I certainly can’t find it. you just went on overselling sym’s primary from what I read. and no her shield break is terrible. there’s a reason why sym didn’t get prevalence in single shield comps as a “shield breaker”.
her “high dps potential” has too many conditions and too little opportunities to reach to balance her entire kit and gameplay around such a rare niche event.
it’d be like balancing/nerfing mccree or so with the expectation that the player has a perma mercy db, zen discord and orisa boost pocket on them simultaneously. like no, that doesn’t realistically happen and it doesn’t make sense to hold the hero to such an expectation.
the “damage potential” you’re likely thinking of, 180dps primary + 3 turrets on 1 same target, legit doesn’t happen often. turrets die easily, they don’t necessarily target the same hero, and her primary has a massive long list of preconditions to satisfy.
having sym require her rng chosen teammates to play a specific comp and act in a specific way for the entirety of her play time for her to get opportunities to contribute is not a healthy design. esp when you consider:
- most people solo queue
- players rewarded individually
- it makes the matchmaker a larger factor to sym’s success rather than their own ability to play
and no, I’m not saying to buff her w+m1 gameplay. I’m saying to balance her around the expectation that primary is rarely used, and she’ll be using her tp+orbs+turrets to flank, zone, play frontline and/or give utility which is what she’s legit actually doing.
junkrat bombs have a high enough firerate to actually be spammed and cover a decent enough size area at once esp with rebound + linger. sym orbs cannot. not to mention junkrat aoe radius is the same as sym’s orbs and has higher splash damage.
like junkrat bombs, genji shurikens, pharah rockets, and echo primary don’t have fall off either but are you going to snipe them like a widow with them? no of course not because they’re extremely inconsistent that far away due to enemies being able to dodge them easily. same logic with sym orbs, but hers is more severe as shown by the math above.
to switch between her down time vs flanking vs going out to claim enemy territory vs front lining vs giving an ally access to somewhere, a tp cast or a team pocket are necessary i.e. sym needs tp to actively contribute well because waiting for forever for a team pocket to get opportunities is unreasonable as argued above. a lot of sym’s versatility rides on using tp to adapt.
having her old 3.0 finite tp cast frequency legit isn’t asking for a ton of mobility on sym. she’s not going to be zipping around like tracer, or zooming in the air like echo, etc. her tp is still static mobility between 2 points i.e. really predictable. she’d have 12s before her next cast. the main difference is that she wouldn’t be waiting forever for tp to return like current tp.
like if you imagine
- how shield tanks would play if their shields lasting indefinitely but had a 10s cd starting only when either their shield got destroyed or deactivated
- or how flankers would play if all their mobility and sustain abilities had a tied 10s cd that doesn’t start until all of them had been used (no resets)
that’s how current sym is right now.
pretty sure mei, reaper, and other dps during prime/early double shield meta replaced her out that just fine.
I’d take it but I’m not sure how you’d justify the notion of “there has to be a trade off” when we legit had an all-round unnerfed sym for >1yr prior to double shield/sigma/infinite tp nerf patch where she underperformed for a long time across various metas, esp when there’s been more powercreep since then.
if that doesn’t objectively show how she’s defs not “good at everything” rn and how she’s defs got room for straight buffs, then idk what will.
sym before infinite tp nerf/double shield patch etc.
- primary: 65/130/195 dps. same charge time as now. had initial tick bug, slightly larger beam width, 12m long.
- orbs: legit same as live
- tp: 12s cd start on deployment, 10s duration, 25m placement range.
- turrets: had 10 more dps than current and slows stacked more
- wall: had 1k more hp than current, 2s extra duration
like legit, she had pretty much better everything back then and still underperformed for several metas with that build.
also the flank combo was tp-orb-melee (150 burst) + primary to finish. yes she also did tp behind when she got charged primary, but that was as rare as charging primary up which wasn’t that frequent.
being able to switch between her modes of play more often to better suit the situation and for more hero uptime is much better than the current kit where she can’t and is heavily reliant on team pocketting to contribute (because current kit simply lacks the tool, her tp, for her to engage+disengage).
first half happened, the 2nd half not so much because she’d realistically die if she did. and no, she isn’t currently doing what she used to do (nowhere near as frequently anyways).