no, people would often get flamed and harassed and possibly reported because they played an offense hero on defense
Reworks
So I wasn’t keen or liked the reworks but OW in its current state Sym 3.0 is the best fit for that.
Neglect of Playerbase
Sym has always had a low pick rate and is a niche character.
This is not a reason to buff a character at all.
While you may have a point about the lock on the beam the issue with it was once you hit certain levels of the game it wasn’t about out-skilling teams but hoping they make a mistake, Sym 3.0 like or not it much more viable in all levels of the game.
Also, if you want to talk about Neglect and fail to mention how there is a Reddit made around sym (9k members) and many content creators that make guides and stream content which blizzard has highlighted at many different times. You not presenting a thesis but a one-side opinion.
Hero Favoritism
Maybe true, but it’s pure speculation. Honestly, sym got 2 reworks and lore recently to say she’s a victim of favoritism is a stretch at best.
Honestly, I take the best intent approach and blizzard has tried to make her more viable in many different ways but since each rework causes complaints and stuff like this to the value of trying diminishes. There is also a thing that you could ruin the hero’s playstyle totally if you want to make her compete with Mcree every game.
Character Traits
Saying sym shouldn’t be the way she is or the way she looks because she won’t be popular, is a terrible viewpoint.
Toxicity
This is a OW problem not a sym problem.
Thesis
While a lot of the conclusions you draw are flawed, if Sym is a failure of character it’s not because of the reason you’ve listed and the biggest issue with your opinion I have is you list her looks and character traits as part of the problem if we want to design characters to appeal to racists and discrimination, I’d rather not have the hero.
My hot take…
If you consider Symerta a niche hero that’s goal is to be a unique hero over being just another hit scan, she is an absolute success.
In all ranks on certain maps, she is currently best in slot to the point she is played in up to Top 500 by dps’s that do not main her.
While she is a harder hero to one trick, it is possible to play and win at all levels of the game and climb to top 500.
The issue most people have with Sym are because she is a niche hero, strong on certain maps and with certain comps but much weaker in other places but has a skill ceiling so high it can be outskilled. People that want to one trick don’t want to switch and don’t want to put the time in to learn tp strats with people or turret placements so they just want her to be a mcree. The problem is if you want to change her to the point she is more balanced on all maps the amount of changes you would need to make, you may as well add a new hero.
Personally, I love current sym because I play her as a niche hero meaning when I get a map she is strong on with my time investment I’ve put in usually win (she is my highest winrate dps at 63% in comp (100% this season)).
Now, yea I agree the reworks kinda sucked they could have added sym 3.0 as a different hero or an alternate mode for Sym but Sym 3.0 is good and I don’t think you should ruin a niche hero just because someone in plat is losing games because they won’t learn the required tech with her or switch.
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Wait really? I’m also on the spectrum and I haven’t seen anything bout Sym being autistic?
assuming it’s true, that would be hilarious, isn’t reaper like one of the first two hero they designed alongside tracer ?
In December 2017 the Jeff mentioned Symmetra and he said that they want to buff her a little.
A few months later we got Sym 3.0 and all of her abilities where nerfed/removed.
I really hate how they lied.
5 Likes
here’s the T in how this opinion is wrong.
a niche character is only balanced if their performance in their niche is proportionally stronger for how narrow it is. Otherwise there’s absolutely no point in making the character niche and objective it means they have waaaay more weaknesses than strength.
If their niche is so narrow that it is unreasonable or infeasible to have them strong enough in their niche to compensate how weak they are elsewhere, they F’ed up HARD.
This latter bit right here is sym right now.
her needing like a specific deathball comp playing a specific strat (deathball team pocketting her) and to only be “good” (i.e. above average, not anything near “must pick”) on specific points of koth is simply too narrow of a “niche”.
I have “niche” in quotations because it’s not really even a niche from her strengths but ather because of how much she’s been trashed in balance that it’s the only way to feasibly play her.
if anyone actually spends time to analyse her kit, it’s blatantly obvious why her state is so bad. From order of importance:
Orbs
Her orbs are literally one of the worst numbered projectile weapon fires in the game.
Why put a sniper tier low fire rate (i.e. encourage aiming) on a weapon fire while making the projectile so slow that aim physically can’t matter much in most ranges irrespective of its max orb size (see quoted numerical proof below)?
if it’s meant to be a spam weapon fire, why does it have a sniper-tier fire rate leading to 120/(1s charge up + 0.25s wind down) = 96dps which is lower than a body shotting mercy pistol (100dps)?
Numerical proof on how inconsistent orbs are:
TP
Given the above explanation of how bad orbs are (for both spam and as an aimed projectile), you can easily conclude that sym’s effective range is short. And obviously sym’s sustain isn’t much. So tp legit is her way in and out of her effective range whether to damage or zone.
but what did blizz do in 2019? they trashed the cd mechanic. Here’s a visual representation of how:
Non-serialised (i.e. most other abilities and sym’s old 3.0 finite tp):
timeline of cd: |-------------------------------|
timeline of getting value: |+++++++++++| ability down time |
Serialised (i.e. Sym’s current infinite tp):
timeline of cd: |-------------------------------|
timeline of getting value: |+++++++++++| ability down time |
when you include the fact that tp is sym’s way in and out of fights, we can see why infinite tp is such a hero killing nerf because tp’s down time translates a LOT into sym’s overall hero down time.
and you’ll also see another consequence of this cd mechanic is a LOT LESS casts —> less ability to adapt purpose and/or position to changing situations. which brings me to all the tank powershifts + nerfs we’ve had and what’s been revealed for OW2. the pace of the game has increased dramatically and is continuing to do so in the future.
tanks forced to move around more frequently —> what the best place and/or usage of tp changes more frequently —> sym needs to move or repurpose tp more often.
so VERY BLATANTLY, tp got 
HARD. and now she suffers massive amounts of down time because her kit doesn’t have anything meaningful to facilitate her own uptime as much as various typically viable heroes.
Primary
Do I need to go much into this? it’s problems are all summed up as “it’s a shorter ranged sustain damage weapon fire (i.e. needs prolonged use for value; esp since it starts at winston tier 60dps i.e. really low burst) on a hero that doesn’t have the needed sustain to use it”. which wouldn’t be much of a problem if orbs + tp weren’t so bad.
but because they’re so bad, what does sym have left for uptime? team pockets to enable her w+m1 because she’s not getting much uptime otherwise.
that’s it.
that’s the origin story of her “niche”.
And before someone tries to bring up turrets, no they don’t meaningfully add range, burst, sustain nor mobility to the overall hero’s gameplay.
they’re so fragile that they have to wait for targets to walk into their los, not target the enemy like you would with any typical weapon fire without consideration of destructibility. unlike most weapon fires, they’re destructible and have cd and not to mention targetting isn’t controlled by the player.
Solution
If we really want to let sym have more independence for her own uptime (because she’s really low on that atm and that’s like 1/2 of her core problems), what’d really extend her range and mobility, i.e. the “must haves” are:
- renumber her orbs to be an aimable midranged bursty (but lower fire rate) weapon fire i.e. renumbering them around being faster moving projectiles
- making tp have a better cd mechanic like old 3.0 finite tp e.g. (cd starts on placement, but pauses when it reaches halfway until destruction)
- making sym herself (not necessarily her team) able to interact with tp sooner after placement
better mobility —> “getting in range” would take less time which is something sym isn’t doing all that well with rn esp post infinite tp cd mechanic implementation.
throw in also better range (and hopefully a better balancing of burst vs sustain too in renumbering of orbs), this would also reduce the time for “getting in range” and in terms of mixing with tp, provide a LOT more options as to how that’d happen (i.e. more positions for self tp’ing to that let sym be in effective range of orbs).
and this further works out even better as it further bypasses the “iT’s lOW SKilL aND oPprESsiVe tO lOW raNkS” the typical “skill elitists” and sym haters usually
10 Likes
It happened when the balance requires a significant more effort and the resources consummation exceeds their capacity or return outcomes. then said hero’s balance/rework will be put on a back burner list.
That or Sym’s player base has never been that big and not exactly essential or integral to the OW’s experience as a whole. Look at Mercy, the hero who is arguably similar to Sym, but take note of how much attentions, resources that has been spent on her, almost like OW has to have Mercy, while Sym is kind of dispensable and more like an afterthought.
Maybe one day they will find a decent formula, or the perception about Sym will change like with Torb.
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Another problem is how many people decided ‘Support=healer’, and therefore Symm was a bad support. Trying to take a utility focused support and jam her into the dps role is like putting a square peg in the circle hole. She just wasn’t designed to fit, and without drastic changes to her core identity within the game she never will.
I actually hope OW2 the devs realize being a support doesn’t have to mean only having access to healing. There are so many forms of support you can provide without having a single healing ability on your character… kind of like how Symm, Sombra, Zarya, and Orisa actually do (its kind of funny that these four are arguably more support focused than an actual support hero like Moira…)
8 Likes
except anyone who isn’t an idiot and has actually spent some meaningful or quality time analysing her kit can see a very clear solution to dig her out of her hole without necessarily redesigning the whole kit.
I legit put the direction/solution in the reply just above yours. see here:
the fact that they were and STILL ARE so adamant about that stupid infinite tp cd mechanic just shows how little they know about sym.
2 Likes
After reading all that suggestions, all I can think of is: why not play Tracer or Echo if bursty orbs and less clunky teleportation are what you want.
the question is: why do they regret it? there are a million possible answers.
depending on the reason, it could give us an insight into how to fix this apparent problem.
They regret making defense matrix eat ultimates… and then they added sigma. 
4 Likes
For any non-Sym players, it’s kind of obvious. She was designed to do some specific things, if her team are on board with it. Once it failed, it’s time to go with a generalist.
They didn’t expect players to force Sym into a team where on one else wants her to be there 24/7
because neither echo nor tracer can zone like sym can. neither can they zip to the places sym can with tp (as safely that is nor back and forth as safely either). this sym would have more range than tracer at the cost of burst-iness and mobility (tho sym has more hp than tracer). and this sym would have more utility than echo at the cost of her burstiness.
sym would also be similar echo in the way in that sym can fulfill multiple roles (zoner, brawler, flanker, ranged poke), but covers different areas than echo (echo doesn’t zone and doesn’t really brawl). tracer just doesn’t have many roles.
if you want to just flank around, sure, echo and tracer likely would be better picks. if you want a different jack-of-all trades master of none than echo or well just a different set of coverage of dps sub roles, sym would be an option
not to mention your same arguments literally could’ve applied to ashe vs mccree vs widow vs soldier. i.e. yes they have overlaps, but they are still significantly different. as you add more heroes, hero redundancy will increase naturally.
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I would say Sym does do her job very well in that regard, for average ranks.
Unfortunately, high ranks want a full offensive strength, that s why Echo and Tracer will always edge out Sym.
And yes, Hitscans have their fair share of redundancy and overlap, the only difference is, hitscan players swap around all hitscan, while Sym refuse to swap to Tracer or Echo
- 10s min guranteed hero down time per tp simply just from tp cd itself
- >2s TTK on others while about everyone else has much lower TTK
- staple weapon fire literally trash as aimed fire (people can guarantee dodging direct shots and only getting splash fall off in 15m range) AND terrible as spam (legit less dps than mercy pistol body shotting)
- lack of quick escape despite not high sustain
are all massive problems that are all noticeable and significant in “average ranks”. “being good in lower ranks” is not a defence btw.
2 Likes
Your thesis WOULD have held value if it was posted years ago, it is too late and Symmetra to me is in a much better place that she’s ever been than ever before.
Considering that she objectively had a better tp, better turrets, a better wall and arguably a better primary before infinite tp nerf happened, and even then still was underpeforming across several metas, I highly disagree.
6 Likes
Symmetra wasn’t designed to fail.
She was designed to support & the community forced her out of that role into a role she wasn’t designed around, and she was never fully reworked to be designed around either Damage or Support role.
She is currently in a half-baked state of partially being designed around support, with some damage values tweaked.
I bet, if Symmetra was kept in the support role, they would have tweaked her abilities more on par with healing abilities, but with more shield manipulating abilities instead.
The value of being healed is too high, that they might have thought that pushing her into the Damage category was easier to deal with, since the community allowed that opportunity, rather than giving her better support abilities that give as much value as constant healing.
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mh i think i get you. and i agree. i DO think that sym could work in more cases than people think, but also once your team obviously doesnt cooperate, its time to switch.
i like having niche characters, as long as theyre not too niche.
so that you can expect to play them at least like… every 1 out of 4 games or so.
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