Healer Symmetra (with utility) Rework Idea!

General Discussion
1

The goal of my changes is to bring back certain aspects of her old kit, whilst trying to keep the overall feeling of utility in a rework that gives Symmetra healing capabilities.

Note: These changes are completely open to adjustments or even removal. This is just my “healer focused” rework idea. I will also be creating a “utility focused” rework in the future that has minor healing elements.

Primary Fire

Still a straight beam.

  • Width doubled.
  • Ammo increased from 70 to 100.
  • Ramp up time reduced from 1.33s to 1s.
  • DPS reduced from 60/120/180dps to 60/80/120.
  • Now also heals allies for 40/50/60hps.
    Can only heal one ally at a time.
    Beam pierces through full health allies.
    Stages will ramp from both healing and damaging.
  • Ammo continues to reload on barriers.
  • Damage to barriers is constantly 120dps, regardless of stage.
  • Stages reduce by 1 stage every 2 seconds when not healing or damaging for 1 second.
  • Beam range increased from 12m to 15m.
    This is to make it easier for Symmetra to heal allies that are further away.

Secondary Fire

  • Maximum damage reduced from 140 to 120.
  • Now pierces through barriers, but does not pierce through enemies.
    This is to try to reduce the power of bunker comps (ie double shield).

Sentry Turrets

  • No longer damages enemies.
  • Now heals at 10hps.
  • Maximum turrets increased from 3 to 4.
  • Cooldown reduced from 10s to 6s.
  • Max range increased from 10m to 15m.
  • Health increased to 40.
    Turrets will lock onto the lowest health ally.
    Turrets are still throwable.
    No more than two turrets can heal the same person.

New Ability: Shield Generator

  • Can be placed up to 20m away.
  • Grants +50 shields to allies within a 50m radius.
  • 6 second duration.
  • 10 second cooldown.
  • Has 200 health.
  • 1 second cast time.
    Cooldown begins upon ability end.
    A LoS requirement may be required to prevent a 200hp Tracer running around for 6 seconds. However, I worry that may feel clunky.

Returning Ultimate: Teleporter

  • Can be placed up to 20m away.
  • 2 second cast time (like current teleporter).
  • Lasts for 20 seconds, with infinite charges.
  • TP entrance appears at spawn.
  • Has 400 health.
  • Symmetra’s TP is refunded when points are captured. Refund % decreases and scales with the duration that the TP was active. Longer uptime = less ult charge refunded.
    I’m not sure how to balance the ultimate charge, but I plan for this to be available as much as Mercy’s Valkyrie.
    Ultimate cannot be charged whilst TP is active.
  • Teleporter can be destroyed by Symmetra when clicking the ultimate key and clicking accept (defaulted to primary fire button).
    Note: Manually destroying TP refunds no ult charge.

New Second Ultimate: Shield Matrix

  • Just like with 2.0 Symmetra, the player can now pick between two different ultimates again.
  • Cast time of 1 second.
  • Instantly grants 200 shields to allies in a 15m radius around Symmetra.
  • Shields last for 6 seconds and then disappear immediately.
    I considered ramping the shields over time and having them last for 15 seconds. However, I worried this would feel too much like Brigitte’s Rally. I want Symmetra to continue to feel unique.
    Her Ultimate is defaulted to Shield Matrix, to make it quicker for Symmetra to activate the ultimate in dire moments.

Why I think these are healthy changes

Her feeling of a “utility” support remains, but she has healing aspects. Teleporter and Shield Generator are very iconic parts of Symmetra’s identity, and I’d love to see them return.

Teleporter is very strong on defense, but lacks value in offense. Her new second ultimate can be used in the heat of the moment to save an ally or “buy some time” to deal with an ulting Genji or Soldier 76.

Having two ultimates means the Symmetra player will have to carefully asses the situation and decide which is the best to use.

The Primary Fire healing per second may require some iterating. I’m worried that Turrets added onto primary fire healing could be too much.

Symmetra is still quite squishy with this rework. However, she can grant herself and her allies temporary +50hp that can be used in the heat of the moment. Now that her beam width is doubled, she can more consistently deal damage but still requires some degree of aim and skill.

Note: I am making edits and incorporating feedback as it comes.

12 Likes
2

I love your Shield Generator idea. The shield matrix ult could use an extra 50 health maybe. It’s only 6 second duration so it shouldn’t hurt.

3

Yeah maybe. Testing 200 first would be good though. I’m not sure whether this rework would make Symmetra a main healer, off healer or mesh between the two. So perhaps numbers could be adjusted depending on what feels right.

1 Like
4

turrets might need lower healing ps.
like 10 each maybe. her normal heal sounds strong enough.

5

This would likely be a tad high for turret healing. 4 of them on 1 person would be 60hps and that’s out healing Mercy. Would either have to cap to no more than 2 turrets on a person at a time or lower each one to like 9hps.

6

I like this idea! Thanks for the feedback.

1 Like
7

Honestly, as I said in another of my posts, I like Symmetra as a DPS. I like her as she is right now. Sure she could use a bit more power, but I still like her as she is right now.

Also, I am not fan of the Healing Turrets. At all. Basically she does nothing to heal her team, it’ll all depend on their positionning, meaning that she will rely EVEN MORE on her Team’s positionning. Unless you give her a total of 10 Healing Turrets to spread out pretty much everywhere, that just won’t work, especially with a 15 HPS.

I just thing they should bring back her Projected Barrier, but it’d have the exact same properties as Sigma’s barrier where you can recall it, place it where you want, and instead, her new Ultimate becomes old TP/Shield Gen.

Here is a thread I posted a few minutes ago where I talk about how we could make Symmetra a better DPS.

While I am open to the idea of Symmetra becoming a Support, I’m scared that we lose her identity. So, yeah.

1 Like
8

Just going to keep repeating on all these “Support Sym” threads…

You do not want this…

Blizz has been essentially turning systematically all supports into heal-bots, with the exception of Ana and Lucio because the pros like them. They will never accept Sym, even as a Support.

If Sym gets made into a Support, which you think is something you really want, expect:

  • Average healing
  • Loss of turrets or converted to healing points
  • Shield Generator if it returns will be an AOE healing (they will never do shields again)
  • Same primary, possible Orb becoming a HOT
  • They will not go back to the old teleporter… that is a certainty

Trust me on this you do not want Sym to be a Support… this is delusional thinking of the highest order. The only damage-impacting characters allowed to have special abilities of any real order are DPS now. Consigning Sym to being a Support will only make her F-tier worse than she is now. Literally, it would be the worst thing to happen to the character and probably would destroy all hope of ever being viable at higher tiers again. She would fall into the “no-brain” Support category.

1 Like
9

Most of these points aren’t relevant to my rework idea. Did you read through it?

2 Likes
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Honestly, they should make it an Experimental Card.
While I 100% agree with you about how giving her Healing Turrets will make her useless and even WORSE because she will rely even more on her Team, I’m still open about the idea of changing Symmetra a bit.

So yeah. I’m all ears to this potential Support Symmetra, although I’d prefer a buff to her DPS self and not her Support self.

2 Likes
11

I did. My point still stands in general: it’s a terrible idea all the way around due to the trashy way they treat Sym, then combine that with being a Support on top (again) which is systematically mistreated thanks to the Master+ and Pro players, and you will be very sorry…

if the devs think that making Sym a support will 1) give a freebie to buff up Supports, and 2) kill their problems with Sym as any kind of impactful character, they will do it and there will be no return from it.

1 Like
12

Wise.

Let’s keep in mind that, having taken zero damage, a Sound Barrier will already fade to 250 shields provided by 4 seconds in and be gone by 7 seconds. This wouldn’t even start to drain until it’s gone, all at once, after 6 seconds, meaning that could potentially see more value so long as it’s not facing off against a Gravitic Flux, Barrage, Nanoblade, High Noon, Death Blossom, or similarly huge-dps ultimates or one that would just deal further percentage-based damage for your efforts (Flux).

13

We saw Symmetra in a decent spot back in the last double shield meta. She was oppressive, so I don’t see many feesable buffs that wouldn’t make her frustrating to play against.

The only change to Symmetra we’ve had since her nerfs is an extra 20 damage on her orb. The last time they went a long time without touching Symmetra was due to her tricky balance spot, which led to another rework.

We very well may not see any balance changes for Symmetra until her next (possible) rework.

1 Like
14

Since you’ve read my topic about it, I think you understand what kind of buffs I want. Just change her TP, this is what makes her too much Team-reliant. Instead, bring back her old projected barrier with Sigma’s barrier properties, and she’ll be a bit better. Maybe at the same spot as Sombra/Mei, which is still not great, but at least better than Bastion.

Yes, I believe that right now Symmetra is at the same spot as Bastion, and that Sombra and Mei are superior. They assert their dominance over the weakest.

15

By doing this, I feel she would just be a more boring version of her 2.0 iteration. Only this time, she has no TP, no shield gen, just turrets and a barrier.

However, like I said on your post, TP and Shield Gen should only come back with adjustments.

In fact, I think if you removed the healing parts of my OP, this rework idea could work for a DPS Symmetra.

1 Like
16

Honestly I really liked your 3 way teleporter idea. I don’t know what else to say, I just really liked it.

1 Like
17

This healing is very high, stage 2 is achieved after 1 second and beats out mercy and then in another second it beats out Moira. This is single target but the ramp time is low.
However I suppose it is inconsistent due to aiming but like Ana on a tank this could be very strong due to lack of aiming required.
Her range remaining at 12m could be an issue as now she is a support on the frontline dealing less damage with no sentries and no mobility, a range increase would probably be a good idea too.

Does it ramp up while you heal or do you ramp up damage and that stage translates to healing?

I think you’re onto something but these seem a little powerful, the 6 second cooldown makes them quite spammable, there’s now 4 and they have a combined health of 160 which is almost a second hero. Perhaps lower the hps to 10 and keep the health or revert the HP and keep 15hps.

The shield generator has as much health as it provides, should probably have a bit less so it’s not only a bit more destroyable but worth it. Currently if Sym uses this it’s much more beneficial for the enemies to either wait it out or damage through it.

The 8 second cooldown means it has a very high uptime +50 shields to all allies is very very impactful. I would suggest a 12-15 second cooldown or requring LOS on top of reducing its HP.

I think you should also detail cast times with this one.

Does destroying the tp manually refund ult charge? otherwise I can’t see this being beneficial for Sym to even do.

Lasting for 20 seconds with infinite charge could be hard to manage. When your team dies its 10 seconds for them to respawn meaning it would require sym to almost be ready to place and defend it (does it have hp or is it immortal?) and if Sym has to place it and it’s immortal then it could be very campable on return to point.

Cast time of 1 second makes this a little hard to be a reactionary ultimate.

Do these shields decay? If not I think it might be worth lowering the shields to 100 and increasing the duration to say 15 seconds essentially giving sym and her allies the sustain for a teamfight without treading on lucio or brig’s territory. Perhaps during this time Sym also heals teammates for extra when healing shield hp.

I like your concept but I think a few extra things need to be detailed alongside some fine tuning, hope I helped at all!

18

Wow, thanks so much for the detailed response!

I was thinking to myself that perhaps the healing is too high. I don’t want to increase ramp up time, as I feel this further increases the “gimmicky” aspect of the weapon.

Perhaps reduce the healing from 40/60/80 to 40/50/60 instead?

Agreed. Especially with the lower damage output and the lower healing that I’ve just proposed.

Increase from 12m to 15m?

I want the stages to be interchangable. So you can ramp up damage from healing, and vice versa.

This has been proposed a few times now. I’ll make this change in the OP.

Alright, got it! Is 200hp more reasonable?

I want to stray away from nerfing the shield generator too much. Now that I’m lowering her HPS on turrets and primary fire, I feel having a more impactful SG makes up for the lower heals.

Though I will increase the cooldown to 10 seconds.

This was an oversight in the OP. I planned for it to have a 1 second cast time (so it can be used as a quick “burst heal” in a way).

Manually destroying does not refund ult charge. The main reason for this is just because the 20s duration is very long and Symmetra may only want to TP 1-2 people in the first few seconds of the ultimate.

This was how old TP had to play out. Because this TP has a long placement range, I intend for the ultimate to be used in situations where Symmetra is one of the last team members alive and she places it during the fight on the high ground (or another hard to reach area).

This was another oversight in the OP. I intend for it to have 350hp. Because this is her ultimate, I feel the extra health is feesable.

This cast time matches Lucio’s beat drop. Instantly granting 200hp to 6 people is strong, so I think there needs to be a window of opportunity to stop this happening.

No. They last for 6 seconds and then disappear immediately.

However, what you’ve suggested really does sound similar to Rally. Rally gives 100 armour (worth more than shields) and lasts for 30 seconds.

The only difference here is the shields lasting the full duration whereas Rally armour is destroyed mid-rally.

This was a massive help! Thanks for the detailed feedback.

1 Like
19

I think this is a lot more reasonable especially because it can be stacked with the turrets. Obviously this is one of those things where without it being in the game you can’t fine tune it.

I would say maybe 18m (but 15m at least), that way she can keep herself away from danger, she doesn’t want to be on the frontlines at all now. She isn’t gonna melt any shields or opponents with such a range and it helps her keep a distance. Besides with the healing the further she is away the harder it is to track.

Since it has decreased increase time, I think it would be better to increase how fast it goes down while not doing something? Now it can heal it has a way to stay charged during a fight which could be slightly problematic. As she would almost always be at her full potential.

200hp is definitely more reasonable.

10 seconds is definitely better
forgot to add this in my initial post but maybe a longer cooldown of 12-13 seconds if the enemy destroys it that way it is a bit more punishing to use poorly. It just seems a bit like one of those abilities that gives a lot of value for easy use that people complain about. I’m unsure myself on this suggestion.

makes sense
also you might want to detail an ultimate cost for this one, forgot to mention. Or at least a rough idea of how often you’d like symmetra to have these ults.

maybe a bit more. If sym is one of the last alive then this thing needs to tank a lot of focus fire as soon as she places it, it will be a priority especially with no team or sentries to defend it.

i see why my suggestion is flawed. Perhaps to make this slightly more powerful on sym’s end it could give her infinite ammo and ramp her up to max charge for the duration too? Might make it feel less like a mini beat drop. Although it might be better as is depending on the ult cost.

Glad I could help! I love reworks that are detailed like this! You can really tell when someone cares, and speculation and discussion is fun

1 Like
20

18m is very long, especially for a Support. If the weapon was healing only, I think this could slide. But because damage is attached, I don’t want Symmetra to become a frustrating hero to play against.

Ah yes, another oversight in the OP! I orignally intended for it to deramp at one stage per 2s (this is the same as the live server).

But reducing it from 2s to 1s will be a healthier change.

I’ve never been a fan of increased cooldowns on enemy destroyal. Immediately having your structure destroyed is punishment enough, in my opinion.

I’m not very well versed on ult charge numbers. That’s why I mentioned a similar ult charge rate to Valkyrie.

However, deciding the frequency of an ultimate is hard to pin point without being able to test how fast Symmetra generates ultimate charge.

So I guess I would want to leave this decision to the developers, if they were to theoretically use this idea.

1 Like