Now, Sombra can only really use her cloaking to escape, rather than to sneak around and sabotage her foes. The new patch notes for her are as follows:

Hack

• No longer ends Stealth but does reveal Sombra.Hacked ability lockout effect duration reduced from 1.5 to 1.0 seconds (EMP duration unchanged).BOB hacked stun duration reduced from 10 to 3 seconds.

Stealth

• No longer passive and now activates by using Translocator. Now has a 5 second duration. Added stealth timer around the reticle and removed ability icon. Taking damage now reveals Sombra for 1 second instead of ending stealth.

Translocator

• Cooldown increased from 5 to 7 seconds.

EMP

• Ultimate cost increased 12%.

Opportunist

• The Opportunist passive has been added back in.Increases Sombra’s weapon damage versus hacked targets by 20%.See critically injured enemies through walls.

Developer Comments: This is a significant change to Sombra’s playstyle in the hopes of making her more interactive for the opposing team and shifting some of her power from the utility of Stealth and Hack into increased lethality.

Stealth having a limited duration less than the Translocator cooldown is intended to create brief windows of vulnerability. It still enables Sombra to cross through dangerous areas unseen, but to really hang around in the enemy backline will require moving from cover-to-cover similar to other flanking heroes. No longer having the stealth movement speed removed upon taking damage also enhances its usefulness as an escape tool.

The idea behind the changes is that Sombra’s playstyle will be less about stealth and sabotage and more about flanking like fellow DPS hero Tracer. To which I say: fuck that. This is the kind of balance philosophy that comes from looking at stats on a scoreboard, rather than considering how utility factors into the value a good Sombra brings to a team. This is the kind of change that feels like it comes strictly from the perspective of someone facing Sombra who has probably gotten annoyed that she keeps sneaking behind them and harassing their backline. But now, she’s just another Tracer, but with more bells and whistles that are just overcomplications of a different, simpler playstyle.

Because this patch is targeting me, specifically, it also makes a significant change to Ramattra, the Omnic tank hero who joined Overwatch 2 shortly after its launch in 2022. Ramattra’s biggest asset was that he was able to pierce through shields and other defensive abilities with his Pummel attack, dealing short-range damage through them. This let him disrupt enemy tanks, and required you to play around his cooldowns instead of barreling toward him without a care. Now, he only does increased damage to barriers.

Pummel

• No longer pierces barriers.Now deals 2.5x more damage to barriers.

Developer Comments: Ramattra’s Pummel projectiles passing through barriers was a source of frustration for players trying to protect themselves or their allies. With these changes enabling Ramattra to deal critical damage to barriers, he will still be a valuable hero choice against barrier mechanics, but won’t immediately apply damage to players on the other side.

What are we doing here, Overwatch 2? Why is it that the original mechanics for heroes that make them distinct from each other keep falling by the wayside? Why are characters like Juno and Junker Queen these weird amalgamations other heroes instead of bringing new things to the table? I don’t know, y’all. Sombra was always such a reliable switch for me when my team was having trouble penetrating an enemy team’s defenses, and now it just feels like she’s worse in pursuit of some sanded-down version of Overwatch 2 where every character’s “balanced” by way of them all being the same. Without a story mode to tell me more about this world and the characters all becoming the least interesting versions of themselves, I’m not sure what I’m doing here anymore.

The full season 13 patch notes read as follows:

SEASON 13 – SEASON OF SPELLBINDERS

Haunt your foes in Season 13 with Mythic Spellbinder Widowmaker, a master of witchcraft with stylish animations and enchanting effects. Then battle it out in Junkenstein’s Laboratory, the spooky new Halloween Terror PvP game mode with mutations that turn heroes to horrors! Plus, heroes and villainswatch their ideas of justice collide in the My Hero Academia collab featuring exclusive cosmetics inspired by the anime’s iconic characters. Get ready for a season filled with magic, might, and macabre moments!

OVERWATCH 2 X MY HERO ACADEMIA©

Choose heroism or villainy with the latest Overwatch 2 collaboration featuring exclusive skins inspired by My Hero Academia’s iconic characters. Battle as a hero of justice with Tracer as Deku, Reinhardt as All Might, and Juno as Uravity, or create chaos with Reaper as Tomura Shigaraki and Kiriko as Himiko Toga. Don’t miss the Mega Bundle for the ultimate My Hero Academia collection—available for a limited time only, October 17-30.

© K. Horikoshi / Shueisha, My Hero Academia Project

HALLOWEEN TERROR 2024

This Halloween, the Halloween Terror event delivers a spooky good time with both brand-new and returning game modes. Experience the eerie madness of Junkenstein’s Laboratory, a fast-paced Team Deathmatch where you can enhance your heroes with powerful cursed talent cards. Then return to the chilling co-op adventure of Junkenstein’s Revenge, battling hordes of zombie Omnics and monstrous bosses. Finally, uncover the terrifying secrets of Adlersbrunn in Wrath of the Bride, a gripping PvE experience filled with puzzles, haunted castles, and jump scares. Face the frights and conquer the terror!

HERO MASTERY MODE – CASSIDY & BRIGITTE

Two new heroes will test their skills in Hero Mastery. Starting on October 31st through to November 12th, you’ll have a chance to perfect your skills with Cassidy’s Peacekeeper or bash bots of the edge with Brigitte’s Shield Bash. Complete exclusive challenges through to earn new exclusive rewards and bonus Battle Pass XP as you test your skills in these new courses.

GENERAL UPDATES

Interactive Scoreboard

To give players easier access to social features, especially on controllers, we’ve added the ability to interact with the Scoreboard. The Interactive Scoreboard is intended to make reporting faster and easier, but also to improve your social experience through whatever channels you prefer to communicate in or avoid entirely. The following features are now accessible via Interactive Scoreboard:

• Adjusting Mic Volume of other players
• Adjusting your Mic Volume
• Reporting other players
• Joining/Leaving Team Voice Chat
• Joining/Leaving Group Voice Chat
• Muting Team Text Chat
• Muting Match Text Chat
• Muting Text Chat of other players

Matchmaking Updates

• Tuning changes to reduce queue times for Wide matches in Competitive Play.
• Loss Streak avoidance tuned down to prevent cases where it could increase worst case scenario queue times.

Developer Comments: We’re not seeing any measurable impact from this tech in preventing loss streaks and we’re concerned it might be making queue times longer. So we’re scaling it back for now.

• Role Delta tuning tightened, to try to match Ranks on the roles on each team more closely.

Developer Comments: We believe that match quality improves significantly when you are matched closely with one of the members on the opposing team in the same role. We believe we can tighten this preference without significantly impacting queue times.

• Role Delta has been updated to prioritize the Tank Role above other roles.

Developer Comments: We’ve been thinking about how to improve the Tank experience from every angle, to give them more even matchups and reduce 1-sided matches for the whole team further.

• At higher Ranks the effects of MMR Decay, Winning Trend, Losing Trend, and Calibration have been reduced.

Developer Comments: At our highest ranks these modifiers could sometimes allow very high skill players playing on new accounts to get lucky and surpass their peak ranks considerably, without actually earning their new rank like other players that have played more on their accounts.

• At higher Ranks the matchmaker now takes into account the benefits of grouping when constructing matches.

Developer Comments: At the highest ranks, groups have had noteworthy advantages against teams composed of all solo players for some time now. Our aim with this addition isn’t to remove the advantage of grouping at higher ranks entirely, but we’d like the advantage of grouping at higher ranks to be less extreme.

Public Custom Games

• Hosting Public Custom Games now requires Endorsement Level 3.

Developer Comments: A reminder that we’ve been actioning accounts that post disruptive content in the Game Browser and we’re serious about removing problematic players that don’t follow our Code of Conduct. Whenever an account is actioned for a social penalty, they’re reduced to Endorsement Level 0, so the combination of social actions and this feature will allow for one chance to change their behavior before they’re permanently banned. Anyone that is below Endorsement Level 3 can still host games with the “Friends” or “Invite Only” settings, but they will not have access to the “Everyone” setting.

Streamer Mode

• Access to the “Hide My Name” function of Streamer Mode now requires completing the “Unrelenting Hero” Lifetime Challenge.

Developer Comments: We’ve been listening to community feedback that newer accounts should be required to earn access to the feature, but it’s important that this feature can’t be abused by various types of disruptive players that tend to play on very new accounts. As a reminder, the “Hide My Name” feature does not prevent disruptive players from being punished when they’re reported since we know their actual battle tag behind the scenes.

Challenges Updates

• Select challenges are now visible in the Main Menu.

Developer Comments: Challenges are now in the main menu to highlight their rewards, primarily for new Event Challenges.

• Challenge Rewards can now be inspected in detail in the Challenges Menu.

SHOP UPDATES

• Mythic Skin Aspects Add-on Cosmetic is now added to the Mythic Shop.
• Overwatch League Store tab was removed and replaced by a separate button in the bottom of the main Shop tab.

COMPETITIVE UPDATES

Top 500

The requirements to appear on the Top 500 Leaderboard have changed:

• Win requirement per season reduced from 50 to 25.
• The Seasoned Competitor challenge (750 lifetime wins in Competitive Play) is now required to be completed to be eligible for any Top 500 Leaderboard starting in Season 12.

HERO UPDATES

General

• Swapping your hero hides your selection on the enemy scoreboard for 15 seconds.

Developer Comments: This change adds a more friction to counterswapping, especially in the extreme case where two players on opposite teams are both sitting in spawn with the scoreboard open and rapidly switch their heroes in response to each other’s choices.

Tank

Mauga

Incendiary Chaingun

• Ignite damage over time duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.

Developer Comment: Increasing the duration of Mauga’s burn effect will help better reward going for the smaller, harder to hit targets.

Ramattra

Pummel

• No longer pierces barriers.
• Now deals 2.5x more damage to barriers.

Developer Comments: Ramattra’s Pummel projectiles passing through barriers was a source of frustration for players trying to protect themselves or their allies. With these changes enabling Ramattra to deal critical damage to barriers, he will still be a valuable hero choice against barrier mechanics, but won’t immediately apply damage to players on the other side.

Reinhardt

Barrier Field

• Health reduced from 1600 to 1500.

Developer Comments: This is just some fine tuning for the barrier health and regeneration rate as it had become slightly too tough to break through.

Damage

Hanzo

• Base health increased from 225 to 250.

Developer Comments: We are reverting Hanzo back to his previous health now that it’s possible to take out an opposing Hanzo with a well-aimed headshot thanks to the weapon damage changes.

Sojourn

Railgun

• Energy no longer stops degenerating at 25 energy.
• Time before energy degeneration begins increased from 7 to 12 seconds.

Disruptor Shot

• Damage per second increased from 60 to 80
• Now generates 25% of damage done to enemy players as Railgun energy.

Developer Comments: These Railgun changes swap out the 25 minimum energy it decays to for a longer time before it begins to degenerate which alleviates some of the pressure to quickly use the secondary fire. Disruptor shot is getting a damage increase to helps its effectiveness as an area denial tool, andlong with additional utility through generating a small amount of Railgun energy to make it more broadly useful.

Sombra

Hack

• No longer ends Stealth but does reveal Sombra.
• Hacked ability lockout effect duration reduced from 1.5 to 1.0 seconds (EMP duration unchanged).
• BOB hacked stun duration reduced from 10 to 3 seconds.

Stealth

• No longer passive and now activates by using Translocator.
• Now has a 5 second duration.
• Added stealth timer around the reticle and removed ability icon.
• Taking damage now reveals Sombra for 1 second instead of ending stealth.

Translocator

• Cooldown increased from 5 to 7 seconds.

EMP

• Ultimate cost increased 12%.

Opportunist

• The Opportunist passive has been added back in.
• Increases Sombra’s weapon damage versus hacked targets by 20%.
• See critically injured enemies through walls.

Developer Comments: This is a significant change to Sombra’s playstyle in the hopes of making her more interactive for the opposing team and shifting some of her power from the utility of Stealth and Hack into increased lethality.

Stealth having a limited duration less than the Translocator cooldown is intended to create brief windows of vulnerability. It still enables Sombra to cross through dangerous areas unseen, but to really hang around in the enemy backline will require moving from cover-to-cover similar to other flanking heroes. No longer having the stealth movement speed removed upon taking damage also enhances its usefulness as an escape tool.

Support

Baptiste

Biotic Launcher

• Primary fire recoil reduced by 30%.

Developer Comment: This change is aimed at reducing the fatigue resulting from controlling the recoil over longer periods of play more than trying to add power to Baptiste’s primary fire.

Brigitte

Repair Pack

• Cooldown increased from 5 to 5.5 seconds.

Developer Comment: Brigitte’s healing output over the course of a match is quite high, so this is just a slight adjustment to help bring that in line.

Juno

Mediblaster

• Falloff range reduced from 30-50 meters to 20-35 meters.
• Healing per projectile reduced from 6.5 to 6.

Developer Comments: Juno’s healing output is too high for how much mobility she possesses so we’re shortening her falloff range to increase the importance of positioning well with her mobility abilities.

MAP UPDATES

Clash Updates

• Capture time on the final objective points A and E now increases for Attackers as segments get secured consecutively from 1x /1x / 1x to 0.7x /1.1x /1.4x, to make the first segment easier to capture for attackers but consecutive ones harder.
• Defenders now respawn instantly as the first segment and second segment get secured instead of when the previous objective points B or D get captured.
• Unlock time for final objective points A and E has been increased from 25 seconds to 27.5 seconds.
• Decay rate on final objective points A and E have been doubled for attackers to not lose their progress as quickly when stepping off the point.
• Capture time for defenders on objective points B and D has been increased by 10% to give attackers more opportunities to attack the point.

Developer Comments: We want to reduce the number of one-sided stomps occurring in the Clash game mode. We also want to address the difficulty of securing at least one segment on the final objective points as attackers. So, we tweaked the capture time for the defending team to make the fight for objective points B and D a bit more favorable for attackers.

Individual Map Updates

Circuit Royal

1st Point

• New exit options from attackers initial spawn to reduce spawn camping.
• Initial high ground right flank brought in and access adjusted to reduce spawn camping.
• Cover options added.
• New far side flank option to contest defenders on the high ground by the bridge.

2nd Point

• Improved spawn protections for attackers leaving the second spawn area to reduce spawn camping.
• Additional cover added while pushing high ground for attackers.
• New flank added for attackers to take rear high ground by the chicane.
• Hill lowered slightly and road angled forward to make approach for attackers slightly more comfortable.

3rd Point

• Improved options for attackers leaving the third spawn area to combat spawn camping.
• Flank route to high ground pool area widened and additional cover added to increase play options in this space.
• Sightlines improved for attackers to poke at entrenched defender positions in the final area.

Dorado

1st Point

• Starting high ground cover and access has been adjusted to reduce spawn camping.
• Flank routes have been streamlined for attackers.
• Various geometry adjustments to provide more favorable gameplay opportunities for attackers in the market area.

2nd Point

• Staircase added for easier attacker access to the high ground.
• Added access to the courthouse for attackers.

3rd Point

• Cover added after the chokepoint on the main path.

Havana

1st Point

• Reduced sightlines into the attackers’ spawn.
• Added new options for attackers to exit their spawn.
• Reduced oppressive high ground vantage points for defenders.

2nd Point

• Widened doorways and certain routes for cleaner navigation and flow.
• Closed small holes through certain assets to block sightlines and projectiles.

3rd Point

• Redesigned attackers’ spawn interior and added additional routes for a safer attacker exit.
• Sightlines from the fort wall to spawn and main route have been reduced.
• Pathing into the fort has been consolidated on one side for cleaner flow and to give both teams more options while in combat around the final chokepoint.

Numbani

1st Point

• Attackers’ initial spawn room has been pushed a lot closer to first point to reduce runback times.
• Lowered some high ground around first point.
• Easier access to flank routes around first point.
• Combined the paths in the building behind the payload on first point – one room that connects everything.

2nd Point

• Forward defender spawn points have been added to reduce runback times for defenders.
• A staircase has been added near attackers forward spawn for easier access to high ground.
• Added a connecting path past and above the choke into third point.

3nd Point

• Relocated a pesky sign.
• Removed a tree.

BUG FIXES

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug that caused some players to be unable to purchase golden weapons.
• Fixed a bug where the Voice Chat Devices setting was unable to be changed.
• Fived a bug that caused Adrenaline Junkie achievement to sometimes not grant.

HEROES

Baptiste

• Fixed a bug with Baptiste’s Zombie Walk Emote.

Sigma

• Fixed a bug where Sigma would not gain Overhealth for Juno’s Mediblaster.

Reaper

• In a previous update, fixed a bug that caused exit sound enemy reaper’s shadow step to not play.