Some heroes such as 76, Moira, Bridgete, Symmetra, Zenyatta, Zarya and Sombra has the capabilities to do more than. 76 and Sombra are offense heroes, but they do have supportive abilities that heals allies. Moira, Bridgete and Zenyatta may have healing capabilities, but they also do damage as well. Zarya maybe a tank, but she also provides a supportive barrier shield for an ally. Symmetra used to have capabilities, but she still does provide damage and supportive utilities for allies. That’s what a hybrid is when your role has the capability of having a bit more from the other.
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Not much, but I have played with my friend who has a lot of hours on Symmetra. He’s like at the top 10 of time played on that hero. If he played more last year he’d probably be around 1000 or close.
its not hard to master, its hard to get value at her in masters*
None of that matters Fen.
Soldier is a DPS. His ‘utility’ makes up for nothing.
Moira is a Sustain. Her ‘utility’, other than fueling her ability to Sustain, makes up for nothing.
I could go down the list.
Sombra 1.0 was a failure. The Dev’s worried that if she had damage output, she would be too powerful, yet they put her in Offense.
In a 2-2-2, she took a SUSTAIN slot, because hybrid utility is insufficient in this game, just like it is in other games (WoW, early Burning Crusade/Vanilla until the reboot around the end of Sunwell).
There are only 3 roles, and doing 2 of them ‘half good’ is not acceptable, thats not how the game works, outside of very specific niche comps.
This is why Sym see’s no play in OWL. Her utility is not sufficient to make up for the lack of one of the roles, because she fills none of them.
Then don’t bother replying to me ever if you’re going to ignore the hybrid concept like that.
Good day.
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Its a concept that is unrealized, and is not applicable to how the game functions.
Take care.
Then who do we blame? Why wasn’t it fix? Why did it have to go dps? Why even bother putting the hero in the game if they can’t be improvise? It makes me think developers truly have little creativity when it comes to developing.
I mean, a lot of people who play her (like me) are really looking forward to this. I have loads of hours on Symmetra, and a whole 3 hours of them have ever been in comp (in all seasons) because there’s always someone better than Sym in comp in 98% of situations. Maybe she’ll actually be good enough that we can take her into comp and have her be the ideal choice for a change.
As of right now I just she her as a failed experiment even if she does well as a defense hero.
Blizz is trying to fix it now. You realize that the game used to be able to have hero duplicates on the same team right? Game development is literally trial and error in some instances.
Creativity is not the issue. Symmetra is a very creatively designed character, but she has never fit in with Overwatch’s gameplay especially as a support pick.
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You can’t “fix” what was never whole to begin with. Sym was always pretty bad. Her kit had some awesome ideas, but in the state of Overwatch, Sym is a slow paced hero in a fast paced game. Plus, I think they moved her to defense because even if they made her kit more supporty, Sym probably still couldn’t compete with an off healer for a team spot without healing. I mean, when have you ever seen Sym shield as much as an off healer heals? Sym could be amazing, but your team still needs 2 healers, or a main healer, or else your team will still die.
Sym as she is, spends far too much time doing neither damage nor supporting because she’s too busy positioning and setting up. When she is ready to do damage, she has to spend half her time shooting very unreliable balls at her enemies because her range sucks. As a result, she has some of the lowest DPS, elims, and shielding numbers in the game. I can see why they changed her the way they did. She has to have a faster playstyle to keep up with the game.
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They still that right now just in certain arcade mode and custom.
I hardly even call it a fix. I just find it as an excuse.
Many instances for the fact they solely focused on one hero for a year.
I think it is.
I can’t say you’re right because they never improvise on the matter after her first rework. They completely ignored her existence after so many seasons until now?
You are aware that you basically spoke the equivalent of “I’m not hungry, I just need to eat something”, right? Numbers balance are part of a kit design. If her kit can’t deliver what we expect from her, that is a design flaw.
Symmetra kit do deliver what we expect from her, which is battlefield manipulation and extra shields. Ana can’t deliver all the healing we expect from her if either the enemy have enough barriers to intercept her shots, or the Ana player don’t have reliable aim.
Ana is in a much worse place than Symmetra is right now. And my point is that even in that terrible state, people do not call her a troll pick. Because of that, I refuse to accept that Symmetra “reputation” on being a troll pick is based on her kit efficiency.
I think her reputation is based on how terrible she was at launch, and how the game was infested with people using her to troll matches by abusing her teleporter to make people fall of edges, or teleporter people to places in the map more inconvenient than if they just stayed at the spawn room (eg, placing it near the final checkpoint in a payload map, while we are defending first section). And both cases are a community issue, not a mechanical issue.
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Considering she was nerf in beta because her E ability gave too much advantage for Tracer and Genji. So they gutted it down to 25 which killed that potential. It was whole at first, but yeah your statement is like half right because before game was release she wasn’t fixed.
Symmetra pacing was, but the game started changing after Ana and dive comps started taking control. They never got back to her.
Her move to defense because they did not know what to do with her even though the community gave well written constructive feedback. In the end they did what they wanted to do.
Her kit wouldn’t out heal anyone, but you gain points for how many times it regenerates on the ally it was applied on. If they made her shield regenerate during combat she would totally be acceptable on comps.
What I said above and having 2 supports kind of favor the team. I have seen what it does if the team does well in tough encounters.
The sad thing the only thing she is doing is damage because they butchered her shield capabilities from beta.
Considering her charge speed made it sucked, but she was no different than Mei in that perspective if the enemy is long range. The only advantage Mei had in a long range battle was her fast icicle dart.
Her damage had to channel up to be devastating so dps wasn’t a problem. Shield numbers in game was neutered because of Genji and Tracer advantage back in beta. If they ever reverted back to 75 I can assure Symmetra wouldn’t be much of a problem.
They only changed her position because they didn’t know what to do with her since they ignored her existence for such a long time. It was nothing about being a faster playstyle.
Design and balance are very different.
Design: the abilities themselves.
Balance: the numbers given to those abilities.
Symmetra has a design issue. Her kit currently does not fit well into the support or DPS category and thus fails at both.
Ana’s kit focuses on supporting her team like it should. She was a must pick for a while and because of that, she saw some nerfs to her numbers. With the addition of new heroes, Ana has fallen out of meta and could use some fine-tuning. That’s it.
I’m not wanting to discuss balance vs. design of heroes, but I felt it necessary since you seem to not be able to distinguish between the two.
In the end, your mind is made up and so is mine. I’m simply here to back Blizzard’s thought process of why Symmetra needed drastic changes. Refusing to see her faults or continuing to blame the community for how she is perceived is ignorant and will only maintain Sym’s status as a troll/niche/unpopular pick.
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I agree, we disagree in the very fundamental basis of our arguments, which is Symmetra kit viability in the first place. Since we start from different assumptions, we always kinda return to that point, and I think the conversation came full circle by now.
That was a good discussion anyway. Thank for your time.
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Eh the dps was fine. It was her support side that got neutered badly.
I’m just gonna chime in here and say that I disagree. First, about her old shields. Her 75 shields were nerfed because they made flankers incredibly powerful, and we really don’t need anymore of that. It was impossible to balance for tanks, and it was the most uninteractive ability in the game. You would apply it to your allies and forget about it. It was poorly designed so they dropped it. The only time she was a viable pick for a support slot was in beta when she had this unbalanced uninteractive ability. Ever since then she’s been in this niche defensive utility limbo. Even after her first rework, which did help, she’s always been stuck mainly as a first point defense pick. But why?
Well to be frank, current Sym is pretty bad in terms of gameplay design. Her kit is slow-paced, one-dimensional, and most importantly it lacks meaningful decision making. She needs to setup to have an impact on a game, which doesn’t work with the pace of Overwatch. She’s too niche, being good at her first point defense in some situations and bad in almost every other, again because she relies on setup. And her kit can’t really be worked with because so much of it is fire and forget. You build turrets on walls and hope they aren’t immediately destroyed. Spam chokes and hope you land some hits. Place your ult and hope you get to do this before the enemy team charges down your team since so much of your value is in your ult. I’m not saying that there isn’t any skill in using these abilities, but their value mostly comes out of the enemy team making mistakes, not any real mechanical play from Sym herself. It makes it hard to get value out of her, and doing number buffs or small tweaks wouldn’t change the fact that her kit is fundamentally flawed when it comes to player interaction. This is a big reason why you will never see Sym played professionally, good coordinated teams won’t make the mistakes Sym needs them to make to be a valuable asset to her team.
She’s not unplayable or anything, but she definitely is the character in most need of a rework. I know Sym mains can make her work sometimes in situations outside of her niche, but the truth is that finding success on a bad pick doesn’t mean that they aren’t a bad pick. Trust me, I was a Sombra/Karma (League) main before their reworks. The nice thing is that while Sym’s kit is pretty clunky, it’s got a lot of interesting ideas. While her kit specializes in area denial she has a variety of interesting utility effects attached to it, she’s one of two characters with turrets, and her teleporter is extremely unique. She’s got plenty of interesting elements to work with, which I think is why people are so mad that they aren’t going to rework her into a full-on utility support, but I think there’s a very good reason for that.
If they were to make her an actual utility support they’d have to get rid of most of her kit. So much of Sym’s power budget and utility has always been through area denial by way of her main DPS tools. Her turrets and her orbs, the things you spend most of your time doing on Sym, the things that help you build your ult and get that value you need out of her, are mostly defensive in nature, not supportive. If you wanted Sym to be a true support, you would actually need a full rework into a different character. You can’t keep her kits area denial through DPS as it is and expect her to fill in for a support slot at the same time. To the people that call the new Sym “Sanjay”, just stop. They didn’t make her into a utility support because she has never been a true utility support. She’s always been a defensive hero with some supportive aspects attached, and they’re trying to keep her as close to her intended role/playstyle with this rework. Symmetra has always been like Sombra in that aspect. Sure, if they’re effective they can enable a solo support comp, but they aren’t truly supports by themselves. So then what does the rework do for Symmetra?
Area denial through turrets and orbs? Check. Supportive utility through teleporter and damage mitigation? Check. Damage ramp beam with little aim? Check. They’ve kept every aspect of her kit largely the same, and they’re making them more flexible. More flexibility/interaction on her primary fire through extra range and shield-breaking utility, more flexibility/interaction on her secondary fire through much faster travel time, more flexibility/interaction in her base kit’s utility through her TP, more flexibility/interaction by giving her long-range turret placement with much less setup time, more flexibility/interaction through a much more active ult. Symmetra will no longer be a niche pick constrained by her need to setup and will have much more meaningful fast-paced decision making options in her kit.
They’re not going through with this rework cause they’re unimaginative and lazy. They’re trying to keep her playstyle similar to what it is now while fixing everything that’s wrong with it: its lack of decision making, player interaction, and flexibility. They’re actually appealing to the Symmetra player-base with these changes, and I think it’s a great thing. Sure, she’s moved from Support to Defense, but most people would tell you she belonged there in her current state. If anything, she’ll be seen as more supportive now because other players will notice your active utility through relocatable turrets, much more accessible teleporting, and her interactive barrier ult. So please stop saying that this isn’t Symmetra or that the team should have made her into something that she’s never been. I think these changes will be great for Symmetra and Symmetra players everywhere.
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If Blizzard didn’t want Symmetra to stagnate at the bottom of a steaming trash pile, why did they put her there?
Symmetra has been nerfed 10 times over the course of her life, did you know that? And 6 of these happened before comp season 1 (one before she was even in beta). Have you EVER thought Symmetra needed a nerf.
And now they tellin us she needs a full rework. How about we buff her 10 times instead; I think that would be more helpful.
That concept didn’t matter once shield generator made. What’s your excuse there when they were applied on flankers? Obviously nothing because it didn’t matter at that time. As the game somehow balance out in its own way. They could reverted back to 75 because that was solely reason what made Symmetra decent for support role. Terrible developers neutering the game for the sake of flankers who is only two heroes. Tracer and Genji wrecking the scene with or without the shield benefit. So who really was the problem?