A flying microwave, what a wonderful idea, burn them all queen. 
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https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/sym-rework-ideas-updated-with-changes/20695
Here are my ideas that gonna fix her and make sym a better hero to choose
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How about this shield?
-Shield no longer moves when spawned.
-You can move the shield around with your primary fire, basketball style.
-Enemies can move the shield too, if unatended.
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Jeff updated on Symmetra:
We’re still in brainstorm and exploration mode with Symmetra. She’s going to take some time. We want to try a few directions but none of it is quick and easy. We do care about improving the hero and talk about her frequently.
Opinions??
I’m glad they’re putting a lot of thought into her, still wondering what exactly they perceive to be her issues compared to ours.
20 Characters
This is worse, because it means she cant attack whilst holding shield, like Rein
The barrier is fine tbh it just needs a 6 second cooldown
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A really straight forward change would be just make her turrets heal. The amount of healing, single target vs aoe and health of her turrets would need balancing. But just tweak all of those things and she would be fine/fun and a true support.
I don’t really see a reason Symmetra should be a healer now that Brigitte has made the idea of armor-healing actually viable. Symmetra could easily be her shield-giving equivalent. Brigitte’s ultimate really shows the potential in gradual shield gain as a substitute to healing.
Something I’ve thought about is giving Symmetra a single target shielding ability akin to harmony orb or repair pack, but it’s permanent health. It could be targeted and require LOS like the other abilities so it’s not completely broken. This would give her more utility in the mid-fight. They could also give her a passive that’s essentially Doomfist’s but for her whole team, the more damage she does with her gun, the more shield her entire team gains (within a certain radius). Make it cap at 150 like Brigitte and Doomfist, but it deteriorates. If they gave her these two shielding abilities, they could rework the Shield Gen ultimate to only last a couple seconds (10 or so) but make it so that all her teammates shields constantly regenerate 60 HPS or something. I think that this would make her immediately viable as an off-support without giving her any actual healing. They just need to be creative with how they implement shields.
I actually happen to think that a Support focused on sustain outside of healing through shielding could be very viable. It counter’s anti-healing, but still has counterplay with EMP.
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Going throw in my ideas for a rework
Turrets: let us use 3 turrets to make a pylons that emits a shield pulse every second and a half. This give 10 shields per pulse, up to 50. So you can either set up two pylons or use turrets for defense. However the two pylon pulse don’t stack and are synced, so it’s not overpowered.
Her base turrets now have 20 shield health, so it take more than a breeze to break. She no longer is slowed down while placing
E ability: this now her teleport, press once to place a tele at your feet, now anywhere in vision you can place another to link them. Use one to go to the other, but there is a couple second cool down period (either that limited use, not sure yet). If destroyed it goes on a 10 second cool down.
Ult: light prison. Her ult now traps one target in a prison of light constructs, preventing the target from doing anything or receiving healing, but does not take damage either. It lasts 2-4 seconds (unsure on time due to it being an ult and likely powerful ability. Her ult gain will need to be nerfed a bit from current obviously for this to work.
Passive: constructive criticism- any damage she does adds to her turret meter gain if not maxed. She also has a 7 cap, but limited to 6 on field (a little safety net)
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I have been thinking about all these drone ideas that have been popping up, and I have some thoughts about them. Just a critique, not bashing them as a whole.
I don’t think this idea functions best for her style of gameplay. So while I think it can function if it is setup right, it would be stepping on the closest character to have this setup in support; Zenyatta. I don’t think that gameplay pattern fits her, even if we are talking rework ideas. Drones feel more fitting on longer ranged characters in my eyes, because the people who use them are further back then on the front lines.
Sym wants to work up close and personal, to prove herself superior. Turrets work here because they function like tripwires, allowing her to respond to them. Drones feel like something to send to deal with a problem for you.
I don’t think this should be looked into, because I don’t feel it fits her character. She might have the capability to access drones, but nothing shows her willingness to use them. Her comic kinda shows that she rather perform the duties in person, and have someone else perform this function.
Personally I don’t think it fits her, as her turrets should function the same as drones for the team. I rather her turrets be improved upon, not doubled up in this department. So if drones, turrets have to go; otherwise they would feel redundant.
I think peeps want the turrets more, so they should be buffed. Every time I see a drone design for Sym, it sounds more like something Sanjay would do. I think it would be fitting for his character more, several are cool and would like them in the game; just not for Sym, if that makes sense.
For my other thoughts, where I think we should be concerning her design:
Personally, her gun does not really need to be looked into, because it feels just fine to me as a close range powerhouse weapon (orbs and beam alike). Her alt fire also provides some utility in that the orbs also can function as a slight zone tool. It also provides some skill to use these orbs in close range as well (surviving long enough, positioning, teamwork). It really shows the versatility of it and I do not want it changed at all. It feels extremely powerful to hit full orb, melee, melt; I don’t want that feeling removed, altered maybe, but not focused on.
Where I think she is having problems is her ults. Her ult punishes her for having it out (no charge), it punishes her for protecting it (turrets which are better elsewhere, or her physically having to), and punishes her heavily for not protecting it (effectively not having an ult). It really has too much of her power budget, so if the enemy team is either forced to deal with it or lose. That is straight up bad for us, and for the game in general. We are seeing it as a bad ult (how polarizing it is, being too good or useless) on top of promoting bad gameplay patterns (roam away and giving more opportunities for the enemy team, and/or waste more of our kit) in terms of how it functions. I like to see more ideas in how to fix these problems, without straight buffing it.
My idea for a fix-up on symmetra: (because the site wont let me link the actual thread I’ll just copy paste)
A couple of these abilities are similar to others ideas I’ve seen and thought were good.
- Health:
250 (125/125) - Increased from 200 (100/100)
Shields begin to regenerate after 1.2 seconds of not taking damage. - Primary Fire:
Damage: 40/80/120 - up from 30/60/120
Range: 10m range up from 7, Tether cone Reduced by 20% - Secondary Fire:
Speed: 15m/s up from 10m/s
Added: Pressing the Secondary Fire button again causes the orb to explode in a 3m blast. Deals 50 damage. - Turret:
CD: 7 seconds down from 10
Health: 65 (25 Health 40 Shield) - up from 1 health.
Cast: 0.75 seconds down from 1.5 seconds. - Hard-Light Burst
CD: 16 seconds
Range: 10 meters
Duration: 6 seconds
Effect: Grants Symmetra and all allies within 10 meters gain 75 Hard-Light Shields for 6 seconds. HL Shields reduce Blast Damage by 25% to a Maximum of 15 from each HL Shield. - Ult: Teleporter
Health: (500) 100/400 up from (400) 50/350
Holding the Ult Button for 1 Second will instantly use up 1 Charge and teleport Symmetra to her Teleporter.
When Updating Ult Status Teleporter becomes visible to Teammates for 5 seconds. - Ult: Shield Generater
Health: (500) 200/300 up from (400) 50/350
After not taking damage for 3 seconds after the initial 75 Shields are fully restored teammate’s missing health will begin filling with temporary shields (All shielding will be lost if Generator is destroyed)
Over Shielding Speed: Fills in 25 Health worth every 2 seconds if damage is not taken.
When Updating Ult Status Generator becomes visible to Teammates for 5 seconds.
I think that one way to make Symmetra a desirable Support pick would be to give her an Ultimate as powerful as Transcendence or Sound Barrier.
Also, a Support character that offers no healing doesn’t sit well with many players, possibly contributing to the negativity Symmetra players receive. I think the best way to alleviate this would be to give her a way to offer healing that still fits within her aesthetic themes. This is very easy to do. She is a Builder class so let her build something that dispenses healing. It doesn’t have to be her main form of Support; I don’t expect Symmetra to be the next main healer in Overwatch. However, having some form of healing to offer would really do wonders for Symmetra’s reputation.
I think her weapon could use some numbers adjustments that would retain the weapon’s simplicity but also reward higher skilled players.
I’d put all my suggestions in this post but it’ll be a tidal wave of text, so I’ll do all that in my next one.
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I don’t want her to be a healer. I want her to stay an overhealer… someone that grants an increase of HP. It is her unique niche. Or well… was before brigitte.
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She needs to be a builder focused class. I don’t care that all these dps people don’t find her fun to play. She is designed from the start as the architect. She needs to stay that way.
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Jump pads are a no go. They are so niche there is no business doing any work to put them in the game. That is unless you give her an RTS level of buildings to do. The building of a health pack stations would be a higher priority then this… and that is still a no go in my book. Leave that for the next hero (which, side note i think is the main reason why they changed sombra as to not make the duo too OP upon release). You want a boost up? Pick Mei, we already have that ability in the game.
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I don’t think they should do anything with her damage… I think its in a sweet spot. If they decide to keep her orbs, they should change speed with size and dmg.
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TP and SG should stay… but make TP a standard ability. SG is the true ult… because it can be used in all places. Placing a two-way TP could open up a ton of gameplay ideas, especially with mei boosts. You could use it to get back to you SG to protect it, etc. You would have to balance using it to bring ppl back from spawn, or using it to bounce around the point as an escape mechanism for supports and/flanks.
I know they would worry about a mercy-level “two ult” thing… but you could balance it by reducing its health… or my suggestion would be to make her a complete resource management hero and make each TP cost a bunch of resources that the symm would have to weigh the cost of that, or having turrets down.
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Turrets HAVE to show their targets to the team through walls. This is such a needed thing and would be valueable information in the highest tiers for widows.
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Give her a shield giving passive. Make it 25 and reduce the SG down to 50. I would reduce it down to compensate for TP’s massive upgrade buff.
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SG needs to be quiet. There is no reason it needs to make noise.
Those are my changes. I think it is super important not to stray too far from her core idea. The TP would need to be balanced more… maybe a single use before it needs to recharge… and maybe it builds charges over time after built (actually like that better)
Say you built it… and it takes 30sec to build a charge for a max of 6 charges. If it gets destroyed… it destroys both ends. There are lots of ways to balance it so that it can be useful without making it OP.
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I can understand the desire to keep Symmetra as a non-healing Support. The only problem that I can see with it is that 2 healers are seen as the standard in a lot of competitive play, so Symmetra would need to bring ridiculous amounts of utility in order to make up for a lack of a healer. Having 1 healer also limits the number of Supports she could combo well with as you’d need to have a main healer to offset her lack of healing. For example, Zenyatta/Symmetra just wouldn’t have enough healing to sustain a team.
I do think the overhealing archetype would fit Symmetra perfectly but it depends how it is implemented. An aura that applies Shields to allies within fits thematically but is very plain and passive. Symmetra already has many passive elements to her kit so I don’t think adding more passivity would be a good idea. I think applying a decaying barrier would be a more interactive method of pushing the overhealing archetype.
If she majored in Overhealing and minored in Healing I’d be happy. I know that’s not a popular opinion, but I’d rather sacrifice some of Symmetra’s initial design aesthetic in order to boost her public reputation. This extends to her ultimates that, while iconic, I think are actually holding her back. Something powerful and fight-swinging would do wonders to boosting how players perceive Symmetra.
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My issue with turning her into a healer isn’t just about Sym’s character design, but for future heroes. It’ll be a sign that Blizzard’s given up on non-healing supports as an option.
Personally, I think that a character based around utility should regularly have it available with low cooldowns, especially if they take a support slot. CC, speed, health augmentation, damage mitigation, teleporting teammates, all of those are forms of support that aren’t necessarily healing. Having more heroes in the future stray away from pure DPS/Healing and more into these areas and others would make the game more refreshing.
Since launch the only new mechanics added to the game that are supportive are anti-healing and hacking. More creative ones outside the box like those could just as easily go to future heroes.
In Sym’s case, pure shielding and damage mitigation are what I’d like to see.
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On top of the turrets being useless her biggest problem is range. They need to make the secondary fire move faster and charge faster.
I think that might be a problem with Overwatch in general. It’s such a fast paced game with huge damage being thrown around all of the time that high/accessible healing is considered a must have.
Symmetra already has problems keeping up with the pace of the game. Everything about her is slow. Weapon ramp-up, alt fire charge up and slow projectile speed, turret placing cast time, turret placing self-slow, turret activation time, moving away from the fight to place Ult, no mobility. I think these things need to be fixed first to speed up her base gameplay.
I think pure shielding and damage mitigation would work for Symmetra, but at that point … would she be better as a tank? And now with Brigitte having a better version of Photon Barrier I’m just not sure what that can do with Symmetra to make her current kit as powerful or as unique without a huge overhaul.
Using hard light to extend max HP and reduce damage taken would be great, but it still requires another Support to heal the team back up to full. This is why I think Symmetra could use a minor healing ability, so she can slowly bring her team back up to full after using her utility to extend their lifespan.
Shields are the closest thing to being a replacement for healing but their application isn’t the most interesting or engaging. Honestly it all depends on the direction Blizzard want to take her. Heck, they could even say that because of Brigitte there are enough Supports and make her a full on Defence character. The possibilities are endless.
See the thing is… needing two healers is kinda a misconceptions.
For example, the pros have been running zen/lucio as healers. That is such a low healing output… that if you put in symm’s overhealing (and healing outside of battle with shield regen) along with a primary healer… say mercy… you can keep up with heals as long as your teammates are not being reckless.
Remember how everyone just fed and died recklessly in the mercy meta? So many people don’t learn how to play safer on dps because they always have that healing safety net.
It is also why 4 DPS is a viable strat if the DPS are not reckless. It is why in some games where people refuse to work together… a solo symm can support with SG against a 2-2-2.
People underestimate the power of overhealing in a game where there is so much one-shot potential right near the 200 mark, but 250 heroes live.
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In unorganised play I definitely agree with you. I’ve solo-supported as Symmetra before with TP and negated any picks that the enemy team had, but I don’t think that something that happened in quickplay is really applicable to the wider game as a whole.
Even though Lucio/Zen don’t bring a whole lot of healing they do synergise well together with their constantly available healing, strong buffs/debuffs and powerful ultimates. Symmetra has none of those things currently.
I’m not against Symmetra being a non-healing Support by any means - I’d be glad to be proven wrong if they can rework her to be viable and powerful without healing. All I’m saying is that healing, even minor, could do wonders for Symmetra’s reputation among the playerbase which would improve the game as a whole; and it’d be easily done without sacrificing her aesthetics.
If Blizzard do commit to a non-healing support, I’d want them to focus on giving Symmetra powerful and readily available, outside of her ultimate, sustain and buffs/debuffs. If Symmetra had a reverse Discord Orb, where she shrouds an ally in Hard Light to reduce the damage they take by X% she would be very useful. If she has consistent sustain that can replace healing, say faster regenerating shields or applying decaying barriers I think that’d help too.
I think the biggest boon to Symmetra would be if she had an Ultimate that was on par with Transcendence or Sound Barrier in power level. But I think most people are rather fond of SG and TP so I’m not sure how well that’d go down.
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