It’s been a minute since I’ve made a Sym post and there doesn’t seem to be a surge of Sym posts on the front page right now so I figure I’d start a discussion thread.
1. Do you think Sym is in a good spot?
2. What changes, if any, do you think she needs?
As for me, I’d say she’s almost in a good spot. I have to disagree with the handful of people on here who say she’s perfectly fine (or even op… bless your souls) but also need to disagree with the Sym mains who think she’s absolutely terrible and weak.
What I think Sym needs are a handful of changes to carve out more of a niche for her and make her a welcome addition to the team. I also thinks she has a baaaad rep with the community, both as a trollpick and “cheese” hero. People hate the hero and the people who main her. Often, the Sym is the first to blame for any shortcomings on the team, no matter how little truth there may be to it. It’s also an unfortunate fact that Sym is one of the easiest heroes on the roster to counter. She doesn’t have favourable DPS matchups (which is theoretically OK as a utility hero) but the “harshness” of how hard she’s countered could use some looking at.
Here are some changes I think would be welcome and healthy:
Teleporter
Now lasts until replaced or destroyed.
Now has more clear visual effects for allies showing the direction of the exit pad.
(Optional since devs seem overcautious): Deploy time reduced by 0.25-0.5 seconds.
Bugfixes for animation reset of failed deployment and self-destruct problems.
Sentry Turrets
Symmetra can now manually destroy her own turrets individually using the interact key.
Sentry turrets now appear on allied UI (option can be turned off for allies. This alone would make it a LOT more apparent how Sym is helping a team and would be welcome for stationary allies.)
Collision hitbox for sentries to stick to objects reduced (if possible.)
Here are some less thought-out changes to her weapon in order to make DPS matchups less bad for Sym. These are kinda “what ifs”:
Photon Projector
Primary fire damage increased from 65/130/195 to 87/130/195. (DPS goes up 1.5x each stage… wanted to try and keep a theme here. This makes her a bit less vulnerable to being destroyed by single DPS flankers)
Primary fire range increased from 12m to 15m.
Alternate fire movement speed increased from 25 m/s to 30 m/s.
Basically the weapon buffs are to allow her to be more accurate with her alternate fire at mid range, and to let her use her primary fire more safely, even against targets like Pharah sometimes. (If you play Zarya and Sym, you realize how often you can hit her with the primary on Zarya vs how it’s nearly impossible with Sym. Those 3m would help a lot.) Also, doing more damage on the primary fire stage 1 makes it more clear-cut when it’s favorable to use primary instead of secondary fire. IMO if you track well, using primary should be the favorable option in range.
As far as ammo goes, I always tinkered with the idea in the back of my mind of just removing it for her entirely. Her weapon has enough drawbacks on it that it shouldn’t necessarily need to be limited to ammo, really. Primary has the ramp-up and secondary has the charge mechanic to release slow projectiles.
Imagine removing ammo and adding a sub-ability to the reload key and keeping that gorgeous animation. That’d be super interesting to tinker with. An overload mechanic for her weapon, or providing a burst of shield HP to her allies (25/50/75 depending on primary charge) etc.
Also IIRC Sym has one of the slowest reload animations in the game.
I don’t play symm now unless playing with lower ranked friends.
I usually lose the 1 v 1 vs Tracer at my rank and if my M1 isn’t charged, even though I have great tracking I lose more often than not.
I’m not great with teleporter usage, it is something I will use to position the team on Volskaya attack or maybe Anubis pt 1 defense, but apart from that I just don’t have the skill to do teleport dodge dance or do the turret thing and make them effective.
For me I love using her M1, hearing the hum of level 2 as I microwave my enemy as I run at them with AD is so satisfying, but I just get rekt when playing against a Hanzo or any competent enemy DPS.
If she had no ammo limitation- thinking back on many many teamfights I’ve had- she’d be literally unstoppable on 2cp defense. It’d be outright unmanageable if she were pocketed
Is she usable? Yes. Is she good? No she isnt. Her playrate is garbage and her winrate is even more garbage for how ‘‘niche’’ (read: underpowered and misdesigned) she is right now.
What does she need?
She needs ult variety back and to have TP off her E skill and have an actual combat skill.
She also needs to both/either have the corresponding survivability for her close range primary or massively reduced aiming requirements in her primary.
As it is now, Sym being able to use it for decent results shows more about the enemy team’s ineptitude more that her own skill, since she has no tools to stay at close range for the prolonged amount of time needed to charge her primary.
I think shes more applyable to more situations shes more consistent in general combat and less snowbally.
I also think she lost her niche strength she lost her unique playstyle she lost SO MANY little cool little things that made her feel nothing like any other hero, I think she got an overhyped buggy inconsistent mess of a E TP to replace the E barrier that many loved.
All in all i think 3.0 is fairly strong even if your better off with a dif hero in basically all situations but i dont think you can call her Sym. She was deleted and replaced with this they didn’t buff her they didn’t make her stronger they didn’t enhance the power behind her fantasy they gave up and straight replaced it with a “techno mage”
Thats a really subjective thing to say, really. However you feel about her is always going to be subjective, specially since I find her to be extremely restrictive and to have a ton of dead time with sentry bomb being the only dps alternative that doesnt involve the rng of enemy picks.
I am merely pointing out with data that she became less versatile and less played that before the rework.
I think she’s in a decent spot but she has the potential to be in a great one. And that’s what has me so frustrated
If sym 3.0 has her old photon barrier as an ability it would add so much synergy to her kit while making her a much higher skilled hero. It adresses a lot of the problems many people have with survivability and wind up on all her abilities.
It would expand on syms playstyle allowing for more utility to help the team and new strats never before seen. Tp can be used with the barrier in a wide variety of ways.
There is endless potential for that abusing her current kit. And it wouldn’t make her powerful to the point of must pick. I just wish the devs would have tried it. It would have been the coolest kit this game has seen
It’s kind of like Bethesda saying it just works. Yeah but it could be so much better
If that was true she wouldn’t have been used in OWL seeing as that is where flexibility reins.
I think her reduced pickrate is because people that hated her before still hated her and a large amount of the people that loved her no longer wanted to/could play her.
I love this Symmetra. And frankly, I don’t agree with those who say they need more resistance, as they now have to cope with the same spirit of survival as other DPS. What bothers most is the total change of objective, more aimed at the tanks rather than the flankers, but this does not make it less suitable.
There would be three things that would be worth considering in its balance:
Fix apart on the location of the farcaster (not always accurate in the slopes and maybe too much slow), it would be very welcome to have a clear path when using the farcaster, perhaps with more signals or by clearly showing the teammates the path they follow as it does widomaker using the grappling hook.
the new ultimate is fantastic and honest, the only thing that would make it just as suitable for a “dps” character could be that every time an opponent tries to cross the wall it slows down with the same effect as a turret. It is not damaged, it simply slows it down, but perhaps this would make it too overwhelming considering the turrets in the field.
one last note concerns the photonic projector: I think it should be exploited to the maximum in its unique characteristic (recharge itself on the shields). The flaw I notice is that this potential is reduced to too few specific opponents: Rein, Orisa, Winston, Brig and sym ultimate. So why not let her recharge the weapon every time she hits the opponent’s HPshields / barriers? this would increase her targets on Zarya, Zenyatta, Hammond, Lucio (in ult) and Doomfist (passive)
All in all I think that Symmetra is simply situational as before, only more criticized because compared to Torbjorn’s rework she didn’t have a substitute in shield supporting, which brig did instead with armor.
You are delusional if you think that there is a dps more vulnerable that Symmetra. Other close range dps have 250hp and survivability skills, while everyone else has range safety.
What bothers most is the total change of objective, more aimed at the tanks rather than the flankers,
If Reaper, a hero with layers of survivability and tank-killer burst damage cant stand to tanks alone, what makes you think Sym, a 200hp hero with delayed damage can? Rein isnt the only tank in the game, and he isnt the only member on his team.
She is picked half the time that before, she is even more situational because her only good addition to a team is TP, and that isnt enough to sacrifice a DPS slot for a mediocre DPS that deals less damage on average that tanks.
Compared to her previous kit being tailor made for defense and highly versatily with it, its just bad. She went from niche to gimmick.
But she was used… im not saying shes better across the board they made multiple parts of her worse but if you deny her having more fluidity with her throwable turrets her ability to reposition quicker with her tp being able to hit more reliably with her sped up orbs then i find it hard to take your argument seriously.
just because she isn’t used in OWL does not mean she’s bad on ladder. just go and watch some silver games where she gets dozens of turret kills that require zero amount of skill.
pros play for the money and there is no reason to not play the most strongest and save pick heroes. they don’t waste their time on learning niche heroes to all extent when they can keep learning heroes that are currently strong in all situations. that happens in all fps esports.
Her ability to reposition with TP is severely limited to it not being destroyed and her being completly ignored. Its simply not a good combat mobility.
Flying Deploy Sentries is the only good part of her rework AND the only part that was suggested by players. And even then they are now fewer and way too precious to use nowhere as liberally as they should for how destroyable they are. Not to mention that sentry bomb cheese is a heavily broken skill and an even worse, both ways, pubstomper that lock-on primary ever was.