And of course the problem is OW is not a true FPS. How many times do you guys need reminding of this? I mean seriously, that this is even a question now just shows an inability to accept the reality of the type of game it is. I am sure the next thing you would like to remove is melee attacks…
They removed her survivability tools so getting in close range is death sentence for sym and if they brought back with the 12 m it will be broken.
Lock on is what made sym scary in her range so I always position myself as healer to avoid surprise sym, the current one is meh i laugh when i see sym chasing me with her current primary i say “free kill”.
The problem is that Tracer/Genji can poke her from outside her effective range nullifying the benefit of autolock, it was only beneficial in low ranks where no one can aim/position.
I can’t say for all Sym players, but I know why I want lock-on back.
I like removing variables in my strategies. I don’t like risky gambles, and removing the “aim” factor from a hero, knowing my aim is subpar because I don’t like playing FPS in general, is a great way to normalize my damage output.
That’s why I enjoy playing with turret/minion characters, and why currently I’m mostly playing tanks, because they have much less reliance in precise aiming than others.
Symmetra was a character that lived and died based on your battlefield vision, area denying, positioning, and general awareness. All those are areas that I consider myself better than “put crosshair on target”. When I play a usual DPS hero, I still have this strategic mind, but I choke enough that it doesn’t matter if I’m well-positioned or catch someone by surprise when there is still a 50% chance I’ll miss my shot at point blank range.
I rarely ever felt like I had “no skill” while playing Sym2, because aiming was never the skill I intend to git gud while playing her. And the few moments I did it was because I noticed I was holding into a charged ult for an entire fight without placing it down, or I didn’t noticed someone broke my turrets down.
I feel like I have “no skill” all the time playing other heroes. When I catch an enemy Zen by surprise as Tracer and can’t one clip him. When there is an enemy Pharah that is wrecking havoc on my team because no one can kill her (me included). When my Mercy can’t GA well enough to save her own life.
It’s ok for some people wanting to git gud at aiming. That’s why heroes like Soldier, Widow, Ashe and Ana are in the game. But not everyone joined Overwatch expecting to be an aiming pro. OW marketing since the start was to make the game as inclusive as possible, including catching people who do not like standard FPS games. Don’t dismiss that public so easily.
Pretty sure Blizzard has learned their lesson about EASY mode DPS heroes by now.
Bastion, Torb, Sym and Brig all didn’t work even after be reworked MANY times.
she’s being nerfed bcz she destroys every squishy and bringing back that cancer would just render then brig nerf meaningless.
i’d say remove both heros
I hope blizzard doesn’t listen to this incredibly poorly thought out suggestion considering that Tracer is not even oppressive in the rank you play at
2 Likes
They still play those heroes though. 🤷
I split your points up so that I could address each one. Sorry if you don’t like that.
It really tells me a lot that that is all you took from my response.
Sorry that I want to slightly lower the skill floor of Symmetra by making her less aim dependent. I highly doubt that a hero being slightly easier to pick up is gonna drastically affect the competitive scene though.
Yeah, I could live without autolock if they actually made her beam good. It’s not even high-risk, high-reward, even if your aim is perfect the damage isn’t outstanding. Right now her weapon is a crap version of Zaryas beam, and Sym is supposed to be the DPS. It’s stupid.
Let’s enumerate all the times Sym was adjusted before they changed her whole kit into the mess it is today.
- Dec 2016: Sym 2.0 hit live
- Mar 2018: Sym turrets don’t target barriers anymore
- Jun 2018: Sym 3.0 hit live
Symmetra was never tinkered in the PTR, or adjusted before the sledgehammer rework. Despite we giving tons of suggestions in at least two megathreads (one on this forum, one in the old forums) to deal with Sym’s problems while still keeping her gameplay the same.
It was worthy noticing that the patch before Sym’s rework also featured Reaper and Mei buffs that kept their playstyles instact, so we expected something similar for Sym. We kinda were expecting TP to become a standard ability (probably using the turret interface), but not everything else.
yea, that worked really well before when a half decent tracer/genji would absolutely dominate any good/better Symmetra
Great now toss in Bastion and Torb reworks who also have the same problems and we have a pretty clear pattern.
It is too hard to make these heroes good for high skill level and not be too strong at low skill level. Which is why they all get stuck in limbo no matter how many times they try.
Torb got a sizeable buff when he got passive scrap generation. As a Torb main, I still think the scrap mechanic should had been removed, and the armor packs should had been a cooldown ability with 4 stacks. His recent rework is weird, but still kept a good bunch of his abilities. He also didn’t got touched since the scrap buff.
Bastion at 35% Ironclad was broken (mostly for being able to stack with Nanoboost), and when they nerfed it to 20%, they forgot to give back some resilience to Config: Tank because those +150 armor he used to get was the source of the 35% damage reduction number. He also got no changes after that Ironclad nerf.
My point is not about what they should fix or not, but how those heroes got negleted for so long, just for them to arrive with a sledgehammer rework approach instead of making minor adjustments over time and see what work.
- Roadhog got a dozen hook changes before they decided to simply nerf his gun damage.
- Ana was adjusted 5 times during triple tank meta before they nerfed the biotic grenade healing buff to 50%.
- D.va got thinkered 4 times before they decide to give her missiles.
- Mercy received 14 nerfs in a row (that’s another problem, but she was getting attention regardless).
There is room for the devs to make more small adjustments for many characters per patch cycle instead of only making big adjustments for a selected few. That’s is the problem with off-meta heroes balance, because Blizzard don’t prioritizes their adjustments enough, and when they touch them, they want to fix all issues in one go and not look at their direction for another year.
Except all those heroes have actually been good at one point because they can scale with mechanical skill so it easier to balance them at more skill levels.
Mercy don’t require more mechanical skill than Sym2.
Most supports don’t so it sort of works for them. But they will have the same sort of issue as more supports get added.
If Mercy = Ana at GM. There is no reason to pick Ana.
I agree.
What was Sym2’s role, again?
I don’t know. That is the point.
I don’t know how they make auto aim DPS heroes work in an FPS environment. That is the issue because they need to be viable at many different skill levels without break the lowest skill levels.
Which blizzard has not been able to figure out yet
She should have been in defence. Her only means of support as 2.0 was in her ULTS.
I can tell you. She was a support character. So, by your own definition, a role that can rely on not being mechanically demanding.
People deemed her weak because in their heads she was using a DPS slot to deal subpar DPS, when the correct way to pair her up was with a main healer (Mercy or Ana), or an off-healer and characters that have some kind of self-sustain (Soldier, Tracer, Hog, Mei, etc).
Heck, in some formations (mostly on defense) she could even fit the off-tank slot, if she was focused on peeling for the backline. Just keeping enemy Tracer/D.va busy looking for a shield gen instead of harassing your healers was a huge relief of pressure for your team.