I recently ust got back into the game and I feel like my win rate against her has gone into the negative. No matter what I do as Rein she seems to find a way to melt my shield and out play me. It’s really infuriating. I know Symmetra is a difficult character to play these days, and I admire people who player with and give them my utmost respect but no matter what I do on tank I keep losing when she’s on the other team. Any advice?
Winston is a nice option if you’re playing tank (that’s if you’re having also problem with the turrets as well cause u can take them all out) but if she’s always on you maybe Zarya is nice idea cause of her bubble.
Do not go like DVa/Sigma though lol
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What’s your rank? No shaming intended here, I just think it’ll help if we can get a handle on what you’re up against. Sym players are not all created equal.
Edit: Just checked, you’re mid/high gold on Tank.
Really, it’s not your job to kill her as Rein unless she does something stupid, like get inside swinging range. If I was playing tank and I needed to kill her myself, I’d probably play Orisa, hog or ball. They all have strong kits against Sym.
Orisa has Fortify and Barrier, which both give you a solid window to halt her to the ground and headshot her to death even when she has a L3 beam.
Hog can patiently wait until she exposes herself and then hook her or just delete her with precision right clicks.
Ball can boop her away from people she’s trying to kill or into a spot where your team can kill her. She’s also pretty squishy, so you can piledrive+shoot her if she’s isolated.
Of course, the problem in all these cases is that you’re switching off Rein, which gold/plat teams usually won’t tolerate very well. Rock and a hard place, I guess 
I agree with this option. Winston is not perfect either since his giant shield is perfect for her to charge up and keep ammo filled up. However, it does grant enough protection that you can block sym turrets and destroy multiple at the same time. Even has the feature to go through her own shield. She is rather hard to stop at fuller charge though due to his lower DPS. Not very good at destroying turrets quickly. Her extra help doesn’t help much either.
Different trade-offs. It feels nice having something to pressure Symmetra while while she can’t damage back at time and you have the option to escape unlike someone lke Hammond, Dva, Sigma, Reinhardt who all have short range options. Roadhog at least threatens at close range. Orisa can block, fortify, and shoot at multiple things and even CC her in a way.
If Symmetra really was a big issue to me specifically I’d probably just go Orisa or Winston.
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Torb is how you counter her.
His turret will shoot hers, AND will attack her tele’s, AND will burn her down given time, and time is a thing she doesn’t have.
Torb is her most nasty counter. If I see a Torb, I tend to switch.
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Sym isn’t strong, you most likely lose because you and your team are unaware of what is going on around you. Just smash her with your hammer when she comes close.
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Winston, junk, pharah, usually my goto. Also the turrets got to go don’t rely on you other teammates to take care of it they usually dont.
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Winston clears out her turrets and his armor resists beam damage by 30%, which is really good against her. Just be warned she can charge her beam off your barrier if you use it
Roadhog can usually kill a Sym if you hit her with an alt fire, then go for a hook/primary/melee combo. Plus if you need to retreat, his self heal should get him away from her safely
Rein is also good, you just have to walk at her and swing and break those turrets. If she’s not high charge she’ll likely back off, just don’t chase her too far from your team because then she can take you out from just outside your reach
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In a 1v1 scenario, assuming she didn’t set up:
Just swing away. Maybe open with a FireStrike. Her damage is pitiful against your armor and you can out damage her if she takes time to charge Orb.
If she seems to not be as aggressive:
Keep your ears open. It’s your only warning if she starts running away. If you hear science fiction booping noises as you’re following her, she’s leading you to Turret traps. Disengage.
In a full team scenario:
You have to rely on your team to take her out or don’t. This is harder to give advice on as there are too many variables to give a solid answer.
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As a Sym main, here is how to beat her:
- Flyers, we cannot reach them
- Snipers, we have to TP to them
- Another Sym, no joke, Sym is a good counter to another Sym
- Torb, makes placing things hard
General tips when dealing with a Sym:
- Expect anything, and I mean anything
- Try to give her less shields as possible
- Always expect her team to not be far behind
- Do not try to dual a Sym with a L3 beam alone
- Focus Sym at L3 beam as a team
- Callout when you hear a Sym TP
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On Rein, you switch. She’s a fairly hard counter to Rein specifically and have to rely on teammates for this one. You can’t even quick melee the turrets yourself, and if they’re too high to swing at you’re kinda just screwed.
Other than that, consider your positioning and the overall state of the map. Sym is best at relatively short ranges and has fairly low mobility. If you can, force the fight into an favorable and unexpected position, like rushing to high ground overlooking point instead of going for the point directly, etc. Sym can’t set up everywhere, and moving the turrets takes time and burns through the 3 held in reserve, which regens quite slowly.
Expect the frontline to change rapidly when the tele happens; be careful how far you push ahead and think about how long it’ll be to get back to point/your team. Same with the wall; it can cut off your heals and prevent your team from doing things in general. You won’t have much time to decide if you want to rush the wall or wait it out.
Play very fast, although it’s hard on the right maps
If you play rein then it is up to your team to kill her. But you can switch to Ball, he is hell to play against and she can’t kill him. And all of his abilities kill her turrets.
Which is good for sym because it makes the turret stop attacking people.
Plus sym is great at killing the turret.
Torb wins a 1v1 but sym can still be good against him.
Winston should win 1 v 1 against her any time and can clear her sentries with ease.
Unfortunately he isn’t exactly good in ranked right now.
As Reinhardt:
If your team fails to take care of her, try to get in swinging range.
Unlike most hitscan DPS she lacks the burst damage to kill you immediately.
Don’t carelessly walk into her sentries though.
They slow you down and she can get out of swinging range and fry you.
If she tries to TP her team on point:
Charging straight into her TP nearly always gets you a kill.
Then start swinging and hope for the best.
if you go monkey doNOT leave your bubble around for her to ramp up her damage and ammo on
seriously, only deploy bubble around a sym if you know you can kill her right there
DO NOT SIT HOLDING UP YOUR SHIELD AT HER. You are doing nothing but making it so she can deal insane damage while destroying your shield and she will not run out of ammo doing this. The second she starts attacking you start swinging. Unless you have a DPS behind the shield shooting her but most good Syms will play corners to make sure that doesn’t happen.
If you play monkey be very aware of where you are placing your shield. It clips through alot of walls and I as Sym will charge my beam on stray bits of a Winston bubble all the time, then when it breaks and the Winston is sat with no cover proceed to melt him.
It will require you to use different routes to flank her team instead of rushing straight into her nest. Try to take out the turrens first, either by your Tank partner or by yelling at your Hitscans/Supports to shoot them. Short range flankers need Tank to take out the turrens so they can move in and do their works.
Best way to learn is to rewatch the vid from Sym’s POV, you will see what you, or your team did wrong to enable her, and imagine what Sym would love the most from the enemy’s Tank, then try to avoid that.
I think Winston is pretty good against her, as for your team (mainly DPS), they should just be killing her because of her superior range.
Don’t let her charge the beam, and make sure there are no turrets when fighting her, if you are in a car wash or she has full charge beam it’s better to retreat, charge away with rein
As for solutions. Winston is just amazing, honorable mention for zarya if your tracking is good since she’s just a better sym
Hog might do as well… Sigma if you can stun, dva if you can kill her but she doesn’t really have enough burst and matrix is pretty useless
Yeah that should cover the basics