Whenever a new hero shows up, a certain learning period is expected. Let us help you skip part of that!
The Overwatch PTR is taking a big hit today, as noticed by queues of thousands of people. But for good reason: Blizzard patched in Sombra and the Arcade. While the editors have been enjoying both greatly, we will always be more interested in the elements that will impact eSports. Sombra is now available for pro players to test out, and we expect her to become available in events in the coming month.
Sombra brings a lot of new possibilities to the table. In the same way that Ana brought heal-negation and a gamechanging Ultimate, Sombra will bring invisibility, health pack-negation, a gamechanging Ultimate and a lite version of said ult. A lot will change when teams will be able to theorycraft and put into practice Sombra shenanigans.
Now, to talk about the main point of this article: her EMP's functionality. The description given for this ability says:
- EMP: Sombra discharges electromagnetic energy in a wide radius, destroying enemy barriers and shields and hacking all opponents caught in the blast.
With the hacking referenced involving the following:
- Hack: Sombra hacks enemies to temporarily stop them from using their abilities, or hacks first aid kits to make them useless to her opponents.
The important part of that description is the stopping abilities section, because we have already noticed not all abilities (including Ultimates) can be disabled. Below a quick and compact list of specific behaviour, excluding the obvious basic abilities that are disabled. Thanks to Ryan 'TruNerd' Smyth for the data:
- Genji keeps his Dragonblade active
- McCree's Deadeye is disabled
- Pharah's Ultimate gets interrupted and she loses use of her jetpack
- Soldier: 76, his lock-on ability remains usable
- Tracer's Pulse Bomb does not get removed from its target after the EMP
- Reaper's Death blossom gets interrupted
- Hanzo, once fired his Dragon attack is not removed
- Bastion does not get kicked from Tank mode, but EMP and Hack can be used to remove his Siege mode
- Mei's Blizzard remains functional on ground after EMP
- Junkrat's tire does not get destroyed by EMP even when Junkrat himself is hit
- Widowmaker's Infrasight remains active
- Torbjörn's turret gets temporarily disabled, and his own armour gets removed but his other buffs remain
- Roadhog has his ultimate removed
- Winston remains in his Primal Rage form
- Zarya's Graviton Surge is not removed from play after the EMP
- Reinhardt's Ultimate is not affected, but he does lose use of his Charge and Shield
- D.Va's Self-Destruct bomb is not disabled, but D.Va herself can't re-enter her Mech during the EMP duration
- Lucio, his Sound Barrier gets removed from all players in range
- Zenyatta remains in his Tranquility state and thus invulnerable
- Ana's Nanoboost perks remain active
- Symmetra's teleporter is not destroyed when hit by an EMP
- Mercy is still able to use her Caduceus Staff in both modes when Hacked
We hope that you will make good use of this information, and do not get surprised during your games!
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