It's time to address Symmetra

Some quick and easy buffs that would make Symmetra incredibly viable and wouldn’t push her over the edge into OP territory.

Level 1 Beam Damage 60 --> 80
Beam Range 12m --> 15m
Total Health 100 health 100 shields --> 100 health 150 shields

Symmetra is a close range brawling hero that has a large hitbox. She needs increased beam range (Same as Zaryas) and the increased health as her hitbox is huge. The increased level 1 beam damage helps it feel less weak in comparison to the likes of a 0 charge Zarya beam (which is 90 dps)

These changes would go an incredibly long way and fix a lot of Symmetras long term issues that she has suffered since her launch.

Torbjorn used to be in a similar situation to Symmetra but they buffed him up to make him a viable DPS and I think it’s time his sister builder Symmetra gets the same treatment.

These changes do not feed into damage creep or mobility creep and have no downsides to them. Please Blizzard, at least try them on the experimental card.

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100% agree with this. Everything you said is correct.

I’m kinda shocked she wasn’t on the ExC card but on the other hand my expectations are pretty low historically

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I really do not understand why they don’t try changes like this. The weapon buff that never went through was something she didnt even need. Stuff like this would be incredibly helpful!

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they won’t. you can easily see how they won’t do much by comparing with the distribution of sustain, mobility, range and burst of others shorter ranged heroes that don’t suffer the same issues, e.g.

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I think you just do not understand the power that these small numbers give her. She is supposed to be semi-niche (Similar to Torb) but strong when used correctly.

In other words, someone who specializes in Symmetra should be able to make her work in every map. However, someone who isn’t a specialist currently struggles to make the hero work… which is a problem most SUPER niche heroes suffer. These buffs make her easier to play and give her better stats to compare to other characters that would take her slot.

They are not going to buff her max DPS as they removed a buff to her beam charge uptime so buffing the range and early dps will help with leveling up your beam as opposed to using orbs.

And they obviously don’t want to buff her turret damage as they are lowering damage creep. Buffing her wall or teleporter will do NOTHING to help her viability because she struggles to live in fights and be in a viable range. Unless they make her utlity or ultimate incredibly broken these are the best changes they could do for the hero currently.

I know these changes won’t make Sym a super meta pick, but that isn’t the point of them! These changes help Sym have stats relative to other DPS in her category which she doesn’t even have!

Maybe I’ll be surprised, but frankly, I think they’re intentionally keeping her balance static right now and are already looking beyond this iteration of her.

The Reddit remarks combined with her patch notes since then really make it look like they have no plans for Sym 3.0 imo.

Best case scenario: no balance changes for Sym bc actively working on some kind of rework / major balance sweep focused on her

Worst and most likely case scenario: “who cares about this hero that only RPDR trolls play and victimize their team with lmfaoooooo”

when I made my reply, I wasn’t talking from a perspective of making sym meta, I was talking from a viewpoint of making sym function as independently as pretty much nearly all of the other heroes for their job.

how “sym specialists make her work on every map” is legit through combining tp + orb + turrets and not with a w+m1-centric gameplay your changes target. And that’s because sym’s primary, being the sustain damage shorter ranged weapon it is, demands tank level sustain to go the primary-centric gameplay route your changes target (as shown by zarya).

if you’re not going to meet that demand with your changes for the gameplay you’re aiming for then your changes won’t be solving her core problems and you might as well target her other gameplay aspects to solve them instead (which you should tbh esp when her tp + orbs are what’s actually used more and are less situational).

+50hp, 80dps primary and 15m primary isn’t going to solve:

  • how sym can’t get herself in and out of her effective range as independently as most other heroes for theirs
  • how sym can’t stay in her effective range long enough to do her job as independently as other heroes for theirs

what will happen is likely:

  • her flanking capability (and consequently her burst combo) remains super unavailable because nothing is being done about tp cast frequency —> rely much more on m1 team pocketing for hero uptime opportunities
  • she’d still need a team pocket to m1 because she’d still be squishy with only wasd movement most of the time —> as niche as now and team dependent
  • all in all, adding up to a hero still with massive down times, heavy reliance on double shield deathball comps to get opportunities to contribute and thus very niche.
  • tp cast frequency similar to old 3.0 finite tp
  • tp deployment being 1.5~1.75s
  • orb projectile speed being faster to actually be midranged (compensate a bit on aoe radius or proj size, but something needs to justify it having a sniper-like charge time).
  • if still lacking sustain after testing the above, include a shield regen passive along the lines of “sym interacting with her tp triggers her natural shield hp regen”

these will lead to less reliance on m1 team pocketing for uptime because

  • orbs have more consistency (with aim; not effecting lower ranks) and effective range to let her reasonably contribute better from >15m of the enemy
  • having tp to let sym herself have more opportunities and have control over when and where she gets in and out of her effective range whether that is to flank for picks, flank for claiming territory, escape threats, grabbing sneaky angles (for either primary or orbs), or for utility.

all without touching the gimmick mess of her primary.

Balance her around reasonable expectations. When sym can’t reasonably have the tools for a zarya-like beam gameplay, it’s unreasonable to expect that sym will be using primary a lot and so is trying to balance her solely around that expectation.

When I see these suggesitions, I can’t help but think that whoever is making them just doesn’t realize how frustrating fighting against Symmetra currently is.

And I get it. She’s an unpopular, niche-y hero that can easily get countered. I get it. But there are many situations where Sym does excel, and in many of them, trying to get the upperhand over her is a true obstacle, especially so when Sym’s team realizes just how much supporting her can do for them. What many of these changes do is make her outright stronger in pretty much every situation, when that really doesn’t need to be the case.

Sym’s problems really don’t come down to exact numbers like this. Adding three meters of range to her beam, or bumping the minimum DPS up by 20, are not going to suddenly propel Sym into wider applicability. She’s still going to get countered by what counters her, she’s still going to face up-hill battles in making the most of her kit, she’s still going to struggle with coordinating with her team. What these buffs mostly do is make her even stronger in areas she’s already strong in, but she’s provably already strong enough in these departments. She still has one of the best winrates in the game, and that’s because when people use her effectively and on maps that favor her design, she does end up working extremely well.

The problem Sym faces aren’t these numbers, but that her kit is super conflicted with itself. She has an array of very strong utility, but that utility has to be restrained so that she can still be a damage dealer. Contrarily, Sym’s damage also has to be restrained, because she can’t fairly have the same level of damage output other heroes have while also providing remarkable utility, much of which gets value with little in demand of Sym herself.

It’s very hard for me to conceive a balanced Sym in the DPS role. The features of her kit and the appeal to playing her is in the utility she provides, that architecture-like gameplay of organizing constructs with your position. The devs have tried orienting her towards damage, but I just can’t see it working while staying true to Sym’s base design. If we want to see these kinds of buffs where she’s more like a skinnier Reaper, I think we can only expect that if we’re willing to see even more of her utility get trashed. I don’t think most Syms want that for her, though.

I really don’t think making Sym a better brawler is right for her. She’s already a frustrating opponent to engage with, regardless of how powerful she is. She succeeds where she’s meant to, but the community refuses to wrestle with her design for a lot of valid reasons. She’s the outlier of the roster and always has been, a more appropriate way to address her would be tackling these more vital issues rather than just giving her more raw power.

idk what you mean by “many” when:

much less than previously (which she still wasn’t being oppressive nor OP in this regard) when she had 3.0 finite tp since it was more frequent to be up when and where it’s needed rather than stuck elsewhere or stuck on cd.

they’re legit meaningless as I pointed out in my reply to OP above yours. but yes I too disgree to the changes despite disagreeing with you about your stance of where sym is at in power.

think a flanker-like zoner where tp is the core tool to transition in and out of flanks (whether to claim enemy territory with turrets just like her comic tbh or to get picks) and to also let sym choose between giving team utility vs going out herself to do something. obvs using orbs as main weapon fire (needs to be balanced around being aimable in midranged tho) and primary remaining as a situational gimmick.

if people stop tunnel visioning her primary when thinking about how she’s supposed to damage as a dps, a lot of those “omg primary melts” concerns or “she’s team dependent” concerns stop being much of an obstacle anymore.

like I said above: