I have adopted more of a no hack playstyle. can you explain why either playstyle is viable at your elo? kinda feel like theres a lot of diversion over whether you hack before you virus or not
If I hadn’t decided to finally take a break from this game then this would have inspired me to play again. I’ve been a sombra main since day 1. Still gonna watch the video though, maybe I’ll learn something new. Thanks for the video!
I am entirely new to Sombra as of this season, so I've got a couple of questions. 1. Some videos have advised that Sombras should refrain from using the hack + virus combo due to giving away your position, while it seems that you use it in most of your engagements. Which of the two philosophies would you recommend for someone who is brand new to the character? 2. When looking at the enemies' lineup, who should I immediatley place a target on when playing Sombra? I.e., if there's a Mercy, Zen, Widow, Tracer, D. Va, who am I prioritizing?
Hacking before Virus is hero-specific. Most top like 10 Sombras I've seen will say "If you can't tell me what ability you were hacking, then you shouldn't have hacked." It gives your opponent the ability to respond, and therefore increases how likely you are to miss your virus. Your hack can also be interrupted by damage. I might hack a Soldier or Tracer first for example. You don't deal extra damage to hacked targets, so for example hacking an Ana or Zen is next to useless. Sure, it increases Virus damage but increased chance of missing your Virus is usually not worth it when you still melt people with Virus + primary fire.
I agree, as a sombra main myself, I hack targets that benefit from being hacked first like soldier since he won’t be able to use his healing while I’m damaging him. Tracer is actually not good to hack unless she’s fighting someone on your team. The reason is because tracer can blink, cancel your hack and just avoid you. With tracer you want to force recall by using virus. Once she recalls you get out. She isn’t a counter to tracer, that fight is a skill issue for the tracer. Also, hacking doom out of block and focusing him down with your team is huge.
I am by no means a good sombra player (heck, i don't even main her, I main tracer), I'm gold 4, which makes me below average (the average player being high gold/low platinum), so i'll speak more from what i've heard from good sombras. 1. Hacking someone to kill them is somewhat situational. The damage you get from hack+virus is not as high and fast as simply virusing and shooting. Also hacking before virus increases their time to react and dodge virus. You only hack someone to kill them if they have a major cooldown that helps their duel against you, like moira fade/orb or soldier healing station. Always hack mercy's res or ultimates like moira's coalescence or sigma's gravity flux. 2. You should always be putting some pressure by dealing meaningful damage (damage that threatens a kill) instead of hard flanking. Do not chase them mid fight if they are inacessible or pocketed, because you will lose time and pressure on the fight. That being said, zen and widow are almost target practice to a sombra since they are slow, big targets with big heads. Don't hack them, that gives them more time to react, just virus+shoot. If they escape, translocate and go back to killing them once your cooldowns recharge. Mercy is almost as defenseless as zen and widow. She can at least fly away with her guardian angel (GA) and has a smaller hitbox. Don't chase her during valk or if she's pocketing someone. She's some of the few heroes against which hack is an actual threat since it takes her guardian angel away. About tracer, I think she has an advantage against sombra if she's competent. Try to duel her and if it doesn't work, go for a different flank/off-angle or at least try to pressure her in her flanks. With Dva, as with any tank, you shouldn't actively go for them unless the enemy team is very distracted and/or separated, since usually the bulk of the enemy team is around the tank, so avoid going in and 1v5ing them. But if you don't have anything better to do at that moment and it won't screw your positioning, shoot the tank.
@@anthonyfarias5076 your 1st point is correct, it is in fact situational. Hacking does increase the damage per second but In light of her recent buff, hitting a hacked target with virus does 50 impact damage for a grand total of 150 over 2 seconds I believe. Yes, hacking them does give away the element of surprise but if you do it in a team fight and you go behind for one of the supports. They’ll have to make a decision of continuing to heal their team and die or turn around and deal with you which in turn still denies heals to their team so you can get out. I like to hack the shimadas too cause they can’t climb if they have to and genji loses deflect. Your second point is also correct. If you can get an off angle and just put pressure/land a virus you can actually get the kill sometimes if they don’t pay attention to you or a teammate can finish them off. In addition, I almost always use emp to cancel an ult since the enemy team will push up with that ult and if you emp the team say when bap windows, they’ll be caught with their pants down. Whoever says hacking is useless is also wrong. I hacked a soldier yesterday and you saw him behind a wall go high ground for a visor. My team saw this and we were able to jump him when he got up there and stuffed his push and also got his Lucio who peeled for him so the good old 2 for one special. That was off just a hack, which didn’t do anything but reveal his positioning.
1.Honestly for someone brand new to the character, I'd try to get the aiming down for hitting the virus, that's the reason people say to refrain from using it as much just because you could miss it then it'll be hard to get out ( even though you could just throw your translocator in the air to get out or over a building ) but yeah I'd get the aiming down on it so it's more fluid like how I do it, and usually the closer the better for throwing a virus out after the hack, but yes you could just use the virus alone without hacking, I always tend to try to get that hack first to get the maximum amount of damage possible even though it is more risky. 2. I mainly focus, say if that's the line up, it would be Zen because you can burn him down fast with a hack plus virus combo, or just virus then spray him down, Mercy is a little tougher since she can get away pretty fast and avoid your virus/hack but is still a great target to go after, Widow would be a main target as well just because she needs to be dealt with, a good Widow can make your team lose the game, so you always wanna put pressure on her and annoy her, kill her or make her swap heroes, Tracer is always a good one because you can hack her pretty fast ( she's not really focused on you as much so stay invis and try your best to get that hack off so she can't use recall, you'll find yourself killing a lot of tracers with a easy hack, D. VA you wanna hack her when you can yes, but after you deal with Zen or the Widow for example, but if your front line is getting pushed alot then of course focus hacking on the D. Va and let your team know that she's hacked to try to de mech her. So all those targets are good targets, just some are harder to kill than others, it all depends on the scenario your in and how many people are alive, who's winning the fight, like do you need to kill that Zen quick to turn the fight around? or does your team need the D. Va hacked in order for them to de mech her so you can win that first engagement? it all depends. Hopefully this helps and the other comments from others help as well :)
Woah thanks for this guide. I really enjoy the in game footage you use to explain when to use her kit. I’m facepalming because I stay invisible for way too long and I try to hack at the worst times. Appreciate the guides!
You’ve probably figured it out already but you don’t do *more* damage to hacked enemies. However your virus does full damage over time twice as fast if you hack first. In her current state, virus without hack deals a total of 75 damage over 4 seconds. Virus with hack deals the same 75 damage but over 2 seconds.
I have adopted more of a no hack playstyle. can you explain why either playstyle is viable at your elo? kinda feel like theres a lot of diversion over whether you hack before you virus or not
If I hadn’t decided to finally take a break from this game then this would have inspired me to play again. I’ve been a sombra main since day 1. Still gonna watch the video though, maybe I’ll learn something new. Thanks for the video!
I appreciate it! Thank you for watching the video anyways!!
I am entirely new to Sombra as of this season, so I've got a couple of questions.
1. Some videos have advised that Sombras should refrain from using the hack + virus combo due to giving away your position, while it seems that you use it in most of your engagements.
Which of the two philosophies would you recommend for someone who is brand new to the character?
2. When looking at the enemies' lineup, who should I immediatley place a target on when playing Sombra? I.e., if there's a Mercy, Zen, Widow, Tracer, D. Va, who am I prioritizing?
Hacking before Virus is hero-specific. Most top like 10 Sombras I've seen will say "If you can't tell me what ability you were hacking, then you shouldn't have hacked." It gives your opponent the ability to respond, and therefore increases how likely you are to miss your virus. Your hack can also be interrupted by damage. I might hack a Soldier or Tracer first for example.
You don't deal extra damage to hacked targets, so for example hacking an Ana or Zen is next to useless. Sure, it increases Virus damage but increased chance of missing your Virus is usually not worth it when you still melt people with Virus + primary fire.
I agree, as a sombra main myself, I hack targets that benefit from being hacked first like soldier since he won’t be able to use his healing while I’m damaging him. Tracer is actually not good to hack unless she’s fighting someone on your team. The reason is because tracer can blink, cancel your hack and just avoid you. With tracer you want to force recall by using virus. Once she recalls you get out. She isn’t a counter to tracer, that fight is a skill issue for the tracer.
Also, hacking doom out of block and focusing him down with your team is huge.
I am by no means a good sombra player (heck, i don't even main her, I main tracer), I'm gold 4, which makes me below average (the average player being high gold/low platinum), so i'll speak more from what i've heard from good sombras.
1. Hacking someone to kill them is somewhat situational. The damage you get from hack+virus is not as high and fast as simply virusing and shooting. Also hacking before virus increases their time to react and dodge virus. You only hack someone to kill them if they have a major cooldown that helps their duel against you, like moira fade/orb or soldier healing station. Always hack mercy's res or ultimates like moira's coalescence or sigma's gravity flux.
2. You should always be putting some pressure by dealing meaningful damage (damage that threatens a kill) instead of hard flanking. Do not chase them mid fight if they are inacessible or pocketed, because you will lose time and pressure on the fight. That being said, zen and widow are almost target practice to a sombra since they are slow, big targets with big heads. Don't hack them, that gives them more time to react, just virus+shoot. If they escape, translocate and go back to killing them once your cooldowns recharge. Mercy is almost as defenseless as zen and widow. She can at least fly away with her guardian angel (GA) and has a smaller hitbox. Don't chase her during valk or if she's pocketing someone. She's some of the few heroes against which hack is an actual threat since it takes her guardian angel away. About tracer, I think she has an advantage against sombra if she's competent. Try to duel her and if it doesn't work, go for a different flank/off-angle or at least try to pressure her in her flanks. With Dva, as with any tank, you shouldn't actively go for them unless the enemy team is very distracted and/or separated, since usually the bulk of the enemy team is around the tank, so avoid going in and 1v5ing them. But if you don't have anything better to do at that moment and it won't screw your positioning, shoot the tank.
@@anthonyfarias5076 your 1st point is correct, it is in fact situational. Hacking does increase the damage per second but In light of her recent buff, hitting a hacked target with virus does 50 impact damage for a grand total of 150 over 2 seconds I believe. Yes, hacking them does give away the element of surprise but if you do it in a team fight and you go behind for one of the supports. They’ll have to make a decision of continuing to heal their team and die or turn around and deal with you which in turn still denies heals to their team so you can get out. I like to hack the shimadas too cause they can’t climb if they have to and genji loses deflect.
Your second point is also correct. If you can get an off angle and just put pressure/land a virus you can actually get the kill sometimes if they don’t pay attention to you or a teammate can finish them off.
In addition, I almost always use emp to cancel an ult since the enemy team will push up with that ult and if you emp the team say when bap windows, they’ll be caught with their pants down.
Whoever says hacking is useless is also wrong. I hacked a soldier yesterday and you saw him behind a wall go high ground for a visor. My team saw this and we were able to jump him when he got up there and stuffed his push and also got his Lucio who peeled for him so the good old 2 for one special. That was off just a hack, which didn’t do anything but reveal his positioning.
1.Honestly for someone brand new to the character, I'd try to get the aiming down for hitting the virus, that's the reason people say to refrain from using it as much just because you could miss it then it'll be hard to get out ( even though you could just throw your translocator in the air to get out or over a building ) but yeah I'd get the aiming down on it so it's more fluid like how I do it, and usually the closer the better for throwing a virus out after the hack, but yes you could just use the virus alone without hacking, I always tend to try to get that hack first to get the maximum amount of damage possible even though it is more risky.
2. I mainly focus, say if that's the line up, it would be Zen because you can burn him down fast with a hack plus virus combo, or just virus then spray him down, Mercy is a little tougher since she can get away pretty fast and avoid your virus/hack but is still a great target to go after, Widow would be a main target as well just because she needs to be dealt with, a good Widow can make your team lose the game, so you always wanna put pressure on her and annoy her, kill her or make her swap heroes, Tracer is always a good one because you can hack her pretty fast ( she's not really focused on you as much so stay invis and try your best to get that hack off so she can't use recall, you'll find yourself killing a lot of tracers with a easy hack, D. VA you wanna hack her when you can yes, but after you deal with Zen or the Widow for example, but if your front line is getting pushed alot then of course focus hacking on the D. Va and let your team know that she's hacked to try to de mech her.
So all those targets are good targets, just some are harder to kill than others, it all depends on the scenario your in and how many people are alive, who's winning the fight, like do you need to kill that Zen quick to turn the fight around? or does your team need the D. Va hacked in order for them to de mech her so you can win that first engagement? it all depends. Hopefully this helps and the other comments from others help as well :)
Woah thanks for this guide. I really enjoy the in game footage you use to explain when to use her kit. I’m facepalming because I stay invisible for way too long and I try to hack at the worst times. Appreciate the guides!
Same I'm going to to go try and mabey get into ranked
Is this really true that u do more dmg on hacked enemies? Every online wiki don’t mention this.
You’ve probably figured it out already but you don’t do *more* damage to hacked enemies. However your virus does full damage over time twice as fast if you hack first.
In her current state, virus without hack deals a total of 75 damage over 4 seconds. Virus with hack deals the same 75 damage but over 2 seconds.
is character is so trash no skills required