I’m the Sombra player from your nightmares—if I’m on your team, that is. I’m bad at her and I know it, but even worse, I just don’t care because I love playing Sombra. She’s the most fun Overwatch 2 damage hero, and I can’t control my impulse of going stealth and hacking Ana on the enemy team’s backline.
Will I die doing that? Hell yes. But that won’t ruin the fun.
I first enjoyed playing Sombra back in the day when she could farm her ultimate by healing allies and herself through hacked health packs. That was the kind of supportive style of a DPS character that was very fitting for a healer like me.
After years of being twisted and turned by balance patches, Sombra reached the dangerous point where she is today: right between “fun to play” and “hard to master,” where players like me just won’t stop playing her even when their teammates are begging them to switch.
And while my aim is terrible and I get overconfident when I one-vs-one a support (I even died to Mercy once), there are some feelings and special moments I only get when I’m playing Sombra.
Only take what I say as gameplay advice if you want to leave Elo hell from the wrong exit.
Being invisible is good if you’re too scared to play
The one thing that keeps me away from playing damage heroes in Overwatch 2 is when I see my enemies, they see me. I’m not old, but my reaction times aren’t that of an 18-year-old tryhard anymore, so most of my duels are lost before they even start.
Related: Top 4 tips to improve your aim in Overwatch 2
Sombra’s ability of being invisible just helps me bridge that mechanical skill gap that will likely always exist between me and my opponents. Why get better when you can just pick a character who will solve your problems for you?
The pleasure of hacking and getting a kill
Having a below-average aim makes every kill feel very rewarding. With Sombra, the damage boost I get when I hack someone helps to make up for my erratic spray control, and I need to hit way fewer bullets to secure a kill than if I didn’t have a hack.
Getting the same result with less effort is great.
Support vibes
I can use Sombra’s abilities to put the blame on my teammates when I can’t do something useful, just like when I play support. If I hack D.Va, the whole team should focus her and get a kill, or at least push her back. If they don’t, I can say I did my job and split the loss with my teammates and ultimately put the blame on them for not helping me.
An easy escape
You see the common theme already, right? Sombra’s Translocator allows me to play very aggressively and take risks I can’t with other heroes unless I’m sure I’ll win a duel or put my team in a better position.
I can safely spray and pray if I have my translocator placed. If things go wrong, I’ll just teleport out.
Having a big ult
The thing I hate the most about mechanically intensive heroes like Doomfist and Genji is hitting buttons perfectly to pull off a big play. With Sombra, though, all I have to do is farm my EMP and press Q. That’s a massive disruption, and I love seeing that red aura around the enemies while my team just rolls them—all because I pressed Q.
Related: Overwatch 2 will make players godlike again with return of popular mode in season 4
Getting free kills
Sombra’s built-in wallhack lets me easily see what opponents I should focus for an easy kill due to their low health. Taking down an enemy DPS cowering in the backline because they’re weak makes me feel like a real threat, for once. I’m in control, and when they think they’re safe, they’re actually not.
Counter to noob traps
The turrets from Symmetra and Torbjörn don’t have thermal vision like Widowmaker, so they can’t see me when I’m stealthing as Sombra. It makes it much easier to just position myself in the perfect spot to destroy these turrets and let my team run through whatever area they were struggling to cross.
Back capping
There’s no better feeling in Overwatch than punishing a greedy team.
When they’re defending a point or payload way too far into my team’s territory, that’s my time to shine with Sombra. While it’s rare, I usually get an opportunity to silently push the payload alone or steal a percentage of the area in maps like Midtown’s first point and Dorado’s second point, where it’s easy for the defending team to get super excited after a wipe and set up close to the offense team’s spawn.
I just stealth, run past them, unstealth, and steal some points for my team. While I don’t always actually secure a win, I at least force one or two enemies to move to the point and allow my teammates to receive less pressure.
Watching Pharah drop like a fly
Pharah is just the worst hero to fight in Overwatch 2 because vertical movement isn’t something FPS gamers are used to. To consistently beat her, you either have to practice vertical movement for weeks or play Sombra to hack that human-bird to the ground and spray her down. The latter is surely best and faster.
Spraying down big tanks
Hacking Reinhardt, D.Va, and Wrecking Ball is particularly pleasant. They’re usually very annoying to take down because of their shields or high mobility, but Sombra can just disable both and add some vulnerability to that diving ball or aggressive Reinhardt rushing your backline. Also, it’s way tougher to miss shots when there’s a giant target right in front of you.
Playing in Bronze
All the tips, plays, and advice I gave so far are questionable. That’s because I’m actually a Bronze 5 DPS player. I’m not really ashamed to admit that; I think that’s part of what makes playing Sombra fun to me. There’s no ladder anxiety and no fear of losing ranks because I suck. I can just play ranked and have fun because there’s nowhere to go but up.
On a positive note to most of you reading this, I’m in Brazil so it’s unlikely we’ll ever be matched in Overwatch 2. But I hope that after this article, whenever you see a bad, stubborn Sombra player simply refusing to switch heroes even though they have one kill after five minutes, just remember me and know they’re probably still having a lot of fun while you’re all grumpy and complaining about it.
