A Sym Main's Explanation as to Why TP Shouldn't be Treated as Pure Team Utility (Balance and Design Perspective)

General Discussion
1

If you recognise the title, you may remember me from

A Sym Main’s Explanation of Why PTR TP is Still Too Static

and

A Sym Main’s Explanation of How PTR Sym Teleporter Change is Essentially a Revert

Unfortunately the points in those threads are still relevant. But today I’ll be talking about why tp shouldn’t be considered as just a “team utility” tool from a balance and design perspective, but rather should just as importantly also function as sym’s self mobility. There’s 2 main reasons for this, holes in sym’s kit and low team demand.

Holes in Sym’s Kit

The 2 core issues that have been plaguing sym’s viability throughout most of her existence has been:

  1. lack of reasonable ability to get herself in and out of her short effective range (yes, this includes orbs) like other damage heroes

  2. lack of reasonable ability to stay alive in her effective range once there to be able to do her job like other damage heroes. esp with all the delays in her kit.

With being utility-centric in theme, abilities will have to somewhat double in purpose if sym isn’t going to get a rework for her other abilities to address the above core problems. It should be noted that pretty much no currently viable damage hero faces this issue to the level sym does (only really bastion does tbqh, pharah not so much) and have well defined ways in their kit to reasonably and independently get in their effective range and stay there long enough to do their job. As such seemingly is the standard/the point to draw the line.

Why “But this is a team game. Just depend on your team” doesn’t cut it.

A hero requiring a team pocket to simply have an opportunity to do their job isn’t a healthy notion especially when:

  • players are rewarded individually

  • most players single queue (can only duo in GM+ anyways)

  • not every player will have compatible hero pools or even compatible skills to enable you that opportunity

i.e. locking a hero’s opportunity to contribute meaningfully behind your teammates actively going out of their way to play in a specific manner to your will not only isn’t fun, but is making rng matchmaker too much of a factor in success rather than the player’s input whilst playing said hero. This is pretty much the same reason why supports and tanks have damage/self defence capabilities too rather than being absolutely completely reliant on the rest of their team to peel/damage.

Note: this was also one of the big reasons why sym2.0 and torb got reworks (remember the “sym/torb mains/onetricks are selfish for playing a hero that requires me to play around them for success” complaints?).

The only time issue 1. above wasn’t an issue for sym was the old 3.0 tp, i.e. 10s duration with 12s cd starting on activation. Because unlike now, old 3.0 tp was frequent enough in casts to allow dynamic and fluid moving and repurposing of tp for sym to adjust to the situation to optimise tp utilisation, e.g. use it for herself to get in, get out and escape where necessary when the team didn’t need it. And this leads nicely to the 2nd main reason.

Low Team Demand Compared to Individual Self Demand

The fact of the matter is, team uses for tp are very situational and no team needs a tp in 1 static place for long periods of time. No team needs a static skip choke, spawn, insurance, highground, etc. tp for a long time. If a team actually does, there’s a larger problem at play.

Even this long play in world cup by the pros, was literally ~10s of active tp

This is especially so given the recent tank balance overhaul making them, and consequently teams, reposition much more often (i.e. less commitment to a static spot → need to move sym structures more rather than have the team bunker down around them). Not to mention the upcoming push mode in OW2 with more moving objective modes.

And quite frankly, the time a team would need such uses cumulatively would be a low portion of the match time compared to the time a sym would want to use tp to engage, disengage or escape as those uses are much less situational. e.g. when sym can use tp for herself she can:

Conclusion

In conclusion, sym’s tp should not be considered as a pure “team utility” ability when it comes to balance and design, because it’s necessary to fill in holes in sym’s kit and the opportunities/time for “team utility” uses simply aren’t as high/frequent/applicable as self movement uses like engaging a target and/or disengaging from a fight.

Disclaimer

I’m not saying that sym tp should be 100% self mobility. However it should be, at the very least (in favor of self mobility for reasons stated in the above sections) that tp is 50% team utility, 50% self mobility when thinking, discussing or considering tp’s balance and design.

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