Back in december, I made a Symmetra wishlist for what I was expecting to see on her then incoming rework. I also reposted it in the new forums as one of the first posts of the Symmetra Megathread.
Unfortunately, my wishlist was way off mark of what we ended up receiving, and after playing her for a full month, I now have a different wishlist, on what I believe is lacking in Sym 3.0, and what would help her current state, that is, honestly, in a worse place than she was before. I explained that in another post a few weeks ago, and I’ll not be repeating myself here. My focus is purely in suggestions on how to fix the issues I pointed out in that thread.
One thing I will not be doing is vouching for a rollback. I love Sym 2.0, and I think she was mostly balanced (as I mention in the first wishlist). But I have witnessed the futile fight of Mercy players, and even if personally I still hope for Blizzard realizing that reverting back to 2.0 would be a net benefit, I’ll not waste time asking for it. So, all of my proposed changes will assume minor changes, or number adjustments only.
Last disclaimer: I’m not suggesting for all those changes to come at the same time. I’m throwing ideas, and mostly wanting to create discussion around those issues. I leave the actual balance thing to Blizzard itself.
Disclaimers gone, let’s head to the list.
Photon Projector (beam)
- Remove the ramp-up mechanic. That mechanic was in place as part of the balance to the autolock feature. Since she no longer have autolock, changing the beam to a flat damage beam makes her much more useful in general, and much easier to balance in general.
- Return the autolock while rewarding precision. Think about Doomfist’s Meteor Strike. That ultimate have a central area where everything there will take full damage from the ult, and a larger area where people will take less damage the further they are from the center. Symmetra gun can work in a similar way, where you keep the previous autolock, but if you keep the target within reticle, you are rewarded with either more damage (multiplier TBD), or a status effect (slow with the potency of a single turret would be a good call).
- Give the beam more range. Simple, direct, needed buff.
Photon Projector (orb)
- Remove the blast decay from the explosion. The blast radius is absurdly short compared to the other explosive projectiles in the game. So making the whole blast area deal a flat 60 damage would make her damage much more consistent, and an alternative to the other big blast explosive users.
Sentry Turrets
- Give her an extra turret. 4 turrets allow us to use two to guard the main choke, while leaving 2 open for flanking path warding and surprise placements on the enemy backline. 4 turrets allow you to make a deadly gate, or split it into 2-2 or 2-1-1 formations. If needed, reduce the turret damage to 40~45, but more turrets allow us to be much more versatile with their placements.
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Bring back Sentry UI. Allow us to check an option to get the old Sentry placement UI back, so that we need to Shift, then M1 the turret where we want. Ideally, this would also give us back a “ghost” of where the turret would place if we shoot them at that position. This would help with the “turret cling to a nearby wall” problem and give new players a better chance to see where the turrets will end up after being throw.
- Of course, by being an option, this means if you want to keep it turned off and keep the current way to place them with a single button press, you are allowed to do so.
Teleporter
- Deploy Teleporter faster. Simply and needed buff. The devs advertised that TP could be used to escape Graviton, but because it takes 2 seconds to deploy, you rarely can do it in reaction to the graviton before your team is wiped. Reducing the deployment time to 1 second would make it much more useful in general.
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Deploy Teleporter where Symmetra is, not in front of her. Ditto from above. Many times you place the TP out of graviton, and the game places it just outside of anyone’s range.
- Alternatively, make the “interact” radius larger. That would give us the same effect.
- Make TP invulnerable for 1 second upon deployment. The enemy team can already reverse-ambush a badly placed TP, but having it destroyed before anyone can even pass through it is frustrating.
Photon Barrier Infinity Wall
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Add an effect upon passing through the wall. Ideally, it would be two effects: A negative one, to discourage the enemy team from simply “walking though it”, and a positive one to encourage your team to shield dance.
- Possible positive effects: Decaying shields, brief damage reduction, speed buff (to help teammates running from spawn if the shield cross the path), regenerating allied barriers (eg, Reinhardt with almost broken shield will “deal” 2000 damage to the barrier and instantly get his barrier back)
- Possible negative effects: Slow that lasts while the wall is active (stacking), “discord” effect, absorbing enemy barriers
- Deploy Wall faster. You can keep the pretty animation, but make the barrier start blocking damage as soon as you click the deploy button. This will allow us to use it reactively to block other ults.
Miscelaneous
- Bring Photon Shield back as a passive. It was in the previous wishlist, and I still want it. Symmetra was the only hero that provided extra shields to her allies, and even if she is an official DPS now, it’s a shame she lost that unique aspect of her kit. Just make her provide her whole team +25 shield HP simply by being in the team. Symmetra herself don’t get this buff, and the passive don’t stack if multiple Symmetras are in the team (but it provides the buff to the other Sym).
- Give Symmetra +75 Shield HP. So that she is as resilient as she was when Shield Generator was active. Those extra 75 HP were a key component for aggressive Symmetra players because it gave her enough of a safety net to go in and out of danger. Since her beam requires her to be in closer range, she needs more HP. And since she lacks the escape mechanics of the other DPS melee heroes (Mei, Reaper, Doomfist), that extra 25 HP helps.