Clearly, Sym is not working. She needs to be totally reworked, yet again. She had a hard time fitting in at the start, and it continues to be a problem in the OW2 beta.
Since OW2 has been turned into nothing more than objective based, death match modes, Sym really needs a rework more than ever before.
Ive already suggested 2 years ago that Sym 4.0 needed to be a thing, because she didn’t work well then, and still doesn’t work well on live, but they just abandoned her. They can no longer ignore the problem because they have fundamentally changed the game.
Overwatch has always been lacking in the Support roster, and to take someone away from that simply because you didn’t know how to balance her was the wrong move. We can not afford to lose support heroes, and the game never worked well with “defense” heroes anyway. OW2 certainly doesn’t support “defense” style heroes either.
Also, the “Tank” category NEEDS to be renamed into “Brawlers” but that’s another topic.
I am going to just piggy back off of a Sym 4.0 rework I suggested for OW1, and adapt it for OW2.
Sym - Support
- HP changed from 100/125 to 150 health and 50 shields (200 total HP)
- Removed Teleporter
Passive: Photon Aura
Primary Fire: Energy Orbs
Secondary Fire: Shatter
Ability 1: Sentry Turret
Ability 2: Pylon
Ult: Photon Barrier
Passive: Photon Aura
Sym radiates a shield generation aura around herself providing allies with instant bonus HP.
- Aura size:
1020 meter radius - Shields provided: 50 HP shield per ally in range
- Decay rate: 12.5 shield per second when outside Sym’s aura (4 seconds)
Photon Projector - Primary Fire: Energy Orbs
Energy Orbs are now Sym’s primary fire. Energy Orbs do not change size with charge
- Energy Orb damage: 66 (33 impact/33 explosion)
- Max ammo increased from 70 to 100
- Ammo cost increased from 7 to 10
Projectile size reduced from 0.5 to 0.4- Reload time reduced from 1.35 to 1.30
- When a Energy Ball hits a barrier, Photon Projector does not gain a level, however it instantly refunds the ammo of that Energy Ball
Energy Balls no longer have a manual charge up time and now work like Mei’s Icicles with automatic charge up included in the shot
- Cast time:
0.30.4 seconds
Energy Ball damage projectile size and projectile speed is dependent on Photon Projector charge level. When a Energy Ball does damage, it rewards a charge on Photon Projector, up to level 3. After 2 second of no damage, Photon Projector loses 1 level of charge
Photon Projector Levels
Photon Projector Level 1
Energy Ball damage: 90 (50 impact/40 explosion)- Projectile Speed:
5045 meters per second - Projectile Size: 0.4
Photon Projector Level 2
Energy Ball damage: 95 (55 impact/40 explosion)- Projectile Speed:
4550 meters per second - Projectile Size: 0.5
Photon Projector Level 3
Energy Ball damage: 100 (60 impact/40 explosion)- Projectile Speed:
4055 meters per second - Projectile Size: 0.6
Photon Projector - Secondary Fire: Shatter
Sym shatters any shields currently provided by Photon Aura on allies and self for area of effect damage and grants temporary shield HP to a currently aimed at ally with Photon Projector
Using Shatter places Photon Aura on cooldown as well
- Shield provided: 100 HP shield at targeted ally
- Range: 30 meters
- Decay rate: 25 shield per second (4 seconds)
- Damage radius around shattered ally/self: 8.5 meter radius
- Cooldown: 8 seconds
- Cooldown on Photon Aura: 4 seconds
Photon Projector current charge level modifies the damage of this ability
Photon Projector Level 1
- Damage: 75 explosion
Photon Projector Level 2
- Damage: 85 explosion
Photon Projector Level 3
- Damage: 95 explosion
Ability 1: Sentry Turret
Sym places a Sentry that always priorities lowest HP ally in range over doing damage to enemies. Sym has 3 charges of Sentry Turret. Placing a new Sentry destroys the old one.
- Sym can now only place 1 Sentry Turret at a time
- Ammo: max 1 on field, 3 charges
- Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds per charge
- Travel speed increased from 15 to 20
- Deployment time reduced from 1 to 0.5 seconds
- Sentry health increased from 30 to 50
- Range increased from 10 meters to 12 meters
- Healing: 45 health per second
- Damage increased from 40 to 45 damage per second
- Movement speed reduction on targets totally removed
Ability 2: Pylon
Sym builds and places a hard light pylon that pulses with energy causing movement impairing and enhancing effects
- Build time: 1 second
- Range: 25 meters
- Health: 200 (50 health, 150 shields)
- Duration: 8 seconds
- Cooldown: 16 seconds
- Cooldown starts when Pylon in placed
- Radius: 10 meters
- Movement speed reduction to enemy: -25%
- Movement speed buff to allies: +25%
- Pylon acts as a jammer and locks out enemy movement abilities, and stops movement abilities in progress
Ult: Photon Barrier
Sym retains her current ult, as it was always more of a support ult anyway
I feel like this rework adds more skill and cohesion to her kit and gives her a strong identity as a shield focused healer.
Her play style would allow for supportive or offensive flows in combat by setting up combos with her Pylon, Shatter and Sentries to secure kills, disengage or engage and allows for last second life saving plays.
Teleporter is removed because it was too situational and utility focused which no longer fits into the extreamly fast paced flow of OW2.