I feel like her potential is completely wasted being slotted into the DPS category. She was a utility support hero and I really wish blizzard could’ve taken the concept a lot farther with her but for whatever reason blizzard feels the need to balance the game around an MMO style holy trinity. Personally I find it a bit annoying that all supports must be healers, it’s extremely limiting to what supports can really be but I’m getting off track. Sym 3.0 is okay in her niche but outside of that there’s no reason to really pick her. Especially when characters like Sombra, Widow and Hanzo exist who are way more devastating in teamfights than symmertra. As DPS there’s nothing that she can do that nobody else can’t do better outside from teleport and that’s why she’s probably going to stay as a mediocre hero unless blizzard balloons her dps up to whacky levels.
Fair enough. I just hope you understand the concern is the loss of all reactive situations they still have despite the layers they already have.
Several things.
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Kit bloat. I am pretty certain at this point many people struggle using Symmetra due to her complexity. Which is understandable as her synergy is admit ably not straight forward. Adding an additional ability would add even more complexity to the kit. Furthering peoples confusion as to what she is.
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I don’t think she needs an increase in survival. She already has a playstyle of playing deep within her teams ranks combined with that of holding defensive positions against enemies. Adding yet another layer to her defensive capabilities at this point would be to much. She needs a “weakness” to exploit.
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I will admit your suggestions on syngery with old photon sound fun. However, part of teleporter is that it should also have some vulnerabilities to it. It is after all essentially a free ride from point A to point B and should have risk involved. Its already dimiinished heaviliy if you have a Rein, Orisa, or D.va going through. Not to mention the ability to photon barrier (current ult) to protect the locations you are using teleport in.
Overall I think people are focusing on improving the wrong parts of her kit. Generally speaking when improving upon a kit you don’t seek to remove weakness but to improve upon a hero’s main role if they are struggling.
Take Reaper for instance. His weakness is his terrible range. So many people wanted him to have a right click that tossed ranged explosives or something to remove his ranged weakness. However, Instead they improved his ability to sustain in close combat because that was his job. That despite him managing to get into close combat he was still dying and not doing his job well.
Sym on the other hand is not majorly designed to be a CQC DPS. She has some of those elements but I find she is more oriented toward improving her team and sparing their resources so they function better. She was moved to the damage role not because they wanted her to specifically focus on it but so they could remain consistent on categories. She needed to be able to add to the DPS pool since she was no longer going to have direct support functions such as health buffing.
Granted one may argue old Photon Barrier may help in that regard to some extent but I suspect it helps her survival more then anything as previously it was used far more for her own preservation then her teams.
Expanding on what SteelUrMind said:
The bug was not about having the charge time full time. It was making full tick damage faster than the intended tickrate. IIRC, Sym2 had a tickrate of 0.25s (4 ticks per second), and Sym3 first iteration on PTR was the same. In one hand, this led to “ghost hits”, where your aim was on target between refreshes, and didn’t register. On the other hand, if you could fire faster than that, you could do multiple ticks.
They fixed that by making her tickrate absurdly fast (like Zarya, which helps with tracking), and making the first tick deal only a fraction of the full damage (which happens on lots of DoTs, like Hanzo’s dragon). But because of how Sym weapon works, it means armor was super effective against it, especially in comparison with the old beam.
That armor problem is also solved, now that beam weapons have a flat 20% damage reduction against armor instead of a per-tick reduction.
I know people will give me flak for this, but I really miss it.
Her primary beam on console is a joke against anything not a tank… and even then you usually die because you’re still a 200 hp hero with no reliable mobility or self sustain.
Lol to you is a joke. I constantly play zen/Ana/Sym because they are all projectile and found success with them. You just need to relax and plactise with her beam. But yet again, going from autolock to aiming does suck, and doing something that you are not supposed to do(such as charging beam off small targets, which to me isnt really that hard-and I also play on console) is what some sym plays find joy in, then go to the forums to report it.
Yeah, when people make statements like the beam is only good at tanks I have to laugh. I can show you a number of videos of absolute devastation against a tightly packed team or equally in burning down that double jumping Genji… its only a problem tool for those Syms who have no real ability to aim.
That all being said, in Blizzards zeal to appease “skill players” and make Sym “acceptable”, they skipped even the middle-ground step of reworking the old primary to use a Moira-style “soft lock” large targeting box and keeping the old visual and sound effects which helped contribute to her kit’s unique feel. Instead she got given a 2nd rate Zarya beam, that just felt lazy to me.
Wow, that didn’t take long.
Glad others find success with current Sym, I still feel like she’s a dps stuck with a too situational beam. When playing her I will keep to using her secondary fire as my primary.
Nothing wrong at all with that. I use both equally on Sym. On Mei, I use her alt-fire almost exclusively to the point I have to make myself use her primary freeze attack…
The thing is, her beam in only situational if you dont know how to use it. It is punishing because you mut know when and how to use it. Normally you shouldnt bother using primary on a Genji/Tracer as they are really evasive. 2 orbs or some melees and they are done.
That is how I play it with them (well, most characters). But it bothers me that I feel like I’m stuck with a beam that has less range than Zarya and without really having the means of sustaining myself once I’m charged up. I kinda think Sym should have had an ability to give herself shields (like Hammond) so she has an easier time taking the fights. For me personally, I get all charged up and then I die because I can’t outlast the damage.
I think that depends on the player. I find mixing them together works well depending on circumstance. I play enough Zarya the beam comes very naturally to me except for the range. The benefit the orbs have is slow, but predictable burst damage… the beam if you can manage it is better because he can’t deflect it… he can deflect orbs…
For kit bloat yeah i can see but photon barrier adds so much synergy to all of syms kit. It could be the ability that ties everything together. Like for turrets you can throw out a shield and protect them as they fly. And the tp synergy I mentioned before was also pretty nice. But even so the kit would still not be as confusing as sym 2.0s kit. Also old photon barrier is a very straightforward ability. It’s just a shield you toss so it isn’t a lot to adjust to while it has a ton of depth in situations it can work.
We likely play 3.0 very differently I actually embrace the orbs and CQC and the interesting flanks possible with tp. I see CQC as part of her kit but right now it relies entirely on surprise. It would be nice to have a hard to land counter.
For the increase in survivability. Photon barrier isn’t an insane increase in survivability it’s hard to land and only can counter one ability or attack. Sym has issues moving between cover on her own she’s extremely vulnerable out in the open. Giving her an opportunity to save herself is nice. I play solo queue so you can’t just rely on your team for everything I want some independence too. But the weakness in photon barrier is its an all or nothing ability with a long cooldown skilled enemies can bait it out of sym. The most clever example was a hog that after I blocked a crap ton of his hook used the melee to tricked me with the animation. That was an awesome play.
Tp is still vulnerable while it’s setting up a coordinated team can break it before sym can even get the opportunity to put stuff through it. One of the interactions though that I don’t like when tanks go through it takes them a secound to correct their orientation. That’s not their fault but during that time I would want something I can do to help them. Just to get situated. Photon barrier doesn’t last long because it moves forward. So the tp wouldn’t have long where it is protected and a lot of tp spots wouldn’t even need photon barrier. It’s just an option if you want to try something a bit crazier.
I can agree before photon barrier was mainly a selfish move for sym that protected teammates that happened to be in the crossfire. but if she’s meant to be an attack hero now and open up new paths for her team. It makes more sense than ever for her to be able to provide them with temporary shielding and help form pushes on her own.
Main points got tier synergy with her whole kit still has periods of weakness. If it doesn’t make her a must pick it would be nice
Sym is my main, but she definitely still feels a bit clunky and lacks that smooth rhythm that I always wish she had.
- I miss her piercing orbs. They may not have been THE counter to bunker, but they made it so the other characters, Bastion especially, had to reposition constantly, or spend time soldering himself instead of shooting.
- Photon Barrier was nice for survivability. but definitely niche.
- I also miss “sneak-portering”, but again, that was more of a game / challenge for myself rather than an actual solid strategy. (This is when you place your Ult-Teleporter in the enemy’s backline after sneaking in.)
- Her Teleporter takes too long to deploy and does so in a clunky fashion. I’d prefer if she was able to choose a spot on a wall and have it deploy below that in one second or so. When you’re being frozen by Mei and you need to use that wonky Shadow-Step positioner, it’s kind of hard to get it where you need it.
- Her turrets snap onto surfaces if I’m even a few pixels off. I wish it went exactly where your crosshair was, but I understand that having two hitboxes when it’s flying through the air and when it’s stuck to a wall is probably technically difficult.
- The Ult-Barrier. I don’t know what to say about this. I’ve never once felt that this was the best use of her Ult Skill slot.
I know what they did lol.
The armor buff actually reduced her overall damage output. There is a video explaining it. After they buff her beam to hit level 3 faster, which improved her overall dps output. They later indirectly nerfed her back to what she was before the buff. making her original buff basically nothing.