I'm leaving Symmetra. Here's why

[Zephrin-11143]

@Tobsi-21949

Okay. Let’s talk about her problems.
Turrets being useless on attack? Fixable.

would like to point out that even now with them being throwable and without a res cost that they still need to wait for enemies to go into their los for them to contribute rather than vice versa because of their fragility and how easy they’d be countered if seen before targets will enter their range. and making them have more HP to “fix” that problem is an express way to having an unhealthy ability.

@Tobsi-21949

Cooldown on photon barrier to high? Fixable.

either:

• cd is low enough to spam alot to be able to meet the sustain demand that having 0 mobility, really long ttk on others and low effective range has. “spam alot” i.e. spamming old barrier so much to the point of basically being able to provide early double shield comp’s level of shield spam which is down right oppressive
• or the cd is high enough to not get the above oppressiveness and ends up not compensating 0 mobility, really long ttk on others and low effective range and thus we’re back to square one with the old uptime problems.

@Tobsi-21949

Ults being too static once when placed? Fixable.

even if you do fix that, it still doesn’t mean that she’s going to have reasonable amount of uptime. like she’s not fiddling around with ult all match as what’s she’s doing actively.

@Tobsi-21949

The only big problem she had was the lack of support outside of her ult which would require bigger changes to her kit.

there were 2 big problems.

1. nothing that really let her compete with spammable heals to justify her support label.
2. her active contributions were literally damage and in no way did she have reasonable tools to facilitate that at all which lead to extremely high amounts of down time.

@Tobsi-21949

That’s why I don’t want a revert either.

I mean, you talk about

• wanting old ults back,
• something akin to old turrets,
• old barrier on e back,
• while seemingly do nothing about how bad her weapon fires are

i.e. wanting the same old 0 mobility, wanting low range, low burst.

and then seemingly also don’t want to add the necessary sustain (i.e. tank route) for her to reasonably get uptime and compensate all those previous lows…

so like it honestly sounds like you effectively do…

@Tobsi-21949

Just saying "no…won’t work " is not helpfull.

do you think a hero with a kit that has low sustain, low effective range, 0 mobility, and low burst is going to work?
like I don’t think one needs to spend plenty of time, money and resources in making and testing a build with lows on about every parameter to be able to judge how bad that’d be…

@Tobsi-21949

@Zephrin-11143

What they want is legit to be able to passively sit back and do minimal most of the match time until the enemy comes to them

That’s how builder heroes work. You build objects which do the job for you.

no they’re meant to help you do something. not play the game for you. and not “suck up all your kit’s self agency to do anything actively” either.

[Tobsi-21949]

@Zephrin-11143

their fragility and how easy they’d be countered if seen before targets will enter their range.

Yes. They still would be quiet weak on attack without tp.
So how about making them faster overall? Increased flight speed, reduced set up time, reduced cast time.
More HP is not the way to go.

As for the photon barrier I think there’s a healthy line between too weak and too opressive.
Something like 6 seconds cooldown but with 400 HP.

@Zephrin-11143

even if you do fix that, it still doesn’t mean that she’s going to have reasonable amount of uptime. like she’s not fiddling around with ult all match as what’s she’s doing actively.

That’s the problem. Her only way to support her team was with her ults. If she had a strong and consistent support ability the downtime on her ults wouldn’t be as significant.
When Batpiste came out I thought that IF could’ve worked well on Sym.
It’s strong, consistent if we lower the cooldown, an object and it fits Sym’s defensive orientated identity.

@Zephrin-11143

2. her active contributions were literally damage and in no way did she have reasonable tools to facilitate that at all which lead to extremely high amounts of down time.

She had +75 shields and a personal barrier which she lost with her rework. The only thing the got was a clunky tp.

@Zephrin-11143

I mean, you talk about

Yes. I talk about how I would change 2.0 IF she comes back. That doesn’t mean I want her to be back. As I said multiples time she needs an active support ability which 2.0 doesn’t have.
—> I don’t want a 2.0 revert. I would still prefer it over 3.0 because I had more fun with 2.0 but it’s not my first choice either.

What I want is a new support rework which features her abilities from 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0.
That being said I’m also opposed a rework that contains new abilities such as healing beam, healing orbs, healing turrets or a healing station.

Maybe I should clarify why I want a rework at all: She suffers from the Sombra Syndrome.
She’s being played in OWL but is horrible on ladder.
If we buff her orb speed to 50 m/s and buff her tp cooldown to make it more dynamic she’d become overpowered in the OWL which leads to nerfs.
What is the reason?
Her tp.
And how do we handle tp?

1. Delete tp (which is not the way to go because tp part of her identity)
2. Make is work like spawn tp again (at this point we can just rework her into a support which would also balance the low amount of support heroes in the game and long DPS queue times)

@Zephrin-11143

wanting old ults back,

I want old tp and sg back but not as ults.

@Zephrin-11143

something akin to old turrets,

No. I want to keep 3.0 turrets as they are the only real improvement from 2.0.

@Zephrin-11143

old barrier on e back,

No.

@Zephrin-11143

while seemingly do nothing about how bad her weapon fires are

2.0’s weapon was fine for a support but I want to keep 3.0 because lock on would trigger too much sym haters.

@Zephrin-11143

i.e. wanting the same old 0 mobility, wanting low range, low burst.

1. I want a longer beam.
2. It’s not a big problem because a support doesn’t need to stay in the frontline and kill everyone.

@Zephrin-11143

do you think a hero with a kit that has low sustain, low effective range, 0 mobility, and low burst is going to work?

You’re only focusing on the DPS aspects. A support doesn’t need high sustain, high range, high mobilty and high burst. These are things DPS heroes need and Sym 3.0 is lacking in every single on of them.
In fact if I could rework Sym she would have more range, more sustain and more burst than current Sym + multiple ways to support her team.

[Zephrin-11143]

@Tobsi-21949

Yes. They still would be quiet weak on attack without tp.
So how about making them faster overall? Increased flight speed, reduced set up time, reduced cast time.
More HP is not the way to go.

except at the end of the day:

1. still easily destroyed in the air. and you legit can’t reduce the delays (whether setup, flight time, etc.) to the point where people can’t shoot them down otherwise we’re heading to oppressive territory; and
2. they’re still easy to destroy post setup upon detection which hard limits their value/contributions. i.e. unless the opponents are bad and ignore turrets, they will be quickly destroyed upon being triggered —> low value

@Tobsi-21949

As for the photon barrier I think there’s a healthy line between too weak and too opressive.
Something like 6 seconds cooldown but with 400 HP.

and that won’t be enough to compensate having 0 mobility, low range, and low burst…
like think about how she’d engage and disengage and do that often enough, for long enough to compete with the uptime all the other heroes can achieve.

like old sym, your build will result in her relying heavily on being escorted into and out of her effective range for uptime and disengagements and thus will result in extremely high down times like old sym had…

@Tobsi-21949

That’s the problem. Her only way to support her team was with her ults. If she had a strong and consistent support ability the downtime on her ults wouldn’t be as significant.

except the problem that is either:

• the “support ability” you come up with something consumes most of her gameplay to the point where you basically made her gameplay basically have 0 resemblence to any of the previous iterations (i.e. you completely replaced the hero)
  • and no 3.0 didn’t do this because she does a lot of the same things old sym did (flank, orb harass, claim territory, w+m1, etc.), the main difference is tp allowing more dynamic, faster pace, higher self agency and higher flexibility to do so rather than wait all day for an escort to facilitate them
• OR you come up with something that’s very set and forget like zen’s heal orb which you’d be limited in potential because of how easy it is to apply, which then the hero will need to compensate that by doing something else i.e. damage which then brings us back to the problem of how is your build going to get uptime comparable to other heroes?

@Tobsi-21949

She had +75 shields and a personal barrier which she lost with her rework. The only thing the got was a clunky tp.

+75 shield didn’t mean she could get independent uptime given how much sustain her sustain damage demanded, not to mention having 0 mobility for how low range she was.

tp on e wasn’t perfect, but it defs was a lot better in letting sym engage AND disengage while also allowing more burst via allowing pre-charging orbs before engaging in their effective range and allowing turrets to more safely get to more valuable areas with less travel time too.

@Tobsi-21949

Yes. I talk about how I would change 2.0 IF she comes back. That doesn’t mean I want her to be back. As I said multiples time she needs an active support ability which 2.0 doesn’t have.
—> I don’t want a 2.0 revert. I would still prefer it over 3.0 because I had more fun with 2.0 but it’s not my first choice either.

to backtrack here (with bolded parts for emphasis):

@Tobsi-21949

I think when people talk about 2.0 they want a revert AND a few buffs to her kit.

@Zephrin-11143

And it’ll still be bad unless they make her into tank to be more like zarya in order to get reasonable uptime.

But that legit isn’t what those said people want either.

@Tobsi-21949

Okay. Let’s talk about her problems.
Turrets being useless on attack? Fixable.
Cooldown on photon barrier to high? Fixable.
Ults being too static once when placed? Fixable.
…
But we have the experimental card and those things can be tested.
Just saying "no…won’t work " is not helpfull.

like it really doesn’t look that way…

@Tobsi-21949

Maybe I should clarify why I want a rework at all: She suffers from the Sombra Syndrome.
She’s being played in OWL but is horrible on ladder.
If we buff her orb speed to 50 m/s and buff her tp cooldown to make it more dynamic she’d become overpowered in the OWL which leads to nerfs.
What is the reason?
Her tp.

not really. my proposed changes also include proportionally reducing orb size for how fast they make it fly and most of what I suggested for tp has existing benchmarks to empirically justify it not being overpowered at all. Esp when we’re talking about a projectile fire with a sniper-tier low firerate but without the same burst OHKO as one. at best it has the same bodyshot value and that’s it, but is likely less consistent in that it’s slower projectile —> easier to dodge in sniper-tier long range —> lower effective range in comparison.

i.e. in terms of improving the cd mechanic, having a mechanic like “starts cd upon placement and pauses upon ticking through halfway until destruction”

• won’t be any more frequent compared to old 3.0 finite tp,
• nor would it have shorter down time compared to old 3.0 finite tp either.

and during the like >=2yrs we had old 3.0 finite tp, it’s been legit used for the same purposes as now and sym was still underperforming for various metas. i.e. the cd mechanic suggestion wouldn’t be OP at all not even if you look at it from a team tp’ing perspective.

sym herself (i.e. not her team), being able to interact sooner after placement wouldn’t really make her OP at all either because it’s not like she can actually benefit from that when trying to use it both for herself AND team taxi’ing at the same time (she’d suicide or give her team away when it comes to the taxi tp strat scenario). and with the above suggested tp mechanic, she’s not going to get another tp cast sooner than old 3.0 finite tp’s cd mechanic to be able to get the benefit of both in a short period of time either. not to mention, if sym is using tp for herself more, there’s less team taxiing.

@Tobsi-21949

And how do we handle tp?

1. Delete tp (which is not the way to go because tp part of her identity)
2. Make is work like spawn tp again (at this point we can just rework her into a support which would also balance the low amount of support heroes in the game and long DPS queue times)

well

1. my solution above pretty much handled tp in a balanced way…
2. any solution to “handle tp” will have to involve a another tool to provide engagement and disengagement capabilities. otherwise she’d either
   • struggle hard to get herself in and out of her effective range often enough and long enough
   • or you try making her more like an orb sniper but would inevitably fail because she’ll be hard countered by shields like that.

@Tobsi-21949

I want old tp and sg back but not as ults.
No. I want to keep 3.0 turrets as they are the only real improvement from 2.0.
No old barrier on e
2.0’s weapon was fine for a support but I want to keep 3.0 because lock on would trigger too much sym haters.

1. I want a longer beam.
2. It’s not a big problem because a support doesn’t need to stay in the frontline and kill everyone.

You’re only focusing on the DPS aspects. A support doesn’t need high sustain, high range, high mobilty and high burst. These are things DPS heroes need and Sym 3.0 is lacking in every single on of them.

Those parameters apply to supports too for their uptime
e.g. mercy has lower range on he beams but compensates by having much higher mobility to get in and out of range. her “burst” on her heals is low but she has some sustain though regen to help with that. but obvs her regen isn’t very high sustain, hence why her mobility is so high to compensate. similar can be said about lucio.

like tell me, what is the “sym” you’re talking about going to be actively doing as their uptime? because from the looks of it, it’s still going to be damaging enemies —> leading to all my previous points about how this direction is going to struggle hard in getting uptime.

and no, “putting structures down” doesn’t really “count” because once the structure is down, you’re not putting it down again so soon nor take so long to put it down, you’ll be doing something else to actually actively contribute (e.g. shooting the enemy which is what old and current sym do… but obvs had problems doing so as previously explained). and if you are trying to make it so that sym’s always putting structures down constantly as her uptime, then it’s simply a problematic design direction in the first place (how would you even balance that for low ranks vs high ranks to make sure it’s not oppressive on 1 end but still viable in the other).

[Tobsi-21949]

@Zephrin-11143

except at the end of the day:

1. still easily destroyed in the air. and you legit can’t reduce the delays (whether setup, flight time, etc.) to the point where people can’t shoot them down otherwise we’re heading to oppressive territory; and
2. they’re still easy to destroy post setup upon detection which hard limits their value/contributions. i.e. unless the opponents are bad and ignore turrets, they will be quickly destroyed upon being triggered —> low value

I won’t go much into the “how to balance 2.0”-topic because it doesn’t really seem to anywhere.
But there’s one idea for her turrets I had before the rework. What if we increase the placement range to 20 or 30 meters? So she would be able to place the turrets behind the enemy instead of throwing the turrets into their face.
I don’t think it would feel good to play against but it might have been funny.

@Zephrin-11143

like it really doesn’t look that way…

It is because I responded to steevo saying “they just want a 2.0 revert”.

@Tobsi-21949

I think when people talk about 2.0 they want a revert AND a few buffs to her kit.

I tried to explain what they might mean with “revert her back to 2.0”. I never talked about myself.
Our whole discussion was based on steevos post.

@Zephrin-11143

my proposed changes also include proportionally reducing orb size for how fast they make it fly

Is it a buff or just a rebalance?
If it’s a buff —> too strong in OWL
If it’s just a rebalance that doesn’t change her power level at all —> Why even make this change?

@Zephrin-11143

won’t be any more frequent compared to old 3.0 finite tp
nor would it have shorter down time compared to old 3.0 finite tp either.

Irrelevant because this was in a different meta.
It’s about current Sym. My point still stands. If we buff Sym now she’d become too strong in OWL which leads to nerfs and at the end of the day she’s weaker than before.
Like last time.

@Zephrin-11143

and during the like >=2yrs we had old 3.0 finite tp, it’s been legit used for the same purposes as now and sym was still underperforming for various metas.

*1 year. Sym was reworked in summer 2018. Infinite tp came with the Sigma patch who was released in Summer 2019.
The meta before infinite tp was mainly dominated by GOATS when every DPS hero in the game was bad. Plus Sym was trash in like the first half year until they started buffing her from times to times.

@Zephrin-11143

sym herself (i.e. not her team), being able to interact sooner after placement wouldn’t really make her OP at all either because it’s not like she can actually benefit from that when trying to use it both for herself AND team taxi’ing at the same time

It would still be an overpowered team utility which prevents her from getting significant buffs to the rest of her kit. She would still be too team reliant because it doesn’t make coordinated tp plays easier for 99% of the player —> Sombra Syndrome.

We got to see what happens when Symmetra suddenly has a strong kit on top of her tp. Even though her tp was nerfed in the same patch. It looks like the nerf didn’t matter at all. That’s how strong tp is. So we can try 100 different things to balance tp. It will always be overpowered in Top 500/OWL unless we keep Symmetra’s other abilities bad to balance tp out or we make my proposed changes or we disable TP for the team. But this would make tp even more into a bootleg shadow step.

@Zephrin-11143

like tell me, what is the “sym” you’re talking about

I think I’ve told you my concept a few days ago but it seemed like you didn’t even look at it.
So here is the short version:

• 3.0 beam (higher range, higher base damage, lower max damage)
• 2.0 orbs (1 second charge, a bit faster travel speed)
• 1.0 photon shields (work similar like repair pack, low cooldown)
• 3.0 Turrets
• 2.0 TP (one charge, like mercy rez, more placement range)
• 2.0 SG (less shields, less range, more placement range)
• 3.0 Photon Barrier

Photon shields would be her main ability since they have high range and high uptime.
TP/SG can provide some extra utility to the team when needed since they are normal abilities now. And they have more range so Sym doesn’t need to leave the fight anymore. Photon barrier can be placed from far away as well.
In conclusion she doesn’t need high mobility because all of her abilites have enough range on their own.
Piercing orbs was a very usefull utility against certain comps and they are bit faster and more spamable now.

Her playstyle would be like

• Place turrets (far more dynamic than 2.0)
• Place SG (far more dynamic than 2.0), can be used for bait as well
• Place TP when someone died (far more dynamic than 2.0), can be used for bait as well
• Shield the team mates, when they take damage (far more dynamic than 1.0)
• And shoot at the enemy by using orbs/beam (far more dynamic than 2.0)

[Haise-11848]

@xXWolfXx-11848

Lmao yes I’m sure you are “Pals” with someone who doesn’t even know who you are except when reading your name when you subbed. I thought Samito and his fans were the worst of the bunch but I guess there is some strong competition.

why you gotta be so toxic ?

[Teddies-11171]

Thread became tl;dr

But I prefer 3.0 to 2.0 if that counts for anything. Despite the fact I personally miss shield gen and old barrier. It’s just with 3.0 if only they’d buff her, fix her bugs, and add QOL changes buuuuut-- well you already know.

Can my tp stop randomly breaking? No? Ok thanks! (Tp bugs have existed for years and nothing has been done)

Can I have a slightly longer beam? Oh you thought I was joking, o-ok…

[xXWolfXx-11848]

@Zephrin-11143

old barrier on e back,

I don’t see what’s wrong with old barrier on E tbh. Symm 3.0 has no form of self sustain like she did with barrier. Especially with Shield Gen. With her new barrier being an ultimate and costing WAY more than tp and shield gen did I think self sustain is an issue.

@Haise-11848

why you gotta be so toxic ?

Who you?

[SquealnSquaw-1228]

I love that 25hp buff. Totally compensates for Blizzard nerfing her whole kit by 20% or more. People just need to get good with sym she is so good now. Blows my mind how low iq the herd is on this game.

[Hyperhop-1135]

I do think most people who try out Symmetra don’t realise she has to be played in a very specific way. Symmetra isn’t a burst damage hero or a duelist. I almost think it’s a marketing problem and lack of knowledge on where to position Symmetra.

For example, people often complain about her left click/primary fire being weak as a dueling weapon. But it was deliberately designed to be a weak weapon. If you look at what it does it’s meant to be powerful only when first charging on Barriers and Tanks. Her turrets and charged Orb are suppose to tilt the match in your favour so by the time enemies are in range of your beam they are low on health already. There might be an argument to have left click/primary the Orbs and right click the Beam because of this.

[Zephrin-11143]

@Tobsi-21949

But there’s one idea for her turrets I had before the rework. What if we increase the placement range to 20 or 30 meters? So she would be able to place the turrets behind the enemy instead of throwing the turrets into their face.
I don’t think it would feel good to play against but it might have been funny

nor does it actually address the 2nd point I raised.

@Tobsi-21949

I tried to explain what they might mean with “revert her back to 2.0”. I never talked about myself.

and I’ve been pointing out the flaws of most of their suggestions in that they never solve he down time problems and only just bring them back.

@Tobsi-21949

Is it a buff or just a rebalance?
If it’s a buff —> too strong in OWL
If it’s just a rebalance that doesn’t change her power level at all —> Why even make this change?

it’s an overall buff and it legit won’t be OP in OWL. like why and how would it be?
orbs rn are one of the worst (underpowered) projectile weapon fires in the game rn and it’s her staple weapon fire unless your team is willing to escort you everywhere like a president which is what OWL does everytime when they play sym.

and I doubt this change would make them do less of that either because ranged hitscans still far outshine orbs with those numbers in terms of consistency, effective range, dps and burst. i.e. if they wanted something ranged, it’s still better to pick a sniper or some ranged hitscan.

@Tobsi-21949

Irrelevant because this was in a different meta.

it isn’t irrelevant at all. old 3.0 tp was around across various metas, it was better and still didn’t make sym OP nor oppressive —> we have a benchmark for tp that isn’t OP to balance against.
and the suggested changes don’t even meet that benchmark (only approaches it)

like you don’t just balance an entire hero for 1 meta only.

@Tobsi-21949

It’s about current Sym. My point still stands. If we buff Sym now she’d become too strong in OWL which leads to nerfs and at the end of the day she’s weaker than before.

except she wouldn’t be OP in OWL because of all the existing benchmarks which the changes were checked against as explained above.

@Tobsi-21949

*1 year. Sym was reworked in summer 2018. Infinite tp came with the Sigma patch who was released in Summer 2019.
The meta before infinite tp was mainly dominated by GOATS when every DPS hero in the game was bad. Plus Sym was trash in like the first half year until they started buffing her from times to times.

[Album] Complete Overwatch Competitive Meta History for YourOversource.com Created by...

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it wasn’t just goats. we had old tp for the end of grav dragon, double sniper, goats and orisa hog. esp when you consider how in ladder, most people weren’t playing goats either and she was still doing bad in that period.

@Tobsi-21949

It would still be an overpowered team utility which prevents her from getting significant buffs to the rest of her kit. She would still be too team reliant because it doesn’t make coordinated tp plays easier for 99% of the player —> Sombra Syndrome.

? it’d mean she’d be more capable of using tp for her own mobility for her own plays without touching the “team tp” scenario. and if anything, it’d reduce the number of team tps because sym would be using it for herself more.

@Tobsi-21949

We got to see what happens when Symmetra suddenly has a strong kit on top of her tp. Even though her tp was nerfed in the same patch. It looks like the nerf didn’t matter at all.

bih the nerfs in double shield had nothing to do with her tp because double shield paved free catwalks for sym to waltz up to the enemy without needing mobility tools. not to mention in early double shield days people where just chucking shields out far which is a free delivery service to sym to get charge. i.e. the meta, or her prevalence, had nothing to do with tp.

most of the nerfs were legit 100% unnecessary too. she was already on her way out of the meta before the further nerfs hit as people were realising df, mei, reaper, etc. were better because they can go around shields which is faster than trying to burn through all of them with sym primary.

it only looked like the nerf didn’t matter in that meta because the meta hard catered her w+m1. but what happened when we got out of that meta i.e. no more hard catering for w+m1? now we (well you guys do, I saw this from the beginning) see how terrible infinite tp is because now she doesn’t have it where she wants it most of the time and thus extremely high down time. this is esp reflected in OWL rn because they only play sym if she’s being hard catered to w+m1 (e.g. houston only playing her in double shield).

you’re looking at this too shallowly.

@Tobsi-21949

I think I’ve told you my concept a few days ago but it seemed like you didn’t even look at it.
So here is the short version:

• 3.0 beam (higher range, higher base damage, lower max damage)
• 2.0 orbs (1 second charge, a bit faster travel speed)
• 1.0 photon shields (work similar like repair pack, low cooldown)
• 3.0 Turrets
• 2.0 TP (one charge, like mercy rez, more placement range)
• 2.0 SG (less shields, less range, more placement range)
• 3.0 Photon Barrier

Photon shields would be her main ability since they have high range and high uptime.

she’d still be spending a lot of her gameplay damaging because photon shields is cd based (not all that spammable) and very well likely will need something else to help compete with other supports (in a similar manner to zen needing to damage to compensate low hps on heal orb). from the looks of it, whatever that “sym” can actively do to achieve that for most of her gameplay is still damage.

@Tobsi-21949

TP/SG can provide some extra utility to the team when needed since they are normal abilities now. And they have more range so Sym doesn’t need to leave the fight anymore. Photon barrier can be placed from far away as well.
In conclusion she doesn’t need high mobility because all of her abilites have enough range on their own.
Piercing orbs was a very usefull utility against certain comps and they are bit faster and more spamable now.

except there’s a significant limit on how much longer you can make her primary without making it oppressive. and if you reduce the max charge dps too much, there’s just no point in charging it. i.e. my point is, you’re not going to reach a point where primary’s long enough that sym wouldn’t need an escort to meaningfully use it outside of securing picks on low hp targets within range while being worth it.

and with orbs only being “slightly faster”, it’s not going to have the needed effective range either to make it reasonably numbered. like it’ll have sniper-tier low firerate but still largely be inconsistent to land in most ranges on top of her having literally 0 mobility to get her in and out of that range. and it’s not like that’ll make it better spam (like that direction isn’t meant to make it better spam, but as it is rn it’s terrible as a spam weapon fire too i.e. doesn’t even have that either).

[Zephrin-11143]

@xXWolfXx-11848

@Zephrin-11143

old barrier on e back,

I don’t see what’s wrong with old barrier on E tbh. Symm 3.0 has no form of self sustain like she did with barrier. Especially with Shield Gen. With her new barrier being an ultimate and costing WAY more than tp and shield gen did I think self sustain is an issue.

what’s wrong with replacing tp with old barrier is that sym will have absolutely 0 independent way for her to get in and out of her effective range for uptime.

tp actually makes a way in and out for you. you may say “but she’ll have less sustain” but the thing is, tp also lets you have more burst in letting you pre-charge orbs before engaging in their effective range (so you don’t charge during a duel), or let you reduce travel time on turrets to get them to valuable places sooner and more safely. i.e. you have more combos with higher burst so that you don’t have to stay that long.

old barrier at best let her gap close (and a situational one too because it didn’t stop flying forward) OR (exclusive or) let her block an instant ability. that’s it. it certainly was not a disengage at all.

like a hero with low range, 0 mobility and low burst. a barrier that kept moving forward on like a 8~10s cd certainly isn’t enough sustain to compensate all those lows to let her reasonably get often enough nor long enough uptime. the heroes that do have enough sustain for those kinds of lows are tanks.

[Tobsi-21949]

@Zephrin-11143

it’s an overall buff and it legit won’t be OP in OWL. like why and how would it be?

Even with her bad orbs she currently has she’s good enough to be played in OWL because of tp.

@Zephrin-11143

it isn’t irrelevant at all.

It is not important how she was 2 years ago when a) there was a 0 DPS meta and b) when she was unplayable until ~1 month before infinite tp patch.

By this logic Soldier’s damage should go down to 17 again because it was too strong 5 years ago.

@Zephrin-11143

it wasn’t just goats.

Well it sais GOATS from Season 12 to season 16.

@Zephrin-11143

we had old tp for the end of grav dragon, double sniper, goats and orisa hog.

As I said she was unplayable after her rework. And don’t forget this was the time when tp was still countered by railings or tp bombing failed randomly because of the small interact radius.

@Zephrin-11143

double sniper

Because Sym would do so well in a double sniper meta.

@Zephrin-11143

esp when you consider how in ladder, most people weren’t playing goats either and she was still doing bad in that period.

Sombra Syndrome.
I know that Sym is still one of the worst heroes on ladder. That’s the problem with 3.0:
Weak on ladder, strong in OWL.

@Zephrin-11143

it’d mean she’d be more capable of using tp for her own mobility for her own plays without touching the “team tp” scenario.

That’s correct.
But it doesn’t make the “team tp” scenario weaker. It’s still as strong as before.

@Zephrin-11143

most of the nerfs were legit 100% unnecessary too.

I agree. From a ladder’s perspective. She was finally good.
But OWL?
I actually don’t know how much she was played back then but I think it wasn’t that much because Doomfist, Hanzo and Reaper were strong too.

@Zephrin-11143

she’d still be spending a lot of her gameplay damaging because photon shields is cd based (not all that spammable)

Yes like almost every other support as well. Whenever they’re not supporting they start attacking the enemies.

@Zephrin-11143

except there’s a significant limit on how much longer you can make her primary without making it oppressive.

I like to take Moira’s beam as a reference.
20 meters with 50 DPS, easy to aim.
I thought about 14 meters, 70/90/110 damage

@Zephrin-11143

while being worth it.

Considering her orbs are slow again it is.
This was one of the problems 3.0 had. Even at close range it was not worth to use her beam over her orbs. The buffs to her beam made it better though but it’s still not the same as with 2.0.

@Zephrin-11143

with orbs only being “slightly faster”, it’s not going to have the needed effective range either to make it reasonably numbered. like it’ll have sniper-tier low firerate but still largely be inconsistent to land in most ranges

That’s the trade off for dealing 120 damage and piercing through barriers/enemies.
Her old orbs were never meant to be a consistent damage tool. They were meant to pressure the enemies behind the barrier and while charging your ult. You can say the same for fire strike or damage orb.
And with 15 m/s and 1 second charge they are way better at this than before.

[anon29269486]

I agree with the thread author.
Symmetra belongs in the support category.
She should cause less damage and have less health points. Her orbs should be about 200% slower and should be able to heal team members instead.
To compensate, also bring back the shield generator.

[Zephrin-11143]

@Tobsi-21949

Even with her bad orbs she currently has she’s good enough to be played in OWL because of tp.

“good enough” is a bit of a stretch considering all the amount of resources they poor into sym just to get early capture in some koth and to try attempting to run her on other maps. and how they often switch after the first death.

@Tobsi-21949

It is not important how she was 2 years ago when a) there was a 0 DPS meta and b) when she was unplayable until ~1 month before infinite tp patch.

By this logic Soldier’s damage should go down to 17 again because it was too strong 5 years ago.

it’s relevant because she legit was globally stronger in about every aspect of her kit back then compared to now and still was lacking across various metas (yes, various, it was defs across a few as shown in the linked timeline) and was still getting the same use as now in OWL (tping to point or taxiing around + hard cater w+m1 via deathballing).
i.e. there objectively defs room for buffs without making her OP

@Tobsi-21949

And don’t forget this was the time when tp was still countered by railings or tp bombing failed randomly because of the small interact radius.

those didn’t mean sym could be played nor that her tp was unsuable esp considering how most people destroy railings anyways. not to mention it’s even common now for when tp bombing that turrets are thrown after placing tp. and all of these were fixed prior to infinite tp nerf.

@Tobsi-21949

That’s correct.
But it doesn’t make the “team tp” scenario weaker. It’s still as strong as before.

except it isn’t even all that strong as shown by the fact at how she got kicked out of the meta that catered to her w+m1 most (what OWL plays her with) irrespective of her unnecessary nerfs.

@Tobsi-21949

I agree. From a ladder’s perspective. She was finally good.
But OWL?
I actually don’t know how much she was played back then but I think it wasn’t that much because Doomfist, Hanzo and Reaper were strong too.

she wasn’t “finally good”. heck we’re seeing why and how that is rn because you literally need to team escort her for her to get uptime most of the time now because her tp’s too infrequent on top of he staple weapon fire (orbs) being terrible numbered. unlike before where she could utilise her tp more for herself.

and again, she was on her way out of the meta anyways because people in GM realised

• “ok we need to stop throwing shields out so far feeding the enemy sym and need to keep them closer to ourselves” and
• “why bother pump so many resources into enabling sym w+m1 who takes so long to burn shields when I can just play these other heroes that can bypass/ignore barriers or can isolate enemies away from their barriers and do so much quicker”.

tp had little to do with her prevalence in double shield meta and it simply wasn’t the reason why they nerfed her.

@Tobsi-21949

Yes like almost every other support as well. Whenever they’re not supporting they start attacking the enemies.

and thei kits facilitate that much better than what you’re proposing.
lower mobility heroes with not as much sustain like zen, ana and bap have range to compensate.
lower effective range heroes have more mobility to compensate.

pretty much the only exception to this is brig and guess how she’s played: spending a lot of time just waiting around (really high down time) and whose value is really dependent on teammates being able to make use out of the opportunities she provides (hence why she’s only more valuable in OWL but not in lower ranks).

@Tobsi-21949

I like to take Moira’s beam as a reference.
20 meters with 50 DPS, easy to aim.
I thought about 14 meters, 70/90/110 damage
…
Considering her orbs are slow again it is.
This was one of the problems 3.0 had. Even at close range it was not worth to use her beam over her orbs. The buffs to her beam made it better though but it’s still not the same as with 2.0.

14m is still going to need a team pocket to use outside of securing picks on low hp targets within 14m range. which you simply aren’t going to get often in ladder and means you simply will be using orbs more often anyways.

not to mention the logic of having something purposely absolutely terrible to encourage use of something slightly less terrible is very flawed…

like the reason we don’t use primary much compared to orbs is

1. she doesn’t have needed sustain to meet the demand from primary’s low TTK and sustain damage nature. and she’d only get it from sucking up he teammates’ resources.
2. this game has been inherently setup so players are spending more time further apart (outside of ~14m) from their enemies than closer up. like frequently within a match, you will start far away from them and then slowly converge somewhere (e.g. each time you or they respawn).

@Tobsi-21949

That’s the trade off for dealing 120 damage and piercing through barriers/enemies.
Her old orbs were never meant to be a consistent damage tool. They were meant to pressure the enemies behind the barrier and while charging your ult. You can say the same for fire strike or damage orb.
And with 15 m/s and 1 second charge they are way better at this than before.

first off, 15m/s is not faster, that’s slower. current orbs is 25m/s.

secondly, it’s simply stupid to think going back to that direction for orbs is good because not only does it make the current problems worse, but you put a mechanic on it (pierce) that ingrains those problems because trying to solve any of them would make it oppressive.

like the aimability issue should be really obvious as to how that’s worse. and as a spam weapon fire it’s also keeping all the same problems as now.

even for “zoning” it’s terrible (both now and your suggestion) because of

• how easily dodged they are from low projectile speed
• they legit have low area coverage considering the lack of mechanics to make them linger in the space that’s valuable to zone (e.g. junkrat bombs staying where they land longer, or rebounds, or moira’s orb rebounds) and the low firerate preventing you from “building up” area coverage via multiple shots (think nier automata or old retro arcade games). and neither are they like hitscans in being so threatening from consistency that they demand you to take cover upon sight.
  • no, simply being a slow projectile doesn’t make it “zone better”. what makes it better is area coverage and maintaining that cover for longer. a linear projectile that comes and disappears upon impact with nothing lingering is not maintaining cover long and it being easily side stepped without much followup to make them be on their toes more is simply not good area coverage.

considering how her orbs will still be staple weapon fire in your design, it simply doesn’t make sense why you’d make them that inconsistent and that low value, esp when we both agree that such a build will be relying on damage has her dominant active gameplay/contributions.

like we can see how bad old orbs were as spam, damage and zoning in this clip here:

Don't Say Free. Nothing is Free

like ~40s spent on spamming those kinds of orbs you’re suggesting and:

• the enemy barely got zoned at all, like they legit kept their position and without taking much damage at all. and this was against a bunker-like comp too, not even a mobile one.
• didn’t even actually land many orbs on enemies at all (see ult charge) despite how many that were fired —> low ult charge and low damage (low active value)

[Tobsi-21949]

@Zephrin-11143

“good enough” is a bit of a stretch considering all the amount of resources they poor into sym just to get early capture in some koth and to try attempting to run her on other maps.

Seems like it is still worth it.

@Zephrin-11143

it’s relevant because she legit was globally stronger in about every aspect of her kit back then

After her rework she had

• less HP
• less range
• longer charge time (almost twice as long)
• less range on tp
• less interact radius
• horrible tick rate and bug which caused her to deal a lot less damage
• the inability to place tp on railings

compared to now.

As I said there was only a short period of time - 6/18/19 to 8/13/19 - when she had a “good” kit if we ignore the beam bug. And goats.

@Zephrin-11143

tp had little to do with her prevalence in double shield meta and it simply wasn’t the reason why they nerfed her.

Which I never said.
I said having a strong ability such as tp is fine if the rest of her kit is bad enough to balance her out.
If we change that she’d become problematic in OWL.
—> In 2019 she got nerfed because her kit (=beam) become too strong despite the tp nerf.

I’m all for buffing Symmetra and test how things will go because she’s trash on ladder. But I highly doubt that everything will be perfect suddenly.
For example if we do your proposed changes to tp she would still be team reliant when it comes to coordinated tp plays. Being able to use tp a bit earlier doesn’t make your team press F.
It allows her to do more stuff on her own but is it really that much? Would she be a perfectly balanced hero after this?
I don’t think so. But let’s try it. Why not.

@Zephrin-11143

she was on her way out of the meta anyways because people in GM realised

they didn’t know how to play Sym?
It was such a pain looking at those “top 500” players.

@Zephrin-11143

lower mobility heroes with not as much sustain like zen, ana and bap have range to compensate.

Sym would fall in this category because her support abilities would have enough range on their own.
It’s only her weapon which is short ranged but this should still be fine considering she’d be the only support who is able to

• support the team while being dead
• ult from spawn
• place objects which can distress the enemy and tank a lot of damage

@Zephrin-11143

pretty much the only exception to this is brig and guess how she’s played: spending a lot of time just waiting around

Not really. She has a spamable high range healing ability, a mid range damage ability on a low cooldown and access to a barrier.
And Sym would have way more range than Brig has.

@Zephrin-11143

14m is still going to need a team pocket to use outside of securing picks on low hp targets within 14m range. which you simply aren’t going to get often in ladder and means you simply will be using orbs more often anyways.

Which is the same as now except for the fact that she could do her job from further away.

Moira’s beam is short too. Should we increase it? No. It’s not her job to deal high damage.

@Zephrin-11143

not to mention the logic of having something purposely absolutely terrible to encourage use of something slightly less terrible is very flawed…

No.
It’s about having clear niches for every ability.
Otherwise we could just increase her beam to 80 meters and delete everything else beause it would become obsolete.

Or what about increasing mercy’s range to 50 meters and delete GA because she doesn’t need to be close anymore?

We wouldn’t do that. We keep her range low on purpose so she has a reason to use GA.

@Zephrin-11143

first off, 15m/s is not faster, that’s slower. current orbs is 25m/s.

Compared to 2.0’s orbs.

@Zephrin-11143

it’s simply stupid to think going back to that direction for orbs is good because not only does it make the current problems worse

Again. As a SUPPORT her job is to SUPPORT and not dealing damage.

It’s simple. Her current job is to kill enemies. And she’s bad at it. That’s her problem.
We have to options

• Buff her to negate her problem (which is not possible as I said many times)
• Change her job so her old problem isn’t a problem anymore

@Zephrin-11143

considering how her orbs will still be staple weapon fire in your design, it simply doesn’t make sense why you’d make them that inconsistent and that low value

Support heroes empower their allies by healing, shielding, boosting damage, and disabling foes. As a support, you’re the backbone of your team’s survival.

@Zephrin-11143

like ~40s spent on spamming those kinds of orbs you’re suggesting and:

• the enemy barely got zoned at all, like they legit kept their position and without taking much damage at all. and this was against a bunker-like comp too, not even a mobile one.
• didn’t even actually land many orbs on enemies at all (see ult charge) despite how many that were fired —> low ult charge and low damage (low active value)

In this scenario he could’ve done following things:

• Use photon shields to support the team (4s cooldown)
• Place down a shield Gen to support the team
• Place down a tp to support the team
• AND if everything is done start shooting orbs which have reduced charge time and increased travel speed compared to those orbs shown in the video

---

It was fun and interesting but I won’t answer to this topic anymore.
My reason why a support rework is needed is tp. I think it can never be a balanced ability and needs to go. You don’t agree with that and want to make 3.0 work. That’s fine.
But there is no reason to keep this up forever because at the end it’s up to the devs. And even if we get a support rework (and I expect one) I think it’s going to be a bad one again.

[Tatianna-11687]

@Stevooo-1352

Brig was so OP when she came out she made symmetra useless don’t argue with me please I experienced first hand and quit the game because of it.

bruh the team was literally immortal with sym in her 2.0 state if you had a brigitte. shield gen+rally equals 225 extra hp and paired up with a armor pack? 500 hp sym.

[xXWolfXx-11848]

@Zephrin-11143

tp actually makes a way in and out for you.

I would agree with you more IF original 3.0 TP was still around. Infinite TP crushed a lot of its potential (unless there’s been a buff recently, I haven’t played in awhile).

[Zephrin-11143]

@Tobsi-21949

Seems like it is still worth it.

when one often swaps off after the first death despite most of the comp remaining the same, pretty sure that’s not really “worth it”.

@Tobsi-21949

After her rework she had

• less HP
• less range
• longer charge time (almost twice as long)
• less range on tp
• less interact radius
• horrible tick rate and bug which caused her to deal a lot less damage
• the inability to place tp on railings

compared to now.

As I said there was only a short period of time - 6/18/19 to 8/13/19 - when she had a “good” kit if we ignore the beam bug. And goats.

except a lot of those changes were really minor. i.e. a lot of changes regarding primary didn’t mean much considering how many more team resources it still demanded not to mention it had higher dps. the bug didn’t “cause her to deal a lot less damage” at all because the devs legit didn’t account for the gameplay difference between pre vs post double shield (i.e. having lvl 3 more often because double shield enabled it w+m1 hard inhererntly) nor the fact that fights simply lasted longer then, when blizz mentioned “zarya and sym were dealing 20~40% more hero damage”. like other beam heroes like winston and moira were also dealing more damage.

range on tp legit doesn’t matter much considering it’s still being used for the same uses and places. and in no way is that as meaningful as being able to cast it more frequently esp now post shield nerfs where teams move around a lot more (i.e. need to reposition and repurpose tp more often).

@Tobsi-21949

Which I never said.
I said having a strong ability such as tp is fine if the rest of her kit is bad enough to balance her out.
If we change that she’d become problematic in OWL.
—> In 2019 she got nerfed because her kit (=beam) become too strong despite the tp nerf.

except it wasn’t too strong, the meta just let her be able to use it nearly all the time while people were still playing double shields poorly (e.g. chucking shields out too far) and everyone was having a fit about it meanwhile people that were ahead of the meta were using better heroes.

@Tobsi-21949

I’m all for buffing Symmetra and test how things will go because she’s trash on ladder. But I highly doubt that everything will be perfect suddenly.
For example if we do your proposed changes to tp she would still be team reliant when it comes to coordinated tp plays. Being able to use tp a bit earlier doesn’t make your team press F.
It allows her to do more stuff on her own but is it really that much? Would she be a perfectly balanced hero after this?
I don’t think so. But let’s try it. Why not.

the changes I proposed legit improve her ability to get uptime independently a LOT so that she can do things more on her own without touching whatever she does with team tps. i.e. make her less reliant on team tp plays not team pocket w+m1 to get uptime.

will it change how OWL plays her? unlikely given how much they like w+m1 team pocketing whenever they pick sym. But even if it does change, it wouldn’t be making her OP at all because you legit can’t get the benefits AND be doing all the taxiing w+m1 at the same time.
i.e.

• if you try benefiting from the longer effective range and ranged consistency of orbs more then she’s not w+m1’ing.
• if you try going for team tps, it’d be the same as now because the tp isn’t for her own individual plays and the reduced time for sym herself (not her team) to interact sooner after placement help doesn’t help with team tp strats.

again, the changes I proposed legit only make her able to get independent uptime better. would it be perfect? who knows. but unless they put in ridiculous numbers (i.e. making orbs feel like hitscan in like even in like 40m or something like that), this direction won’t be OP in pro nor ladder.

@Tobsi-21949

they didn’t know how to play Sym?
It was such a pain looking at those “top 500” players.

it didn’t matter much at all in early double shield because all sym needed to do was pretty much w+m1 because the comp inherently just took care of everything for her.

snipers or similar ranged hitscans? double shield blocks it all.
need to walk up without dying? keep spamming shields forward and moving up while your team will defs follow on through with you because of all the cover (i.e. natural death balling with supports there too for heals) = literal free real estate.
want charge? well the enemy was dumb enough to throw shields to your feet so eat on up.

heck they’re still playing like that right now in OWL because double shield team pocketting sym w+m1 is the only way she’d get reasonable uptime comparable to other heroes now.

@Tobsi-21949

Sym would fall in this category because her support abilities would have enough range on their own.
It’s only her weapon which is short ranged but this should still be fine considering she’d be the only support who is able to

• support the team while being dead
• ult from spawn
• place objects which can distress the enemy and tank a lot of damage
  …
  Support heroes empower their allies by healing, shielding, boosting damage, and disabling foes. As a support, you’re the backbone of your team’s survival.

it wouldn’t be because none of that is enough to compete with active in-combat sustain.

• turrets inherently doing little because they have to wait until enemies get into los and when they do they’re quickly destroyed
• ult from spawn only applicable/contributing when someone’s dead, otherwise it does nothing
• a shield gen of only adding 75hp while sym herself is providing barely anything else is in no way going to compete with how other supports can actively heal for more, can heal in combat, can deal damage more often and/or provide other utility effects like boosts, cc, or whatever buffs and debuffs.

@Tobsi-21949

Not really. She has a spamable high range healing ability, a mid range damage ability on a low cooldown and access to a barrier.

her packs aren’t spammable period. what’s spammable are things like mercy’s beam, or zen’s orb or ana’s primary etc. a 6s cd ability, even if it has 3 charges, isn’t spammable. you’d be reach down time form not being able to keep up with damage or reach periods where you have to wait to use them.

as for her boop, she also has to wait to use that too because of enemy shields and needing it to peel for others.

which leads to my point, she’s doing a lot of waiting if being played properly. and that’s the problem with your intended design. there’s simply a lot of waiting (spamming her inconsistent orbs waaay outside of their effective range because you have nothing else better to do is basically waiting).

@Tobsi-21949

Which is the same as now except for the fact that she could do her job from further away.

and she’ll still need to be team pocketed to use it which happens basically never —> back to spamming orbs a lot.

@Tobsi-21949

Moira’s beam is short too. Should we increase it? No. It’s not her job to deal high damage.

moira’s beam isn’t short considering she could actually be in the mid/mid-back line and still be able to reach the enemy front line with it.
should we make it deal damage better? if it’s higher dps then yes considering how pitiful 50dps is and they reduced the size of the beam without any compensation.

but the thing is, she can get decent uptime for damaging design-wise (i.e. having things in their kit to facilitate it), as can zen, lucio, etc. (other supports that need to damage etc. to compensate lower heals). your sym doesn’t have that.

@Tobsi-21949

No.
It’s about having clear niches for every ability.
Otherwise we could just increase her beam to 80 meters and delete everything else beause it would become obsolete.
…
Again. As a SUPPORT her job is to SUPPORT and not dealing damage.

except you’re making everything overly niche and bad at the same time.

your primary’s not getting much uptime at all because it’ll have all the same problems as current.

you’re worsening the issues of orbs despite them inevitably going to be the staple weapon fire. heck you’re technically making them more close ranged with that projectile speed (i.e. niche as well and in the same niche).

meanwhile all the abilities you plan on putting on her are all non-spammable and situational as well.

all in all leading to really high down time because she has little self agency to be in the effective range or create situations where things in her kit are effective. not frequently nor long enough in duration to get as much value to compete. of which are the problems that old sym had.

@Tobsi-21949

In this scenario he could’ve done following things:

• Use photon shields to support the team (4s cooldown)
• Place down a shield Gen to support the team
• Place down a tp to support the team
• AND if everything is done start shooting orbs which have reduced charge time and increased travel speed compared to those orbs shown in the video

the video was demonstrating how bad that direction for orbs are. legit terrible zoning and terrible damage dealt, low ult charge achieved. anything you intended to get from those kinds of orbs simply wasn’t achieved.

[Zephrin-11143]

@xXWolfXx-11848

I would agree with you more IF original 3.0 TP was still around. Infinite TP crushed a lot of its potential (unless there’s been a buff recently, I haven’t played in awhile).

hence why my suggestions include making tp cd mechanic more old old 3.0 finite one:

@Zephrin-11143

• renumber her orbs to be an aimable midranged bursty (but lower fire rate) weapon fire i.e. renumbering them around being faster moving projectiles
• making tp have a better cd mechanic like old 3.0 finite tp e.g. (cd starts on placement, but pauses when it reaches halfway until destruction)
• making sym herself (not necessarily her team) able to interact with tp sooner after placement

[Zman-1493]

Symmetra is situational.

We know it, the pros know it, what is your problem?