Replacing her turrets with throwable shields like she used to have (that build up in charges like junkrat mines) would make her a pretty fantastic hero imo.
Removing the turrets is probably the wrong approach. Turrets are always problematic in games, but I think they’ve actually done a good job on making Symm’s turrets similar enough to burst damage (eg, Junkrat’s mines) that they are mostly fine. They could use some numeric tweaks (flight speed, cooldown), but nothing major.
Symm’s central problem is that her entire kit, except her ult, provides inconsistent value (is situational and/or overly dependent upon enemy mistakes). Having 1-2 abilities in a kit that are inconsistent is fine (eg, it’s okay that Widow’s mine is inconsistent, because the rest of her kit isn’t). But, a kit packed with inconsistency can’t be balanced properly. It always seems to result in a hero that is overtuned in some situations, but has frustratingly few opportunities to shine during most play.
The teleporter is the worst offender. I actually think it would be fine on a different hero with a more reliable primary/secondary fire. But, she just has too many other unreliable elements in her kit to cover for how inconsistent the teleporter is. She needs an ability in that slot that provides the same amount of consistent value as abilities like Mei’s wall and Zarya’s bubble.
They really just need to replace her teleporter with a defensive skill of some kind. Durability or evasion. Either way. For example:
- Give yourself or an ally a +100 hp shield buff for 4 seconds. Shields heal 20% of damage dealt while the buff is active. Left/right-click to choose self/ally.
- Instant, directional, 15 m teleport that leaves behind a temporary portal allies can use. Residual portal disappears after 3 seconds. Allies use the portal with Interact.
- Or whatever. So long as it’s a defensive skill.
The consistency issues with her primary/secondary should be easy to fix. Just increase the orb projectile speed (30 m/s) and beam range (15 m), with maybe some small splash/damage adjustments to compensate.
2 Likes
isn’t now the time to be more vocal tho? given that they are listening right now?
what she needs most is really more consistency and independence to do her (damage) job. simply upping beam dps won’t help anything since beam is inherently an extremely situational weapon with all its preconditions.
I doubt even if “working properly” that they’d meaningfully do anything tbh. like their mobility abilities are instant, or well so fast that they’re effectively instant. even if turrets actually reduced their movement speed by like 20m/s (? idk the exact numbers for movement reduction), they’d still escape turrets with a press of a button.
and you can’t add a root or cripple/movement silence on them either otherwise you bring the wrath of all the sym haters.
imo they could just lower turret dps for more consistency and survivability buffs to sym (if needed at all).
honestly idk why they didn’t buff sym to be a dva counter back when dva was “a problem”…
design wise yes you’re right. but I think OP was really talking about current ruined, nerfed, live sym (just like you are later in your post).
2 Likes
imo?
Drones.
Attatch to a friendly player like zen orb.
Set duration, and deals dmg to enemies within X range every Y seconds.
Only 1 drone can be attached to one player at a time (can be changed)
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Symmetra is in DPS section only because papa Jeff decided so… she should be placed back i to supports and given her old tp ultimate back.
Here is the problem all heroes cannot be viable at higher levels people need to realise this
Making Reaper viable at higher levels for example makes him OP at lower levels why can’t people understand that it is impossible to balance all characters it is just that simple
Sym unfortunately for you is one of those character that would be OP in the lower levels by tuning her ability to make her viable in the higher ones it just has to be that way
she won’t be viable as a support because she doesn’t provide an equivalent value to healing atm.
healers in ow are a lot more important in ow compared to some other games because they’re the most accessible and frequent source of healing and sustain by far compared to other sources in ow.
Jeff Kaplan did mention Symmetra (and torb) by name recently on the forums.
It wasn’t for anything relating to buffs but I’m going to just pretend in my crazy little head that this is a sign.
Symmetra is not a hero which you just pick and play as regular. She is a tool to pass choke points, do cheesy strats at some part of the maps. If you were able to play her on regular basis at higher ranks, that is just confirm the fact that she was broken.
- Her damage is not low it is 60-180 dps which you can manage in right hands, also her damage dealing ability doesnt require high skill demand, bc it has forgivable tracking with big hitbox.
- She creates 4 additional objecs at the map as one hero, which is broken in 6v6 game. Also before her fixes, I would call it fixes, not nerfs, she had broken ultimate which was lasting for 15 second, and the only counterplay was sombra’s emp. Now it fixed.
- Surviveability. As we all remember at gm games at season 18 betta and further, she was meta pick, bc enabled by 2x shield tanks, which is hinting about she is team dependent, so complaining about her individual viablity is just selfish way to protect your main hero.
Bc she has no spot at high lvl gameplay, unless it is uniq situation where she can find actual usage. Bc she is low effort hero, bc her skill flor and skill ceiling are not that far away from moira’s. There is enough heroes at gm which is working bc of higher skill demand brings actual value. Imagine comparing widow and symmetra for example, I prefer to get outaimed instead of being “outplayed” by objects like moira’s “skill orb” and turrets with autoaim.
Yes she is, she is at exact spot she deserves to be in terms of skill floor and skill ceiling. Want to play cheesy heroes, think it has unique playstile and requires more brain power than others, go diamond pls and do your experiments with it. Don’t mess GM+ games with different types of unskill gameplay like bunker, 2x shield+sym etc etc.
Yes and it is good. We have tools at hero roster, some of them are universal at all circumstances, some of them are just special for currently described occasion.
I don’t hate symmetra, or sym players, I would enjoy to do some interesting strats with that players sometimes, but just sometimes. I cant imagine this kind of hero would be a core of meta or something, it is just ridiculous in terms of skill demand at high elos. I want to compete with actual players, but not with objects on map which they are created.
i really want 2.0 symm, but with the throwing the turrets
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I actually made a post like this.
I missed that thread,
still the concept stays fairly close to what sym has, but offers more utility since the problem is a fast moving and changing active combat area often leaving sym behind in her “nest”
A set duration to these drones or “eyebots” as you said in that thread, would make her alot more versatile as a dps able to do her job.
another way to limit the drones could in theory be a ‘photon resource’ meter she gets by attacking similar to moira’s healing meter if it feels to oppresive.
This being used to power said new drones.
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Honestly, I just want old Symmetra back; imo, she was far better as a support than a dps, as her kit back then just didn’t have the problems current Symmetra does. She had increased health with shield gen, survivability with her barrier, decent damage, and arguably better ultimates, especially in regards of her Teleporter. It was so much better of an ability back then as it was supposed to function as a taxi, but because of its unlimited range could be an incredible flanking tool, much better than this teleporter being on a much much shorter range.
While I’d be happy getting tweaks that fix Symmetra right now, I’d much rather have her old kit. I know there were still problems with her back then, but nothings perfect. This version isn’t, and nether were the last two. But 2.0 was arguably the best version of Symmetra, and I hope they bring her back, or make adjustments to her kit so she can.
2 Likes
Funny how you mentioned the rescource meter.
Last night I was thinking of the exact same thing.
I was thinking that maybe she could have 8 charges in her resource meter.
On E she would have her old photon barrier
And on Shift she would have the “Construct” ability, where she can choose between turrets, teleporter and shield gen.
1 turret takes 1 charge.
however TP and Shield Gen take 2 or 3 charges each.
Depending on the situation, Sym could focus all her resources into either creating 8 turrets, or placing a few turrets and comboing it with TP or shield gen, or making multiple TP gateways, or making multiple shield gens.
Or just mixing it all up, really depends on her.
so forgetting that sym’s primary has a smaller hitbox than zarya’s and also forgetting how it’s literally one of the most situational primary fires in the entire game with a charge up time (not even talking about actual utilisation time of the so called high dps) longer than the most heroes’ TTK on her but sure, let’s just ignore all that and say there’s no issue with it and it’s the players that are wrong…
3 of which dies in 1 hit and are very limited in range → limited in uses and locations. they aren’t BOBs or torb turrets… not to mention most of the cast has a mobility or sustain ability to bypass them.
and sure… let’s also conveniently forget wall literally has the same counterplay as most other barriers like taking a different angle/position, or zoning to force people away from it…
idk man. seems like you’re the selfish one here with having an agenda to put down certain heroes to unviable limbo.
Also nice hypocrisy there with how you’re saying you value “skill” (cough
purely aim from the looks of it cough) yet:
- you’re also saying “oh sym should be bad and completely team reliant so she can’t contribute value no matter how well she plays”… like wow, only select heroes are allowed to have their value positively correlated to their player’s skill? who or what are the criteria for these select heroes? like pls, don’t act like you care about skill when you’re advocating for players’ input while playing a particular hero to not have any agency or contribution to results.
- I like how you emphasise aim so much yet you don’t even acknowledge that sym’s orbs are harder to consistently land compared to most weapon fires in the game. like what’s harder to land, 1s charge up no headshot orb that travels 25m/s → distance/25 seconds amount of time for targets to reactively dodge a fired orb or:
- hitscan weapons where most don’t have charge up (higher rate of fire), can headshot and have 0s time for targets to dodge
- fast moving projectiles often not having charge up?
for reference:
riiiiiight because sym’s definitely just “chuck turrets and tp down, sit emote all day”…
- tracking with primary weapon that’s thinner than zarya’s? nah that’s not skill
- projectile aiming with orbs and with charge up? nah that’s not skill
- flick shotting for tp-orb-melee burst combos? nah that’s not skill
- using tp at the right time for getting picks through a flank through it or with said combo above? nah that’s not skill
- constantly needing to predict >=2s ahead to put down a tp in time to escape a flanker or an enemy ult? nah that’s brainless.
- needing good reaction times to react to cues in order to wall or interact with tp quick enough to escape death? nah that’s not skill
- needing good spacial and map knowledge for good structure and wall placement at any given moment in a game of OW where everything’s fast paced (except sym apparently)? nah that’s brainless.
- need good resource, spacial awareness and gamesense to know when to use her short primary that takes ~3s to charge up when without sustain? nah that’s brainless
/s
it honestly sounds like you do.
4 Likes
i refuse for symm to get buffs as long as her aids turret exist
remove the turrets. buff her. please remove them first
Yes, she was a lot better then 2.0. I was talking specifically about the current 3.0
After the 8 nerfs, she literally is only usuable for the niche of a Tp strat.
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Why can’t anyone agree to switch her back to support? her weapon isn’t good at doing direct damage and I’m pretty sure blizzard want to keep her health at 200, they could at least give her a second ability option side with TP.
I mean I’m down for it. Her turrets may be aids but their garbage, like… She would benefit from anything else
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they are garbage but nobody wants to be bothered with them. they are an annoyance