The beam is designed to be used on BARRIERS first. Currently there is only ONE moving barrier in the game. Reinâs. I think we can all agree that his barrier is not exactly hard to hit. Orisa, Winston, Sym. They drop barriers constantly that are perfectly stationary and make great targets for farming.
Do it quite often and melt enemies once I have the charge. This perception that you need enemies to stand still to get value out of the beam is a misconception of HOW it should be used. Which is understandable because her beam use to be her main attack. It is now a niche ability.
Edit: correction. Two moving barriers. Brig being the other.
Nope. This is right, but you are confused by something.
I said â100%â accuracy. Not 67%, not 75%, but the full never miss for even a single moment 100% accuracy.
Any person who is face to face with a Sym is going to be moving about trying to avoid that beam. In the case of Sym versus shields it is not the shield holding Rein that is the problem for Sym, but rather his dps teammates sitting behind that shield. In the case of an Orisa shield or a Winston bubble or even a Reinâs shield, while Sym is wasting time doing 0 dps to any enemies while clogging up a dps slot, the enemy 2 or 3 dps are dealing out damage to her team.
The absolute only time that leeching off a barrier with the Sym beam to ramp up your beam is a good thing is when there is safe time to do it. When your team is not being picked off. When the entire enemy team is not bearing down on either your teammates or yourself. When an Orisa who fell back or died left a shield way too far forward.
Here is the thing though. Those times are incredibly rare. Most enemies will make a Sym and / or her team pay if she attempts to farm her beam instead of dps while the entire enemy team is nearby.
My âbest case scenarioâ that you claimed is wrong is as follows⌠Your team is all alive and in the face of the enemy team. The enemy team is all super focused on your teammates and you have somehow managed to flank behind them without being spotted. You hit your beam on a healer or dps in the backlines⌠and none of the enemy team reacts. You keep the beam on that player until they die and move on to the next player. And they still do not react. Miracle! 100% accuracy beam leveling can be a thing!
⌠but like with the perfect world farming on enemy shields, in the real world this flanking beam almost never happens without the enemy reacting. As I said, this is a perfect storm / miracle event where your teammates kept the focus of the enemies without dying just long enough for your beam to finally hit top damage without missing a single shot.
With a 180 farmed beam it does not take much to maintain enough accuracy to kill them fast. Do it all the time.
Why does she not have her own barrier to use? Why do all the scenarioâs and arguments people make against symâs beam involve no cover for sym and not barriers?
Such as having your own barrier or a tank taking aggro? Does sym never have this?
When making arguments about the enemy team bearing down on you I can only assume that you have progress the scenario to a point where symâs turrets have already been destroyed. Which means you have accidently removed some variables by skipping past parts of her kit. I donât think you are being dishonest here.
However, I do believe that you are unintentionally saying that the only scenario that Sym ever faces is a fast moving team that deletes her turrets before she or her team acts on them. Which is not always or even mostly the case.
Variables exist in this game. Sometimes the enemy out plays you and sometimes you outplay them.
My point her is that you are so focused on your perception of how bad her beam is that you are forgetting how the rest of her kit helps enable her to use it.
Her turrets slow targets, her turrets make it far more difficult to bear down on you. Slowed targets are easier to hit. Held chokes and approaches make it more difficult for the enemy to focus your team due to the three non-player objects distracting them and thus creating moments for your team to exploit.
Only if she is playing out in the open and not playing into her teams strengths.
They are not rare at all. They are niche. But not rare. In typically play I manage to use it on average three-five times a match and get value. Not a huge number but not rare.
Sym is not a flanker. She does not need to be anywhere near the enemy. This is another misconception left over from 2.0 play. 12mâs is easy to engage with her beam with from the FRONT lines as long as you are using the geometry of the map and the cover provided by your team in the pre-fight poke battle.
Going to stop this nonsense right here. Using the beam to farm on barriers is great if no one on the enemy team is firing back at you or your teammates. But in a team fight it is frankly stupid.
Go back to my chart that appears in a comment above nd check out exactly how much damage you are not doing to the enemy team while wasting time farming on that barrier. At 100% accuracy youâre looking at 360 lost damage. Even at 75% youâre looking at 270 lost damage. That means you wasted time on a shield when one dps or healer could have already been downed by you in that same time.
The absolute only advantage to firing your beam on a shield instead of a player is that it wonât fire back at you. A minor arguable second advantage is that it does not move around of course. But the âsafeâ part is the only true advantage of this.
The âproblemâ however, is that the entire time you as Sym are âsafelyâ farming that shield a team fight is underway. A team fight where you team is down a dps since you are doing 0 damage to any enemy cause you are wasting team fight time on a shieldâŚ
Besides which⌠farming your beam on an enemy shield is only safe if no one on the enemy team fires back at you, or you have either a shield of your own to hide behind or a pocketing healer. As a solo queue Sym you almost never will have a tank willing to stand in front of you with their shield as you beam farm. And you almost certainly never will have a pocket healer just for you.
Good write up, the only thing I would take issue with is describing the move to a more aim intensive left click as being a âmiddle fingerâ to sym players. Honestly, that kind of talk is a bit much, and makes it easy to discount your other points despite them being well founded.
More on topic, the biggest disappointment for me with sym 3.0 is that it hasnât led to blizzard being willing to iterate on Symmetra more. Obviously they didnât want to buff her before because they didnât want her to be a pub stomper. That makes sense. But why wonât they adjust her now? Obviously her left click is pretty bad. Her teleporter might have some value for organized teams but doesnât exactly seem high impact for anyone else. I was really hoping blizzard would have thrown a buff her way by now.
Context. You are speaking in absolutes without context. This game has VARIABLES. Variables that cause things to work or not work. Which means there are ZERO absolutes in this game save that there are winners and losers in all matches.
The context you are skipping entirely is the FACT that Sym can be behind a barrier herself. That her TEAM can be behind a barrier as well. That the enemy has to MOVE through the area she is holding or figure out a way to bypass it.
Their barrier can be busted first. Her teams barriers could be busted first. Thats a VARIABLE.
If your team is standing out in the open without cover then they have ALREADY lost the fight unless your team is playing a fast moving comp oriented more about mobility then sustain. Which would mean you would not be picking Sym into that comp anyways because a mobile team does not NEED a sym nor does Sym synergize well with a fast moving team.
Numbers without context are exactly that. Numbers.
For example: McCreeâs right click bursts out faster damage numbers then his left click. But you do not see him constantly spamming his right click all the time. Why? because its best used against large or really CQC targets. His left click is better when fighting mid range or smaller targets.
That is context.
Want to know what context the numbers you are posting are missing?
The constant pressure that Symâs beam can apply to a tank such as Rein. Keep your shield raised and feed me or lower it and let me hit your face and let my team hit yours for free?
The pre-fight poke. This is when neither team is fully engaged yet but are looking for weaknessâs to exploit. Barrier breaking fights are huge opportunities for Sym to farm off of due to them typically lasting at least 3-5 seconds.
Orb can only be used a premeditated weapon and not a reaction. Beam when charged can be used as a reaction.
There are so many other variables and levels of context I could bring in but this should be enough to make my point.
Your numbers do not speak of context. Context is important. Your numbers do not speak of variables or the actual flow of a fight. You are assuming that numbers are the only defining factor of what makes a kit work or the very least the most defining factor. Which is not the case.
Advantages of Beam:
It applies constant pressure as opposed to bursts of pressure that have space in between to act on.
It has far longer sustained damage when applied to situations properly. When a barrier is present it is constantly firing. Once a barrier is dropped it has 10 FULL SECONDS of firing before a reload is needed. Which is only assuming that no second barrier is available.
It can be used as a reaction to melt an enemy at full charge that otherwise would have gotten away or performed an action that was damaging to your team.
These are all advantages that I have found extremely helpful.
Because Reinâs are so rare in competitive now adays right? Because you literally do not have your OWN barrier that you can use to provide cover for yourself in case of emergencyâŚ
Edit: removed one of my points as it was pretty close to another.
Okay it is obvious right here that you never solo queue as Sym. You only go in a pre-stack. Because those teammates on tanks that you speak of? In a random queue environment they do not sit still away from the fight and protect a Sym as she farms on a shield.
Most enemies do not have to move into Symâs beam area. They can do damage from far away without moving in close. The exception is of course Brigitte and a few others that benefit from melee range more than long distance.
I am fine with Sym sitting back and trading ranged damage with her own orbs and sentries. But that has nothing to do with the beam.
So if you are Sym and the enemy is staying away from you that means you have to be the one to close if you want to do that beam damage. Either by teleport flanking or running up yourself.
But you will never see some random joe shmoe tank (whom you never met before the matchmaker stuck you as his teammate) say to you, âOh, hey, Sym! How about I just set up my shield in front of you. Tell me where to go and I will stay in front of you while you slowly for 4 seconds farm your beam in safety. Sound good?â
You talk to me about context and absolutes. This is the kind of context and absolutes you cannot argue around. People in this game generally are not as selfless and willing to work with random others as they imagine themselves to be. And the ones who âareâ that helpful and team oriented are already part of working pre-stacks and as such are almost never encountered while random queueing.
I agree with you there completely.
I agree with you on the value of the âfear factorâ, âcatch 22â, âbest of bad choicesâ pressure being important. But now here is some context that âyouâ have missed all the while trying to say I am missing context. The whole time you are âpressuringâ that enemy Rein you are doing absolutely nothing to the Reinâs dps buddies. DPS buddies that do FAR more dps than the 60/120 that you will be doing over the course of that 4 seconds. Even in the best case scenario where you also have a Rein in front of you (almost never happens from personal experience with random queues that heâll stay with the Sym!) the enemy dps all do faster dps on your Reinâs barrier than you can put out to the enemy barrier.
This I actually agree with you on. I am 100% an advocate on pre-fight farming of shields in the rare case you can manage it. I am arguing against doing so during team fights, not during the pre-fights. Not sure why you brought this up.
Not exactly sure what you are going for here. âBeam when charged can be used as a reaction.â Is that not the definition of premeditated that you have to charge it in advance? If anything I would say it was the complete opposite of what you tried to say here. Orbs are far more useful as a toss out without warning or complicated setup time than the beam is.
That is a disadvantage not an advantage. It is far easier to heal sloooow small damage than it is to heal burst damage. Armor does far more to prevent sloooow small damage than it does burst damage.
Oh, I agree that it can fire nonstop without reloading on a barrier. - All lovely 60 damage per second for 2 seconds then 120 damage per second for next 2 seconds. Meanwhile if you were playing Pharah and standing on the ground like a complete new player who hadnât yet learned how to fly you could shoot her rockets like a tank and do far more damage to that barrier in those same 4 seconds even with reloading. And the same is true with every single other DPS in the game. This whole statement of yours is at best moot and at worst for your argument is a point for me.
Oh yes. So your point is that you let an enemy live without doing any damage of your potential 270+ damage over the course of 4 seconds⌠and now magically they are worth killing over the next 2 seconds with your 240 damage? I see, I see. Yes, very fascinating. Tell us more.
Yes, I am sure your enemy teams found them extremely helpful as well. - Okay that was unkind of me. But, yes, so far your arguments have done nothing for the beamâs value as a weapon.
Oh, Reins are indeed everywhere in matches. Teams not having a shield of their own was never my point. My point (and one which I stated clearly before but you ignored) is that while all those Reins exist, they do not exist to babysit their teammate Sym. They do not stay sitting next to an enemy shield while you can have your time slowly farming your beam on the enemy shield in safety.
Really? So, what you are saying now is that the only time you should use your beam is when you have your own ult up? I see! Very interesting and something I am âsureâ I never thought of doing. Why this could be revolutionary! Syms everywhere will suddenly be able to use their beams in safety! All they have to do is⌠wait a minute for their ult charge to build up, then ignore doing any damage to enemy players and just waste 4 seconds of ult time to farm on the enemy shield! What a wonderful strategical mind you have.
Seriously now and without anymore facetious comments⌠this entire time you have either been arguing that Symâs beam is only good when you have cooperation from teammates. Yet this is something that solo queue Sym players just do not get. Yet you somehow still seem to feel like this is a good situation and I honestly cannot understand you on this.
Sym 3.0âs beam does not have the fear factor that 2.0 beam had simply because it takes far too long to ramp, the actual max damage numbers were set way too low for each tier when normal or even good accuracy is taken into account, and the fact that armor has such a decided impact on an already underperforming weapon was just the final nail in the coffin.
Even worse, even the 2.0 beam was not feared at top levels of competitive play simply because every other dps could take down enemy teams faster than the 2.0 beam could manage. So the fact that the 3.0 beam is far worse at taking down enemies fast makes this comparison a joke.
I do queue in a pre-stack. But not as Sym. As Mei. I have a friend who queueâs with me as Sym. They play only her. The other person in the stack is a Roadhog player.
In 10 matches our roadhog only had to change to Rein twice. Why? Because we almost always had someone choose Orisa or Rein for our Sym to work with.
Which tells me there are PLENTY of rein players who are willing to work with their team. AlsoâŚ
Who is talking about Rein sitting way back and helping the Sym? I know Iâm not. Reinâs barrier provides cover to more then just the people standing at his hips. You can use his barrier as cover further back. as long as the barrier tank is within 12m of the enemy.
A rein is going to be holding his shield up quite often. That is when you look for opportunities to use it.
This is a poor attempt at side stepping the point. That regardless of if your a ranged character or not you eventually have to push. Be it for a offensive attack to take an objective or for a defensive push to re-take an objective. Not to mention that all you need to do to outplay ranged damage (especially on defense) is avoid sightlines with them unless you have a barrier.
Doing so forces them to move forward into ~drum roll~ the area your turrets are holding. Which gives you and your team a great opportunity to counter push and start applying pressure. Such as taking advantage of that moment to start charging your beam provided a large target like a barrier is there.
There is that 2.0 thinking rearing its ugly head again.
If the enemy is not closing you have ALREADY won. If they are not daring to pass through an area your holding you do not even need to present them with a target. You wait until they try to push into you or in the case that you are on the attacking team you wait until your team starts pushing in and FOLLOW them or even better. Provide them a means of pushing past a choke via a teleporter. It does not have be used for only you.
True. You will never have a tank say that. However, if you follow your tank like ANY dps would do then it happens NATURALLY.
Despite me being in a trio stack I still deal with plenty of randoms. Most people love it when someone calls out plans. Not barking orders but suggesting things.
So many times we (my three stack) have asked our Rein to stand and cover our Sym while she sets up a teleporter for us all to go through. I have only so far had ONE person refuse to do so and that is only because they were not in comms to ask in the first place.
So no, Even in rando queues (because trioâs still encounter randoâs) people are very often willing to work with you provided you offer a plan of action.
Actually no. I did not ignore that variable.
That is exactly what this was addressing. Because there are many variables to determine who wins the busting battle. Yes, If they have higher OVERALL dps output and we have no other means of mitigating the damage that comes in besides a single barrier (no dm, no second barrier tank, no disruption and etc) then you are absolutely correct. They will win that barrier busting fight.
However, there are so many ways to supplement the momentary lower damage of the beam so that it can be farmed and not be a detriment. D.va, Orisa, and Roadhog are all tanks that can also add to the barrier busting damage pool. You can choose a second DPS that is built around barrier busting such as Junkrat, Bastion, and etc.
Not to mention it is not even really about WINNING the barrier busting fight to begin with as much as it is SUSTAINING a barrier fight long enough for Sym to get the beam charge in the first place. So even if you lose the barrier busting fight as long as she got her charge it can still work heavily in your favor.
Which makes for further variables. You need to be able to read these variables playing ANY character. Sym is no different. It is just harder to read them currently for her because she is so different from her previous iteration.
Because your argument was that the only feasible time to charge it was if the enemy stood perfectly still or fully ignored you. My argument being that the pre-fight is AMAZING time to charge it.
Meaning that if you take the time and invest in charging it there are many times where it can be used as a direct reaction to prevent something from happening that orbs could not have done.
Here is a small example vid.
See that mercy rez attempt? My beam was charged. It allowed me to melt her from full health before she got the rez off. It would have taken me a full second to even charge and release ONE orb. Which means she would have gotten the REZ off.
I was able to REACT instantly to that attempt to bring rein back.
No, it is a disadvantage in some contexts but an advantage in others. You are speaking in absolutes again and this does not help your argument. Applying constant pressure to a target (especially tanks like rein or orisa) forces healing on to them that otherwise could be thrown elsewhere.
Burst damage can be burst healed and allow a support to quickly top off or prevent the death of another teammate before the enemy fires another burst at their previous heal target. While at the same time burst can also confirm kills quickly that otherwise might have lived.
Chip and Burst both have advantages and disadvantages. No absolute better as context and variables will change how effective either is.
Because the goal is not only to bust the barrier but to have a tool available to better contribute to the team when the full on brawl ensues. That is the point you are missing. Symâs beam has the potential to turn a LOST barrier fight into a WON brawl through applying pressure . Especially to tanks. Her beam at full charge MELTS tanks even with the âbadâ tick rate and armor in the way.
So many times I have seen my Sym main friend force a enemy tank to either fall back or hold their barrier up while we swing into them due to just how much health eating power it has.
Yes⌠because fights progress in various ways.
The damage only becomes important once the fight has engaged ANYWAYâs so why not use the pre-fight to make the beam awesome so you have it for the fight?
Weâll agree to disagree then. I think you have done nothing to disprove my points. Which makes me feel as if I proved the value it brings.
Which is incorrect on all levels because
You donât need to be baby sat.
There are PLENTY of helpful people. Most of the time you only have to present a PLAN.
Love this. You qoute me out of CONTEXT. In the same paragraph I talk of Rein. Which means I CLEARLY did not state any thing about ONLY using beam when her ult is up. Common now.
In previous iteration of this post, I specifically writed that EMP disables SG effects, but I removed it since I wanted to keep it simpler and cleaner. So when you get EMP it simply converts these shields back to health, but it also disables the kill prevention to balance it out.
Whew, that was a lot of reading guys, and I think my eyes may be bleeding!
Just kidding, theyâre not bleeding, but my heart is.
Kigo has a point, your viewpoint (MrTickles) is skewed towards coordinated team play, of which there is little in QP unless you bring it yourself (which you do with your 3 stack) and arguing to the contrary will not serve any purpose in trying to solidify your claim that Symmetra is in a good spot.
MrTickles has a point that says that her primary beam isnât useless, despite the numbers being thrown out there that clearly show how long it takes for the beam to break even with the orbs. Youâre both correct. The beam isnât completely useless, but in almost every scenario youâd be better off utilizing your orbs unless you were already wielding a level 3 beam charge. At that point, so long as your turrets are up, and youâre being pocketed or have teammates ready to support you, youâd be better suited using the beam.
We know itâs possible to charge up previous to engaging in combat. Weâre aware of the shield stalemate that typically happens in every team battle. Weâre taking all of that into account, but I think that one glaring issue is being overlooked here.
Health. Specifically Symmetraâs paltry pool of it. We can toss conjecture around indefinitely, until our indefatigable wills start to wear down, and it wonât matter when Symmetra is dead. Orbs⌠Beams⌠Punches⌠Doesnât matter how overpowered, underpowered, etc if youâre dead. The dead part is the one that gets you each and every time.
Does her beam need work? Absolutely.
Does her kit need work? Absolutely.
Will debating with each other facilitate the buffing of her kit? Doubtful. If anything, it shows a face of the Symmetra community that weâd rather the Devs didnât see, a lack of solidarity.
So long as we have opponents to the Symmetra cause, specifically ones like yourself, MrTickles, that swears up and down that sheâs fine the way she is so long as you play to her distinct situational advantages, we will never see any kind of assistance with her kit.
Sheâs F tier. She was F tier during her 2.0 iteration (even though I loved playing the underdog) and sheâs F tier now. Nothing has changed. If anything, sheâs LESS powerful now than she was previous to the rework, at least in raw damage potential.
MrTickles: You make some great points, but youâre speaking from a mind of someone who regularly queues in a group scenario, where you have friends who regularly play with you and know your play style, and work with you. Youâre also not playing Symmetra most of the time when this situation is occurring.
Kigo: Youâve got your mind set on the QP environment, and arenât really taking into account the group potential MrTickles speaks of. I believe MrTickles is correct in the statement that youâre too wrapped up in the numbers side of it, and discounting what can currently be done with Symmetras existing kit.
That having been said, in this debate, Iâm siding with Kigo. Hard numbers donât lie. They paint a picture that has a wonderfully beautiful background with a gigant ic red F in the middle of it. F for F-Tier⌠F for Fail.
We can post numbers, we can debate and argue until weâre blue in the face. Numbers donât lie. They donât paint the variables in quite as well as weâd like, but with the numbers we do have access to, they plainly show that her new 3.0 iteration is a nerf in just about ever facet of her kit.
I would like to point out that while I do agree you can hold left click 4 sec on barrier to get full charge and live normally, other DPS donât have to do that. Like, imagine if soldier was forced to shot shield for 4 sec, in melee range, just to get max value out of his primaryâŚ
What is the point of this limitation? Plot twist, you could also charge her old primary out of barrier as well, and only for 2 seconds, even though she didnât gain ammo for it. But honestly, charging off shields felt like something that was an additonal gimmick, a little bonus, and not something she had to do everytime she wanted her primary to be useful, like it is now.
Also you might wanna add a section about new syms vulnerability, as she is more vulnerable then sym 2.0 and I think it deserves its own paragraph has it is very important
Does it need its own paragraph? The only problem of her being squishy is when she is using primary fire, honestly. And I already described it there rather thoroughly, I think.
Well, it also comes into effect whenever playin agaisnt a dive comp or flanker
Like if she gets flanked by a flanker she is worse off then before. The loss of shield Gen and her Barrier means now she is afraid to get in duels, and flankers are very good at initiating duels.
If genji singles her out, which is kind of his thing, she will sheâs a hard time surviving
This bleeeds into her role change issue, which is, how can she be dps when sheâs as vulnerable as a support
How can you be a reliable peel sources when you need peel
If you take zen Ana sym your team now has THREE people to peel for
If weâre talking about QoL issues for Symmetra, it most definitely needs to have a section dedicated to it, even if itâs just a small paragraph outlining the loss of survivability based on the loss of the added 75hp from Shield Generator, and the loss of personal protection from the Photon Shield. Both of those were huge for allowing her to maintain longevity on the field of battle.
Previous to the rework, Dva, Genji, Tracer, Sombra and Soldier didnât really scare me that much. A simple Photon Shield flung their way would block a mainstay of their damage, and I could retreat to safety or close the distance to move in for the kill. That just isnât a possibility now. Now, those same characters absolutely wreck Symmetra.
Think youâve read to far into the post Blasphemy. Donât blame you though as it is a lot of reading.
I am not opposed to buffâs are slight changes to make her beam more accessible. As long as those changes are not over the top.
The reason I debate people on its current application is because I fight the misconception that it is useless in its current form. That way if changes are made to it they are indeed in line with what the beam actually needs and not the misconceptions of what people want it to have.
If I donât do this it only increases the chance that she will get an overbuff which then often results in a bigger mess.
We need dissenting voices such as my own to create REAL balance in characters.
Itâs most definitely not useless in itâs current form, at level 3.
Due to the nature of the alternate fire, itâs either 120damage, or miss.
So, in 1 second you could have dealt however much damage you were able to keep your reticle on target for, or you could have had a chance for 120 damage, or 0 damage.
In the cases where the beam is fully charged, and youâre in range, unless youâre a prodigy on tossing orbs, youâd probably be best served using the beam. Especially when you mobility limiting characters/devices around you.
In a situation when youâre paired with Mei, it would almost always be more beneficial for you to go with the primary due to lack of mobility and dodging from the target.
With only 3 turrets to choose from, trying to get someone slowed down where you are attempting to kill them can sometimes be difficult without them being destroyed, the added setup time, etc. In those cases, itâs better to use your alternate fire.
Which is exactly what I am pointing out to Kigo. Nothing more, nothing less.
This is most certainly true. Which speaks to her âA-MEI-ZINGâ synergy with her .
Hereâs a PoTG from one of our competitive games together.
However, I still think even without Mei or even without synergy or heavy amount of team work she can still do this easily enough. You just have to do what any other DPS would do in less coordinated teams. Look for opportunities instead of ask for them. They are still there.
.