🌐 My 4.0 Supportmetra Concept, we need more Supports!

[CuteCookie-21269]

You’ve really put thought and effort into this idea!
Love it

[zayzi43-2522]

Great concept, Someone send this to Blizzard!

[Leotail72-11552]

@TTraw-2252

• Allies within 15m of Symmetra have half of their maximum normal Health converted into Shields;
• Being EMPed simply converts these Shields back to Health;

Hard to code, but very interesting in concept.
Would regenerating the shields count as healing?

[Djdoo123-1253]

Glad to see you never gave up on your sym rework. Love your ideas!
I do have some feedback on your ideas.

Regarding the decision to move her back to support, I’m afraid that would not be possible due to the fact that the devs are adamant on support being healers only. The only possible alternative for support sym would be to get the devs to revive the defense class and rework what the role’s purpose is. Based on who was in the defense class originally, they could rework the heroes a bit to have more utility added to their kit, and serve as heroes that can defend their teammates.

@TTraw-2252

Passive: Shield Amplification

• Allies within 15m of Symmetra have half of their maximum normal Health converted into Shields;
• Being EMPed simply converts these Shields back to Health;

The passive could end up making sym feel like a must pick and could cause alot of complaints. Also, while armor is preferred over shields, it can still become annoying on certain heroes. I could be wrong though so no matter. The passive should also have it that sombra’s hack can convert shields back to health for consistency.

@TTraw-2252

Primary

• Range reduced 12 → 10m;
• Ramp up time decreased 1.33 → 1s;
• Damage changed: 60 to 120 to 180 → 75 to 90 to 105;
• Beam width increased 0.2 → 0.35m
• No longer refills ammo on damaging barriers;
• Has old beam visuals and can pick up items from the ground again;

I really am tempted to make the beam width 0.40m and keep the beam at 12m. Though it would probably be unbalanced. Mind adding visuals to help show the beam’s hitbox size?
Other than that, this alone would be so nice for her to have (one of the main things that I miss from sym 2.0… stupid zarya knockoff beam!)

@TTraw-2252

First Ability: Photon Barrier

• Elliptical shield that moves forward at Symmetra’s run speed;
• Cooldown reduced 10 → 6s;
• Barrier HP reduced 1000 → 350;

Thanks to sigma, I’m afraid your current photon barrier won’t really work. I suggest allowing for sym to hold the barrier similar to how she used it in her comic (like a personal sheild) by holding the ability button and increasing shield health to 500hp.

This will allow for sym to use the shield as a personal shield or carefully line up the path for her barrier travel. Having the hp be have of it’s predecessor feels like a better idea and still gives the barrier some tankiness against a pharah ult or a bastion sentry.

@TTraw-2252

Second ability: Photon Shield

• Channel Shield Health on ally, similarly to Zarya’s Bubble or Brigitte’s Repair Pack;
• 25 meters range;
• No longers gives 25 permanent Shields;
• Now gives 75 Temporary Shields decaying at rate of 25/s;
• Each time Shields decay, the ally is healed for 60% of the decayed amount;
• Cooldown increased 1 → 3s;

I like bringing back the shield ability and giving it some healing properties, but I think it would be cool to adjust the numbers and introduce a shield gating mechanic. The shield gate triggers when the shields are depleted by a fatal shot (rocket punch, arrow head shot, widow’s kiss, etc) and would prevent and damage from affecting the heroes hp. Chip damage would not trigger the shield gate. As a result, Sym could be a life saver for squishy heroes against snipers or critical health heroes.

@TTraw-2252

Primary (Turret)

• Deploy a Sentry Turret thrown as destroyable projectile that snaps to surface;
• Has no cooldown and costs 1 ammo from Architech’s Gauntlet;
• HP increased 30 Health → 5 Health + 25 Shields;
• Cast time reduced 0.5 → 0.35 s;
• Damage per second reduced 40 → 3;
• Turret deploy amount increased 3 → 6 turrets;
• Turrets slow reduced 20 → 15%;
  • This slow effect is now capped at 30%;
• Damaged enemies are now affected by teamwide reveal;
• Turrets are visible to your allies through walls;

While I like the glove idea, I am not a fan of 4.0 turrets and prefer 3.0 turrets with the exception of reverting the number of turrets from 3 back to 6. In order to prevent a op kill gate problem, the turrets would have a limit as to how many can lock onto one single target. My turret idea would implement a rule where only 3 turrets may lock onto a single target at a time.
Example: say an enemy walks into a room of 6 turrets, only 3 lock onto the target. If a turrets is destroyed, it will take 1.5 seconds for it to lock onto that target unless a second target comes into range, in which it will lock onto that target immediately.
This will keep players from trying to make huge kill rooms and encourage them to set up different spots instead to cover more area.
alternatively, I would like the turret ideas if the damage output was 20 instead of 5.

@TTraw-2252

Secondary (Teleporter)

• Place two-way teleporter between current position and target location;
• Has no cooldown, costs 3 ammo instead;
• Range reduced 30 → 20m;
• HP reduced 50 Health, 250 Shields → 25 Health, 125 Shields;
• Now only lasts 15s;
• Multiple teleporters can be deployed at the same time;
• No longer teleports turrets;

I am for the removal of teleporting turrets since it is usually not a good idea any way. As for the rest of the teleport, not really agreeing with your version with teleporter. I could live with the 15 sec duration, but otherwise I’m not so sure about it.

Once again, If I had to choose which version of sym I would go with, I would immediately go for your 4.0. version. Unfortunately, it is unlikely the devs will go back on there vision for supports.

I suggest making an alternative version of sym that is dps.
Your rework is not far off from it either.
-take away passive
-remove the photon shield
-keep architect gauntlet as an ability (basically binding teleporter and sentry turrets to same button. Switch via scroll wheel)
-adjust you numbers for the rest of the abilities

And there you have a dps sym rework!

Though I would love for your version to make it into the game.
Cheers!

[Megadodo-11333]

to OP: I believe that support players have been more than patient, and agree that they indeed deserve to be given more options to play that role.

[Nechoo-2368]

that’s like saying halt is support, orisa’s ult is support, with a few changes she would be a perfect support. Sounds dumb doesn’t it?

As someone who has 400 hours on sombra+, keep your support ideas to yourself if you don’t actually play the character. She doesn’t play as a support at all.

[Numb-2866]

Its a good idea and that is why it will never happen.

[Safeguard-11360]

Dude, i got 80 kills with Sombra before her rework. She has always been a DPS, her damage isn’t weak either if you assassinate isolated targets like you’re supposed to.

[MagyTheMage-1534]

its nice but i feel the turret damage is way too low

[Beesǃ-2610]

These are good ideas but I don’t see how anyone could be justified picking her as a second support. If your other support doesn’t pick someone with high raw healing output, like Moira or Ana, your tanks are just going to crumble when they get pushed.

[TheWorkshopr-1907]

@TTraw-2252

• Now gives 75 Temporary Shields decaying at rate of 25/s;
• Each time Shields decay, the ally is healed for 60% of the decayed amount;

If I workshop this, is it ok if shield dmg taken turns into hp as well?

[nooblord-1514]

So what is the vision for this hero? A shield support that the regens for her team playing poke wars. I think that was her original intent but it was too passive. Active shield mitigation is interesting for they sym player but im not sure if her kit is fun to play against.

Good ideas here OP. i’ll upboat so other people can weigh in.

[H1st0ry-2750]

@Nechoo-2368

As someone who has 400 hours on sombra+, keep your support ideas to yourself if you don’t actually play the character. She doesn’t play as a support at all.

She is a debuff character. Debuff character is typicly a type support. There is a reason why she is not a good DPS(!). She is used to disable enemies and that is support. Orisas halt is universal movement deny and Sombras evasion (trans) is also in every category. Sombra IS a support character (in terms of usage) because she is mainly a debuffer. And debuffer are a type of support. She is not used to push hard damage or is she? Or does she ENABLE kills? Your time with sombra is impressive but there is a reason why her pickrate in DPS is low. Its because you dont pick her for her DPS.

[Tevees-1738]

This is a wonderful rework idea, the only problem i see is i don’t think anyone would choose her shielding or just raw healing, to keep up with the other supports she would need some type of healing.

I’d just linking it to her Photon barrier, maybe when it passes through allies it gives them a healing burst.

I also saw a concept awhile back when Symmetra could “shatter” her barrier early by repressing the E button, basically when the barrier shatters it creates a healing and shield burst in a small range to teammates.

[TTraw-2252]

@blahaj-1757

Well, you should increase the Teamwide reveal to at least a second or two, it should be visible for awhile so if people do look for them immediately after the callout, they would be able to catch them if the Tracer blinks out.

but I feel a whole 3 damage per second is kind of… underwhelming.

I was thinking about making it linger on for additional second or two, but as I said, making them feel underwhelming is okay, and kind of the point of it. As long as this ability has 1 deffinitive use, it’s okay because her kit has 4 abilities.

My bigger concern with turret balance is whether 3 turrets are roughly the same value for its cd as a single teleporter. So that turrets will also be used and not the teleporter exclusively. Maybe it should go back to 5 DPS
to make sure turrets aren’t overshadowed?

@Johnny-16626

Shields on non-tank heroes is extremely touchy. Brig runs over 3/4 of the DPS roster due to having a shield and it only has 200hp.

I can see why you think that, but in the end, you must realize that this shield is way less flexible than Brigitte’s, due to its fast movement speed, predetermined angle, and long cooldown. If you played Sym 2.0 you would know that it was nothing more than a very short invulnerability button, and only in of attacks in front of you.

@Leotail72-11552

Hard to code, but very interesting in concept.
Would regenerating the shields count as healing?

Actually, I think coding it would be fairly easy.
You take a variable that consists of half of your normal health. And now after checking distance between symmetra and ally you would remove half of normal health and add it in shields instead, and anything that exceeded that half hp treshold will be also moved to shields. But idk how they coded HP in this game.

As for stats… I don’t care whether it would be recorded or not as long as it would be viable. However, it’s probably a good idea to do so in order to determine how this passive performs in comparison to other healing sources.

@Beesǃ-2610

If your other support doesn’t pick someone with high raw healing output, like Moira or Ana, your tanks are just going to crumble when they get pushed.

This never prevented Zenyatta from performing well and even having his own metas. And I think people underrate the amount of “healing” this passive would provide.

@TheWorkshopr-1907

If I workshop this, is it ok if shield dmg taken turns into hp as well?

Well, I definitely not intended for it to work that way… but if there’s no other way round it.

@Tevees-1738

This is a wonderful rework idea, the only problem i see is i don’t think anyone would choose her shielding or just raw healing, to keep up with the other supports she would need some type of healing.

I think Photon Shield healing + the passive would be enough for an off-support to do their job. And she gets plenty of shielding and oneshot prevention on top of that.

[ISO-11694]

why rework her AGAIN when you can just make another support

[TTraw-2252]

@ISO-11694

why rework her AGAIN when you can just make another support

@TTraw-2252

It does seem like a reasonable suggestion from a balance-to-cost standpoint, since most character reworks can create a new healer/tank without introducing many new assets, and thus being more time and cost efficient than creating a new tank/support. It does double its value in creating even number of heroes in roles, since you do remove hero from the most crowded one in addition to gaining one in role that needs it.

I guess you skipped this paragraph.

[blahaj-1757]

@TTraw-2252

feel underwhelming is okay, and kind of the point of it. As long as this ability has 1 deffinitive use,

Then it should at LEAST linger for a second, as any flaking hero has the mobility to easily evade, or otherwise destroy the turrets.

And on the Symmetra’s side, it’ll be largely unfeasible as you’ll have to pit
Flanker’s reaction time + escape/destroy turrets vs Sym reaction time to call out flanker and reaction time of team to get the message, much less find where they are.

And often, you’ll find that the reaction time of 1 person is a lot faster than 2 people.

If you don’t have the outline linger for more than second, we’re trading a good chunk of damage on the turrets, which mind you, if used right can be a formidable defence against flankers.

As crippling any flanker with at least 60 damage often can and will make them retreat, lest they fight at a BIG disadvantage, for a less than a second long of wallhack.

---

There's a second opinion for you. -Doc

[Beesǃ-2610]

@TTraw-2252

This never prevented Zenyatta from performing well and even having his own metas.

Zenyatta can at least provide almost constant healing though, and he has an ultimate that can be used to counter a variety of offensive ultimates. Shield health is useless if you’re getting constantly pummeled.

[TTraw-2252]

@blahaj-1757

Then it should at LEAST linger for a second, as any flaking hero has the mobility to easily evade, or otherwise destroy the turrets.

There. I reverted it to linger on 1s and also increased DPS from 3 back to 5. Does it feel more balanced?

@Beesǃ-2610

Zenyatta can at least provide almost constant healing though, and he has an ultimate that can be used to counter a variety of offensive ultimates. Shield health is useless if you’re getting constantly pummeled.

So does this Symmetra. Her Photon Shield gives constant shield that ends up doing 15 heal/sec if target is not attacked. And if target is attacked, the shield will help more than heal, it is always a win-win situation. Your ally either get dived and thus is shield with worth of 25 shield/sec, and if not attacked he is healed for 15/s. Note that cooldown starts the moment Shielding is applied, meaning it has 100% shield/heal uptime just like Zenyatta. And she gets that AoE shield health passive on top of it.

Keep in mind, if that healing is not enough in practice, nothing stops me from adjusting percentage to 80% or even 100% of the decayed shield.

As for ultimate, I would say that her ultimate’s purpose is completely different to Zenyatta’s, but that doesn’t make it any weaker. This ult prevents being oneshotted by certain heroes, which cannot be said about Zen’s ult. So this interaction is kind of similar of that of Lucio vs Zen ult, except it’s more consistent rather than bursty.