Hero balance in Overwatch 2 is a fickle thing, and lead hero designer Alec Dawson has his hands full ahead of season four, which is set to come out next month.
Along with introducing a new hero, the team is looking to make some changes to multiple heroes for the sake of keeping the game in a playable state, and in an interview at the end of last week, Dawson mentioned a few specific heroes that may be in line for some type of rework.
Talon’s Mexican hacker Sombra has historically been one of the most infamous heroes in Overwatch. While the character hasn’t necessarily been an oppressive force in the game, her toolkit, which includes invisibility and hacking, is especially annoying to opposing players.
Though her power level often has required team synergy and coordination, the way that she can go undetected into enemy backlines and prevent players from using their abilities is frustrating, even if she isn’t a mainstay in the game’s meta.
Twitch streamer FitzyHere is perhaps the most popular Sombra in the game, and while he isn’t an Overwatch League caliber player, his unique approach to Overwatch has made him the foremost gamer when it comes to understanding and analyzing Sombra’s place in the game’s meta.
Hearing that Dawson referred to his favorite character as a “problem child” that is likely in line for yet another potential “rework,” Fitzy openly acknowledged that Dawson’s perspective is “understandable” considering the game’s current state and the dev team’s goals of reducing crowd control in Overwatch 2. Crowd control became an issue in the original game toward the end as CC became increasingly oppressive and hurt its playability.
While Sombra is among the least-picked heroes in the game and also has one of the lowest winrates among DPS, according to Overbuff, Fitzy maintained that the character is still in a “playable” spot, and he seemed concerned that any changes could effectively nerf her into oblivion.
In a video posted to YouTube, Fitzy thoroughly broke down Dawson’s comments on Sombra and attempted to make sense of what may come of the purple-haired hero. Admitting that Sombra’s stealth ability makes her inherently difficult to balance, Fitzy’s biggest concern seemed to be that the team might believe she is too powerful, even though she’s not particularly well-represented in the game’s competitive ladder.
“It’s not like she’s a strong hero per se,” he said. “She’s decent right now, and by ‘decent’ I mean playable, but she also has enough counters. … She doesn’t really need the nerf.”
