About the "15m on Sym's Primary" Suggestion

General Discussion
1

Now that we have 16m on primary in the April fools experimental, I think we can now physically observe that although it does help and does feel better, it doesn’t actually do much in solving her problems. Namely because at the end of the day:

  1. sym’s team will still need to pump plenty of resources into her just to let her use her primary despite the range increase; and
  2. she’s still spending most of her time outside of primary’s range rather than within because the game is inherently set up that way (every time you or the enemy respawns, they’re faaaar away and both sides gradually converge somewhere; and also because of the above point) and still using orbs most of the time

Obviously because of the charge mechanic, blizz isn’t going to pump sustain buffs into sym to alleviate the first point because the amount of sustain to let sym have a lot of uptime with m1 largely on her own is basically tank level (see zarya as an existing benchmark; esp considering sym’s m1 is sustain damage) which would be OP and oppressive. And the 2nd point is just inherent for everyone unless they’re a flanker.

Hence why I’ve been saying all this time that the suggestion of “15m on Sym’s primary” doesn’t actually help her much and why such a change is more of a “nice to have” or “should have” rather than a “must have” in priority (using agile terms).

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). Not to mention that orbs numerically are underpowered right now (see proof below).

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

Numerical Proof that orbs are currently numerically underpowered

They have splash radius of 2m, diameter of 1m (source), they move 25m/s, and players typically move 5.5m/s.

So to retroactively dodge a perfectly aimed/fired orb, the target will when fired at 15m away from the target, they take 15/25 = 0.6s to reach the target.
In 0.6s, typical heroes can travel 0.6 x 5.5 = 3.3m > 2.5m projectile radius + aoe splash radius.
i.e. with reaction time included, a target 15m away can guarantee only taking splash fall off damage let alone considering longer ranges.

Clearly as an aimed weapon fire orbs are bad.
What about as a spam weapon fire? How does it compare with other projectiles?
Well the answers can bee seen in the following non-exhaustive table (specifically the bolded rows).

DPS shows the general value achieved from spamming the projectiles and the Dodgeable Direct Range row show essentially the effective range of the projectiles (as only landing splash is equivalent as landing fall-off damage esp considering splash damage has a fall-off gradient).
And as we can see, sym orbs, no matter what the charge level, is just bad for both spam AND an aimed projectile.

Mercy Pistol Sym 0 Charge Orbs Sym Max Charge Orbs Junkrat Pharah Mei Torb Hanzo
DPS (bodyshots) 100 ~20/0.25=80 120/(1 + 0.25)=96 120/(2/3)=180 120/0.85~=141.176 93.75 116.6667 100
Headshot Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes
Projectile Speed (m/s) 50 25 25 25 35 115 70 110
Projectile radius (m) 0.25 0.065 0.5 0.2 0.2 0.15 0.1 0.1
Dodgeable Direct Range Assuming 0.25s Reaction (m) 14.77273 6.545455 8.522727 7.159091 10.02273 31.88636 18.77273 29.5
Splash Radius (m) 0 2 2 2 2.5 0 0 0
Dodgeable Splash Range Assuming 0.25s Reaction (m) 14.77273 15.63636 17.61364 16.25 25.93182 31.88636 18.77273 29.5

Dodgeable Direct Range = at what range can targets retroactively dodge a direct hit from the projectile that had been perfectly aimed dead center on them assuming the target has 0.25s reaction time (upper average according to Human Benchmark).

i.e.

Dodgeable_Direct_Range = (proj_size_radius / avg_hero_speed + avg_reaction_time) * proj_speed

Dodgeable Splash Range = Dodgeable Direct Range but considering hits with splash range rather than directs (i.e. more lenient).
i.e.

Dodgeable_Splash_Range = ((proj_size_radius + splash_radius) / avg_hero_speed + avg_reaction_time) * proj_speed
6 Likes
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I tried it and tbh it didn’t change that much, only give you a sense of less danger because of range but as soon as the enemy have two range hitscan dps, the buff become almost useless again that its better to use the usual orb corner peaking tactic.
and i think the reason why it didn’t feel as powerful like zarya and echos beam is because she doesn’t have mobility like echo nor health and barrier like zarya to actually compliment for the range.

people be claiming it will make her OP but i don’t see that happening anytime soon, its just one of those fearmongering and claiming just to gatekeep her.

9 Likes
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Solution? Give her beam infinite range just like her barrier

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She always was best with a Mercy pocket but most Mercy players don’t really like pocketing one player, they will do it for Bastion and Pharah if they have to but don’t want another hero added to the list.

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:rofl:

widow who? sym’s the new hitscan sniper in town. if only :joy:
(not actually I wouldn’t like a sniper sym tbh)

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I went crazy when I found out they actually have an end to the wall : (

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I’m sorry what- there’s an end to it?

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Mhm : ( not so magically infinite as I thought

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oh she’d need a shield pocket as well. like 55hps alone isn’t going to keep sym in like ~15m of the enemy for like >3s for that kind of primary fire usage. and neither will blizz pump enough sustain in sym to let her do so because it’d easily be OP and oppressive.

that bolded bit is RIGHT on the money. like either it’s:

  • mobility + burst to compensate low sustain so it’s get in, BAM job done, get out like most flankers.
  • or have sustain damage but high sustain (which range can also help with that) to let her stay there long enough to get her job done.

the latter option obvs ain’t happening unless sym’s getting a tank rework to essentially become an indian zarya.

the former basically means rework beam to be a burst weapon and needing the suggested tp changes anyways. but at that point why not just renumber orbs for that seeing as it’s supposedly the burst weapon fire anyways and esp since current orbs have :put_litter_in_its_place: numbers?

hence why I’ve been saying those last few points in the OP as “must have” changes.

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Even if it was a sarcastic joke, the thing is that it kinda checks out, balance-wise. With how frail she is and lack of mobility, range should be the thing she has. I wouldn’t say infinite, but 30m? Yeah.

Now before you jump down my throat, I’m not saying I want that. But again, it comes down to mechanics and balancing the needs of characters. It’s kinda the inverse of Reaper. If you start a logical chain for a character to follow that he is going to have mobility and very short range, then he needs high damage when in that range to be viable. Nobody’s going to play Reaper for being locked into ~5m combat ranges with 60 dps.

Flipping that around, if Sym has nothing else going for her, yeah, it’d have to be range to make her competitive. And a lot of it, too. With this game’s very heavy emphasis on precision hitscan dominance, she needs to be viable in their range to be viable at all.

I’d rather go the other direction - keep her current range and instead give her buffs to mobility and damage reduction. I’d like to see an ExP card with both things tied into her primary as passives. You get level 2 beam, you get 7.5% damage reduction and speed increase. You get level 3 beam, another stack of the same. That way getting level 3 beam by itself gives you that mobility and survivability that would otherwise be her “suicide zone”.

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I’m not saying to not increase sym’s range at all, but rather do so where there’s actually meaningful capacity to do so. like at the end of the day even if you ignore or fix all the charge up problems and sustain damage problems, her primary will always be more situational compared to orbs because this game has been set up to make players start very far away from each other before converging somewhere and do so often (e.g. each time you or enemy respawns).

orbs and individual/self use of tp clearly has room for improvement and legit wouldn’t be as anywhere as situational compared to her primary so why not take that as our avenue?

there’s 2 problems with that:

  1. it basically leaves all the current problems there because you still need to pump plenty of resources to get that charge for the passives in the first place
  2. the movement speed boost + small damage reduction defs doesn’t compensate for the low range and low burst esp to the point of not really synergising much tbh.

not talking absolutes but the general paths for a shorter ranged hero is either:

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That’s the sort of thing that’s “six of one, half-dozen of the other”.

One of the primary (no pun intended) reasons Sym is so bad is that her primary and her secondary are both highly situational. You are correct in pointing out that one is, but fixating on just one is a bit odd since they’re in the same boat.

Now I do have one bias going into this I should specify. I’m not a big fan of making everything in this game long-ranged. One of the great parts about TF2 was being able to actually utilize most of the terrain in the level because the amount of viable damage at long range was quite small. This game has a lot already happening in the mid-range, and I don’t think it’s healthy for the game to get even more spam and firepower tossed around in mid and long ranges.

You can buff her orbs all you want, and you’ve just make a poor person’s Mei or Junkrat anyway. Either one will be better at it, with more utility and lethality anyway.

Meanwhile you can give her speed and damage reduction to give her a middling ground that currently doesn’t exist. She’d have speed…not Tracer speed, but she has more health and has precision damage to 12m. That’s fairly good. She’d have sustain…but not Reaper sustain since she only reduces damage and doesn’t recover health. So she’d have more range than Reaper and have better engagement options, more in-fight mobility and agility, and she’d readily punish careless shield use and definitely double-shield.

In all that, she still wouldn’t be as oppressive to tanks as Reaper, but again, she’d have more engagement and disengagement options, without being as slippery as Tracer. I definitely feel there’s room in the roster for that. She’d have more counterplay than either one, yet still more engagement options and more viability than she has now. A middle ground where she’s more fair for literally everyone involved. A lot more fair for Sym players, and more fair for the people she matches up against.

This is the high damage/high sustain you mention at the end of your post. Maybe she could also use something like recovering 2 shieldpoints per second (per beam level) to give her some actual health recovery (shield health only), but if you’re open to suggestions about her sustain damage and self-sustain, I feel that my suggestions qualify.

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I wouldn’t call orbs situational because legit throughout the history of sym, she’s been shooting orbs for a large majority of her match time. you may say “oh but most of the time she simply has nothing better to do” which is sort of my point as to why it’s not situational. esp now with tp on e and how current orbs have longer effective range compared to old sym’s old orb to let her be “in range” much more often (tho obvs still need improvements and obvs there’s capacity to do so).

except that’d legit be unviable based on all the existing benchmarks. i.e. when you compare it to every other hero, it’s on the low side of range, only slightly above average sustain and on the low side of mobility while still being sustain damage overall.

like look at the sustain damage heroes with low range, they’re either tanks who have massive sustain to compensate or they’re supports (namely mercy, brig and lucio) whose job doesn’t involve them necessarily spending high amounts of time close to death to do (not to mention 2/3 of them have high mobility and the remaining one has decent range for her main job via packs + rocket flail boop).

SOMETHING has to compensate for low range and having sustain damage (esp with a charge up mechanic). and if you’re not willing to go far enough in any of the other parameters (or far enough with a combination of them) to compensate, then it simply isn’t going to work. the combination you’re suggesting simply doesn’t balance out.

like even zarya, in compensation for 0 mobility and sustain damage, has plenty of sustain (400hp, 200hp barriers, etc.) + 15m range AND higher base dps (still sustain damage tho) for that avenue to function.
or alternatively look at winston and dva. they arguably have more mobility than reaper (moreso for dva I guess), they have sustain damage and to compensate for that + low range, they have a lot of sustain. sure not as much sustain as like a rein because they have mobility, but still plenty more than reaper to function like that.

not to mention when you go into detail of how tp mobility will work for a primary dominant gameplay you’re looking for, she won’t actually have that mobility because tp would take her out of m1 range and tp would likely then die —> no way back in to continue m1’ing. if you stay then you only rely on post lvl 2 passives which for all we know you’d be half dead already if not already dead, not that those passives will save you when already being close to dead.

not really considering when you combine that with the tp changes I also suggested then she’d be able to function in multiple dps subroles (zoner, off-angle harasser, brawler, flanker) that can quickly switch between them because of tp and there are plenty of spots that tp lets sym reach that most other heroes like mei, junkrat, etc. can’t reach without significant risk which a teleport would have much less of.

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The infinite TP would have to be nerfed for it to be a viable strategy. Something about being able to TP your entire team every 12 seconds on demand isn’t something I consider balanced. It might work all and well for Sym but there’s checks and balances that have to be considered.

The orbs themselves are fine – in fact, their damage was recently nerfed because of how strong they were. The speed on the orbs also got buffed when she was revamped for the third time. No need to make them even faster just because “the numbers don’t support it”.

I wouldn’t recommend buffing her sustainability either because she already has +25hp currently. If her health was reverted we could maybe look at increasing her movement speed. No buffs to damage resistance either, because that will open the door for all kinds of hero changes down the line.

The range increase is semi-perfect because it enables her in the same way Zarya benefits from it. If Zarya’s range were shorter it would mean she would have to stay that much closer to the enemy at all times, and that’s usually within range of CC and burst damage. Much like the current Symmetra deals with on the regular.

It’s actually more cost effective to keep at least level 2 beam in the long run when compared to spamming orbs. What you’re doing often depends on where you are and what is happening however. I don’t think orbs are that weak, but they’re not too strong right now either. No sense in playing devil’s advocate just to shove the scale off balance.

Sometimes slow and steady can make all the difference.

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not really considering we had a tp on e that was much more frequent than now and it wasn’t oppressive nor OP at all for like >2yrs or so (3.0 finite tp before :poop: infinite tp happened). like teams weren’t tping around every 12s either not even in OWL.

not to mention all the counterability tp has and the inherent cost for sym herself when choosing to tp her team i.e. sacrificing own engagement and disengagement ability for a predetermined amount of time (a significantly long time) to do so.

like there’s a very clear benchmark to balance around here.

they legit aren’t fine. did you see the numerical proof section that shows how a target can guarantee only taking splash fall off damage from a perfectly aimed orb when they’re only 15m away?

like you don’t have such an inconsistent projectile AND have it on a really low fire rate (legit sniper tier low fire rate) while expecting it to be good, because it simply isn’t.

like either it’s got strength in spam or strength as an aimed projectile. right now it’s neither because:

  • as shown by the calculations above, it’s absolutely terrible as an aimed weapon fire due to how lenient it is to reactively dodge a fired orb
  • as shown by dps, even a mercy pistol is higher.

‘No need to make them even faster just because “the numbers don’t support it”.’ is a really bad argument because it’s literally saying “F all the objective data and logic”.

the flaw in your zarya comparison argument is that zarya has a LOT more sustain to let her reach and stay in 15m to use a sustain damage weapon fire. not to mention also having higher base dps and able to maintain charge longer to the point of maintaining it across fights.

now you yourself acknowledge that we can’t add much sustain onto sym, so quite evidently, the zarya benchmark shows why current sym with +3m or so on her primary doesn’t do much for her problems i.e.
same range, sym has sustain damage too but less burstability due to charge up mechanics difference + lower base dps initially, but sym has much less sustain for that and her mobility is to get her in and out of the engagement not really mobility applicable to actively help her m1 a target.
i.e. still high down time and needing to drain the team of resources to m1.

if you want a hero to be closer ranged even if 15m, either you go the

  • burst + mobility route: get in, BAM, then get out. rinse repeat.
  • OR you go the sustain damage with high sustain route.

the latter isn’t going to happen unless she’s reworked to be an indian zarya in the tank category. the former won’t happen with primary because primary is sustain damage and neither are we getting the high enough levels of mobility from tp.

if we want range and decent mobility, the avenue is improving orbs to be faster moving projectiles and improving tp for self mobility. adding a bit more range on her primary doesn’t actually do much for sym as explained in earlier replies/comments/in OP.

not when the game has increased pace dramatically and continue to do so in OW2.

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I find getting into a fight as Sym pretty easy. Getting out however is much harder.

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There’s no point in doing this. Symmetra lacks the tools for approach. Everyone who is designed to fight up close, has those options.

This is, again, why most Symmetra players don’t get it. You can’t approach safely with Symmetra; Teleporter can only help so much and even then, it’s not a safe option. From day one, Symmetra has been built to bait enemy targets to her, not the other way around. It’s been obvious since beta, since the rework, and even today.

All of this would not work, period. And it’s still betraying what Symmetra is supposed to be doing. Building defenses and enabling her team’s mobility. (because apparently, Blizzard still wants this).

Focus on less on range (because she doesn’t need it), and more on enabling her defensive-builder playstyle. You need to understand this.

You didn’t include slowing effects by Sentries. So this is irrelevant.

All of this remains irrelevant because you’re not including slow effects from Sentries. You need to understand this.

This is irrelevant. Symmetra is a defensive builder. She’s not going to be ram holding down LMB and chasing targets or attempting to flank Tanks. Her design is so far removed that. If you want to play a character like that, then play Reaper, or Tracer. You’re not going to get Symmetra to play anywhere near like the above two. It’s not going to happen.

This is false. Symmetra still has higher base damage of 180. You need to include Sentries, you need to include everything about what a character can do, damage-wise, when you looking at the kit. If you fail to include it, you’re grossly mis-exaggerating what a character can do.

Wasn’t recent if you’re thinking over a year ago.

Folks, you need to get over this. Symmetra is a defensive builder. If you keep thinking that all she has is her beam, teleporter and orbs, you are doing a great disservice on the character. You’re proving you have no clue on how to play this character. You continually ignoring ways you can improve this character without increasing her damage, or her range. None of these are problems that Symmetra has to deal with. You need to understand this, and until you do, you’re going to met with further inaction and further from silence from Blizzard. You’re feedback so far gone from the character’s design and kit and intentions. You need to realize this.

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8/31/2020

Photon Projector (Secondary Fire)

  • Max damage reduced from 140 to 120.

7 months ago now. No recent buffs have made this change irrelevant or weak.

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and I’m saying even with a 15m primary she still won’t have the necessary tools because how much sustain her primary demands…which she’s not gonna get without a tank rework.
hence why I’m saying if we want range, orbs and tp is the crucial avenue for buffs.

:point_down:

also the whole point of 3.0 rework was to get her to be more dynamic and being able to “go to enemies at will” rather than “wait for enemies to go to her”. it’s why tp got put on e, turrets more throwable, and supposedly orbs having more range (but evidently the numbers show it’s not enough).

if we have to treat turrets and orbs as 1 entity, then there’s blatantly another argument of sym lacking an ability’s worth of value in her kit i.e. still need buffs. but putting that aside, it’s unreasonable to expect there to always be a turret zapping your orb target because it simply doesn’t happen for many of orbs that sym would be firing.

like she can’t magically spawn turrets (without them dying) around enemies she targets with her orbs to always have that —> enemies will need to walk through into their for that to happen. and no matter the arrangement, turrets are quickly destroyed (most heroes 1 shot them) anyways —> many orbs will be shot without turrets zapping the same target. i.e. you can’t reasonably always assume turrets will be zapping the orb target for evaluation. YOU need to understand this.

not really because as I’ve explained this to you many time across threads:

  • assuming sym has lvl 3 is a huge ask/assumption given al the conditions necessary to reach that as explained previously
  • sym has 0 control over whether all 3 turrets target the same person or not
    • not to mention turrets are easily destroyed to terminate that situation quickly even if it happens anyways.

What would actually be a grossly massive exageration of sym is to assume sym has 180dps + 3turrets on any target she wants at will/on demand without considering the costs and likeliness of that situation. which you often do.

PS I still have you on ignore so don’t expect any quick replies.

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This!

so many people here think everything is stars aligning in every situation symm wants to attack, in numbers it is very powerful because of the combo but its held by allot of drawbacks from, range,cooldown,timing, turrets deciding to zap someone else than you are lasering etc.

the idea that symm is still a “defensive” hero was long gone after 3.0 was released and after several nerfs to turret from dmg to slow not stacking how come these people still think she is a tower defense hero? try playing her in console when her turret is doing measly 30 dps then come back and tell that to our faces. my god some of these people have no idea what changes she had gone thru and expect she was still this perfectly powerful defensive hero.

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