Making Symmetra Viable - A Thread

General Discussion
1

Symnmetra is currently a character that is by all means and purposes underperforming. On the topic of how the team should make her viable and my idea let’s look at the rework that got her to her state

Symmetra 3.0 compared to her predecessor - The Good The Bad and the Buggy

The Good

Symmetra’s rework fixed a lot of her problems regarding clunkiness in placing turrets and honestly her complete lack of any reliable damage out of her old beam range. It gave symmetra more options, more mobillity and more angles from which to attack, and ways to attack.

Symmetra’s rework allowed her to have more moving space for optimization, out of teleporter placement knowledge.

Symmetra now can reliable place turrets in teamfights.

She has mobility

She has some burst damage potential

She can flank

The Bad

Symmetra’s midfight lethality is reduced greatly

Symmetra’s survivability is greatly diminished

Symmetra has arguably a way harder time to hold points

Symmetra is worse against barriers

Teleporter too clunky and unreliable

Primary fire not reliable

Poor survivability

The Buggy

Teleporter randomly breaks

Turret bugs

Teleporter slides

Teleporter sometiems not placing itself as intended

Making Symmetra Viable

The Primary Fire
-Her Primary fire has a lot of problems making it a pure hot mess. The changes I propose are:
-Reduce tick rate to 6 ticks per second but add a very slight delay till the first tick so scrolling will not be abuseable.
-Have her delay between the first and second stage of the primary fire be one second
-Add shield regeneration to her primary fire recharging her shield by 15/30/45 (1.5/3/4.5 shielding regen per tick)

Notes: This is meant to give Symmetra some boost against armor, and an insentive to use her primary fire, while reducing her optimal damage for a while - to give her survivability mid fight that rewards both her aim and ability to charge with decent regenration and some survivability versus sustained damage. It gives her faster access to her second stage of her primary fire which while not optimal at 100% accuracy is equal to her secondary fire damage.

Teleporter:
Her teleporter needs small tweaks that would make it viable:
Fix all teleporter suicide bugs.
Reduce the cast time to 0.5 seconds
Reduce the duration to 5 seconds
Reduce the cooldown to 10 seconds
Allow the teleporter indicator to go up to 3 meters through a ledge even if not completely in LoS
Allow her teleporter marker to ignore small pillars like lamp posts

Notes: This makes her teleport faster and more useable, while faster to use and much more flexible, also might solve some grievances with the placement.

Photon Barrier
Reduce the HP to either 3000 or 2500
New Effect: Each time symmetra or her teammates passes the barrier gives 75 shield that refreshes on each passing after damaged (cannot exceed 75), but those shield points are taken away from the barrier hp
Optional: Turrets which pass through the barrier while thrown also gain the shield.

Notes: This makes breaking her barrier doable, but it will also make her barrier dancing more useable, and further amp symmetra’s survivability

THEMATIC note:
This will enhance her design role of a dancer which is in her theme. Symmetra with her new ult will now literally dance around her barrier, doing damage throwing quick constructs.

This is my full idea for making symmetra viable.

6 Likes
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pal, we’ve been making posts for months now and the Devs DO. NOT. CARE.

The opinion of a Sym main is beneath them. They won’t even acknowledge us.

3 Likes
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At leats give an opinion for my idea?

4

I love it. Obviously. It’s everything she needs. I particularly like your numbers on the shield.

5

I had the exact same idea for the change to the ult (gifting shield health) but I’d even keep it at 5000, especially as it’s on a time limit. You could have the shields be lost once the barrier dissipates?

I’d also like her Shift to give her two options (turrets & a reduced 2.0 Photon Barrier) & increase the charges to 4, with maybe a reduced cooldown?

Your changes to her primary are really nice :slight_smile: I’d also maybe like to see her move to the off-tank role & get an extra chunk of health?

6

I plan to make similar posts abouyt Mercy and reaper

7

She would do better as an off tank. Bastion too with some changes. He’s literally a Tank anyway.

1 Like
8

I don’t know about the Photon Barrier changes.

Here’s an idea:

What if Symmetra could choose between placing a Teleporter or a Shield Generator (same duration as TP and 10 meter radius) like how Moira can choose between damage or healing orbs.

9

Lets not overtune her. xD

I mean I think her as a supportive dps not an offtank, as symmetra cannot create space, but can be a flanker and open routes for her team

Her change to shield hp makes the placement more careful process, and points difficult choice for the enemy - either crush the shield while the enemy damages you, or you focus on the enemy as you let them sustain from it.

10

Her wall and turrets are all about creating space. Her TP is about moving between that space. She’s practically Zarya already. Give Sym 200 extra shields and she could easily be a tank.

11

She denies space, she doesn’t create it like junkrat, But yeah symmetra has better qualities of a supportive dps, if her design focuses on it.

12

If only she could do the damage of a DPS. Or had an escape or protection like THE ENTIRE DPS ROSTER

Doomfist can uppercut and Rocket away
Genji can dash and double jump
Hanzo can lunge
Junkrat can jump on a mine
Pharah can rocket jump
Reaper can wraith
McCree can flashbang and fan the hammer
Soldier can heal and dash
Sombra can translocate
Tracer can blink or go back in time
Torb can overload
Widowmaker can grapple

Symmetra can… wait 2 seconds to set up a TP and die while doing so

13

Numbers would overtune her, but I don’t feel the concept as a whole would. She also totally creates space xD.
Area denial used against the enemy can also be used as space creation for your allies.

For example, the optional Photon Barriers on Shift would have to have 200/300 each maximum & would likely be a smaller oval shape so as to just protect Sym or anyone directly behind, especially as you could summon multiple copies.

Maybe with this the cooldown could be kept as is to prevent spamming, but the nature of the shield means spamming it wouldn’t be that useful anyway? This would allow her to make use of her primary more often & maintain reliable damage blocking at the sacrifice of some turret damage; but this comes down to the choice by the Sym player.

The ultimate Photon Barrier has plenty of ways to mitigate its use already. I doubt anyone focuses on destroying it due to the health as it is; they more try to wait it out or make its placement pointless through their own positioning.
Barrier dancing would also end up subtracting from the overall health pool, so it shouldn’t be overtuned by leaving the HP where it is, as it will likely be decreasing much more quickly.

14

Just make it so she can charge up her Primary fire with damage from secondary fire and lasers.

Boom. Fixed.

15

She definitely does do a lot of damage, but her survivability and mobility are lacking. If she is alolwed to stay alive and be able to be more aggressive while surviving she would have the opportunity to do damage. Her max potential dps is 330.

As for ehr barrier, the idea is just that Make the placement harder, and make the barrier more about shield dancing

16

The one not doing it should not interrupt the one doing it

Relax dude, feedback is feedback. it took them a year to finally do something about the state Symmetra was in previously, but they did do something. and they took in a lot of our feedback for it

I remember a lot of noteable things from the thread:

  • Bigger cast range for turrets
  • Turrets dont slow Sym down anymore
  • TP on E ability like a portal gun
  • Stronger beam thats harder to aim (Granted, a little too hard to aim… but a lot of us asked for this and we got it)

You’re not the first person I’ve seen saying we should give up and it grosses me out, I actually want the hero to be good and I’m doing things about it

1 Like
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So you didn’t reply to a single thing I said xD.
I just posited ways to improve her survivability & aggression.
Why & how would you make the ultimate placement “harder”?
Adding the shield gain would already improve the barrier-dancing aspect, but that doesn’t stop it from still being used a giant barrier at the same time…

18

Same. I have about 4 threads on the go. I’m just frustrated.

I’m certainly not about to give up.

19

Yes, but the buff to her barrier needs to have a drawback. This idea has about 6 straight buffs to the character.

20

Why not move TP to alt weapon and put Photon Barrier on E. Just rename her ult to Photon Field.