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

General Discussion
21

Well, for those of you at home just tuning in, the entire point of this conversation is that Sym doesn’t really have a tool set suited for anything. That’s why she’s bad. That’s why conversations often pop up around Sym; players are discussing buffing existing tools to a point where she can legitimately use them in battle, or adjust her kit with a different variation of current tools to the same end. She needs to be able to do something in battle.

You know, it’s like you were so close to understanding that first part. But then you wrote

What in the world is that? What even is that? Sym is bait? That’s not a thing in this game. Also, the closest this game has to that is tanks, since they exist as a short-ranged but still lethal presence from the battlefield thus demanding players’ attention. How does Sym bait enemies to her, when she’s so weak most enemies ignore her? There is no “taunt” function here Yin. If you want Sym to have an enemy’s attention, she has to be a tangible threat. Which she currently isn’t.

Sentries aren’t participating in most Sym encounters, so they themselves are irrelevant. They are currently rated as the worst ability in Overwatch (bar none). In what world do you live in where sentries are a threat and a routine part of an encounter with an enemy? I can’t even say that’s bronze-tier play, because even people in bronze don’t oblige themselves to let Sym set up turrets for five seconds before resuming their fight with her.

Turrets aren’t a part of most Sym engagements. Let me put it to you this way. Do you discuss Junkrat and automatically assume that every engagement starts with the enemy caught in his trap with an accompanying concussion mine? No? Good. Now think about why that is, and realize the same is true of Sym turrets, but to a higher degree. The turrets are about useless as a “trap”, take much longer to set up, are weaker, easier to see, and have like 5x the cooldown as a Junk trap.

No she isn’t. She hasn’t been since Blizz took away “defensive” as a hero class. Even then she doesn’t work, because she builds one thing and it’s the worst ability in the game. Remember that part we just discussed? It’s an ability, with the cooldown length of Mercy’s Rez, that is a very weak and immobile target, that has to be set up in one place ahead of time, had excessive downtime even then, and on average does less damage than a shot from S76’s Helix rockets.

You can’t even count the TP as a “defensive” build since it takes too long to be used as an escape, which is also part of Sym’s numerous problems. TP only really works offensively, on very select maps which are so badly designed that a single chokepoint is basically choking the life out of the game there. Which Sym can sometimes break, not even guaranteed, if the enemy doesn’t see it coming and does nothing to stop or prepare for it. Super. And she can’t contribute to the following fight nearly as well as any other DPS when that happens.

So no she isn’t a defensive builder. If she were, she’d have to be viable as such, and she isn’t. Junkrat’s trap alone outshines Sym’s entire kit as a “defensive builder”, as does Torb. Oh, and Torb’s turret has more HP, more range, and less than half the cooldown as Sym’s turret. In case anybody wanted to make the case that radically buffing Sym’s turrets might be OP. Because nobody considers Torb OP either and he already has had better equipment for years. If it was going to be OP, someone would have stumbled upon it by now.

If you want her to be a defensive builder, then suggest some buffs to get her there. Give her more stuff to build. Lower the cooldown on her sentries to 3 seconds apiece, so she can actually move her exceedingly short-ranged turret trap between places in a reasonable time to react to an evolving battle. Give her random hardlight constructs like simple rectangles that can either be placed vertically as a shield or flat as a ramp from one place to another. Give her building stuff to do. But you can’t say she’s a defensive builder when she’s most certainly not and doesn’t have the tools to do so.

You believe in builder Sym? Beautiful! I want to see your list of radical buffs that will get her there, because she’s not there now. Give it a full write up and have it posted by Monday, I’m eager to see what you come up with.

And no, that isn’t sarcasm. More variety in this game is a good thing and I’m excited to see what original concepts people can come up with for a hardlight builder. So don’t be shy about this. Post a thread with your ideas on Monday and link me and Zephrin to it here in this thread. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

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22

Not just two hitscan DPS, really. I picked Sym at the start of an Exp game less than an hour ago and was greeted by Pharah and Doomfist. I didn’t really get any opportunities to charge up a beam before being pounded into cosmic dust.

Still, it does make the beam feel a lot better. Even if it doesn’t actually improve Sym’s fortunes as regards Overbuff, I want them to try 16m on Live.

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I have a thematic problem with 16m. Not that I’d turn down any buff for her at this point, but Sym’s entire character theme is the number 3.

6 turrets, then 3.
3 levels on the beam.
3-clawed gun.
Damage is intervals of 3 (60/120/180)
Range is an interval of 3 (12 m)

If that sort of buff ever goes live, it should be 15 m. Or, 18, I won’t mind :wink:

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This is false.

I have, if you can actually participate in reading and understanding correctly, you would’ve seen this and known this.

It’s not about whether or not I believe it, it’s about she is. If you can’t figure this out, you can’t make the correct analysis and render the correct feedback. That’s partly Blizzard’s fault, too. But there are certainly issues with Symmetra and no one denies that. How you go about about providing that feedback or drawing attention to it is dependent on you.

I’m not going to write up a 1500 word essay, because it’s not necessary. It’s up to Blizzard to decide whether the feedback is useful or not. Thus far, not one suggestion in the past or in this thread has made a consideration towards improving Symmetra. Most haven’t figured this out, and much like Genji, (and previously Moira), you haven’t quite grasped on how to improve the character without radically altering the playstyle of said character. Stop doing that and focus on what they do and how they can improve in that area.

If you can’t figure that out, your feedback is going to continue to fall on Death’s ears.

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No, it’s still true. You claiming she’s a defensive builder might as well be claiming she’s responsible for keeping the moon in orbit. It’s that far removed from reality.

I see a claim without proof. Link your suggestions so we can provide feedback. Again, I think a builder Sym is a fantastic idea. I’m not so sure you think so, since you claim she’s already there (she isn’t) and you seem reluctant to actually voice an opinion on how to get her there.

Probably the only accurate thing in your response. Regardless of your beliefs, she isn’t a defensive builder.

I hate to break the magic, but Genji isn’t real. Neither is Moira. They’re video game characters. And in cannon, I doubt either of them have feedback for how Sym should live her life. So this was a really insane assertion on your part.

I, however, am real.

Playstyles change all the time as it is found that the niche they occupy can be refined, or their ability to fill it can be polished. The problem is that Sym has no great defining playstyle, she has bits and pieces that can theoretically work into a direction, but there’s no cohesive whole to her kit. It’s a mess and no single part is all that strong.

Exactly what I’ve done, what Zep has done, and what I encouraged you to do. You may not have written “a 1500 word essay” about any ideas you might have to improve the character, but you did write a very contrarian post just to end up saying, “The feedback you’re giving is exactly what we need, good job!”

DEAF EARS. Also, Death isn’t a real person either, in case that part had eluded you.

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26

just play Zarya man :man_shrugging:

27

You gotta start thinking of your turrets as totems like shaman totems…

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I can think of them as Granny’s Peach tea, it doesn’t change that they’re poorly designed, poorly implemented, hilariously underpowered relative to their cooldown cost, and players absolutely hate playing into them.

There’s nothing redeeming about them. And I don’t know what you’re even referring to (is a shaman totem a WOW thing?), I’m sure it means luring the enemy to them. Except that isn’t a thing in this game. As described earlier, there is no taunt function, and nobody over level 3 is going to chase Sym past a conveniently placed wall or structure that will be hiding said sentries.

They’ve a glowing target with no health, no real punch, the range of a hard sneeze, and an admittedly decent trapping effect but it takes the form of a 30-second cooldown to utilize.

No matter how you want to think of them, they’re bad game design and useless in how the game actually plays out and functions.

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29

Think of them as little dps pets. They are meant to be used in her fighting and replaced. It’s a plus if they live.

I liken her turret to earthbind and searing totem.

Very good utility if used right.

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If they could be used that way, fine. But they can’t. For this game’s speed of action, they have a very slow setup time and they’re too fragile to do mid-fight because any random bullet will kill them. Also literally every AOE attack (of which there are many in this game).

This is why they’re bad. You can’t use them mid-fight because they’ll likely get killed before they touch ground, or killed as they “arm”, or very shortly thereafter. In their lifespan, they will not do as much damage as a single shot of Helix rockets will, despite their cooldown being five times longer.

Their range is too short to place in a safer spot that might see more action or have a wider field of view of the action. They’re too fragile to be in the line of fire, too short-ranged to be away from battle, too long of a cooldown to be used spontaneously, too much arming time to fire upon enemies before getting destroyed.

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Yes they aren’t meant to carry her, more help her and her team if placed right. Since her gun is pretty good in close range for sustained fights. If you manage to protect your turrets though they are really good. Which is a skill to develop.

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Except that there’s nowhere to place them. And how do you protect your turrets? Are you recommending to body-block for them? I certainly hope not. What little you can do for them still has them as an excessively-easily destroyed, stationary, short-ranged trap. Otherwise “protect your turrets” is just another way of saying “place them smartly”, which as I already covered, such a place doesn’t exist because they can neither be in combat nor away from combat.

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Oh it depends during the fight. Ideally you want to place them behind your team mates to protect them and your team mates, place them in bushes, high places where people don’t normally look, sometimes just on the ground during a fight depending on the enemy comp (if you spread them apart when you are fighting a mc cree he only has like 6 bullets to hit you with for example so spreading them around him will make him stress out). For symmetra you should look around the map for good places to put your turrets and learn good places for them. Sometimes the odd turret during a fight could help especially when gamers are said to only be able to keep track of 6 objects at any given moment. Tunnel vision definitely happens in overwatch. Tall grass can also keep them hidden.

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All that is fine and well, except all the other problems are still present. It’s a 30 second cooldown, that you’re placing in random spots behind you, to do…what, precisely? You just used a 30-second cooldown, it better be game-changing, right? No…those individual turrets do so very little on their own, and you’re gambling that a random enemy will wander past their fire area and attack you at the precise same time. There’s no way for them to be effective otherwise. Because if the enemy runs into them first, it’s one quick bullet then back to shooting up your team. If the enemy doesn’t run into them and just kills you, the turrets did nothing to protect you.

Also with their exceedingly short range, how exactly do you propose to keep yourself safe from flanks? Almost every single hero in this game has vastly more range than the sentries, and you only have 3 of them, so you can’t carpet an area as an early-warning net either. You can try to put sentries into popular routes, but it only delays the onset of other problems. Your sentries get destroyed without doing anything, you’re down a 30-second cooldown that was a glorified Widow mine, and when the enemy comes barreling down at you, you still have no decent means to combat the enemy.

This is why I’m largely uninterested in buffing sentries. I’d like them reworked, or at least bring the cooldown down to 3 seconds apiece to match their actual power level. But nobody can rely on them to pull any weight in a fight; there’s just no omph behind them.

*Quick edit: I’ve had some success using them to ward off Sombras. But it’s niche and still comes with other problems that they don’t actually contribute to an ongoing fight, which is where Sym needs more value. So I will concede that sliver of use for the turrets, but it’s so niche that it’s inconsequential in the broader sense of the game.

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Idk I do good with them. Watching how pros play helps.

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my suggestions that I put forth is to say “don’t go the zarya route” and part of the OP is even saying “it’s because zarya route won’t and can’t reasonably happen for sym”. :stuck_out_tongue:

37

I think Shield Generator could make this meta problematic but would be awesome to bring back.

38

Bridgette already has that though.

39

imagine skewering the whole enemy team in the choke point… SYMBBQ

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40

then suffer and lose games :man_shrugging: sorry that is the reality just play Zarya