How would YOU balance Sym?

General Discussion
45

Back then she had the same problem she always had: Inconsistency

She couldn’t consistently reach her 195 dps 3rd stage just like how she can’t do it now, she starts every fight at 60dps. But because her turrets start every fight with 120 dps the devs can’t power her up without screwing balance.

She could have 300dps on her 3rd stage and still be underpowered, simply because she can’t consistently reach that damage.

I agree, Sym could be better with not too many changes. She could still be good with turrets too, I am not disputing that, but I do think they are holding her back for “balance” reasons.

46

Overhaul, she just needs an overhaul. She can create portals and turrets, blizzard should expand on her creativity by giving her the ability to create other things. I remember she used to create shields too, I feel she should get her primary weapon completely replaced by some type of hitscan. I don’t know what exactly but sym has always been niche and weird. Maybe blizzard should take a look at valorant and maybe get inspired to create something for sym

47

Sigma feels like he should have a much weaker barrier. It’s such a flexible barrier even at 900HP it’s so much.

It could be a 500HP or even a 400HP barrier and it would work.

1 Like
48

It doesn’t matter if they’re easy to destroy if the players find it annoying it’s automatically considered OP. :roll_eyes: I just can’t help but find it funny that ppl still complain about them.

1 Like
49

Personally, I feel the 900 HP is mostly deserved, given the regen rate, regen delay (which Orisa does not have), and its size. I wouldn’t want it to be lower than 800.

900 still melts pretty quick under any sort of focus fire.

I’m almost tempted to try to make him a bit more team-friendly as a “main tank” by giving his shield a 1 second period in which its still there after “Recall”. Animation-wise, the edge-nodes would start to shake, pulsing as if to close (as per the current animation), and then finally doing so after a second following Recall, giving his allies behind it a bit of warning to find natural cover while also forcing it to soak up a bit more damage, which would make it more punishable. I feel like that’d be enough to keep him from just eating up lethal/utility damage nonstop, while also obliging him into less of a flanker/supplementary_tank position.

Orisa’s barrier at this point is so short-lived that it’s hard to even play a supplementary tank position with anyone but Sigma, while with Rein she (like Zarya or D.Va) takes up a complementary position. I mostly like how she plays now (I certainly prefer the feel of modern Orisa, when playable, over BarrierWatch era Orisa), but I’d be tempted to put the shield on a resource system, allowing her to bank a little more in order to better co-tank rather than solely be the complement to a main tank. Honestly, I most want to just see her feel a little more Terminator-esque, perhaps having her Protective Barrier launch faster, create a mini boop outward from its convex upon landing, and completely ignore just the first half second or so of damage taken. Thereafter, give her a bit more ability to reposition, such as a gradually stacking movement speed buff (albeit with a bit of ‘runaway’ momentum). Idk. I’ll put this stuff together later.

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51

The interesting thing is how many people only bring the barrier back up with it’s reached 400-500HP. The regen rate and regen delay is entirely disconnected to the maximum HP. It’s like filling a bucket, it doesn’t matter how large the bucket is, it’s filled from a tap at the same rate.

The only question is how much water can you put in the bucket until it can take no more and you’ve got the leave the tap and pour the bucket out somewhere else.

that’s the sad part, the more both barriers are weakened the more they both try to depend on each other even more to combine their barrier strength together.

They synergise just too much and part of that is using Orisa as a main barrier and Sigma as the secondary barrier, there’s not enough encouragement to try to use their barriers separately, the way to do that is to give them much more distinct attack styles.

If Sigma had a lower maximum barrier then he’d get most use out of his barrier if he had it up primarily, as all the time his barrier is lowered and reaches 400HP of “charge” then he’s wasting potential. He could have that barrier up blocking damage as the sooner it blocks damage then the sooner he can fill from the infinite tap which is whatever refills his barrier while it’s lowered.

Fortify’s nerfs were just so excessive when they needed to go the other way.

Fortify needs more buffs, back to 50% damage resistance and also give her crit immunity while using fortify. Her head hitbox is so huge and her attack means it’s really easy to land almost 100% headshots on her.

52

Right now I would just reduce her thiccbox plus buff the range of her beam and see where we got from there.

53

If turrets aren’t holding Torb back,then they aren’t holding Sym back either.

2 Likes
54

Turret is such a trivial part of Torb’s kit.

It’s too easily destroyed then the forced cooldown makes it too long to replace and even when it’s up the damage isn’t high enough for that brief time. The amount of time needed to get use out of it just isn’t worth it.

I proposed that Orisa’s barrier worked like Torb’s turret, where the cooldown began when the barrier was dismissed or destroyed then the WAILS of indignation were endless and unanimous that it would be a slap in the face, utterly defeating the purpose of a hero having a deployable barrier as an ability as it would destroyed and on cooldown most of the game.

They all said it would be impossible to adjust the barrier HP, size, or cooldown to work, the cooldown MUST begin when the ability is used.

And they’re right.

Until they realised it also applied to torb then the special pleading started.

Right now Torb is overwhelmingly just a “bolt shooter hero” with an alt fire that just isn’t worth it. It’s all about spamming those bolts until you get the ult. Turret is nothing you can really depend on, it’s either out of the fight doing no damage or it’s easily destroyed and you can’t even begin to deploy it for another 10 seconds then a 3 second build time where it’ll probably be destroyed as its deploying itself. It’s just a really expensive distraction.

A cooldown (of 12 seconds) should begin AS SOON as the turret is thrown but with the downside the turret now only has a 40 shot capacity (that can’t be reloaded) so it can only shoot for a maximum of 10 seconds.

55

Yes and no. The value of a barrier is primarily in removing the risk of lethality or advantage, which not all damage provides, despite all damage affecting the barrier equally. As such, the actually advantage provided by some amount of barrier HP will vary greatly the more one is finely able to time said barrier, summoning and resummoning it. This is especially true in a supplementary arrangement, as barriers after the first are increasingly able to shift their focus to such. Opposite this, as a primary barrier, rearrangement can actually be quite punishing, as it reduces one’s SPS (Shield generated per second). This is why you see Orisa’s barrier used as the primary with Sigma; her shield doesn’t face SPS penalty of any sort, even if it can’t be moved except on CD either.

In either case, the more punishable the barrier is, the less they can skew the barrier’s use towards the advantageous, even if a primary barrier has always been less able to do so. This has two routes, and perhaps some hybrids.

In one, you reduce the barrier’s eHP. However, this punishes primary barrier use far more than supplementary use, the efficacy of which you really only reduce if you have an actual split force rather than a mere split sniper or the like. Otherwise, say, 500 HP can handle the off-angle just as well as 900 could before.

In the other, you increase the ability to punish the barrier, decreasing the efficacy of its flex-usage without directly punishing its use as a primary barrier and offering a small window-of-opportunity advantage to off-angle attackers, e.g. via the increased Recall time spitballed above.

Of course, we could also try to make barrier-flicking more the norm in general, to the annoyance of lower ranks and the advantage of upper ranks, especially vs. snipers (or, less avoidably, combined sniper + siege damage). This would mean, say, changing the relevant barriers’ Shield Regen delay from the standard (felt on character Shield HP as well) 3-second delay to a ramp-up or the like instead, reducing the penalty of not holding and resting the barrier each in as continuous a fashion as possible (to maximize SPS). I’d imagine such would be a buff to defensive play, actually, but a solid loss to offensive rotations once we add the likely compensatory nerf: reduced shield eHP.

For my own part, I’d just like to see the synergies of the other tanks brought nearer to what we’ve come to expect from Orisa + Sigma, and small changes to allow Orisa and Sigma to diversify away from each other. As a start.

So, what could some of those synergies be? (I got overly perfectionistic, so only D.Va examples for now.)
D.Va

Base Stats

  • All changes found here are meant to increase her versatility. The stat changes, especially, seek to reduce the amount of ult charge she feeds for the value she gets. Singularly, they would be net nerfs, but her survivability will increase overall.
  • HP reduced by 200. Armor increased by 100.

Defense Matrix

  • Minimum usage period removed, reducing it from 0.5 seconds.
  • Length increased to 11 meters, up from 10.
  • Width, from origin to length, increased by .3 meters. Origin pushed back .2 meters deeper into D.Va’s mech. The combination of the two gives Defense Matrix a bit better protection from flanking attacks when within the thick of things.

Fusion Cannons

  • These changes are intended to give her a bit more simultaneous lethality and survival/support on dive, but also to greatly improve her effective range against large targets, especially shields.
  • Up to once per 1.5 seconds, Fusion Cannons an now continue to fire for up to .32 seconds (2 shots) after beginning any interrupting action, such as Defense Matrix, allowing quick uses of DM not to consume offensive uptime. This mechanic takes 1.5 seconds to recharge, offering a cadence a bit like the advantage to quick-scoping on Ana.
  • Falloff range expanded from 10-20 meters to 15-30 meters.
  • Minimum damage over falloff increased from 30% (0.6) to 50% (1.0).

Micro Missiles

  • These are predominantly changes towards the versatile, giving her a more reliable finisher and greater ranged synergies.
  • Now replace Fusion Cannons while being launched. As Fusion Cannons deal a maximum of a headshot-capable 147 dps, Micro Missiles’ lethality has been increased greatly.
  • Can now be manually cancelled. Cooldown begins upon end of channel.
  • Cooldown reduced to 6 seconds, down from 8.
  • Rate of Fire now starts at 13 shots per second and decreases to 9, thereby still averaging the previous 11, but with more burst available.
  • Projectile speed increased from 40 mps to 55 mps.
  • Damage increased from 7 impact and 4 splash to 6 impact and 10 splash.
  • Self-damage reduced from 100% of splash damage (previously 4) to 25% of splash damage (still 4).
  • Thus, instead of 121 (77 + 44n) overlapping DPS for a maximum of 267 DPS, they now deal 176 DPS (66 + 121n). This slightly reduces her single-target dive power but greatly increases her effective range and synergy with Halt, Hook, Shatter, and Accretion.

Boosters

  • These are predominantly controllability changes, better allowing D.Va to place herself in useful positions that would otherwise cause more strictly aligned team action to maximize.
  • Holding Jump while flying will now cause you to rise at a further 25-degree angle, allowing you to fire downward even while ascending. Holding Crouch while flying will now cause you to dive at a further 25 degrees, allowing you to fire upward even while descending.
  • Booster now works on a resource, allowing for both trickier short bursts of movement and longer single instances of movement.
  • Holding W while boosting will further increase one’s speed, by 2.5 mps/s, and increase resource costs proportionately. Holding S while boosting will decrease one’s speed, by 2.5 mps/s, and decrease resource costs proportionately.
  • Holding A or D while boosting will now increase one’s horizontal movement in that direction by 2.5 mps/s, at increased resource cost, allowing you to circle enemies while Boosting around them.
  • Quick Melee will no longer automatically end Boosters.
  • More momentum is now retained after using Boosters, though it continues to consume resource based on horizontal speed over the normal rate. Holding Crouch while in midair, when Boosting is not active, will quickly cancel out remaining momentum.
  • Resource can “go into the red” from momentum, but not from actual Booster usage. This margin is not shown, but will prevent resource from visibly regenerating for its value in time.
  • The minimum flight time of 1.0 seconds (of normal Booster speed) remains. One must have enough resource to perform this to activate Boosters at all.
  • Resource regenerates continuously, even over use, at a rate of 3 seconds’ time per 1 second’s normal Booster speed (no W or S usage), to a maximum of 10 seconds’ charge (3.33 seconds of normal movement).
  • This is identical to the current rate of at most 2 seconds’ of use per 6 seconds, but offers far more flexibility in how that time is spent.
  • Boosters do now cause accuracy bloom on Fusion Cannons and, to a far lesser effect, on Micro Missiles, increasing with current velocity, to a maximum of 1 degree of spread on Micro Missiles and an added 30% spread on Fusion Cannons. This is to prevent D.Va from making near-guaranteed kills on Pharah, given the Micro Missile and Fusion Cannon buffs. (This is still only arguably a nerf to Micro Missiles as their effective speed is being increased as well, thereby making them land that much sooner, denying enemy chance to escape.)

Self-Destruct

  • D.Va can now “go down with the ship” by holding Crouch throughout the would-be bail-out animation.

Call Mech

  • Passive ult charge increased by 400%. Ult cost increased by 10%.
  • Now allows movement around the mech’s landing point for a further .3 seconds (e.g. between pressing the button and just short of climbing in). Mech’s landing position will be nearer to and its back (entry port) turned towards her current location upon landing, rather than from where she hit the button. This does not delay when she will automatically climb in.

Effect on Playflow

  • D.Va can now better take on shields and enemy tanks, work as part of a split dive, synergize with ranged CC, survive to/while picking off targets on a dive, escape from her split dives that have partially failed or been intervened against, and can better Call Mech in a timely manner despite enemy shields. Despite these, she should not become a terror of the skies, though she can certainly better terrorize backlines if allowed to creep close before diving.
56

I’m really having a hard time following that Tani.

You lost me no how “punishable” a barrier is.

I get the idea of Orisa’s barrier being primary and Sig’s barrier being brought up when/if Orisa’s barrier is destroyed before her cooldown is up.

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58

Rework her into a support with healing And giving her the shield giving ability from sym 1.0 but allows the ability to heal and give overheal shield if allies are at full healt, nerfing her damage on orbs and beam and giving her a new healing ult and giving her giant shield ult to a tank down the line

59

I dont think blizzard wants to give a hero overheal and heal abilities anymore. Brig proved that it can become too powerful.

60

So, let’s say I’m playing Sigma from just a bit further back than my DPS.

Let’s say they’re Junk and Ashe. Pretty standard picks. For context, let’s say, I also have a Moira and an Ana, because that’s all my healers are willing to play for whatever reason.

The enemy is running hefty damage, though: they have their own Orisa-Sigma, plus a Soldier, Junk, Zen, and Bapt.

My job is not to prevent all that damage. My barrier would last as little as a second against focus fire. My job is to prevent that damage from killing my allies. That means blocking a stray Helix that I can see going towards a wounded ally in my backline, swapping in when Orisa’s breaks just for time enough for my team to return to natural cover, etc., etc.

The sooner they can break my barrier, the sooner they don’t have to deal with it for a 5 second window or more.

Not just whittle down — break. As long as I have a single HP left without the on-break added cooldown, I can still stop Halts, Accretions, 130 damage projectiles with all of 5 HP of barrier, etc…

If I’m less able to weave that barrier in and out to absorb only what damage I need to absorb, rather than what would ultimately only fill my supports’ ults in exchange for their DPS’s, my barrier is more “punishable”.

I can explain in more detail if you need. I’m just not sure which parts of my prior explanation were insufficient.

In the example before, it’d take a moment of delay before Experimental Barrier actually disappears, meaning that if you make a quick use of it to save someone or absorb/prevent something, there’s that much more time for your enemies to chunk it down and ultimately remove the utility of your shield for a while.

Thus the barrier sees fewer vital uses that effectively cost not but, at most, a bit of SPS in order to prevent a fight from being swung against you — stopping Graviton Surge, stopping Biotic Grenade, stopping Halt, stopping Hook, etc. Instead, if the Sigma uses his barrier for something like that, he has to take on some risk of it being chunked down, preventing or discouraging its further use on such for a while.

61

In my opinion thats not nearly enough. If she doesnt provide a flat out 100 shields on a non building ability (like sym 1.0 photon shields but bumped to 100) then she is not viable as a support.

Basically her shielding has to be powerful enough to compensate for only having one healer or just give her a heal and ditch the shields.

62

I assume she would get her e shield as well?

63

One of my main ideas for Support Sym would be to Convert X% of a Teammates Health Points (White Blocks) to Shields.

The teammates remaining Health Points would also regenerate when the teammate’s Shield Points are full.

The premise would be to make her to be a “hands-off” healer, to better synergize with Flankers and other heroes who operate away from the group, and allowing her to focus on her building mechanics and “Off-Damage” capabilities.

This would also be a huge indirect Buff for Sombra if the enemy has a Sym in play as more enemies will have Shield Points to destroy with EMP.

64

Easy.

Give her a passive. She and any teammate within a small radius of herself that has personal shield health (Sig, Zarya, and Zen) begin their shield recharge after 1 second of taking damage instead of 3. This would essentially give her Mercys regen for half of her health and alone would make her as tanky as she’d ever need to be. You can’t make this change to shield health universal, because it would make Zarya OP. It has to be tied to a passive or ability or something.

Either restore her 65/130/195 damage or give her 100 ammo.

Perhaps add some kind of indicator on Syms HUD that shows her TP hp to help minimize getting stranded because it was destroyed.

Fix TPs bugs. There are still places where it destroys itself. You can still die even though you took TP, and your corpse pops out of the other end. If I’m on the other end, the damage shouldn’t have connected. Sombra’s Translocator had this issue in the early days of her release and she even has I-frames.

Allow TP to be placed while in the air (so that it can build while falling down). Having to touch the ground to deploy TP is very dumb. Also, if I can’t place TP somewhere, don’t have the ability cancel itself. Old TP didn’t do this. You would stay in the TP placing animation until you put it somewhere it could be placed or cancelled it manually. Current TP cancels on a failed placement, meaning you have to recast it instead of being able to rapidly click and get it up.

Finally. Fix the wall bug. I pressed Q twice, so it shouldn’t come out horizontally, but it does sometimes and it ends up being entirely useless. Either that, or add a setting that lets you choose its default setting as horizontal or vertical.