Overwatch 2 Sombra rework revealed: New abilities, hack changes

The Sombra rework for Overwatch 2 has been revealed, with Team 4 giving the DPS plenty more damage tools than she once had. However, that doesn’t mean her hack is useless: While it doesn’t do as much crowd controlling, it has plenty of benefits.

Every hero is receiving a rework ahead of Overwatch 2, with Sombra’s being revealed in the lead-up to the Overwatch League 2021 finals.

The Overwatch 2 developers had one big direction they wanted to take Sombra in: Tone back the Mexican hacker’s disruptiveness but boost her damage.

“We’re reducing her CC abilities in line with larger changes to Overwatch 2 and giving her more potential damage,” game director Aaron Keller said during the September 25 presentation.

Overwatch 2 Sombra reworked abilities

New Sombra hack now shows enemies through walls

Sombra’s hack has been drastically reworked. The cooldown on the right-click hack has been reduced to around 3-4 seconds, meaning you can hack multiple targets in a fight.

While the ability lockout now only lasts for 1 second, you can now see enemies through walls for the entire 8-second duration. Sombra’s new passive also boosts her damage against hacked targets by 50%, helping her melt through supports and tanks alike.

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“She’s so tied to this crowd control effect, but we didn’t want to take the hack away from her ⁠— she’s a hacker after all. We wanted it to still be core to how she played,” lead hero designer Geoff Goodman said.

“We started looking at other effects that are still impactful but aren’t as brutal as just locking players out of their abilities for so long.”

Finally, in news to every Sombra main’s ears, you no longer need to exit stealth to hack targets. You can hack targets while stealthed (you’ll be briefly revealed during the channel) before cloaking yourself again.

EMP no longer removes shields, but does big damage

Sombra’s ultimate ability, her EMP, is also receiving big changes heading into overwatch 2.

EMP no longer just deletes shields and hacks, but will now do a base level of damage. The cast will deal 40% of the target’s current health, making it optimal to open up fights with.

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Because EMP also applies the hack, you will be able to hit targets for that 50% increased damage at the same time ⁠— really melting through teams at the start of fights.

The Sombra rework for Overwatch 2 will launch when the game does. When that is though remains to be seen.

You can find the finer details on all the changes below.

Overwatch 2 Sombra rework: Full changelist

Passive: Opportunist

• Now also deals 50% more damage to hacked targets

Machine Pistol

• Damage reduced from 8 to 7
• Spread reduced by 20%

Hack

• Cooldown reduced from 8 to 3 seconds
• Duration increased to 8 seconds
• Ability lock duration reduced from 5 seconds to 1 second
• Now reveals hacked enemies to Sombra’s team through walls for 8 seconds
• Cooldown is no longer halved when hacking health packs
• Health pack hack duration reduced from 60 to 30 seconds

Stealth

• Fade-in time reduced by 50%
• Detection radius increased from 2 to 4 meters
• Using Hack no longer removes Stealth, but Sombra does become briefly visible while hacking

Ultimate: EMP

• Removed: No longer deals any additional shield-specific damage
• Added: Deals 40% of enemies current HP

Translocator

• No changes