Even if “weaker” than 2.0 in her og niche situation, I like the design of 3.0 much more. I hope there are good ways to buff her.
Looking at her turrets I think is a good way. Torbjorn got a lot better after not having to level up his turret manually.
I know a lot of players suggested that the turrets should only do slow instead or even act as a “sensor” (act like Hanzo’s Sonic Arrow) and turrets like that could have a lot more hp than 30 (maybe 100?). But then if they could look through walls and you had 3 of them then no flanker could attempt… flanking. And only slowing might not be worth anything at all, considering how many movement abilities exist to bypass them entirely.
What I want for her myself right now is:
-
Teleporter revert to pre infinite duration
No more spawn taxi
- Reduced heat hitbox
- Turret slow effect not being stackable with other Sym turrets
Slow of a single turret could be increased to compensate
- Recovering ammo on shield hp and not just barrier
- Changing damage stages from 60/120/180 to 90/150
Mostly it brings her minimal power potential up and her maximum power down. Symmetra’s greatest weakness, in my opinion, is that she requres time to get that maximum power, a lot of it too. And that max power can usually target only a single person.
Every other character compared to her tends to start at 100% effeciency and only go up from there (resource meter for Defense Matrix or Moira heals start at 100%, Doomfist gains shields the more he is doing and Brig activates a passive regen on top of all her other abilities), but Symmetra starts at her lowest damage stage and with 0 turrets active. Even the teleporter takes a second to get ready. In the meantime, many, many other characters have an instant “self help” (heal, invulnerability, escape) ability, which only helps to outperform Symmetra.
Torbjorn and Bastion too need only one button press to get their maximum potential (turret placement, which automatically gets to lvl 2 and builds very quickly; Bastion sentry mode, just one button away). Symmetra has a delay on everything that isn’t her ultimate ( which is also delayed by requiring ult charge, if you want to see it that way).
Any change that reduces that fluctuation of power is what I think is good for Symmetra. Less damage stages, less turrets or turrets not stacking effects are some ways to go about it.
Heck, imagine if a single turret output 80 damage, ~40% slow and had ~100hp, but each turret can only target a single person. Suddenly she is less of a 1v1 close quarter combat god after the opponent kindly waits for 5 seconds, but has more impact in group fights and is perhaps more able to deter flankers without handicapping her own damage output during an enemy group push. I don’t know, just a weird though.
Instant teleporter or 250hp are all nice quick ideas that I believe change nothing in the end as her core problems are the same. Would a Symmetra at 400hp really be meta? Or would she be op, because suddenly she always reaches her ridiculous 180dps? There is very little middle ground with how her abilities are designed, so bringing min/max performance might create an actual “middle ground” for her to really be balanced around.
Oh, and spawn taxi is a horrible mechanic that I wish they removed from the game again.