A 150+ hours Symmetra Main's Thoughts on the Rework

Now that the weekend has passed, I felt that it was time for me to give my thoughts on Symmetra’s rework. To introduce myself, I am a Symmetra main. I have been playing Symmetra since before her first rework and have put in over 150 hours on her as my most played hero. The goals I wish to accomplish in this post are 1) Identifying why Blizzard’s current method of reworking is flawed, 2) Identify the aspects of a successful rework, 3) Compare Symmetra’s current kit to the most recent proposal, 4) Detail how the rework should proceed, and 5) Encourage Bizzard to communicate openly and frequently with us on every stage.

FLAWED REWORK
Before I officially start this section, I would like you all to keep, what are in my opinion, the two most important aspects of a successful rework in mind. They are 1) The rework improves the selected hero (buffs them), and 2) The rework does not alienate long time users of the hero.

TURRETS
To begin on why this rework is flawed, it is my opinion that Blizzard has skipped a crucial step in the rework process, improving on Symmetra’s current kit. Geoff’s comments highlighted some information about their rework ideology. He stated that they tried Symmetra with healing turrets. He described this as awkward to use and not better than damaging turrets. After that they began testing a new deployment method, projected turrets. In addition to that change, several other change were made. The new version of the turrets have increased damage, slow potential, health, and the amount of turrets Symmetra can hold has been reduced to three.

Lowering the amount of turrets is where the rework begins to go south because this reallocates the functionality of her turrets rather than increasing their functionality. With half as many turrets, Symmetra’s application of them changes. The new turrets will devalue flank monitoring, anti-stall, and distraction. The use of a single Symmetra turret on a flank patch can provide a team with the information needed to change their current strategy. A dying teleporter or shield gen can do the same. A flanker after a far off ult leaves their team in a 5v6 situation. With less turrets, the ability to protect flanks and backlines is diminished.

If you’re like me and routinely play Attack Symmetra, you probably understand that she is the best anti-stall hero in the game. A Symmetra with turrets on the point creates a challenge for the defending team because they won’t always have the time to focus her six turrets and the enemy team. The new turrets would be easier to focus down due to their limited number but wouldn’t necessarily kill faster. I really want to highlight the distraction aspect of her current turrets because it’s more influential than people give it credit for. Time and resources (ammo) spent on the turrets is less on Symmetra’s team, weighting fights in her favor. A McCree using 2 shots to take out turrets are shots not put into a healer or a tank. What I would recommend is adding the new projecting functionality onto her current turrets, improving their flexibility.

TELEPORTER
Building off of increasing, rather than reallocating functionality, lets focus on the teleporter next. The change to the teleporter is right out of the Mercy rework and turns her ultimate into an ability. However, unlike how resurrect is still resurrect, the function of the teleporter will be changing completely. The teleporter, as is it on live servers, functions as a delayed Mercy resurrect. It allows Symmetra to bring her teammates back into the fight, keeping the pressure on the enemy team. It can also be used to make high risk plays such as backcapping. The new teleporter functions solely as a repositioning tool with the added bonus of teleporting unconventional things such as D.Va bombs. The problem I wish to address is not the new teleporter, but the abandonment of the old teleporter. There seems there is no reason to discard the older original ultimate. Certainly the new teleporter can be added to Symmetra using the second weapon system Torbjorn and Mercy use. This iteration of Symmetra needlessly discards a useful, powerful, and very balanced (in my opinion) part of her current kit.

PHOTON BARRIER
Having read the section on the teleporter you’re probably wondering what will happen to the Photon Barrier if the new teleporter shouldn’t replace it. It is my opinion, that the Photon Barrier should stay and functionality from the Shield Generator be added to it. My proposed change is that when damaged is blocked using the Photon Barrier, all of Symmetra’s allies close to her (think Lucio aura radius) gain decaying shields similar to Doomfist’s passive. The amount of shielding increasing with the amount of damage blocked. This would provide a skill (gamesense) based trade off between blocking damage and key abilities. Having said that, let me make a case for the why the Photon Barrier even in its current form should stay.

The Photon Barrier is one of the most versatile, skill requiring aspects of Symmetra’s kit. It is key to not only Symmetra’s survivability, but her teammates as well. The barrier can be used to block more than just pure damage. It can be used to block hooks, sleep darts, flashbangs, sniper sightlines, Earthshatters, D.Va Bombs, and Barrages. It can be used proactively to help facilitate a push or win the shield war, or it can be used reactively to block key abilities. In my opinion, Photon Barrier needs only a few tweaks to improve it. First, lower the cooldown from 10 to 8 second, Second, spawn the barrier closer to Symmetra to fix issues of certain projectiles bypassing the barrier, and Third, upon pressing E the Photon Barrier stays in place for up to 1.5 seconds. While that number is subject to change, I chose it to prevent Symmetra from turning into a budget Reinhardt and to allow for Symmetra and her teammates to get more use out of the barrier.

PHOTON BARRIER ULTIMATE
Since this is the new suggested ultimate for Symmetra, I want to go over it. The new suggested Photon Barrier Ultimate is an infinite in size 5000 health barrier. It would be placed similar to Mei’s wall and the orientation could be changed similarly. It is obviously, very dramatic, but how could it be applied. The most immediate use that comes to mind is winning shield wars. It has the potential to allow lower damage team compositions to win against those with higher damage outputs. The other outstanding application is splitting fighting zones into two. The barrier would heavily disrupt enemy fire and provide Symmetra’s team to shield dance.

While the ult is interesting, there are questions that have to be answered. How would EMP affect it? What are some changes we could make to the barrier? Can we give it thickness?

SECONDARY FIRE
I don’t actually have much to say regarding the secondary fire. The proposed speed increase looks really good. It will make her better at range and allow for skillshots. I only wish it still pierced because it was good at pressuring Bastions and Torb turrets. The interaction with draining barrier health sounds interesting but I’m concerned that it will hurt tanks, namely Reinhardt too much.

PRIMARY FIRE
There is no way to sugar coat this. The lock-on aspect of the primary fire should not change. Overwatch was designed with accessibility in mind. A fact easily supported by Overwatch’s accessible cast including Junkrat, Reinhardt, Winston, Brigitte, Lucio, Mercy, Moira, and Symmetra. And yes, while some of these heros require more aim than others, the reality is that they provide for disabled gamers. Removing Symmetra, as an accessible hero, when she has been accessible since launch, is inane. Do I want a better, more viable Symmetra? Of course I do. I have mained her since I got the game before the first Halloween Event. I played her through her first rework. I took her into comp and climbed to mid Plat. I played her through dive. I even played her when Moira orbs destroyed my turrets. I want her to be better, but not at the cost of alienating my fellow Symmetra mains. I want disabled players who’ve been playing her since the beginning, like I have, to keep playing her. I don’t want to hear that a disabled player had to stop playing their favorite hero because her accessibility was removed. PLEASE, don’t limit the options of disabled players. I’m not asking for every hero to become highly accessible. I only want the heroes that were designed to be accessible to remain accessible.

To finish off this post, all I can do is ask the devs to seriously consider what I’ve written. Try to improve on Symmetra’s current kit rather than overhauling it from the beginning. Try out some of my suggestions and record some video for us or better yet, put these changes on PTR so we can all try them. Let the players be a part of the balance process. I know you’re going to read this post, so please respond to it. If there are problems with my suggestions, say so. PLEASE communicate with us openly and frequently.

TL;DR

  • Improve on Symmetra’s current kit before overhauling it
  • Add projection to current turrets
  • Keep old teleporter and add new one
  • Keep Photon Barrier with improvements
  • Secondary fire looks good
  • Keep the lock-on
  • PLEASE communicate with us
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While I’m sure her primary fire will ve less accesible, I think it won’t be as inaccessible as it’s being made out to be.

They said it woud still have a very forgiving hitbox. That makes me think a Moira beam, but even more forgiving. Almost like how her primary works now.

I just think we should wait until she comes out on ptr before we get too speculative. They said she is still in progress. None of these changes are set in hard-light.

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I agree with everything stated in this post, I feel that the rework has decided to completely remove the progress made upon the previous rework, which actually did a lot to improve her.

I’ve had Symm as my most played since launch and after the first rework, my competitive ranking soared and reached high diamond, it was a huge stepping stone into creating a viable Symmetra. Evidently it worked, until dive meta and all of Symmetra’s counters became more common.
Despite this I like Sym 2.0, because it still feels like the hero I love playing and I’d rather play her in her current state than the ideas presented in the rework.

Don’t get me wrong, a rework is needed to alleviate issues within her kit, but this current rework isn’t going to solve the problems Sym mains have been presenting for a while now.
Waiting for it to drop on ptr will make the functionality of her new abilities clearer, but I also think that concerns and faults within the theoretical design need to be expressed and other options for improvements need to be listened to.

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So, turrets.

The thing with Symmetra’s current turrets is that they are useless, and even more so as you climb up the ranks – people know where they will be, they have faster reaction times, hero swapping happens more often, people don’t get clogged in chokes as easily, etc. Symmetra’s current turrets provide effectively nothing than a basic skill check for the enemy to cross. There’s no depth to the turrets, on any given map you only have a few places you can possibly stash them. You also run into the problem of each turret being ineffective by itself, which puts Sym into a predicament; does she spread out her turrets to cover more ground, but get pretty much nothing out of them besides acting as a trip alarm? Or does she keep them close together, knowing that they’ll all break at once, especially if one monkey happens to wander in?

The turrets have always had bad design. With 1 HP and barely any effect by themselves, on top of having a huuuuge amount of time wasted setting up the turrets in the first place, they’ve never been good. And unfortunately, a lot of people are pulled to the turrets as being one of her defining features.

The situations in which you describe the turrets working as “flank monitoring, anti-stall, and distraction” just frankly do not happen. They do not happen, at least, not regularly and consistently or impactfully enough to make note about it. Turrets do almost nothing to actually deter flankers, especially since most flankers have an escape out of any sentry trap, and will just find a way to walk around the hazard. Anti-stall and distraction are very idealistic circumstances, this is assuming an offensive Symmetra has worked up until the objective is being captured, and infamously, Sym doesn’t really accomplish that. Even if you do want some anti-stall or a distraction, there are better heroes and abilities fitted for that situation. Sym has some capabilities here, but the fact that turrets are difficult to set up and yet easily blown down makes them very ineffective. Again, this trait here is only effective at lower ranks where players can be stopped by a simple skill check.

Less turrets but making them more effective is a great trade off, especially with this projectile implementation. This is absolutely a boost in her capabilities. Turrets will now live longer, she can set them up much more efficiently, and the utility they provide has been boosted, most notably in a way that better counters what is most active in the meta i.e. high speed. Sym will be able to better work with her turrets to make her individuals plays, rather than just setting up cans for the enemy to spit down.

The teleporter change will greatly open up her creative options. I think this alone gives Sym a breath of fresh air, which is something else she’s needed. Her abilities as they currently are just weren’t made for Overwatch, not what it is today. Turning the teleporter into an ability provides a lot of interesting uses and makes her an active player in the game. And while you may have liked the teleporter/shield gen ultimates, I can safely say most people did not, and one of those people is Mr. Overwatch Meta. Passive ultimates like this just don’t compliment any composition, because you have to justify dropping some other, better ultimate for it. Do you drop Transcendence for 75 extra health? Do you drop Valkyrie for the chance to teleport the team back to the fight? Or do you drop a DPS ultimate, like Tactical Visor or Deadeye? Symmetra’s ultimates have always been underweight, and appropriately so, that’s been one of the biggest things holding her back. They just lack any real depth and strategy, and again, serve as a basic skill check for the enemy that, once crossed, nullifies Symmetra.

Photon Barrier currently is… pretty useless, much because a character like her with a barrier like hers just doesn’t add anything meaningful. You can list off all the strengths of barriers if you want, but that’s universal to all barriers. You wouldn’t run a Sym in place of an Orisa or a Reinhart or even a Winston just because of her shield. While it’s nice to have, it was definitely a big buff to what she originally had, it just doesn’t do enough. I agree that they could have changed it and made the barrier better, but at that point, you have to look at allllllll the people who call the game “Barrierwatch” and tell them, “No, seriously guys, we need ANOTHER barrier in the game, but this one also adds extra health to the enemy when you shoot at it!”

Which, by the way, I like to think with Brigitte in the game and Torbjorn looking to get a more effective rework himself, I think there’s enough extra health in the game. Extra shields, in particular, never did much to actually support anybody meaningfully. At most, you allowed your healers larger windows to heal up wounds, but the passive healing effect never gets a chance to be seen, and Sym is generally holding up a healer’s slot anyway, so in place of having double healers, you instead have one healer that has a slightly better chance of healing allies under fire. It’s just not a good trade – that’s sort of the trend with Sym, as you can tell.

Little note, I think you may have gotten the secondary fire and primary fire abilities a little mixed up. Specifically, it’s her primary fire that drains shield health and turns it into ammo, not her secondary. Small detail.

There’s a lot of discussion about disabled gamers and Symmetra, and I think everyone needs to accept that the issue is complex. With any hero change, you’re going to have people who will not be able to adapt and have to be left behind when making the game a better experience for everyone. Even small changes can be enough to make someone quit that hero forever. With Sym, we need to understand that applying auto-aim to her weapon was holding her back. It was a trait that may have made her more accessible, but it limited so much of what she could do.

I also think we need to be patient and wait to see how exactly the new beam operates. The only details we’ve gotten about it are that it’s… thick, and it deals more damage. I would not be surprised, honestly, if the effective DPS of the weapon remains the same, because while there’s greater room for error, you’re more easily dealing greater amounts of damage. It will likely depend a lot on how the individual player uses her, but in most hands, I’m confident the output will be pretty similar.

Sym’s kit is broken. It just can’t be fixed with tweaks and small changes. There are core aspects of what made Symmetra that exist and continue to hold her back. The Sym we know is a hero made for another game. If we want to see Sym be viable across broader levels of play, she’ll need deep changes. They’re gonna come, anyway. Blizzard has already put the manpower into changing her, they’ve already called in the voice actress to record new lines. It’s too late in the process to try and contest a rework when this rework has been going on for months, we just don’t see it.

And that does bring me to your communication point. Look, I would LOVE to live in a world where developers can tell us everything. But it’s not feasible. Developers cannot keep us up to date with every little thing they’re doing. This thread is an example of why, the changes haven’t even gone through onto PTR, we haven’t even had a video or anything showing the changes in action, all we have is what the developers have rambled about and yet here we are debating how effective these changes are going to be. What is Blizzard supposed to do? Release every detail along the process and then keep undoing that progress until 100% of the community is satisfied? And then test it on PTR?

Development in games just does not work like that and I say, let them make their own video game. They’re professionals, we’re not, it’s their game to develop, not really our’s. Communication happens when it does for intentional reasons, and really, I’m just glad we’ve gotten any update on this situation, where in the past we’d definitely still be in the dark. Blizzard has gotten quite a bit better lately with keeping us informed, so this is at least something they’re improving on.

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