Overwatch 2 Perks accidentally nerfed one of the most annoying DPS heroes

Overwatch 2’s new Hero Perks system gave certain characters new life and viability, but other heroes were left in the dust with niche Perks that make them even weaker.

Sombra is one of Overwatch 2’s most controversial heroes, a character with an intensely polarizing design with the ability to stealth and lock other players out of their abilities. But she’s also historically weak, sporting some of the lowest win-rates in the game as her carry potential is lower than other DPS characters in the game with low damage and kill potential.

In many ways, this makes Sombra a character people often don’t enjoy playing with or against, which puts her in a precarious situation balance-wise. Blizzard’s fear of buffing her completely is reflected in her niche Perks, which are not only weaker than most of the other DPS characters but actively work against her to the point that many Sombra players just don’t pick a Major Perk at all.

Sombra can’t keep up with the other shiny Hero Perks

For starters, Sombra does not have a solid selection of Minor Perks. Unlike other heroes like Wrecking Ball, whose perks were effective in covering up his major weaknesses without eliminating them completely, Sombra’s Perks don’t address anything in her kit at all.

Activision Blizzard

Viral Efficacy is her first Minor Perk, which reduces the cooldown of her Virus ability by 3 seconds after an enemy affected by Virus is eliminated. This Perk does not contribute to her low kill potential and only comes into effect after she gets a takedown. With how Sombra has to retreat and weave in and out from a fight, this Perk is effectively worthless.

This makes her CTRL + ALT + ESC Perk the better option, which starts her passive health regeneration after using her Translocator while on critical health. Translocator is an effective escape tool already, so the effect of this Perk isn’t too beneficial either, although there are moments where the passive heal may come in clutch.

Sombra’s Major Perks actively sabotage her

Unfortunately, her Major Perks don’t do much in the way of upgrading her either. Many Sombra players have stated that these Perks actually come with significant drawbacks, and some even opt not to pick a Major Perk at all, which is an obvious disadvantage when you consider characters like Tracer, who received three bonus blinks as one of her Perks.

White Hat is her first Major Perk and allows her to hack and ally, healing them for 100 health. This sounds decent on paper, but when stacked up against many of the other Major Perks, and a 100 heal that puts her Hack on a cooldown begins to sound a bit underwhelming.

Blizzard

However, players’ main complaint about this Perk is that in the chaos of a typical teamfight, it’s difficult to hack your intended target since you can hack both enemies and allies. With the low reward of a basic 100 burst heal, this makes White Hat feel counterintuitive as a Perk.

Meanwhile, her second Perk, Stack Overflow, extends her Silence duration on her hack by an extra second, but decreases her Hack range by 30%. One extra second of Silence is relatively strong, but getting the Hack off without getting hit becomes more of a challenge and a huge detriment against certain match ups.

Sombra’s win-rate unfortunately still lands at one of the lowest DPS win-rates in the game with a 47%, making her one of the most ineffective Damage characters in OW2. Still, with promises of buffs on the horizon for weaker Perks and new Perks altogether, the hope is alive that Sombra will get some Perks worth using going forward.

While Sombra may be one of the losers of the Hero Perks patch, there are other heroes worth picking up with great new Perks that you can check out. Check here to see what the best Perks you can take for each hero are.