I need help, Symmetra players

General Discussion
1

I really feel bad for you guys in terms of the balancing. So me, as a Doomfist player, wants to advocate for some sort of Sym buff/change. What I want to know, is what should be buffed? What might have to change? How can Symmetra be played to be more fun for everyone, and not seen as cancerous?

For instance, these are the current ideas that I think Sym players have: Survivability is too low, Teleport takes too long to activate, and beam range is too low.

These are the ideas that I have that makes Sym oppressive: Sentry slowing down targets is annoying, Level 3 Beam is way too strong, and her spam orbs are too strong.

So with that in mind, this is my current standing for a Symmetra kit revamp:
Photon Projector (Primary Fire)

  • Damage decreased from 60/120/180 to 55/110/165
  • Beam range increased from 12 meters to 16 meters

Photon Projector (Secondary Fire)

  • Damage decreased from 140 to 130

Sentry Turret

  • Movement speed reduction decreased from 20% to 10%
  • Damage increased from 40 to 50

Teleporter

  • Casting time decreased from 2 seconds to 1.3 seconds
  • Cooldown when manually destroyed starts at 10 seconds

I’m sure these aren’t perfect changes, so I’d like some feedback for this! Thanks for listening to this!

Edit: What I learned is that most Sym players believe that time to setup is the biggest issue.
Edit2: Doomfist main advocates for Symmetra buffs

4 Likes
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Hi retired Sym main here with 350+ hours on her. Sym has a lot of issues.

My biggest gripe with Sym was time. She IMO, is slow in all areas. She needs time to ramp up both primary and time to charge secondary fire (not to mention it’s one of the slowest projectiles), turrets need to land before they can deal damage, and teleporter has, as you mentioned, a slow cast time. Even her ult needs time due to you having to decide what direction to place it in.

I think they should focus on reducing time in her kit or provide her with enough survivability to justify it. She’s just outclassed by so many DPS who can instantly dish out damage and most have a reliable means of escape.

In terms of your suggestions, I don’t believe anyone wanted the orb damage increase, we wanted a speed increase so I’d prefer a revert to 120 DPS but speed buff at 30-35m per second speed. The beam I feel should be wide with lvl 1 and decrease in width with each level as she ramps up. I don’t believe lvl 1 should be less than 60DPS though. Turrets need to be reworked. I’d actually rather have them not do damage at all and instead increase their slowing effect. This would reduce their oppressiveness in lower ranks and increase their value in higher ranks.

On a side note I miss her exclusivity with having 2 ultimates so I wish they brought that back. Keep the current barrier ult as her 1st option and maybe an offensive transformation ult as option #2 where she’s fully charged for the duration and lengthens the beam. So in essence she’d have a Shield or Sword ult option.

Either way I just want to say thank you as you play one of her biggest counters and understand my girl needs some love.

7 Likes
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i think if syms beam was 170 dps by default and have zero ramp up i think sym could have been a lot better of a character.

i mean sure her entire kit revolves about build-up but does that mean everything she has got to be delayed?

1 Like
4

Okay. Firstly we want the base damage increased. Not decreased. It should be more like 90/135/180

9 Likes
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I think that’s actually the biggest reason why Sym will always stay niche. Like Mimikyu mentioned, the biggest problem is the time to setup for her to be effective.

2 Likes
6

Symmetra needs her proton barrier back, and for her teleporter to not be a trash line of sight taxi.

Think about it - how many DPS characters in the game don’t have some kind of ability to stun, block, or otherwise negate damage? I honestly can’t think of one - maybe Widowmaker? Who shouldn’t really be doing 1v1 close up duels anyway? Even McCree has flashbang, a stun that can give him a quick leg up or the ability to STOP incoming damage.

What does Symmetra have?

Literally nothing. Torbjorn’s overload ability lets him, the PLAYER, choose when to be ‘strong’, it’s a SKILL that you will learn to use as a value. So much of this game is being turned into mindless buffs that make the player skill a nonissue in certain ways, but intensely needed in others. Symmetra lost her great lock on beam that made her A THREAT in a 1v1 situation, a skill that would be GREAT for a weak glass cannon dps, and yet here we are ~ aim being now incredibly difficult for her new primary fire and almost impossible to ramp up on anything but shields and slow nonmobile tanks like Orisa and Rein, while having NO ABILITY to negate damage yourself. How is she supposed to be taking on Rein and Orisa HEAD ON if she can’t even shield herself in some way?

The old proton barrier was AMAZING if you timed it well, and it was a SKILL. They took it out and gave it to Sigma instead. So they’re never going to fix her, they’re never even going to be able to assess what she’s missing because the kit they gave her is so discombobulated and so messed up that I have zero faith that anyone at Blizzard knows what she’s even supposed to be doing, let alone what to do with her themselves.

And that’s my rant on that.

4 Likes
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The only thing sym needs is a small buff to her primary range from 12m to 15 meters.

Her secondary orbs can use a 10% increase in travel speed also.

But mainly It’s her primary, It’s to short at 12, it NEEDS to be 15 meters minimum because it already has a long ramp up time.

8

yeah, i mean ramping up the beam is cool and all, but it’s pretty stupid too.
the orbs are a lot more useful, sure they are delayed but you get to choose when to charge those orbs up.

i really don’t have an issue with syms sentries or tp at all because that’s more about having foresight similar to junkrat setting up his traps etc.
but fighting abilities she needs atleast a basic kit to be able to fight on demand even if she’s off-guard.

however i did think of a few changes to syms sentries, let them have lower cooldown but they are now indestructable but they disappear after a certain amount of time and the main purpose of them is to slow the enemy down.

9

As a person who has played plenty of Symm in the past and stopped entirely after her rework, doing all those damage and turret movement changes really won’t do much for symm.

It won’t change how clunky she is, how little protection or sustain she has compared to other dps, she can barely do a thing against most of the roster:

  • Photon shield ability removed
  • no heals
  • no stuns
  • 100hp shield which takes ages to recharge
  • her burst damage is mostly done by tp bombing (and her lil balls of death in case people are blind), meaning it’s stuck to a 12 second cooldown not to mention her turrets also have a cooldown so if all three are destroyed it’s going to take ages to get those 3 turrets again. If the teleporter gets destroyed she can’t escape, a god damn sitting duck. Which is why you see most symms simply throwing orbs around without actually doing anything, they can’t do a thing. Other heroes simply don’t face that many problems and cooldowns just to dish out some damage.
  • no mobility - hardly think her tp counts given how clunky it is to place it down. A thousand ledges where placing a tp should have worked, never seen such an inconsistent ability.
  • if her teammates even have the courtesy of playing with her they will simply treat her like a taxi to teleport to the point and then her usefulness absolutely ends there. The tp is rarely used for actual combos with other heroes, which is probably what the devs clearly were hoping to happen, to give her some utility. Obviously no one uses her for that (besides the occasional meme game) because there are a thousand other perfectly working synergies with better heroes.
  • damage amp up which is just dumb, no one ever thinks “jeez I totally want to play this dps which needs x seconds to be as effective as other dps heroes”.
  • I’m going to add a pet peeve of mine here: how weird is her primary fire right now? Let’s be honest it’s a straight up beam which goes for a few meters instead of being hitscan bullets or projectile bullets, its so god damn awkward to use, it even looks awkward whenever I watch other symms use it.

She mostly needs another change, rework her cumbersome abilities once more. Like some people have said above it feels like everything in her kit is stuck by timed abilities, and that needs to stop. Cooldowns are a thing yes, but no one needs to have that many and so long. I mean before her rework she used to be off meta, but now she’s so off meta she’s off the grid entirely it feels like.

But hey thanks for posting the thread, the devs really need to start looking into symm. Some heroes can’t remain forgotten forever no matter how many people don’t like to play against them, why doesn’t everyone realize heroes could instead be reworked so they would be fun to use and ok to play against? cough talking about symmetra, mercy, bastion, baptiste, and the recently butchered shield tanks end cough

(didn’t add sombra, pharah, ashe to the pile because they just got a buff so waiting to see how they adapt, and torbjorn has been seeing some play)

3 Likes
10

Thank you for commenting on this thread. Both of you guys so far have the best insight on Symmetra, it seems like. So right now, I understand that time is the biggest concern with how Symmetra’s abilitys work. How would you guys feel if her damage ramp up was entirely removed? Would this completely kill off Symmetra’s playstyle, or would it be fine?

P.S. Mimikyu is a great pokemon.

2 Likes
11

Poor Sym. She’s in the junk pile. She doesn’t do enough damage, her range is so short, her turrets are useless if someone is diligently destroying them, her tp is useless except for a few very niche tasks, she is slow.
Yeah sure, it sucks to get fried by her but mostly she just gets torched by hitscans or hooked by hog…

12

First of all, Symmetra needs her Teleporter replaced with a useful ability. If there is currently no resource for a big rework, just replace it with her old Photon Barrier.

From this point onwards, rebalance her. Maybe 250 HP, rework the primary since an Anti-Double-Barrier weapon has no use anymore and maybe make the Sentries a little bit more bulky.
But most important: Get rid of TP and bring back the old Barrier!

13

Been playing Sym since 2.0 and I still main her. Pretty much what I have to say has been said already.

However while Sym has a lot of issues I will only say my biggest ones. She is too slow and requires too much effort to get what is basically normal for other DPS.

Without any buffs, Sym’s performance is not very good. However with time it becomes good. Yet this still ends up being bad because other heroes can be good without the need of time.

Sym needs time to:

  • Build her damage
  • Setup her TP and move
  • Break shields

However almost every other DPS can do this instantly. Yet without doing this Sym’s performance becomes poor.

Sym’s also does not have luxuries that other close range heroes have. Most close range heroes either have 250 HP, good survivability, or good mobility. Yet Sym has non of that.

If you are not going to give her 250 HP than give her good mobility or survivability. If you are not going to give her good mobility, give her very good survivability or at least 250 HP.

Instead they just gave her nothing. Yet expect her to be in the front lines taking the time to charge up her damage while everyone is trying to kill her.

Her only upsides currently is that she works well in a coordinated team and can open up new strategies. However this is not a good upside since no one wants to work with a Sym anyway. Utility is also falling out in favor of more damage.

It also doesn’t help they nerfed her because people cried about her during double barrier. I will forever hate Sigma because of this, he brought nothing but wrongs.

As of now, the dev team balances Sym for coordinated teams or utility. They do not balance her as DPS. It is clear they don’t now what to do with her and just salvaging what they can instead of deleting her.

Sorry for the very long post, I love Sym, but nobody loves her back.

1 Like
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I really don’t think people play her correctly so they get frustrated.

15

You literally cannot play her correctly (as intended) and consistently do well.

16

lmao this just goes to show how little the community knows about Symmetra. Your buffs are actually largely nerfs and not even reverts of Blizzards nerfs last fall. Blame Blizzard. They nerfed Symmetras whole kit by 20% or more except for her secondary.

-Turrets, 20% nerf to damage. Nerf to how slow functions and stacks.(as if it ever needed either, actually they needed fixes to how slow worked, and adjustments to turret survivability like making them take 2 AoE’s to be destroyed)

-Nerfed primary hitbox by 50%, nerfed it’s damage down by 15(after finally fixing it a year and a half after release what a joke).

-Nerfed her ultimate’s health by 20%(ok that’s fine and makes sense), nerfed it’s duration by 20%(pretty lame given how passive it is and already is hardly any help for Symmetra herself engaging, still a pretty lame ult to get for a “dps” rework).

-Nerfed her tele recast hard, now it’s only starts after destruction instead of placement(somewhat reasonable change addressing issues with previous version however not when the recast isn’t cut in half when one destroys it themself).

How to fix Symmetra?

Revert her pointless nerfs.

Fix the slow on turrets to slow momentum from abilities like Blizzard said they implemented but in practice it isn’t functioning on most abilities.

Remove the pointless 30 hp turrets have which is functionally useless and make turrets 5hp and require two AoE’s to destroy, one AoE brings them to 1 health.

Remove first charge up on primary or drastically increase damage on first charge. Her primary is not competitive to engage with when you have zero charge.

Give her primary a useful latent effect, like shield health regen for herself, maybe 20 hps, anything less is pointless.

Fix her orb splash damage to do a flat damage amount equal to half total damage like it always should have been. Currently the splash damage is functionally useless to utilize.

Make tele have 6 second recast when one destroys it themself and it’s undamaged.

Minor fixes. increase range of primary by some amount. Reduce turret cooldown 2 seconds. Give her ultimate a latent like cutting momentum of enemies who walk through it by half which would reduce effectiveness of enemies who dive through it while still being a quite weak and fair buff but at least allows symmetra to strafe it close range to dps and maybe stay alive. Make teleportation instant on opposite end of teleporter when created so Symmetra can rescue teammates like Blizzard say the ability was created to be able to do, as is that’s a joke your teammate is long dead or somewhere else.

2 Likes
17

I would argue against the other Sym-mains that Beam should not be touched. For what it can do, it should be risky to use.

I would advocate for a revert and nerf to Orb damage. Let it move faster and reduce damage in return. So if it fires as fast as Pharah’s rockets, max damage is somewhere at 100 damage.

I would like these to be removed as they are now as weak as they were before the rework but now at half capacity. So they are a wasted ability. But to make them work, maybe instead make the Target become tethered to the Turrets, being unable to move beyond their 10 meter range. Damage can be dropped to balance.

Drop manual cooldown to 8 as a middle ground and I’m willing to negotiate the initial 10 second idea based on testing.

As for defensive ability, maybe let Symmetra have a shield gate passive of 50 HP (if unknown, one instance of damage exceeding 50 damage will be blocked and the shield will disappear)
Limits of shield gate are

  • Once broken will not regen until 10 seconds after it was destroyed
  • Ultimates and Hack ignore the Shield Gate.

Personally this is what I would like to see but I don’t expect much.

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The fact that a Doomfist player actually took their time making these buffs for us Sym mains instead of their hero is such generousity. Maybe not all Doomfist players are enemies.

2 Likes
19

Your TP deployment changes would make her busted. TP bombing would be way too effective at deleting backlines in Ladder.

If she wants a faster teleporter, then her turrets would have to lose their damage.

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nah i’ll still spawncamp you :smiling_imp:

in all seriousness thou this thread has helped me learn a lot about symmetra!