Disclaimer: No I’m not upset because ‘symmetra can no longer carry me to high ranks’. I am in Masters and I have made it to GM without maining her.
I started playing the game when it was released and Symmetra became my first ever main. I liked her very much even at 1.0, I didn’t play her simply for the auto-aim primary but for her uniqueness as a hero.
I miss planning where I would put my shield generator or teleporter and where I would place my turrets.
I miss her unique secondary-fire that pierced barriers (Imagine how nice that would be for the multitude of shields in the game now)
I miss the throwable photon barrier which gave Symmetra a fun but skillful ability to learn.
The developers of this game have stripped Symmetra of her unique play-style and turned her into a much more simple DPS model. I truly feel that it would be best for Symmetra as a hero to be reverted to the 2.0 version or something very similar so she can go back to being in a stable choice.
I usually would never get emotional for a video game but every time I see gameplay of 1.0 or 2.0 I can’t help but feel depressed thinking about how blizzard scrapped her. I know it’s unlikely for the Blizzard developers to make such a change like a full-reversion because they rarely admit any sort of mistakes made and they are typically extremely slow when it comes to much needed major changes.
I remember Kaplan saying in one of the videos that they liked the idea of having a support hero that does not heal but help the team in other ways and that they will not change her role. After the complains of people who do not even play Symmetra ( mostly men playing only dps and pro-players which is the %0.1 of the OW community), she got a complete rework. Personaly I do not like the new Symmetra. She had a interesting and unique desing/kit now she is just a typicall dps hero. Her ultimate is too much in my opinion, a shield that goes to infinity ? that’s just weird and makes no sense. Her primary fire looks like a bug made by game. And statiscally her winrate droped compared to Symmetra 2.0 and 1.0.
Sym rework was a failure. I’ve said it many times and even made a thread about it. She is still not played in OWL and people still hate her. She needs to be reverted.
I miss the days of Symmetra + Mercy duo queue and wrecking the enemy team because symmetra was so good when damage boosted. Quick ultimate, more survivability, more fun.
Now? Her TP is used to do the same thing as old TP but worse.
I really dislike any claims that older versions of Symmetra were better by comparing pick rates. No one considers the possibility that her pickrates would’ve plummeted even more if she had stayed the same as before, and it’s a very real one, too.
Did Syms orbs use to go through barriers? Yes they did. But they also moved very slow. So slow you could simply reposition around the spam. Or just simply dodge them. They were only good for poking at players who were too dumb to move out the way, and completely useless during team fights.
Did she have a deployable barrier? Yeah, she did. It was pretty much the most versatile and interesting part of her kit. But its versatility was still on the lack luster side, because the barrier moved only in one direction. So sym players usually had one of two options with it, either a): move forward predictably with the barrier and hope your enemies are stupid enough to retreat so you can zap them with your primary fire for free, or b): use it reactively to defend yourself from a single instance of impending death. In either case, all the enemy player has to do is walk past it to get to you.
Did she have more turrets? Yes, she did. And that number benefited Symmetra by giving her more turrets to spread around. It was nice, but those turrets had even less health and were even harder to place because Symmetra had to be right up against a wall or ceiling to place them due to the limited range imposed on her. Setting up turrets this way also slowed Symmetra the same way how performing a Rez reduces Mercy’s movement speed, and some surfaces just flat out forbade turrets being placed on it.
And her ultimates? I think most people either thought they were useless because there was a limited number of good places to erect them and people could hunt them easily, or people deemed them unfun to play against because they had to waste time looking for the darn things instead of taking the objective. Not to mention they served almost no purpose to help make offensive pushes.
I can go on more about other things that made old Symmetra weak that 3.0 vastly improved, but the tl;dr version is that old Sym was more garbage tier than many of you guys are able to see with your nostalgia goggles on. Old sym had only one good niche and that was holding defense on the first point of control point missions by fortifying choke points. Her playstyle was total boom or bust, and if left as she was back then she’d simply never keep up with the way the game and its playerbase has been evolving. Seriously, good luck using her on attack with her lack of mobility and range. Ya’ll would be wise to be grateful for what we currently have.
I didn’t imply that Symmetra was better before by comparing pick rates.
In a lot of competitive situations, the teams are grouped up while they push. Large but slow-moving piercing orbs would be effective by breaking up a tight formation forcing the enemies to seperate more.
Being able to simply block a stun or some on coming enemy fire is more than viable for an E ability.
I did mention that the reversion didn’t have to be entirely the same. Throwing turrets would be a neccesary QOL change.
A shield generator would absolutely be viable 75 extra health that recovers would be a great thing for your team.
There are quite a few good locations for symmetra’s ult. Most symmetra mains from the 1.0 and 2.0 days should know the maps like the back of their hand for the most optimal location.
Symmetra was simply not that black and white on attack. Are some attack maps very unfavorable for an attack 2.0 sym? Yes. But is it a guaranteed defeat? No.
“Your favorite hero was essentially replaced by a different one. BE HAPPY!”
Nah.
I’m not even a Symmetra main or really played 2.0 and even I know that saying that is just… dumb. Honestly, no one should have their favorite play style reworked out of the game. Especially since usually there’s not another hero in the game who’s play style is similar enough that people can be like “Eh, close enough.”
Too bad that a hero having a unique design does not in any way mean that he would be well - designed as well…
Because really, both Symmetra 1.0 and 2.0 were objectively very badly - designed heroes who are surpassed design - wise in all aspects by Symmetra 3.0 by a long shot…
And that’s because Symmetra 3.0, besides the fact that she’s much less situational than her predecessors, she’s also a much more skillful and less frustrating pick overall. Additionally, now that Symmetra 3.0’s otherwise great design is no longer overshadowed by how terrible she was stat - wise for more than a year, it has been a fact now as well that the latest version of Symmetra is the strongest one yet by far out of the bunch…
Now please, don’t get me wrong. I understand and respect that you as the author and multiple other people miss the Symmetra’s 1.0 and 2.0 kits that are now completely deleted off from the game, but really, reverting Symmetra 3.0 to any of her predecessors would simply be a terrible decision, as that latest rework was excellent for both the health of the game overall and the hero herself…
But hey, we can always dream for the 1.0 and 2.0 kits to become available for Workshop game modes…
And honestly, if you didn’t main Symmetra or really play her 2.0 version what then do you know about her playstyle being reworked out of the game? I played both quite a lot and found myself enjoying 3.0 even more because her potential to play offensively has gone up.
I really enjoyed 2.0’s playstyle, and now I’ll never get to play her again, because they butchered her and gave her abilities to other characters for no dang reason. Lookin’ at you Baptiste and Sigma.
I miss her too =/ I miss the game tbh. Every time I play now I get through 1 or 2 matches and just quit out of how frustrating it is. Either I’ve got some idiot on my team doing nothing or there’s some insane smurf on the enemy team that can’t be killed no matter how hard everyone tries, it just feels pointless to play and just leaves me so much worse off then when I started. And it’s a game, I’m meant to be enjoying myself and having fun.
