Exactly ! Probius was my main inspiration ! I’m still unsure about the number of Photon Generator…
Maybe that’s just me, but I feel like adding her gauntlet would overcomplicate her kit. I’m trying to focus on ideas that could combine shielding & healing, like Brigitte does with armor and healing.
With the recent changes to the ult-UI on the PTR I think now’s a good time to advocate for displaying which ultimate Sym placed instead of percent (since it’ll just show as 0% when TP/SG are up).
It’d be even better if it displayed the charges left on TP so teammates could tactically decide to group up, waste the remaining 1 charge, or give it to a less mobile teammate.
Too bad they can’t make TP like Portal without running into issues from Valve.
Then you could use TP as a mobility device similar to translocator and project a TP to high ground for your teammates. It could still have the same utility it does from spawn, but costing the ability to move your teammates from spawn faster.
If you made symm’s abilities on a resource meter that turrets, tps, and maybe a new buildable all share at different costs similar to a RTS, then you could control how often they get used.
Make the TPs so you can use them both ways would stop the confusion that they originally had when the idea of placing both sides up had in development.
A constant TP would make symm viable but not extremely OP considering how easy the TP is to find and destroy… and the death penalty is still the major handicap so it wouldn’t be a Mercy rez issue.
Then you are using a hero slot on an otherwise “weak” hero to bring your team back quickly.
I still like the idea of Symm being a resource management hero for people that like RTS’s… the true builder/architect class.
Make all of her buildables available at start and not an ult. Make her ult a burst of resources… or make it so for a period of time resource costs are cut in half.
Turrets still do damage and only include a QoL change for your teammates to be able to see the enemies they hit through walls.
There is an additional buildable she can place down that will increase resource generation. Or, you could make a turret generate resources (if the resource half cost over a few seconds is used as the ult instead of the resource bonus being her ult)
Then you use my TP idea i mentioned earlier to make each end of the TP. Using it as a mobility thing for your team.
SG is the same as before but costing a substantial amount of resources to place. Another idea is to make them weaker but allow you to place multiples… maybe place three down at a time each generating 25 shields a piece for an AOE.
The biggest thing is making sure stats are tracked properly. I really think more people would be happy with a symm on their team if they could actually SEE the impact she provides.
Valve don’t have “interdimensional portals” as a concept copyrighted. But a portal gun like in the game will not happen because of all the programming nightmare that goes behind then.
Like, did you knew that each Portal room is actually rendered three times, and all assets mirror the other two? So when you shoot a portal, you are actually setting a link between your actual room and one of the other two rooms, which is why you can see the exit point through the portal itself.
If they create a portal gun for Symmetra, I doubt you can see the destination through the portal. Overwatch can’t spare the rendering power to do so exactly like Portal did without heavily affecting everyone that play in low spec machines. Maybe they can find another solution to the issue, but I doubt it would be possible to do so while maintaining live feed.
I don’t think they need to make the other side visible from the other side for the concept to work. They could just simply do what they do with the TP now.
You place the exit direction of the TP just like you do now. If its up against a wall, well there is only one way to exit from.
You could color code the TPs or just number them for the symm so she knows which one was destroyed, and/or do the same thing as turrets and the third TP placed replaces the oldest one placed.
Apologies if I’m not following forum etiquette here. I searched and found this thread but I admittedly have not combed through all 247 replies to see if this had been discussed but I thought I’d throw it out there for fun!
On the topic of Sym, my two cents is that her ultimate is sort of the biggest issue. Both TP and shield gen are usually dropped out of the way and once they’re down, Sym isn’t really motivated to re-build her ult. Plus she can’t decide when other players use her TP so if there isn’t urgency but people still use it, it doesn’t feel like you did much with it.
Anyway, between her gun and her turrets, she seems pretty focused on countering a dive but again to me, her ults don’t really line up with this purpose. I thought maybe she could erect some kind of pylon right where she stands (similar to Orisa’s boost just dropping). The pylon slows all enemies in a certain radius significantly. It would be like a sort of time-shift orb. The pylon could be destroyed. It would last a few seconds, just long enough to maybe turn a fight that’s about to go the wrong way for your team. It could make her maybe viable on offense but that wouldn’t be the point. I think this ult change would move her to the defense category and out of support.
**Edit: I forgot two things. I know its similar to a mei ult, like really similar. The difference is subtle but Syms would be an instant slow to a set speed, not a gradual slow to freeze. It would have a smaller area of effect. Also, possibly because it’s like a time bubble, it could slow projectiles.
Thoughts? Good idea? Bad idea? Indifferent?
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Its an interesting point of view, because the general consensus is that her ults are the most powerful part of her kit, to the point that she seems to be balanced with one of them always active.
I disagree with your points because I don’t think Symmetra was created with the intention to counter dive and fast-moving heroes. IMO, her turrets seem more designed to block a sidepath against a single flanker, or to stop tanks in their tracks when they try to push through a choke. High-mobile dive comps usually bypass those, which is why she don’t stop dive.
So, basically a worse Blizzard. It don’t stop movement like Blizzard do, and have a smaller area. At this moment is when you should ask yourself why not just play Mei instead.
If you want to invest in the area slow (which is not a bad idea on itself), make it be worthy using instead of Blizzard. Make the area larger. Make it ignore walls. Make it block movement abilities. Make it permanent until the pylon hidden somewhere is destroyed. Basically, give it any edge to Blizzard before adding the limitations to differentiate both ults.
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You’re probably right about the flank vs dive aspect. I hadn’t really thought about how divers do usually just bypass her things. I just imagine her primary weapon as a good counter to high mobility heroes and turrets can sometimes help counter them if they’re around objectives.
As for the ult being better than blizzard, I’m not sure it has to be better, just a little different. A lot of heroes sort of overlap and why does anyone pick one over another really? I think we lean towards those we just enjoy playing more. For that reason, I think some overlap is okay. I mean eventually you have so many heroes, some are bound to overlap and some will out perform in certain areas. I just think an ult change would help her feel more impactful and make her more fun to play without just buffing her to make her more viable.
I like her Ults (Except SG needs stats)
But some sort of slowing device would be cool. Or a nice alternative would be disabling movement abilities instead.
Want to scare away a Tracer? Remove her Blinks and Recall That’s scarier than being a little slower
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I agree with you about the ults being problematic, they might be powerful as they are but this is just because they are similar to scatter arrow in function. The fact that they are deploy, forget and reap or get heavily punished upon destruction, get punished by not gaining ult charge causes me to feel that they need to be changed. I suggested shifting them onto her e ability and altering them accordingly in my rework idea above. The fact that people keep defending them as ults when they are REALLY polarizing in design by being either too good or completely useless is bad design by all accounts. Your not alone here, I agree completely. But I like the design and figured they could be shifted to her e.
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idea to replace the photon barrier: I think this kind of idea has been suggested a lot before, but basically a channeled ability that gives temporary shields to the target, and the ability itself is on a resource meter instead of a cool down. If you aren’t targeting anyone then it would be applied to yourself and it could also be used on constructs like her turrets and ults, which i think would be cool!
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Ooh I’d like being able to add channeled shields to her builds. Adds more options when the team doesn’t need extra shields at the moment
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They could make her turrets her “secondary weapon” to free up a spot for an ability without having to get rid of Photon Barrier.
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Symmetra cant even challenge her biggest counter Pharah. Good luck hitting an orb on her. Even Brigitte an all melee hero can pick at Pharah.
I was thinking of two separate Shielding support mechanic sfor Symmetra. The first is themed like her primary weapon.
Reality Projector: provides temporary Shield HP by tethering Symmetra to an ally, increasing the given Shield HP over time as Reality Projector levels up.
Level 1: 30 Shield HP/sec
Level 2: 60 Shield HP/sec
Level 3: 120 Shield HP/sec
Reality Projector jumps to consecutive levels after 1 second of successfully applied use. When not used or not used successfully, Reality Projector levels decay 1 per second. The temporary Shield HP granted by Reality Projector is capped at 150 HP per ally and decay at a rate of -3 per second.
Reality Projector possesses a resource bar of 600 points, regenerating at a rate of 25 points/sec.
Range: 10 meters
————-
Visual cues could be taken from her “My Reality” intro where she’s shaping a triangle/pyramid out of light. If Reality Projector makes her play too much like Mercy, Blizzard could go with an ability that tosses a Shielding device, such as…
Shield Matrix: grants 75 temporary Shield HP to all allies within upon activation within a 6 meter radius. Shield HP begin decaying 1 second after being given at a rate of -3 per second.
Max range: 20 meters
They could even reuse the old “Matrix” voice lines they removed. Thoughts?
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Symmetra biggest counter is not Pharah. It’s Mei. There are so many heroes that are “countered” by Pharah that every team will have two people focusing her down, while Symmetra helps winning the ground fight.
I figure I’ll c/p this here since my own post got 0 attention:
Anything italicized is something that I feel may be a bit overboard. My goal with this rework is to impove Symmetra’s supportive capabilities without improving her dueling ability significantly.
Leftclick: Unchanged.
Rightclick: Slightly faster charge time.
E: Photon Barrier: 10 second cooldown -> 8 second cooldown. Barrier curved inwards slightly to provide a bit more protection on the sides. E can be pressed again to Stop the photon barrier, but it will shatter after X seconds.
NEW SHIFT: Teleporter
Long cooldown, teleports 1-2 allies. HP/shields unchanged. Allies walking through the teleporter gain 25 barrier HP for a few seconds.
Ult: Shield Generator: In addition to the 75 shield HP, a new effect is added called reactive shielding. If an ally affected by the SG takes X amount of damage in a short timeframe, instantly recover 25 shields. Reactive shielding can only occur once every few seconds. Symmetra can gain charges while SG is deployed by dealing damage, and can press Q to use these charges to instantly trigger reactive shielding, independent of the internal cooldown.
Note: I want to somehow incentivise not hiding the SG away from the team, as I want Sym to stay with her team to support them. However, I can’t think of how to do that. There are only so many places to hide the SG and any enemy flanker will destroy it.
Alternate weapon: Turret projector (Her glove)
Left click: Sentry turrets. No slow when placing turrets, cooldown from 10->8 seconds.
New passive: My Reality
25 shield aura in a small radius around Symmetra.
EDIT: Turrets also provide this aura. (No stacking between turrets / turrets and Sym.) This should make turrets more useful and “protective.” Naturally, walking outside of the aura radius / having the turrets destroyed would leave a 3 second grace period before the aura drops.
QoL: Sentries, Tele, and SG all visible through walls by allied heroes.
With these changes, not only does Sym become more supportive to her team, but she has a reason to do damage when a SG is up, and the issue of lopsided ult economy is addressed. The 25 shield aura could be reworked to a damage-reduction aura or something of the sort… Basically more incentive for the Sym to stay with and support her team.
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I hope they communicate the rework ahead like they did with Hanzo’s, explaining exactly what they’ve tried and why it did or didn’t work. Rather then, launching it on ptr with no warning on what could be changed.
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8 seconds may still be too long for turrets, unless they got 10hp or something to prevent accidental long range spray damage from like, Reaper.