Everyone agrees on that part.
You are actually wrong on this point. Sym 3 beam does less damage. It only looks good on paper, in a real world the damage is far inferior even with good aim. And it is partly due to your next point so I will explain more after that…
Here is where it gets interesting. Sym 2 ramped up after 1s for each stage, Sym 3 after 2s each. So basically Sym 2 tier 3 is the same as Sym 3 tier 2. Think about that for a moment people. Compare the beams… At start 2.0 does 30 damage guaranteed and 1 second later did 60 guaranteed. 3.0 does only 60 possible even after that one second later. This means that 3.0 with higher than 50% accuracy is slightly better for the first second, then for the next second is significantly worse unless you maintain 100% accuracy. Now after 2 seconds 2.0 does 120 guaranteed, while 2.0 does 120 only with 100% accuracy otherwise it is again significantly worse. Finally a full four seconds after starting 3.0 unlocks its final “bonus tier 4” version of tier 3. And proceeds to only do 180 possible dps which means anything less than 67% accuracy is still less than old tier 3 of 2.0.
And all of that proof of how bad 3.0’s beam really truly is needs to be considered even before you stop and consider how badly the new beam is effected by armor compared to the old beam, and how the new beams are all but useless against mobile heroes. But more on the mobile heroes after your next point.
This is true for highly mobile heroes like Genji and Tracer. The loss of lock-on hurts most versus them. For everyone else the loss of lock is not an issue. What ‘is’ a most important issue is that the devs failed to raise the max damage up enough to off-set aim loss for even world class aimers much less average players. But yes lock on was useful against mobile heroes like Genji, Tracer, or Doomfist. It made her very slightly counter them so at least a fight was more down to strategy and skill and reaction times than a one sided beat down. (Wasn’t one of the things people complained about the fact that there were not enough counters to them… yet Blizzard got rid of one of the few there were…)
I think this again is agreed by most Sym players. 3.0’s orbs are a useful tool, but so were 2.0’s version.
I definitely do miss this. But that being said new sentries are highly useful as well.
100% agreed. Worst decision Blizzard made in the rework in my opinion was to remove Sym’s only defensive skill.
I tend to agree, but this is subjective. Some Sym players prefer the new tp because it can be used for backline dives or turret bombs. And at least at the team tournament level it can be useful. The only fault I give Blizzard on this one is they failed to understand that on the QP / Ladder level, which is 95% of the game, such coordination doesn’t happen.
100% agreed. Almost all of my best 2.0 Sym play occurred after I had my ult up and could really go to town with a healthy damage resistance. Next to the loss of the toss out barrier, the loss of SG is my 2nd biggest regret and comes close to being biggest regret.