Rebalance Symmetra!

General Discussion
1

I would like to say: PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THE NUMBERS TOO SERIOUSLY, FOCUS ON THE IDEA OF THE CHANGE RATHER THAN THE SPECIFIC NUMBERS.

This isn’t really a feedback post and I’d prefer a support rework, heck I’d prefer any rework. But if Symmetra had to stay as she is, this is what I would do:

Primary Fire:

  • Range increased from 12m to 14m
  • Charge time decreased from 1.33s per level to 1s per level
  • Charge is now retained for 3s regardless of level (Previously 4s for level for and 2s for level 2)
  • Damage values changed from 60/120/180 to 75/120/170

The goal of these changes is to increase consistency and versatility of the Primary Fire while still keeping it a close range weapon and reducing it’s power to compensate

Secondary Fire:

  • Projectile size decreased from 1m to 0.3m
  • Projectile speed increased from 25m/s to 60m/s
  • Damage reduced from 120 to 100
  • Charge time decreased from 1s to 0.8s

The idea here is to make the secondary fire into an aimed projectile that is effective at mid-ranges where the primary fire can’t reach, while reducing some of it’s damage to compensate for the other buffs

Sentry Turret:

  • Health redistributed from 30HP to 35 Shields
  • Maximum Turret count reduced from 3 to 2
  • Cooldown reduced from 10s to 8s
  • Cast time reduced from 0.5s to 0.2s
  • Projectile Speed increased from 15m/s to 30m/s
  • Deployment time reduced from 1s to 0.8s

These changes are an attempt to make turrets more flexible and less costly for Symmetra herself to place them midfight while reducing her potential to camp and hold chokes with many turrets that can be replaced easily

Teleporter:

  • Deployment time reduced from 2s to 1.5s
  • Now has a duration of 10s
  • Cooldown starts immediately
  • Cooldown increased from 10s to 12s
    I want teleporter to be more flexible and ready for Symmetra herself and I think OW2 goes beyond the need for an infinite teleporter. If this made teleporter too strong I would want to see a change where either the teleporter dies after being used 5 times or the teleporter is for Symmetra only

In conclusion I want to see Symmetra allowed to play greater ranges with less set up time to do what she needs to do. It takes Symmetra too long to do anything and it is going to be a problem where she is either very strong once she finally does it, or is too weak if she can’t. I’d like to find some middle ground by making her more consistent across the board at the cost of some power.

8 Likes
2

No changes to slow, so this…

Cannot happen.

Secondly, Sentry setup times are similar to those of Turret setup times. Three sentries will deploy at the same rate as one Turret. You’re also killing one the theme elements to Symmetra’s design without really replacing anything else here.

She already plays at ranges greater than those of Torbjorn’s thanks to her Sentry deployment ranges. And doesn’t require as much time as Torbjorn does to setup his turret. Things can be done to streamline the process, and even improve her towards a more neutral design instead of a defensive one. However, none of these changes will work towards that design.

3

Why compare her to Torb? They’re two different heroes that serve a different purpose. They just both happen to be builders

If you want to play the “torb vs sym” game, torb’s turret has almost 3x the health of all of Sym’s turrets combined, making it sturdy and able to block shots. Torb can also headshot, better rewarding good torb players that can aim.

7 Likes
4

The maximum slow is reduced by reduced turrets

Why can’t those secondary changes happen? Mei quite literally has the second fastest projectile in the game?

Except the set up time is literally the entire problem with why the sentries aren’t flexible.
So I reduced max turret count with literally a 5hp buff per turret.
The deployment time allowing Sym to do literally anything else is the real buff.

Torb has a projectile with 3x the projectile speed of hers. His Turret has 40m range, Syms have 12.

If they’re the problem, they’re the problem. 2 Turrets is sufficient in my opinion. I’d rather have less power in turrets anyway while keeping them strong.

1 Like
5

Defensive builders who (used to) provide utility/service to their team.

Okay, let’s compare:

Health:
Sentries x3 = 90 health
Turret = 250 health

Build Time:
1 Sentry: Cast time .5 and 1 second arming
Turret: 3 second cast time, 1 second arming

Damage:
1 Sentry: 40 damage per second
Turret: 56 (14x4) damage per second.
3 Sentries: 120 damage per second.

Range:
Turret: 40 meters.
Sentry: 10 meters per sentry (30 total)

Cooldown:
Turret: 5 seconds, 10 seconds if destroyed. Cannot be re-deployed while in combat.
Sentry: 10 seconds.

Additional Effects:
Turret: None
Sentry: 20% slow per sentry, up to 60%.

Torbjorn can headshot (140 damage), Symmetra can do 180 damage per second from level 1 with Sentry assistance. Torbjorn can Overload, gaining health and firing speed. Symmetra can teleporter her entire team to normally unreachable ledges or heights. Torbjorn’s alternative fire shotgun can do up to 125 damage per shot. Symmetra’s alternative fire can do up to 120 damage per shot at roughly the same rate without the spread, but splash damage instead.

As you can see, they are extremely similar.

There are some more, inherent differences beyond body-size and shape. Torbjorn can repair his turret, Symmetra cannot (so having shield health for turrets, seems like a good idea). Additionally, there’s no real reason why Sentries have to have such a long cooldown despite their number. But, of course, no one argues about reducing the cooldown to Sentries to help improve Symmetra’s performance. Instead they come up with elaborate patch notes and “solutions” instead of providing real feedback.

Still a 40% slow, and that’s not an excuse to make the largest projectile in the game faster than Pharah’s rockets.

It also has a wind-up time, and it is a much smaller projectile.

Sentries are flexible. Your imagination might not be, but they are. You could also argue for shorter cooldown time on Sentries to improve upon this flexibility.

And it is also tiny.

Turret range is 40. 3 Sentries will cover 30 meters (10 meters each). Symmetra’s beam will cover another 12.

That’s fine, but I’m not sure if Blizzard is cool with that.

Improvements are likely to come for Symmetra in OW2. What those will be, I am sure, will be seen by several as being fairly negative. I would certainly like to see some improvements to her setup times and/or streamlining. She can remain defensive-inclined, but I don’t think Blizzard is too keen on this idea anymore. If they aren’t then both Torb and Sym would need improvements towards their builder playstyles - especially with the Push maps - as these maps are frequently on the go.

6

Because you misrepresented the facts. It’s one thing to be wrong about something, but you went out of your way to lay out all the facts and still ended up with a conclusion completely divorced from reality.

Are you under the impression that the sentries get more range if you deploy more of them? 30 total? No, there’s still only 10 meters range. And if you have them scattered about, then only one of them will ever be on a target because they are too far apart to both hit the same target, so then you have to stipulate their damage as being lower too.

And how do you represent their collective power in several segments here…

That one is mostly accurate and not misleading. But then you do this…

Which only accounts for one sentry instead of three, and overlooks the flight time portion, and overlooks the fact that Sym has to stop attacking to cast it three times.

And this, which as we already covered, is misrepresenting the facts in a deliberate manner to make them look much better than they really are. It’s 10 meters flat. It doesn’t vary.

Which brings us to the final point

The sentry you cited as triple power must be represented by 30 seconds, not 10. 30 seconds for that sort of power, which is outranged by a particularly good sneeze, and whose damage can be removed from the battlefield also by the aforementioned good sneeze.

And the rest of your post is even worse.

Why are you comparing the raw DPS from one character’s primary, against the combined strength of the other character’s short-range primary and even shorter-ranged 30-second cooldown trap which must be set up and requires the enemy to oblige and come into it’s lethal range?

That’s way beyond dishonest mangling of facts, and if your career were some sort of political spin doctor I’d believe it. Your framing of the characters and comparisons is intellectually dishonest.

The first character gets to just press a button and achieve that lethality at range with no setup required. The other has to spend their most expensive cooldowns decorating the nearby landscape with high-cooldown traps and hope the enemy just happens to come by. There isn’t a comparison to be had there.

This is probably the only straightforward and honest thing in your whole post. And yes, fantastic. And it’s such a powerful tool that…nobody bothers with it. Because unless a map has a particularly egregious section that Sym’s TP just happens to have enough range to bypass, the game’s entire playerbase has come to the conclusion that Sym’s contribution to the actual firefight of a team battle is so negligible that the TP is not worth being down a DPS player for the match. You can’t even cite it as being a teamplay issue because the higher you go, the lower her pickrate goes. She starts as the 9th-least picked hero in the entire game in Bronze, and goes down to 5th least in gold, and never goes higher than that again.

Another dishonest comparison. Go ahead and measure out charge times for each ability, and projectile velocity. Go ahead. Do it. Because context is important.

What feedback have you been reading? Because a lot of people post buffs/reworks for Sym that include sentry cooldown reduction to get them in-line with their actual power output. But every time that comes up, people freak out reflexively because they don’t want turrets and other gizmos in their hardcore sweaty FPS shooter. So any suggestion that lowers that cooldown gets shot down immediately.

That is the same dishonest comparison again. No, 3 sentries will not cover 30 meters. They cover 10. And that’s especially true if you want to do any real damage with them, since individually they have such little range and do so little damage that it’s entirely common in the live game for someone to get a slight burn from a sentry then outrange it without even realizing it was there. So you have to cluster them to get anything meaningful out of them. 1 sentry will NOT do anything to anybody unless they were already on death’s doorstep.

So again, 10 meters. Not more than that.

I’m finding it difficult to find a reason to believe any further discussion with you would be in good faith. You’ve deliberately lied about almost every single aspect of Sym’s kit. You’re wrong about the entire thing, top-to-bottom, which is a pattern I generally see from you anyway. If you’re not going to honestly participate in a topic which other people obviously care deeply about, maybe you should just not participate.

6 Likes
7

Make symmetra a half decent dps?! Sorry that’s too much

Gotta keep that slow orb and abysmal beam and a teleporter no one uses

1 Like
8

Beam range increase won’t do much for OW2 sadly. The current problem was how much danger Symmetra will likely be in if she decides to use it and that problem is further exacerbated in OW2 where mobility is king.

Orb changes are good since range is the way to go.

I would keep the 3 Turrets as they are and just add in the ability to place them without cooldowns. Only when a Turret is destroyed will a stock number tick down and the cooldown begins. I would speculate they are going to get rid of the current slow effect and maybe give it Junkrat Trap values in function.

9

Longer range and just faster attacks are a necessessity but still won’t fix her problems

1 Like
10

Stick them 16 meters apart, and they’ll still reach a target inbetween them.

So does Torbjorn.

And if you place them close enough to an object, there is no flight time.

And who says that Symmetra has to cast it three times?

I’ve made mention of this several times. Symmetra could use a minor cooldown reduction in Sentries, but no one else argues for it.

Because Sentries have the power to slow down the target long enough to apply Symmetra’s beam in a fairly accurate fashion. Torbjorn does not get this benefit. But if you’d like to create some real-world numbers, (factoring in reloads, ammo, and combined damage per second), numbers would still come out to be fairly even, if slightly in favor of Symmetra.

28% chance of hitting targets with Torbjorn’s primary. 7.5% chance of hitting a headshot. An average of 5 shots per ammo clip is likely to hit a target.

Or place them in a path where everyone will travel through (payload, king of the hill).

See; Amplification Matrix. No matter how well it’s placed or timed; no one will use it. Teamwork at average levels and below have no need for it, or simply don’t want to use it, or don’t have the accuracy for it.

Put the teleporter near the spawning point, however, and everyone will use it.

And in coordinated games or professional games, players will abuse terrain and “cheat” for teleporter tricks.

125 damage, or 12.5 damage per pellet, 10 pellets per shot. 4 degree spread (so wider than Tracer). Falloff range is 10 meters, maximizing at 20 meters (30%). Average damage would be 63. Number of shots per reload 6. You’re better off running LMB. Reload time is 2 seconds.

Up to 120 damage, 2 meter splash radius, 1 to 10 ammo per shot, 7 shots for max charge. Rate of fire is 1 to 9 depending on charge. Minimum damage is 20. Reload time is 1.35 seconds.

In isolation, neither is good because Torbjorn’s lack of range and vulnerability at close-range. With Symmetra, slow projectile speed and long charge-up times don’t work too well. However, Photon Projector edges slightly ahead because it doesn’t need to be charged to flood a choke line or area with difficult to dodge slow-moving projectiles. Likewise, against some larger targets that don’t have specific defenses, Torbjorn’s shotgun can work well here; as long as the target doesn’t have armor.

In real situations, both are fairly even. Symmetra will have the ability to utilize Sentry slows to pinpoint and maximize damage from full-charged orbs, and Torbjorn will have the assistance of Overload for extra health and haste and a turret to increase the average damage of each shotgun shot.

This thread doesn’t specify any cooldown reductions to Sentries.

What’s the area of a triangle with a range of 10 meters?

What’s the area of a turret that covers a range of 40 meters from its center?

10 meters is the range of Torbjorn’s shotgun, 10 meters is the range of Reaper’s weapons. Cassidy’s flashbang doesn’t even have that much range, and people still complain about it. Most of the game’s chokes aren’t even 6 meters wide.

And, like everyone, complain that they all get destroyed by single melee strike. Not understanding basic grade-school geometry.

This warrants a report. Attack the argument, not the person, and stop taking it personally.

11

and most importantly. torb’s projectiles are straight up numbered to have a longer effective range than sym’s trash orbs
i.e. the combination of projectile size AND projectile speed for torb’s primary is straight up more aimable in far more ranges compared to sym’s orbs’ combination of projectile size and speed.

in all honesty, I straight up don’t bother replying to yin and I have them on ignore. they straight up live in their own reality no matter how much you fact check them and prove or demonstrate them wrong.

but then again, we could just keep replying to bump this topic up for visibility :eyes:

3 Likes
12

Rework isnt half bad. Giving sym more consistency is pretty nice. One of the better reworks ive seen overall.

4 Likes
13

I mean I’d barely call it a rework. All the abilities function the exact same near enough. But I would prefer a proper rework.

14

The main issue in her kit still remains: Her teleporter.

Also I understand why people think making her orbs as fast as the other projectiles in the game should be a good and simple direction but at the end they would feel extremly weird.
I mean you charge your orb for a long time and you only get a pixel-sized ball out of it. This sounds underwhelming to me. I don’t want to spam orbs I can barely even see.

Making them faster is not wrong at all but there is a limit you can’t ignore because the outcome has to somehow reflect the time requirement at the start so this whole ability feels satisfying to use. I don’t see this here.

There is a reason why apart from Sym there is no similar weapon type in the DPS class → it’s not a DPS weapon by design and functionality. Her weapon is the embodiment of inconsistency with all the delays and range limits. And this is typical for non-DPS heroes.

She’s not a pew pew hero and should never become one.

Apart from this I really like the beam changes and some part of the turrets.

2 Likes
15

I am curious what kind of hero should Sym be? The way she is currently is not cutting it in OW2 beta.

Something has to change. Personally I rather make her a better dps.

What are your ideas. Would you double down on her utility?

16

Instead of arguing back and forth how about putting you own rework down in writing.

Sym is not cutting it in OW2

17

Well the charge time is reduced so it wouldn’t feel as long and also the speed of the orb can compensate the size. The wind up of mei’s icicle feels satisfying cus it shoots out quickly.

Probably why she should be a support

Then what do you want her to do?
She’s a dps with no survivability and a bad gun.
Every DPS should have a decent gun.

18

I’d make her a support and focus on her utility because utility DPS don’t have a place in OW2 anymore. Look at Mei. Look at Sombra. I don’t want Sym to lose all of her utility just make her stay DPS.

The difference here is as a Mei player you don’t actively work for it. It’s just a delay.
But for Sym you can see and hear how you charge the orb. You can see how it becomes bigger and louder over time. The whole weapons spins around.
So charging is a big part of her weapon and it promises you a satisfying outcome that makes all of the charging worth it.
Small orbs that disappear right after aren’t satisfying to me.
It’s like Echo has to charge for her primary. Or Zen. All this work for…this thiny thing?

I don’t say smaller orbs are bad in general. I just think 0.3 is a bit too small.

Yes, Sym is bad at doing her job as a damage dealer and this can’t really be fixed by changing numbers.
That’s why I think changing her job to something else is a no brainer.
Symmetra can’t be a bad DPS when she’s not a DPS anymore. And a support being bad at dealing damage is normal.

19

Blizzard doesn’t want reworks made by fans; they want feedback.

Feedback doesn’t mean posting solutions, fan patch notes, or theorizing.

20

I didn’t make this thread as feedback. I made it for fun.

1 Like