Fixing Symmetra For OW2

General Discussion
1

Hi everyone, these are my thoughts on how to fix the current version of Symmetra without implementing crazy new concepts that require extensive assets(vfx/sfx) to be made that could potentially throw us all into another rework situation down the line. A Sym 3.5, if you will.
Edit: I’ve also posted an updated/cleaner version on the Sym mains subreddit
Edit 2: This post was made before sym details of beta 2 was revealed so some of the points here are out dated, I’ve now posted a post beta 2 thoughts here

These changes aim to:

  • Help Sym stay in the damage class by making her damage reliable for OW2 while enhancing her utility to not be so clunky (support Sym will have to heal and I just don’t think its in Sym’s identity to do that, no offence to Sym)
  • Make her be able to hold her own like other damage heroes while still retaining key weaknesses.

Overall, Symmetra could be a very competent hero that you may genuinely consider picking over other damage heroes in generic situations.

━━━ SYMMETRA FOR OW2 (3.5) ━━━

New Passive: Photon Generator :small_blue_diamond: :diamond_shape_with_a_dot_inside: :small_blue_diamond:

  • ALL damage dealt to enemies or enemy objects (e.g. barrier, turret, mine, etc.) charges primary fire beam including secondary fire orbs and sentry turrets

Details:

  • Beam levels up to level 2 after having dealt 80 damage
  • Beam levels up to level 3 after having dealt 160 damage
  • If no damage is being dealt , it decays from level 3 to level 2 in 4.0 seconds and from level 2 to level 1 in 2.0 seconds
Comment: The damage thresholds are calculated from the beam dps (60/120/180) multiplied by the charge time threshold as it is currently (1.33 seconds) so if you only use beam to level it up, things should feel unchanged

This should make it so that Sym can charge her main damage dealer using alternative methods from a safer distance since the lack of shields and faster gameplay have made her much more vulnerable. When she does decide to go in, she’ll be going in with damage that isn’t laughable. Like if she had an Orisa barrier but since that doesn’t exist anymore, this’ll have to do.

In other words, secondary fire orbs and turret damage now also charges her beam.

New Alternate Weapon Swap: Photon Manipulator :raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed: :raised_hand:

  • Symmetra puts away her weapon for an alternate interface to reposition and destroy created teleporters, like Mercy’s guardian angel targeting but for teleporters

Photon Manipulator (Primary Fire): Reposition Teleporter

  • Select an existing teleporter and move it to another location within its range
  • While selected, the teleporters go offline
Photon Manipulator (Secondary Fire): Destroy Teleporter
  • Look at an existing teleporter and press button to destroy the pair
  • Can be done through walls

This should bring back some creativity in teleporter position. It would allow tps to be hidden once more or go around walls if the Sym dedicates some time to reposition them. It would not change how it is used now or in the heat of the battle since you would not have enough time. This is simply a quality of life change.

Teleporter Changes :large_blue_circle: :running_woman: :large_blue_circle:

Teleporter

  • Cooldown starts on cast
  • If destroyed while being damaged, ability goes on full cooldown
  • If self-destroyed while out of combat, ability goes on half cooldown or no cooldown
Comment: If you noticed, I pretty much copy/pasted Torbjörn’s turret cooldown mechanics since it is a FAR superior way to handle the teleporter cooldown. The issue of Symmetra accidently destroying her tp instead of going through it is fixed with the weapon switch mentioned above since it won’t be bound to the same key

Now for the Controversial Change:

  • Can now store two charges and two pairs of teleporters can exist at a time
  • Symmetra spawns with one charge of Teleporter and its cooldown is paused until the match begins. This is to prevent Symmetra from doing a double tp from spawn at the begining of the match
  • A new teleporter cannot be deployed if one received damage within the last 3 seconds and the max number of teleporters already exist. The Teleporter key will appear colored to indicate this.
Comment: I decided to keep the single tp from spawn functionality as it isn’t overpowered and it can create some very creative and interesting moments such as this one from the OWL

This is where it gets controversial. People complain when one tp play goes well, and now with two to worry about? It might send people over the edge.
But hear me out.
TP is a core ability that truly makes Symmetra stand out in the sea of damage heroes we have and it should be enhanced on to make it the quintessential reason to have a sym on your team. It has counterplay and it has its weaknesses. It can be destroyed before anyone goes through and if some players get through, even better because you’ve just split up the team.
A failed team tp play can spell doom on the outcome of the fight. But with two on the field normal players will utilise it and for the players that master it, it will unlock a whole new side to Symmetra. Plus, haven’t you wanted to do a friendly respawn tp for your teammates but realised you have to destroy your extisting tp and wait 10 WHOLE seconds? With this change you can have a tp in the back for respawns AND one for the fight.

Minor Changes:

Photon Projector (Primary fire) :straight_ruler:

  • Beam length increased to 15m to match Zarya’s beam

This is just a minor inconvenience I have with the inconsistencies of beam sizes we have in the game.
Photon Projector (secondary fire) :large_blue_circle:

  • There are requests for Symmetra’s orbs to be faster. However I think with the passive change I mentioned, I don’t think it will be necessary since she’ll be able to charge up from her orbs hitting anything. I’m not opposed to it though.

Thank you for reading, I’m curious as to what everyone’s thoughts are. I really enjoy seeing the discussion around this topic.
To reiterate: I really want Sym to be a competent hero that is unique enough to have her own gameplay identity and not be altered copies of other heroes.

Also shoutout to user GreyFalcon, I don’t think I would’ve been able to make this as neat and presentable without the post they made which shamed me into proper formatting.

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2

No worries. So if I’m reading this right;
Would this be removing the orb launcher, and put in that teleporter swap function?

And if it’s keeping the sentries, would this mean stronger sentry bombs?

Or would sentry bombs just not be possible?

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only 1 change needs to happen.

if you destroy your own TP and no one uses it.

CD should be reset. both for the accidental placements and for the stupid broken TP placements where it breaks itself for no reason

1 Like
4

this would keep her orbs if that’s what you mean
and she would get an weapon swap that’s just her hands like mercy’s gun or torb’s hammer, except its not for dealing damage, just moving around tp positions

I don’t think sentry bombings would change. I left out her turrets cause I’m not too frustrated with them. Plus I couldn’t even do reliable sentry bombing during the beta; everyone was moving around so quick

5

I feel like a majority of these changes are more QoL that make her feel a bit better to play, but doesn’t actually make her a better hero.

However, these:

Are actually major requests. The reason Sym hasn’t got a 15m beam length is because of how threatening a 180DPS death beam is. Increasing the beam length by 25% without any compensation nerfs will make her even more frustrating to play against.

The issue we have with Sym is the issue she’s had throughout every iteration - she is too frustrating to play against. The developers are really limited on what they can do with her kit without overhauling the functionality of gimmicks like turrets and teleporter that make her feel oppressive to play against when used well.

I went over this issue in a bit more detail here, and this is an issue the developers admitted to having with Bastion.

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6

So what if the weapon swap button brought up a Confirm / Cancel interface similar to deploying a Mei wall, or doing a Reaper teleporter.

Or alternatively, or the Sym teleporter in the weapon swap button.

And then use the other ability button for teleporter swapper

Or maybe have the teleporter swapper be a part of the deploy teleporter menu

7

I mentioned Zarya’s beam cause that’s just the closest we have to compare it to in terms of dps. Hers is 170 max dps but it seems Zarya’s got the better deal being MUCH more tanky. So having Sym be only 10 more dps, same length while being super squishy I thought balanced out.

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It’s also much easier for Symm to reach that damage though, especially if you extend her beam to a range that allows her to charge from a safe distance. Zarya’s DPS is constantly depleting, whilst being limited to cooldowns.

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In my head, when you weapon swap to her hands only, existing teleporters would be highlighted the way allies are highlighted for Mercy for guardian angel or resurrect. Then you left click on one and it would be like you’re placing a new one down but you’re just repositioning it.
To destroy one, you would look at it just like Mercy would to her allies and right click 'cept it would work through walls.
That’s the only way I can visualise this without replacing abilities.

I don’t think this would work if it were part of the standard deploy menu cause what if tp is on cooldown? You wouldn’t be able to bring up the menu?

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10

I’ll make it easy: revert the nerfs she has had since 3.0 was introduced, she’s fine then.

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11

She still needs an alternative way of charging her beam for OW2. Everyone is so spread out and she won’t have the safety of shields/tanks anymore.

2 Likes
12

if it’s starting cd on cast, then it’s not having torb’s turret cd mechanic…

also in regards to torb’s cd mechanic, realistically it’s not going to improve on current cd mechanic much at all because most of sym’s uses of tp involves being easy to be hit by enemies:

  • using tp to escape from a threat: aim at person trying to go through tp, they disappear, tp takes the hit, they’ll likely camp it or just destroy tp (force sym to not have it for 12s and thus 12s window to dive her) → cd for tp will be 12s

  • using tp to skip choke would most likely be in LoS of the enemy (not all skipping choke spots can be behind cover esp with LoS requirement between ends of the tp) i.e. easy to hit and aiming at tp user’s would consequently have some shots hit tp → 12s cd

  • using tp for flanks: same scenario as escapes when they see you

  • using tp to tank auto-aim deployables or moira

If it’s so frequent to trigger the max cd with this mechanic, it’s unlikely to really help with the clunkiness and rigidness the current cd mechanic.

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If Sym uses tp to escape and they destroy the tp in return to force cooldown, I think that’s a fair exchange since Sym should (hopefully) be in a safer position and not dead.
There should be some counterplay to tp. Shooting to damage it should be it.
If it’s still too punishing, we can reduce the time it considers “in-combat” from 3 seconds to 1 second and make self destroying tp when it’s out of combat yield no cooldown penalty instead of half.

14

except escape doesn’t necessarily mean they’re hard disengaging.
e.g.

like one can be kiting or one can go back/repurpose it for a kill.

except there is… destroying tp already stops the benefit of it. not to mention it’s already highly telegraphed with the entrances and how sym has to be close to use it and they pop out at the entrance making it easily camped. not to mention cc and boops easily ruin access to tp.

and this is all before we even talk about deployment time.

I mean… my point is that realistically it’s not going to change much from the current mechanic. there’s various realistic scenarios whereby there’s 0 benefit from your changes and it’s just ending up as the same as current cd mechanic…

15

You’ll still be able to dance back and forth between tps with these changes. And you’ll be able to create a new tp while the first is being damaged provided you dont have 2 sets of tps already out.
So if you have only one tp pair existing and the enemy is shooting that one, you can still create another one before they destroy it. Being able to hold two charges will help this out.

This condition is meant so that Sym can’t exploit the cooldown penalty if she already has 2 sets of tp down and one is about to be destroyed by the enemy.

Honestly, the restrictions I’ve put on these changes are meant to make them more palatable to the wider community who never play Sym and have a dislike for her. I would love it if these changes were Sym focused.

I would make:

  • Cooldown for destroying tp while it’s in combat only half of regular cooldown
  • No cooldown if self destroyed while out of combat

or Alternatively (the true Sym focused change):

  • Destroying a tp while it’s in combat incurs no cooldown penalty but instead reduces the max number of charges by 1 for a set time (half of regular cooldown)

This will make it so that if they do destroy your tp, you can still make another tp instantly. I would LOVE that.

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I am in favor of more radical changes. I am ready to roll the dice for a Sym 4.0 that would make her a better dps.

People call her a taxi bot and I don’t think leaning more into TP is a good idea.

I rather make her more fluid with less wind up time in her kit. In OW2 she suffers because of the lack of shields and choke points. She needs a better way to fend for herself.

If we are just tweaking Sym then here is my idea

  1. Increase beam length to 15m - increase her survivability as she can engage from a further distance as getting up close is hard for Sym with no defense or mobility.
  2. Remove level 1 charge and lower level 3 damage to 160
  3. Let her maintain her charge for longer - due to less shields in OW2
  4. Increase flight speed and set up time for turrets.
  5. Give her a defensive ability so she can be more independent - I do like her old moving shield
  6. TP changed to instant cast time, but with the caveat that it can only transport Sym and 1 other person - this would make the ability more strategic and less taxi bot.
  7. Faster orbs for more consistent damage instead of hoping someone walks into her orbs. Reduce orb size a bit to compensate for the faster orbs.
1 Like
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She did pretty well in the beta, I ran her and against her multiple times. I think its safe to say the lack of a second shield tank made up for lack of charge. Honestly at this point I don’t expect any changes to the kit in OW 2.

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Huh? You think Sym is fine for OW2? And you think she did well in the beta?

Sym currently was designed to be a shield buster that benefitted from stagnant slow tank comps especially with and against an Orisa barrier. She was made as an answer to the abundance of barriers in OW1.

The game just shifted majorly with the introduction of 5v5, sped up gameplay, reduction of barriers and the death of Sym’s best friend, OW1 Orisa (RIP).
The devs can’t just make all those changes and expect Sym to be fine. She’s stuck in the old times.

19

Yes I do. I played her a number of times, and against her. She was not helpless in the least. I think she might need some tuning (as in reverting half her nerfs) but she could easily turn OP too. The problem isn’t the design, the problem is the rate of deployment. She doesn’t need tons of shields around to be effective nor does she need a rework.

20

This sounds nice on paper but this would make her the ultimate TP bot (and enhance all of her already existing problems).

Imagine the following scenario:

  • Sym places her TP and her whole team uses it
  • Now Sym takes the entrance and puts it in front of her
  • The team takes TP again
  • Then Sym puts the entrance in the front again
  • Voilá. Another team tp
  • ect

You can constantly reposition with this and suffer from no cooldown.
Sym is already team reliant as hell and this makes it worse so it will be only used in OWL.
Nobody takes even 1 TP. Why would they suddenly use 10 in a row and play around her TP repositions?

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