By looking through the patch notes during the 1 and a half year period when Sym 2.0 existed, you can clearly see that Symmetra wasn’t touched even once. Not a single change, buff, nerf, quality of life change, nothing. Instead, she just got reworked again into this 3.0 version which is filled with bugs and even harder to balance.
Here is my list of suggestions that could have made Sym 2.0 be way better:
Allowing her to throw her 6 turrets. Giving them 30 or so HP so they are not so easily destroyed. Giving them a greater range, for example, the same range as the current turrets of 10m.
With these changes, she would have a clear role of control and area denial. Their damage would be minor, but with added health and range they wouldn’t be so easily destroyed and would be able to punish people severely by the time all of them get destroyed. And it wouldn’t take as slow to set up
Lower cooldown on her photon barrier, and slightly slower travel speed so she can assist tanks in pushing through the choke and protecting her team.
Decreasing the charge time of her orbs from 2 to 1 second.
Her old orbs were extremely unique as they were able to pass through shields and people. They were very slow however and easily avoidable. In my opinion these new 3.0 orbs were a straight up nerf. There is no splash damage like we were promised, and even tho they are faster, you can still see them from a mile away. They are just a cheap version of Phara’s rockets (who btw have a bigger splash damage and faster rate of fire)
With these changes to the 2.0 orbs, they will still be slow, but because they are spammed so much, they would demand respect and would be a great area denial tool, or push-through-choke tool.
Allowing her to deploy her Shield Gen/Teleport from a far.
When she activates her ULT she could have been given a Doomfist-like area select when he uses his ultimate. But instead of her meteor striking, she just deploys her TP or SG. This would allow her to put those things in new creative areas, it wouldn’t force her to leave her team, often causing them to lose, and it would free her from protecting those things.
For example, imagine if she put a teleport on top of the roof on that big building on Hanammura at the first point. A Tracer wouldn’t be able to get it, and the enemy team would have to commit more to find it and destroy it.
(Tho i also rly like the new wall ultimate too, as long as it could deal damage to people passing through it so it isnt countered by a simple W)
Nerfing her lock on, but increasing its range.
Let me explain: Not nerfing its damage. I mean nerfing the ACTUAL lock-on mechanic so a Genji, for example, wouldn’t have such a terrible time escaping it.
I suggest that maybe her beam should only be able to lock on to targets if they were within her “aim-cone”. Think Winston for example, his weapon is lock on too, but if the person escapes his cone, then his tesla-cannon would unlock.
This would force Sym to be able to track her targets instead of just holding M1 which would make it a 1000 times more fair. However, to compensate for that, Sym’s beam should have a range buff. Instead of 7m, she could have 10 or 15m. But the farther someone is, the softer the lock on would be, forcing Symmetra to aim a bit.
This would have been a really good compromise between aiming and non-aiming. Not to mention that it would be much more appealing to people with disabilities to pick her up again, as they have been completely forgotten when Sym 3.0 came out.
As for the Sym haters: No fix for that. Sym could be the best and worst hero in the game, there will still be people to hate her.
I really quite like the idea of that inverted aim cone, wider at close range, but narrowing at long range. It would allow her to play mechanically at range, or tactically by getting closer. That sounds like a good compromise.
EDIT: I will add that Symm needed comm support. Sentries should’ve called out enemy movements to her team, not just to her, and her ults should’ve shown up on ally HUDs so they could help protect them. Neither were ever even attempted.
I wasn’t aiming at her to be a support at this point. She would def be a DPS, but a hybrid-utility DPS, like Sombra, who’s power lies in all the things she can bring to the table.
The way I designed her is more of an alt-tank-area control DPS. Kinda like Mei
They need to decide which one of those problems are they going to fix:
Inconsistent damage - either because of projectiles easily dodged, turrets easily killed or primary that requires charge time.
No survivabilty - 200 hp that requires close range to fight effectively.
No mobility - TP requires setup time, it’s slow and clunky.
Ultimate that doesn’t help her deal damage.
The entire kit is problematic and needs rework from the ground up.
And her alleged utility is garbage too. The problem is that she is not a situational specialist, she is literally a specialist of nothing. The alleged strategies with TP are 100% depended on a team and basically require for you to have League team. The amount of effort and practice required to actually pull it off provides no benefit and the returns are negligible.
Not to mention that it only works on two maps tops.
The game should be balanced for the top. That being said a hero having a prerequisite or need to have another 5 pro players with said hero in order for it to work is a failed rework.
No other hero in the game fundamentally requires 100% team-work in order for said hero to be even remotely useful.
And that’s assuming that other conditions are actually met like Symmetra not being hard countered (kind of hard when 90% of the roster does) and in specific maps and situations.
I don’t see her being viable as a dps either. Just annoying. She has no range and slowing down her barrier would just make it harder for her to use to push in. Her orbs would still be easy to avoid with how slow they are and would still have massive potential to feed enemy support ults.
Symm’s problem was that she was a defence niche pick (which she was great at) but people just kept trying to pick her on attack (which could work sometimes).
It was exactly the same for torb.
That said… throwing her turrets into place is literally the only part of her rework I’d keep. The rest of it is junk.
Her primary being lock-on in conjunction with her shield gen aura was just terribly designed.
Sym’s primary needed to be changed. Lock-on should not be in this game. Period.
There was absolutely zero skill in placing the shield gen. Forcing the enemy to hunt it down took focus away from the actual objective and was not a fun or engaging ultimate for either side.
6 buffed turrets would be far too many. The 3 on live work as intended. Photon barrier was a decent ability, but the ultimate version we have of it now is pretty good as well.
Overall I don’t think posts like this are constructive since there’s no way Sym is being reverted or reworked again, but if it helps you feel better about losing 2.0, then werk I guess.
You gonna take that up with Sombra, Mercy, Ana, Moira and, to a lesser extent, Lucio, Winston, Reinhardt, Brigitte, Genji, Widowmaker and… Whoever else I missed?
I’m not sure what you mean by this… Sym up to 2.0 was the only hero to have lock-on as a damaging ability. Her primary damaging ability. Lock-on utility is fine imo.
The not having to aim part was the only easy thing about Sym 2.0.
Everything else took strong decision making skills.
And by excluding lock on abilities you are also excluding milions of people with disabilities who want to play the game too, which is unfair.
I can see how the change might have been too extreme to go from lock-on to what we have live, but I think a weapon that locks-on the way old Sym did was not good for the game.
I understand people with disabilities want to play this game too, and maybe live Sym did them wrong in that regard. Something else could have been done to increase its skill while not completely ruining the experience for players with disabilities.
Her orb is not traditional lock-on. She still has to aim her orbs.
Rein, Winston, and Brig do have to aim even if it’s in a big range.
If Sym’s beam was made to solf-lock like Moira’s primary, I would have been okay with that. How it was previously though would keep her trash tier because the devs wouldn’t be able to balance her. She would always be gated by lock-on primary.
She’s not gated by teleporter… what? lol She’s been getting consistent buffs. That’s not even close to being gated.
That’s true, but those weapons are still not “lock-on”. Sym’s old beam literally lock-ed onto enemies. Sometimes even following them around corners. You couldn’t dodge her beam unless you could quickly increase the gap from her to be outside of her preferred range. That’s why she countered Genji so hard. Winston still counters Genji, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was with Sym. The amount of damage she could get for such little effort was far too much.
