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. Itâs 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 Iâm 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 isnât 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 symmâs 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 donât 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. Iâve solo-supported as Symmetra before with TP and negated any picks that the enemy team had, but I donât think that something that happened in quickplay is really applicable to the wider game as a whole.
Even though Lucio/Zen donât 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.
Iâm not against Symmetra being a non-healing Support by any means - Iâd be glad to be proven wrong if they can rework her to be viable and powerful without healing. All Iâm saying is that healing, even minor, could do wonders for Symmetraâs reputation among the playerbase which would improve the game as a whole; and itâd be easily done without sacrificing her aesthetics.
If Blizzard do commit to a non-healing support, Iâd 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 thatâd 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 Iâm not sure how well thatâd go down.
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I like the reverse discord orb/shield thing. But I donât like dive⊠and that would make dive and flankers super strong. Can you imagine a zen/symm combo? Or a genji blade with Symmâs SG, zen orb, and a hardlight orb?
I mean⊠it sounds crazy good. But at the same time would it really change perception? Youâd still âsolo heal zenâ which of course would still be a no go to so many people.
I mean, we are still feeling the effects of symmâs original build⊠âonly good on 1st pt 2cpâ.
I donât even think healing turrets would help. They would be too inconsisitant (auto focus ai would be cursed)⊠youâd still be told to run a moira if you were gonna build a healing nest.
The only way to save Symm in the communityâs eyes would be to make her so OP then tone her down⊠like they did with Mercy.
Remember, Mercy was NU in pros until her rework⊠and even though she was ânerfed to the groundâ she is now used regularly in Owl.
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Me personally, I feel she is already OP. I donât like the whole run into the crowd and simply hold the button while hopping like mad. I think that her proton beam should be more like moiraâs . It shouldnât bend around corners and you should have to aim it. I would hate to lose her altogether, but if she was removed, I certainly wouldnât lose any sleep over it.
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Depends a lot on the other 4 members of the team.
If we have Soldier, Tracer, Zarya and Roadhog? It can work. Sym and Zarya can regen half their health bar. Roadhog can heal himself also for half HP, Soldier helps with team healing. The main weakness of this setup is vertical mobility, and it would still be a weakness if Sym was Ana, Mercy or Moira instead.
If we have Reinhardt, Winston, McCree and Widowmaker? Yeah, they need two healers. Mercy is good because she can use Winston and Widow as escape routes, while Zen and McCree combo wells. But this team have no self-healing capabilities, thus demand more healing attention.
I think its the opposite. Symmetra isnât just slow. She also slow down the enemy team momentum. If they rush into an area she is defending, the turrets will slow and whittle them down. Her orbs will make them stop and re-evaluate the path they are taking. Her ultimates create a secondary objective point for the enemy team, forcing them to give attention to somewhere else.
I agree that everything about Symmetra kit is slow. But I think the main source of frustration a lot of people feel about her is that she also set that slow pace upon the enemy team. So if someone pick Genji trying to be a double jump annoying ninja dashing north and south⊠an enemy Sym will force him to slow down and check where her turrets are, and if he can safely dive in without being fried to death.
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I think what all this comes down to is that there are two directions they can take Sym, and they need to focus on one.
- Active mitigation support hero
-Shielding, barriers, buffing focused
or
- Area denial defense hero
-turrets, right click
Right now sheâs a weird ineffective mish-mash of both. I know the rework is months away, but it would be nice if they picked a direction and let us know about it.
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How I see it is she is supposed to be a defense/support hybrid, the only problem is the execution came out weak. If they can pull it off for sniper/support, offense/support, and now tank/support; I think they have a good chance of pulling it off.
As a whole it seems like they might have an idea on how to fix the problem, they just need some time on it. I think they can pull it off, we just need to figure out how it can work for us.
I personally throw her turrets into the support category. The only time they work as area denial is when you set up a car wash⊠which frankly⊠is kinda worthless and a waste of turret management.
They are best used in a supportive role spread out and used to slow the enemy for your dps to kill.
I wouldnât like if they weaken one of those aspects in favor of the other. I like playing Symmetra specifically because of that specific unique combination. There is only one other hero that combine that defense/support mix (Torbjörn), but Symmetra is different enough from him that their niches donât really overlap that much.
And that is a really weird phrasing because Iâve been having success with Symmetra for over a year, even in her current state. The only time I got a really hard time doing anything was when Moira was bugged and her orbs were destroying Sym turrets.
IMO, Symmetra biggest problems are not her kit. Her kit if fine and deserve only some QoL passes, like adjusting turret placement speed and range. The main problem is that a lot of people only pick Symmetra (and Torb, Mei, Hanzo, Bastion, and Widow) when they give up on the match, giving her the reputation to be a signal that the player isnât trying to win anymore.
And because of that, I believe that unless she gets Valkyrie 1.0 levels of broken, no matter how they buff Sym. Her kit is so unique amongst the other heroes that she requires some level of dedication to play her. She isnât like Tracer, that you can pull what you know from playing Soldier into her aim. If you want to get effective with Symmetra, you need to understand her kit. And people are not willing to do so. So she appear âweakâ because those people have no idea how to use it correctly.
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Hi, Iâm no symmetra player, but I like her abilities and occasionally pick her up in qp. I do main non-meta heroes (until Junkrat became meta, lol), so I often think about the game in terms of abilities that could be changed.
So while showering I had a thought to rework symmetraâs ult in a way to make it more activated but keeping the passive benefits of the buildings.
Make her be able to build her ult buildings immediatly (then on a small cooldown) but make the tp/sg do less until she actively powers it up by using her ult charge.
For example the tp would need to charge for 10-20 seconds (dunno about balance) to teleport someone to the front. Being powered up it would make people respawn at teleport location instead of in the base (say give the ult 15-20 seconds duration), where they also have to walk to the teleport first (or make it an option for people who respawn to chose which place). The powered teleport could also maybe safe destroyed turrets by giving instant charges back to symmetra or even place them near her while powered up through ult. Alternatively the teleport could have an aura with small healing during ult.
For Shield gen it could provide just 25 shields per person (she used to do that with her e) but then extend the shield to 70-100 while ulting. Additionally her turrets could get a zarya bubble like shield to give them effective 2 health respectively 2 shots to kill them (not sure if during ult or in general).
I just wrote a topic on this forum in which I thoroughly outlined a reworked kit for Symmetra, remodeling her as a true defensive support and possibly a 2nd healer. She would specialize in point defense and backline support but have wide utility and flexibility. I suggested changes like tweaking her Photon Beam, Energy Ball, and Sentries, and removing her Barrier, Teleporter, and Shield Generator. I also brainstormed new abilities like repairing ally barriers, granting a large but temporary shield to an ally, and a hard light construct menu. This menu contains objects such as a health station, a bridge/ramp, a hybrid barrier/wall, and even a reworked Teleporter as a Portal. I also came up with a radical new ultimate that serves both defensive and supportive roles, and a passive that provides Sym and nearby allies with small temporary shields when she deals damage with her gun. These are all basic concepts and donât have hard numbers, but I encourage you to check it out and let me know what you think. Itâs definitely worth the read!
Itâs called âMy Symmetra Suggestions (long but worth it).â
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Calling it now. Symmetra will become good, everyone will want her nerfed. She will go back to the dumpster.
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Left click = Single target winston beam.
Right click = Slow spammy firestrike.
E = (Rein shield + Speedboost) without control.
Shift = Her only unique ability.
Ultimate = âArmor, come get it!â or âHeroes never die!â.
IMO Symmetra is,
70% tank without tools to do the job, in exchange for DPS.
30% support, but every other healer does her job better.
My money is on tank over DPS symmetra for 3.0.
for example:
DPS on beam to 25/50/100, but she regenerates her shield health while beaming.
Max Damage Ball to 80, but it has firestrike speed.
Control your shield with left click, like with ragdolls.
Hide your turrets like junkratâs traps, 20 DPS per turret.
I would like to play her like this.
Love playing Sym. Iâm just too scared to play her on Comp cause I donât want my team to flake while thinking Iâm trolling them for picking her. Whatever they do to her next, I hope they make her more viable.
I would love to see them do these changes:
-
Make Sentry Turrets cloak after 1 second of inactivity
-
Replace Shield Generator with the Protoss Shield Battery. (Heal Shield on Body shields like Zarya and Side Shields like Reinhardt. Orisa can easily respawn her shield so no love to her this time around.)
-
Give her the ability to move her âconstructsâ. (Turrets, Teleporter, etc)
-
Hide the portal animation on teleporter till someone is in the spawn room.
Life is too short to give up on something fun that is supposed to be leisure time because you donât want to irritate random people in the internet. Itâs not your fault if your teammates think you are trolling just because of your hero choice, that is on them.
Play Symmetra as much as you want. Be it Arcade, QP or Comp.
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With SYMM i easily climed to 2400 after that was a problem. (season 4) The main thing that 200hours on her tought me was to evaluate if an ENEMY was experienced and âcalmâ enouph to counter the MICROWAVE LOCK. So eg can u go for a Dva or not (most die becouse they dont stay still to headshot SYMM and panic due to the sound effects of her beam , like moiras ult) as BOTH BARK LOUDER than they BITE
NOW AFTER 5 SEASONS the additional problem is that most of the community knows her ULT hideouts thous this huge âSUPPORTâ capability SHIELD/ TELEPORTER is almost flushed inside the toilet.
So i would concetrate on the SUPPORT capability rather than the ATTACK.
MY OPINION: Make 2 turrets one YELLOW for heal and one PURPLE for attack like
MOIRAS that would balance her ATTACKvsSUPPORT problem
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Haha 1 month ago I said she will get a Rework and now itâs coming as I predicted they even said Animation Reworks are coming and itâs taking time⊠FULL REWORK! GET REKT!
Hanzo just got one new Attack and itâs not taking so long but itâs taking forever for Symmetra and Torbjörn! So please stop defending your useless Symmetra!
![:rofl:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/rofl.png?v=5" ":rofl:")
Iâve given up hope on you⊠Enjoy old Symmetra while you can! goodbye.