Im actually scared of sym rework

General Discussion
131

I think that the fact that you are losing something that will change the playstyle is the crux of the argument. You are losing and gaining new things. In your post there are a number of abilities that were changed and tweaked but its a matter of opinion apparently what constitutes a change. I think the two quoted are examples of just outright changes things that are gone and replaced with entirely different abilities.

She does gain some stuff that is similar to current things but a non zero number of things are just new things that were not there before which will change the character. You keep most things is what I think this argument saying between two people.

132

That’s pretty debatable, whether the rework is “stronger”. I would say it’s just different. For one, her teleporter won’t be able to teleport from spawn anymore, it’ll only have a 25 meter range. That’s not stronger, it’s weaker, shown by the fact that it’s being downgraded to an ability. Giving your team the spawn advantage on any map or point at will is pretty damn powerful, while giving the portion of the cast that has no movement ability a little taxi is eh, nice, I guess.

Her photon barrier is not being kept. Her photon barrier is a personal shield that she can deploy on an 8 second cool down to protect herself and teammates with a single button press, that moves forward at a walking pace, has 2k health and can be deployed at any angle. The new ultimate barrier is a linear, map wide barrier that has to be charged, has to be placed, and we can probably assume it can’t be placed at any angle (as in, it probably must be aligned perpendicular to the horizon, like a Mei wall). It is not the same thing. Again, whether it is stronger or weaker is a matter of opinion.

Her turrets are losing a lot of their utility, in that they have uses right now beyond damage. With six, they can be distributed in multiple ways, trapping health packs, recon for flanker routes, protecting ultimates or your backline, etc. Three, more powerful turrets, pretty much locks you into just the car wash.

On top of that, losing her ability to pierce enemies with orbs is a pretty massive loss of key utility in having a Sym. Not only can she give enemies pause in their advance but she is the best tool right now in fighting Orisa+Bastion cheese and getting rid of torb turrets. Now how is that not removing a large percentage of what makes Sym, Sym?

133

Yes they are removing some of what makes Sym, Sym. I won’t say that she is not losing parts of her identity. I am saddened by the loss of shield health. Shield “healing” has always been my favorite support. Honestly I wished that they had pushed her more in that direction.

But what they are doing by removing some of that identity is pulling her from her niche and broadening her usefulness.

Teleporting from spawn is a great advantage, one that is so strong it can only be an ult. But it also relies on your team dying to be useful. Today I had both a game where I teleported 24 people in two rounds of koth. But I also had a game where my ult was up the entire time but only used once.

Losing the spawn advantage makes it weaker, but it is gaining a lot of extra utility to make up for it. Honestly I think they could have done this and kept her a support. Being able to move your team around the map is a powerful tool. And controlling both points of the teleporter increases the amount of uses it has tremendously. Being able to move my team around choke points will make attack symmetra a lot stronger.

Photon barrier as a shield is pretty terrible. It is statistically the worst shield in the game. Even if you ignore the fact that it is hard to use to protect your team, it is worse at protecting symat 1000 health than brig shield at 600. And I am choosing Brig herw because her 3900 damage blocked on average is the closest to Symetras 2800. Having it as a powerful ult that could alter the entire match just sounds better than a throw away shield that is decent at zoning and blocking ults for symmetra. A 5000 health shield that can block the enemy team off of points until the shoot through the health sounds great. Not to mention you can place your sentries on your side where they can fire on the enemy team.

The new ult sounds like it rewords thinking and benefits your entire team. I know it puts her blocking on a charge, but I feel it is safe to assume that it will charge fast. I doubt that they will take away Syms quick ult charge style, and the barrier doesn’t sound so op that it would be a problem for it to charge fast.

I won’t deny that they are losing part of their utility, but their utility is not great. Because they are stronger in nature you don’t need as many of them to suit a purpose. You can get by with one to guard a health pack, put one to guard a flanking rout (preferable near the health pack you camped) and one to help your team at the choke.

More importantly they are gaining the greatest uff to unlock Symetras true potential, they can be thrown. This mean we can set up sentries while moving. I don’t have to walk up next to where I want it, I throw while going to do the next thing. I can also put a sentry web on a point without physically being there. Once more allowing attack symmetra to be viable.

Piercing enemies is weaker than aoe burst. People are more likely to be in a bunch than in a line. The only strength they have right now is thier ability to Pierce through barriers, which is being replaced by making her a barrier melter. I imagine you would use the teleporter to flank, and aoe burst them from behind.

Again I agree that she is loosing a lot her game play. But most of they changes are increasing they ways her abilities can be used. I think a hero that rewards creative thinking is very true to the identy of Symmetra.

134

I guarantee that you’ve seen more people play Genji than Sym. But no, let’s keep pretending Sym’s “gotcha” beam is viable when she’s literally the worst hero in the game:

137

I call this ‘flatlining her design’. It’s where you take an interesting concept and shave off everything that makes it unique so it falls in line with a bunch of other characters. It makes it very easy to balance, and also makes it considerably less fun to play.

EDIT: It’s also the root cause of Hanzo’s issues, where, rather than focus on a zoning-type character by swapping his scatter shot for an area denial ability akin to his ultimate, they decided to just flatten his design and make him more like McCree. Who he now beats in practically all regards.

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138

Precisely!

if your team is not dieing it means you are steamrolling the enemy team. This does not reflect on the balance or strength of the Teleporter.

It makes it so much weaker and it changes everything about it to the point where it is an entirely new ability.

“I am terrible with the Photon Barrier”

Ftfy

Everything about Symmetra is being changed to the point where she is no longer the same hero.

This is not a good way to handle Hero balance.

Blizzard should revert their decision.

#SaveSymmetra

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139

Your ultimate is already terrible. The wall is still an improvement

140

When I use to main symm I O B L I T E R A T E D my space bar.

141

I’m glad, I’ll be able to finally play my favorite hero in ranked.

I don’t miss old Sym, having that much drawbacks isn’t fun.

142

“eventually abandoned”

We can only hope!

So far Blizzard acts like it’s all gravy.

143

Her teleporter basically becomes an ability so I don’t really see a problem with her ult being a wall.

However, her playstyle may indeed change to a point where she is just unrecognizable and that may be a bad thing for those who loved how she played before.

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144

Are you trolling? You can play her in ranked right now. She is a fing blast to play!

I have never had this much fun with a hero in any class-based game I’ve played.

145

That’s very optimistic of you. However, the new wall is going to be, by far, the weakest part of her new kit.

For one, no, it doesn’t block off anything except a Widow or a Hanzo who doesn’t want to move. It doesn’t stop enemies from passing it (since it was referred to as a barrier, rather than a wall), so enemies will be able to pass right by it. Imagine it from the enemy’s perspective, what would you do when faced with a gigantic, 5000 health barrier that blocks projectiles? Get on the other side of it. They put it on the choke? Dive through it. They put it just a bit farther back? Take one of the many alternate routes to the objective past it (left room on Anubis point A, right room on Hanamura B, Top left on Numbani attack, bottom left on Dorado etc).

Okay, so if the point is to force them to fight on your terms, then why is it map wide? The larger it is, the more vulnerable it is, and the less likely someone actually needs to be in the action to take it out. You throw up your barrier, and the enemy Sym or Bastion just eats it without you ever even seeing them. They could destroy it from literally any point on the map that it intersects in total safety, and since it’s so huge, that could be anywhere.

So then if the point is to allow your team to barrier weave through it back and forth, why is it linear? Every other barrier in the game that is static and placed is curved. You know why? Because that way, unless you are literally on top of your enemy, some amount of surface area will be between you and your enemy and you have to chase them in both the x and y axes. With a linear barrier, all you would need to do to hit your enemy as they barrier weave is to stand in the middle and turn left and right, in one axis.

So, basically all of the things that people say it should be good at, it won’t be. Maybe the most game changing thing this barrier will do is make Widowmaker move.

146

I can’t handle toxicity, I hate that, already tried many times to main Sym in ranked (On my alt account) no thanks.

147

“I am terrible with the Photon Barrier”

I am terrible with photon barrier for the same reason that everyone is terrible with photon barrier.

Photon barrier is terrible.

Put any real time into any other character with a shield and you will see how terrible Sym’s shield is compared to every other shield in the game. If you look at the average damage blocked done by a champion, her’s are the lowest numbers.

Here is the average damage blocked by each hero, as recorded by overbuff.
Orisa - 22,967
Reinheart - 16,853
Winston - 10,931
Zarya - 6,244
D.Va - 6,083
Brigitte - 3,900
Symmetra- 2,844

Are you really going to try to argue that the shield with the lowest average blocked damage, is not a weak shield compared to literally every other shielding ability in the game? I am not saying that it doesn’t have any use. But it’s uses are limited and best suited for protecting Symmetra rather than helping your team.

Trust me when I say compared to other shields, Photon Barrier is Trash. The only thing that it can do that another shield can’t do better is allowing your team to march forward. But since it goes in a straight line and is flat, it is easy nullified by walking a few feet to the side. I love a shield that I can deny use of by just repositioning without getting into my enemies zone.

New photon barrier fits Symmetra’s play style more. You pick an area to defend, entrench yourself in it, and force the enemy to enter it. It forces the enemy team to come into your zone in order to be effective. I would also add that even iff you only get your ult once in a game. If it is completely taken down you have done almost double the average damage blocked by photon barrier.

Sym as new off tank 2018

148

I just don’t like the ult.

I like the fewer, more powerful turrets that take less time to set up

I like the longer ranged/more damage beam at the expense of her autolock, especially since it recharges on barriers.

I like the ball moving as fast as a pharah rocket and exploding on impact.

I like the teleporter being a group movement utility. So many possibilities.

I’d feel comfortable if she had a personal defensive, but being more dangerous at a longer distance might make up for it.

149

Not a fan of it either. Whats next? Removing blinks form Tracer?

150

This would be true if the new barrier was a bubble the size of a capture point. It’s not. It’s a linear, passable, static barrier that will probably be the most ignorable ult in the game.

Personally, I’d rather they think of a different ult for her and let her keep her shield, but just adjust it so that it can block more damage. Some people do see the potential of her shield, which is why my average damage blocked this season according to overbuff is about 4500. I’d rather see her keep her current shield, but instead let her hold it for a moment before letting it go. It has way more health than it needs, currently, so she could “charge up” the shield, holding it in front of her and granting it an increasing amount of health until it goes out, similar to how her orbs work now. That’s just a dream though, since I know it’s not happening. However, it’s just an example of how they could have improved it, rather than removing it.

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151

I’m gonna be optimistic about her ult. It sounds pretty interesting and I won’t know how it feels till I play it.

Even in the Symm megathread I felt she should have a barrier to dance through. Preventing a dive or just having a giant target to distract the enemy soulds cool…

my only complaint is it should damage/slow them as they touch it to prevent them from standing in it to shoot at both sides .

152

What if the barrier is thick enough to place turrets in… 5000hp TURRETS BOOYAH suck it Winston.