HUGE Beam Changes - The Rise of Zarya, Sym, and Moira

If you haven’t gotten onto the PTR yet I suggest trying out Symmetra, Zarya, and Moira (haven’t tried mei yet). The beam “bug fix” have significantly buffed these heroes damage. Symmetra and Zarya MELT people. It’s nice to see Symmetra be able to compete with the other DPS heroes now. She is no longer a joke on the PTR, and is very deadly if you get into her space. Moira can kill squishies even more easily now with her long beam and I think the changes reinforce DPS Moira playstyle (not saying that’s a bad thing). I’m however am extremely worried about how the changes affect Zarya because as a 400hp tank with barriers she can instantly delete people BEFORE she’s even fully charge. That’s absolutely insane. A dev mentioned keeping an eye on these heroes in particular and I can see why.

Personally I think sym is fine as she’s a DPS and is supposed to do damage. Zarya I can see getting some damage number nerfs.

Everyone’s so preoccupied with Sigma right now but I want to know what you all think about these beam changes? If you haven’t tried it yet you should, the changes feel really good.

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It’s about time, zarya/sym before felt really garbage to play if you didn’t have like god accuracy. I doubt they’ll be getting nerfs though, zarya especially needs this as recently she’s hit the spot of “2nd worst hero in the game” and worst winrate. Zarya isn’t good in 222 either (Remember how zarya was ONLY played in triple tank comps + kings row in OWL and 0% pick in 222?)

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I like that it’s easier to do damage without pin point accuracy and I’m hoping that stays that way. Zarya though is tricky because she does nearly as much damage as Sym and is much more tankier and fully charge just as often if played right. I wouldn’t mind a slight damage reduction of like 10-15~dps or decreasing her maximum to 170ish. I will say if they keep her like this I promise you she won’t be the 2nd worst hero in the game for much longer.

But with combination of 222, she won’t be OP IMO, let’s not go back to the days where everyone wanted zarya nerfs when it turned out it was just her synergy with GOATs that was good, and she was garbage without GOATs (worse than brig turns out). Agreed though she feels really nice to play, old zarya felt really clunky.

Anyways, the only people that people have a problem with zarya is the higher lvled players which this does not effect, Very smart buff IMO.

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my heart goes out to those in gold fighting moira every match RIP

but yes very good buff for these heroes maybe we can see a big meta shift soon

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Oh man, I’ve been DPS Moira-ing to try out the fade changes and I’ve just been massacring people. I didn’t know why.

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I noticed the improved beam right away. It feels so much stronger now even though the damage numbers haven’t changed.

Zarya was always so weird to play for me. I love her, but I haven’t been playing her recently because her damage output was so…odd. I was either totally obliterating anyone in my path, or merely distributing little paper cuts among the enemy…Can’t wait for the fix!

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Between this and the fade buff, this is going to be an awesome patch for DPS Moira and a really awful patch to be a DPS below plat.

During my test I was getting at least silver damage each game and I pulled five golds and a win two games in a row. I had a card for 70% kill participation one game.

As a big Sym player, this feels so incredibly good.

Genjis with the hopping around and dashing were very tough to deal with even though Sym is supposed to “counter” him. The bug made it so that even with decent tracking, we weren’t doing much to him until beam level 3. Now I have no problem with Genjis and my salt levels have decreased since the weapon actually feels effective now.

Also this, when I played Zarya I felt like I was very “all or nothing” with her beam. Haven’t tried her specifically on PTR yet but I bet it’s great.

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Can’t wait for the wave of people yelling Sym is OP because she can now put up a fight.

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Next time I’m on the PTR I’ll have to try her out!

Right? “She was food to me before but now she can kill me I demand NERFS!”

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Maybe we can see the sym stigma finally be a thing of the past with the buffs and 2-2-2

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Moira won’t be nearly as affected by this as much as zarya and sym will, the change has to do with accuracy which even in gold Moira is easy mode aim and substantially more consistent where aiming with sym or zarya was not

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zarya’s beam needs to be reduced to 10 meters if they are buffing her primary.

Too bad it looks like the meta will be double sniper bunker.

With the Mcree buff
It is clear devs want dps to do more damage.

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Moira’s just feels different from before. Hard to explain but if you try out you’ll know what I mean. I would almost compare it to Syms level 1 old lock on beam

Does this effect Mei and Winston too?